like the light was all i had, i struck the book with my last match

[unburden]

Weeks have passed since Rukia last spent any meaningful amount of time around Urahara Kisuke. They see each other almost every day with Rukia being a regular employee at the café, but helping with the cats is a far cry from the type of counsel that Rukia and Urahara usually provide one another. The reason for Rukia pulling back is simple. However much she has learned to expect Urahara to extend his influence wherever possible — provided it's an area of interest — being fully cognizant of how little control she has leaves her feeling uneasy. Angry, as well.

And sometimes, deeply lonely.

But Dean Winchester isn't just any subject. He is, in his own way, a deeply trusted partner whose interests she wishes to protect. And if there's anything that Urahara doesn't have as much patience for, it's teaching the regular discipline and foundational work that every shinigami needs to learn. So she sends Dean an invitation to join her for training one day, curious to see how far he's come, and wanting to make sure the new power he wields is enough to protect the additional attention he's sure to attract.

She settles on a meeting place far into the forest, where she practices her aim by slicing the falling leaves neatly in two with her sword.

Comments

[always_enduphere]

Dean smiles faintly. "I haven't seen you like that, yet," he says, but it's true that he has yet to see her tactics in battle. That first hollow years ago is the only real fight they've ever shared, and Dean had known next to nothing of her world, then.

He drops his gaze to study the long gash streaking up her arm. He'd fallen into a frozen lake when he was young - Dean doesn't need to be told how deadly the cold can be, but still..."I never thought of it as a weapon before. How long did it take to learn her name?"

[unburden]

"I'm sure you'll see me like that in time," Rukia replies with a faint smile, lowering her sleeve again. The wound will likely be healed before another day passes, but she isn't rushing it. It's a sobering reminder of the care that she needs to exercise in everything that she does.

Especially now that she's trying to help another shinigami find his bearings.

"It took years for Sode no Shirayuki to tell me her name. When I entered the Academy, it was as a young girl from a poverty-stricken district in Soul Society. I wasn't well-educated, I wasn't very worldly in the ways that my peers were," she adds, shrugging with a slight shake of her head. "It made confidence a bit harder to build, and I think she could sense that. A zanpakutou usually doesn't reach out with its name until it seems its bearer ready. I needed to have a better sense of self and confidence in what I knew before I could take that to battle."