Rose Gardens - Valentine Memorial Gardens

     Spread across nearly an acre of land, these gardens are one of the most 
beautiful places within the Hall. All are welcome to come here and wander 
through the rows, encouraged to admire the beauty and the peacefulness created 
here. Roses are, of course, the stunning centerpiece of the gardens and come in 
every color imaginable. There are delicate white roses, striking crimson and 
scarlet roses, demure pink roses, vibrant orange roses and breathtaking mixtures 
which could only exist within the Dream. The soft fragrance of these roses is 
sweet and intoxicating, carried across the grounds via a soothing breeze. Shade 
has been provided by the occasional tree and benches are usually located beneath 
the branches so that visitors might relax themselves. Rescued animals also roam 
the grounds here, most of them tamed enough to be encountered without concern.

Contents:
Rukia
Obvious exits:
Back to the Courtyard <O>

Over the last few days, half-formed ideas become solid plans. Working plans 
become theories to be tested... and even untested theories become genuine 
attempts. It took Rukia a few days. First to capture a soul and attempt to put 
it in a jar, there to see if it can be made into a fuse-like item for Ishida. 
Capturing the soul was easy. Even entrapping it, that she could do with the aid 
of her spirit-manipulation glove. It was much harder converting the struggling 
soul into a useable form. Finally though, she'd had a success. Releasing that 
poor tormented innocent soul, knowing her friend would object to an innocent 
being used for his sake, she then went out in search of an evil soul. One she 
could use without fear of upsetting Ishida. She had no problem tormenting the 
innocent soul, as it was for a good cause and purely transitory. She even helped 
it on to its final destination afterwards, as payment for a service rendered. 
But for her true goal, only a malevolent soul would do.

She didn't exactly find what she was looking for, but she found something close 
enough. Then she sent the message to meet her here. This place, because it's 
part of a healing hall and therefore appropriate. Also, this time of evening, 
it's generally quite abandoned and suitable for a discussion and some spirit 
experimentation. Rukia's STILL not sure how she'll be able to implant the device 
after all.

She sits in the garden waiting, wearing an outfit very similar to shinigami garb. 
She might well appear to BE the shinigami right now... except her sword is 
nowhere to be seen.


     Of course, Ishida would have serious reservations about using /any/ soul, 
innocent or evil--though admittedly the former would give him much more trouble 
than, say, the soul of Darth Vader or something. But then something along the 
lines of Darth Vader would give him serious reservations about having a cesspit 
of evil so close to his own mortal soul. Quandaries, quandaries.
     Granted, she's not likely thinking like that at all. Nor, for that matter, 
is the former Quincy. When he gets the message to meet her in the rose garden, 
alone, at sunset... well, he has to stare at it for a moment. Could it... no, 
this is /Rukia/ we're talking about here, it's not possible.
     ...is it?
     Staring blankly at the message offered no answers, though, so he got on 
with his day. When evening begins to fall and the shop closes, he takes his best 
cape, buys a meat-pie from a vendor for dinner, and eats it on the way to the 
Valentine Memorial Gardens.
     The Gardens themselves are a place he hasn't been in, yet, so he wanders 
around for a few minutes, getting momentarily lost once, before coming upon the 
entrance to the rose garden. He can't see Kuchiki around anywhere, so the boy 
simply sits down on a bench near the entrance, inhaling the fragrance of the 
roses with a faint smile. Mm. This is nice.


Normally Rukia wouldn't think of using a soul for this sort of thing either. But 
it's for a friend, and her morals have been corrupted enough to view the ends as 
justifying the means. If an evil being suffers eternally for the sake of someone 
she wants to help, then why not? If an innocent must suffer torment for a brief 
time... again why not? In her current state, she also can't see why Ishida could 
possibly object to the destruction of a twisted soul for his own benefit. She'd 
approve after all, why wouldn't he? A Quincy who's a destroyer of harmful souls?

Eventually, Rukia comes to the conclusion Ishida's not going to show up. Or at 
least, not going to show up on time... she'd gone to considerable effort to 
arrive early, and while the sunset was quite pretty it was entirely incidental 
to her intent. Still, even utterly-practical Rukia enjoys beauty or cuteness for 
its own sake when it doesn't get in the way of practicality, so she's not as 
annoyed as she could be. The smell's nice too, and she thinks it'd be the sort 
of smell she wouldn't mind having around the house. And so that's the reason 
she's picked the flowers. Nothing else. Then, from her place deep in the gardens, 
she heads out. She'll wait by the entrance a few minutes maybe, then give up on 
Ishida. He's probably busy, though the thought of being stood up IS an irritant. 
Even if she had no intent of making this anything other than spirit-business, 
the fact that he wouldn't show up on time to meet her rankles, makes her feel 
taken for granted.

Heading out, she sees him by the entrance. Staring outward, of all things. 
Relaxing. Fool BOY.

"You're late." Rukia suggests, her voice low and almost growly, her stance 
radiating displeasure. It'd probably be really intimidating if she wasn't so 
tiny, and if she didn't have flowers in her hair.


     Well--yes--but-- somehow, it feels different. Destroying a corrupted soul 
permanently, versus capturing it and tormenting it to gain some kind of power. 
Experimenting with them like some kind of twisted 12th Division captain. (Achem.)
     Frankly, Ishida's beginning to get a bit irritated himself, after about 
fifteen minutes; the sun's nearly gone, now, just a thin sliver of too-bright 
orange and a smear of pink and purple across the western horizon. The thick 
scent of the roses in the evening, and the warmth of the day, combine into a 
soporific effect, though, lulling him into a half-drowsing state even as he 
wonders where the shinigami is. Wasn't she the one who requested this meeting? 
Pah.
     Which is the point when Rukia's voice pipes up from behind him.
     Drowsy as he was, he hadn't noticed her approaching by the strength of her 
reiatsu, so it takes Ishida entirely by surprise. To his credit, he doesn't leap 
or shout, but he does stiffen and nearly fall off the bench as he attempts to 
stand and whirl at the same time.
     Recovering his balance, he straightens and returns glare for glare, 
readjusting his glasses to sit properly on his nose again. "Wh-what? I was not! 
I came right at sunset!" He still sounds a little too defensive for his taste, 
so he coughs and says in a rather calmer voice, "I didn't see you. You should 
have been more specific."
     It's about this point that a delayed message from his visual cortex finally 
catches up to the processing centers of his brain and sends up a flag. Not a red 
flag, maybe, but a yellow flag at the very least. ...she has flowers in her hair. 
Why does she have flowers in her hair? And asked to meet him in the gardens at 
sunset? Taking a few deep breaths of incipient panic, he self-consciously 
adjusts his cape and stills the urge to back up. "Why, er, did you ask me here?"


Rukia has absolutely no clue the significance of the sunset and of her having 
flowers in her hair, no reason to even suspect the direction of Ishida's 
thoughts right now. How could she? Even IF such a thing were a custom of Soul 
Society as well as Earth, when would she have paid the slightest attention to it? 
No, in this as in so many other things, the girl is a complete innocent. She 
certainly doesn't look like she'd intended a romantic rendezvous, if you 
discount the flowers in her hair that is. She looks annoyed, and her eyes narrow 
dangerously when Ishida dares imply it's her fault. But never mind that. She 
shakes her head wearily, then gestures. "Come on inside. I think I know how I 
can restore your abilities, but I'm not going to try it where people might 
notice. And this place has a few minor wards about, so I don't think any beings 
will be drawn by the spirit energies."

And just like that, Rukia explains everything in logical, explicit terms. Should 
be quite the relief for the Quincy. Well, she explains everything but the 
flowers.


     Makes one wonder just how a 15-year-old Quincy dork manages to have more 
idea of such things than a several-hundreds-of-years-old shinigami. Really, what 
do they teach in their schools nowadays.
     But, there seems to be a cognitive break between the relatively romantic 
setting and the flowers in her hair against her rather forbidding black 
shinigami garb and annoyed expression. When the latter bits of evidence are 
corroborated by her simple explanation, Ishida finally relaxes, and clears his 
throat in embarrassment. For a second... but no.
     Though that does lead to the question of the flowers in her hair. Which he 
is just unwary enough to ask. "... why do you have flowers in your hair?"
     But, uh, business. Yes. "It's good to hear that," he states simply, 
following her gestures. "What did you come up with?"


Television. It's the only possible answer for how a dork knows more than a 
century-plus shinigami. That, and human customs are different from shinigami 
ones. Surely Ishida knows the secrets of the drinking box after all?

"Flowers...?" the shinigami girl almost silently mouths the word, pausing. Then 
growing visibly flustered. She tries to think of a reason that won't sound 
foolishly girlish... and fails. After a few awkward moments' pause, she reaches 
up and pulls the flowers out of her hair, dropping them to the ground and 
GLARING. This shall NOT be mentioned, insists that glare. "Forget it." she 
mutters, and gestures in to the gardens, her cheeks reddening. "Come on. I'll 
show you what I've got planned." she explains.

And once inside, out of casual eyesight of the surroundings, Rukia withdraws a 
sheet of folded paper. On it lies her plan, in full glorious color. Here we have 
an unhappy-looking stickfigure-ish man wearing Quincy colors and glasses. There 
we have a glowing blue jar. Jarlike thing, that is. "Behold!" she says in an 
overdramatic flourish. "The solution!"

Labels and notes, far neater than the drawing itself, seem to involve the 
combination of the Quincy with the item indicated as a spirit-fuse. And a 
followup diagram of the Quincy looking a lot happier, with a glowing-energy 
arrowlike thing looking ready to shoot.


     Blink. Well, Ishida hadn't expected that reaction, either. And she's 
littering! That just won't do. Bending, he scoops up the fallen flowers and 
hands them back with a chiding, "If you picked them, you should at least take 
them home instead of leaving them to die."
     Of course, then he does the foolish thing of going to a place where he's 
going to be subjected to Rukia's 'artwork,' pardon one's French. His eyes widen 
for a second at the full glory of the drawing, and he leans back for a second, 
peering at it. "... what is that supposed to be?" Squint. "Is that... /me?/ Next 
to, uh... a ball of blue putty?" A pause to consider that, then he straightens 
and looks indignant. "I'm not that thin!" Yachiru-given nickname aside. "And my 
bow does not look like that--it's a lot bigger!"
     Oh, but at least there's notes, which make the entire process much more 
coherent than the drawing alone would have. Leaning forward, he pushes his 
glasses up his nose, the better to read the notes, and doing his best to ignore 
the stick-figures and blue blobs. "So... this 'spirit-fuse' is supposed to 
replace my own power source?" he asks, sounding rather dubious. "How would this 
combination be done, anyway?"


While Ishida's looking at her diagram, Rukia produces the spirit-fuse in 
question. It's not really blue, though it does radiate spirit energy. Not a huge 
amount, probably no more in sum than a human might have, but concentrated into a 
little object of some kind. A glass vial perhaps. Hard to tell with the way it 
glimmers in spirit sight. No doubt a purely mundane sort would be able to see 
the object more clearly.

Rukia looks indignant when her artwork is criticized. "It gets the point 
across!" she insists venomously. As if he could draw any better. She KNEW she 
should've drawn Ishida as a weasel. That wouldn't give him any right to complain 
about his thinness or height or the size of his weapon.

In all truth, she's not too terribly upset. "Installing the spirit fuse, 
well..." she considers. "That might be the tough part. I haven't had much of a 
chance to practice such a thing." And if Ishida's lucky, it won't end up a 
spirit suppository. Though if he keeps criticizing her.... No. She wouldn't do 
that. "I think you understand though. Manipulation of spirit energies is the 
sort of thing shinigami are skilled at. I've got a few possibilities. And ... 
well, in a way, I've done this once before. I don't think any other shinigami 
has the same insights on this issue that I do." She doesn't sound entirely happy 
about that, but there it is. "I'll have to try, starting with the simplest and 
safest ways to infuse you. If they don't work, well, there's onther ways. I 
won't promise it's without risk, but you'll have to trust me."


     A spirit suppository? How would that even work? ... ... no, never mind, 
forget it was asked. Probably better not to know. He quiets, listening to her 
speculation, then slowly shakes his head. "Aren't you supposed to be better at 
manipulating your own spirit energies, versus the energy of another?" That was 
more like how Quincies worked... though, to be honest, it's nowhere near what 
he's done, either. Probably the closest was the way he'd teamed up with Ichigo 
the leaky spirit faucet, and that was just absorbing excess rather than rooting 
around with someone else's spirit to attach things to it. "Is the spirit-fuse 
supposed to be a replacement power source, or just a replacement channel? If the 
former, I don't think it will work..." The mention of risk gets only a terse nod. 
He doesn't like the fact that she's only done this once before (and only in a 
way), or that they might have to experiment a bit, but he's accepted that kind 
of risk by accepting her help at all. There is, so far as he knows, no certain 
way to do this, anyway.


"Well, yes..." Rukia admits. "But!"

Okay, where did that glove come from? She displays the soul-manipulation glove 
proudly. "I've got a few very useful tools." With the glove for example, she can 
drag a resisting spirit out of a body it's possessing. Or stuff a spirit into a 
corpse perhaps, but she won't mention such a use. That would be anti-shinigami.

Rukia takes the spirit fuse in that gloved hand. "Okay, this /probably/ won't 
work." she explains. But it's easy and painless, so it's the first try. "I don't 
think your issue is with gaining spirit power. That was my issue, somewhat. 
Couldn't regain my power... but yours seems different. No, I think we'll have to 
restore your burned-out channels somehow." Which is what made Rukia think of a 
spirit-fuse. Made with real spirit. Hey, shinigami have made things from soul-
fragments for centuries. Zanpakutos, devices, all kinds of things. This is 
little different. Taking the jar, she tries pressing it into Ishida's shoulder. 
The problem is of course that all she could do, if willing to push hard enough, 
would be to displace Ishida's own spirit. This is no way to mingle the energies 
internally, so all she really manages is to indent the vial into his flesh a 
little bit. She's not planning on doing surgery with it, so she eases off. "And 
this is a fuse, not a battery. If I'd meant to recharge you, it would have been 
a BATTERY." she explains patiently.


     How does a person so tiny manage to hide so many things about her person? 
It's a mystery. He eyes the soul-glove warily, all too aware of what it does, at 
least in the normal run of things. Considering they're /all/ spirits here... he 
has to wonder how it works precisely. Nevertheless, he holds still when she 
reaches for the spirit-vial and moves to press it into him.
     ...and press it into him.
     ... and nothing happens.
     Well, that was exciting. Rubbing the indentation left by the pressure of it 
briefly, he folds his arms and raises his brows. "What's next?" he asks, 
patiently enough. Not like he really has anywhere to go, although he would like 
to go back to his place and get some sleep sometime.


Don't ask. You don't want to know. Just accept that she manifests these little 
devices when needed, and don't pry into the mystery lest your brain blow up.

Well, Rukia didn't really expect that first one to work anyways. Scowling, she 
moves on to something else. "Okay, now we try THIS."

"Now THIS."

"Hmmmm... maybe THIS will work?"

Eventually, frustrated at the lack of success, Rukia considers. By now she's in 
shinigami form, her sword at her side. She'd tried manually pushing the spirit 
inside, tried a kidou of binding, tried some other tricks. All to no avail so 
far. "Okay." she starts, gritting her teeth. "There's another thing I can try. 
But it'll probably hurt." she claims. And draws her zanpakuto, holding it out 
before her. She's got the vial in one hand, the blade in the other. Pressing the 
vial up to Ishida's arm, she begins a chant. "Chains of fate which bind us all. 
Through terror and tolerance. Ephemeral as the clouds. Living beast that rends. 
Binding art 12, entrapment!"

When she's done, she steps back. But the vial remains where it is, as if glued 
there. She grins, and points to it in triumph as if it might actually be 
progress... and when Ishida looks, she makes her move. Best he doesn't see it 
coming, even if he has some clue what she intends. Focussing, she makes a 
brutally quick lunging strike, taking the vial right through the middle with the 
point of her blade. The blade continues through, and unless Ishida does 
something extremely quick and agile, the blade will impale his forearm at the 
wrist as well. The same place where the glove would have lay, where the bow 
manifested itself.

As the blade drives through the vial, there's a brief flickering outline. The 
glass shatters, and a manlike form is seen for a brief moment before it's 
swallowed into the blade's thrust with a howl more felt than heard.


     Does this work? ... no. Or that? No. Nor that, or the next, or the one 
after that. After nearly an hour, Ishida is on the verge of yawning, and getting 
more and more irritated with each try. He's about to call a halt to it and try 
another day, when she mentions one more thing to try. "Fine," he agrees, his 
voice taut. "Just one more, and if that doesn't work, then I should go." Not 
that he doesn't appreciate her efforts--after all, she is spending just as much 
time, and more effort, than he is--but his hopes rise a little with each attempt, 
then sink lower after every failure.
     As she presses the vial against his right wrist, Ishida remains where he is 
(now having succumbed to weariness and sitting, rather than standing), which is 
pretty much all he's done during this sesion, as it is. When it sticks, he 
blinks at it, his brows furrowing for a moment, then looks up at Rukia. "...is 
that it? It doesn't seem to be doing anythi--"
     He looks up just in time to see her LUNGING at him, blade-first, and nearly 
yelps. Swallowing it at the last minute, he attempts desperately to scramble 
away, only to fall back as his legs tangle up with each other and prevent him 
from going anywhere. The problem is, he flings his arms up to protect himself--
which means the blade passes smoothly through the vial and into his wrist, 
nicking the arm behind it as well.
     He doesn't scream, but it's an effort. Swallowing the cry that rises to his 
tongue, he jerks back, the blade parting from flesh and leaving not a scratch 
behind. Only the memory of hot pain remains as he gingerly closes his left hand 
around the wrist. Someone else screams in his place, though, a chill howl that 
starts in his ears and enters his blood as the spirit is sucked into his own 
through the penetration of the zanpakutou.
     In that moment, he understands just what was done.
     Frozen in place, wrist cradled to chest, he stares up at Rukia in horror. 
"What have you done?" he demands. Not to be cliche or anything, but it seems the 
most appropriate thing to say in a time like that.


Rukia looks... happy. Not smirking like one would expect after such a deed, but 
triumphant and exulting that she's succeeded. "It worked!" she exclaims. Then 
pauses, taken somewhat aback by Ishida's reaction. "... Didn't it?" she asks, 
genuinely puzzled. "It's what you wanted, right? If it works like I think it did, 
the spirit fuse will relink you, restore what got burned out..." Now she 
hesitates, genuinely distressed.

"Did it fail?" she asks, trying to figure out why Ishida's so distressed. "Or 
are you upset how I had to do it? Believe me I didn't want to do it any way 
that'd hurt like that. Relax, it wasn't my energies that went into you there... 
you haven't become a shinigami. Though I confess it was that which let me to 
believe this would work..."

Yes, Rukia's babbling a bit. But the horror directed her way is very 
uncomfortable. She'd hoped for thanks. For praise that she managed something 
even he didn't believe possible. Now she's stung, wondering just what went wrong. 
And it's surely a measure of what's been done to her that she doesn't realize 
it's all because of the soul she just condemned to empower him.


     In the face of her doubt, Ishida, too, begins to doubt the evidence of his 
ears, of his eyes--had he seen that shape? Heard that--
     No. He can't doubt he heard that howl of despair. Even now, he thinks he 
can feel it, a resonance of pain not quite his own. The sensation flares up 
again as he experimentally draws upon the spiritrons in the air around--abundant, 
in this city of magic, in this garden of wards and out-of-season blooms. He has 
never abandoned the Quincy cross, even when it seemed that he could no longer 
use it; now, he stands, shakes it forth from his sleeve, puts his other hand to 
the dangling cross.
     Slowly, the familiar spirit-bow flickers into being. It looks... strange. A 
little weak and tentative, flickering rather more than it should--slowly firming 
as he grows reaccustomed to forming it--and the light of it is less blue-white, 
and oddly shadowy, but the power that flows through him again is undeniable.
     Equally as undeniable, though, is the taint that flows through the 
collected spiritrons, filtered through the screaming soul of a murderer, the 
echoes of distant pain through the soul as it's forced to channel the spiritrons 
through to him.
     The spirit-bow fades as he releases the energy. Ishida's expression is sick, 
joy at the regaining of his powers battling with revulsion at the realization of 
what she's done. "You used a /human soul/ for the spirit-fuse?" Damned it to 
neither cleansing nor the void of destruction, but to hover forever in a 
perpetual half-state, neither spirit nor Hollow, writhing every time its 
possessor calls through it.
     That possessor, of course, being him. And... he did ask her to help. It was 
because of him that she did this... but what could have led her to a means like 
this? It didn't seem at all characteristic of the Rukia he had known, albeit 
briefly, nor of the woman Kurosaki would have risked all to save.


Rukia blinks at that. "A spirit... well yes, I suppose it was human once..." she 
agrees, surprised it's become such a big deal. Well okay, she figured it might 
be an issue. She deliberately didn't tell Ishida what sort of 'spirit fuse' she 
was using, figuring it being better indeed to ask forgiveness than permission. 
"That's the only way it could have worked. Your Quincy powers are purely human, 
so you needed a human channel to rebuild them." She pauses, considering, then 
decides to admit a simple truth. "If I had the resources of Soul Society to work 
with, perhaps there could have been a different way, but that's impossible for 
both of us. So I hunted a Hollow, something that was a danger to people 
already." Now she looks angry, at having to defend her actions... but the anger 
is there only to mask fear. Not fear that she'd screwed up somehow, but fear 
that she'd upset a friend by the means she'd used. Even now, she doesn't 
consider her actions to be wrong.

"Ishida-kun, you would have destroyed that spirit yourself if you came across it. 
What matter if its destruction came at the point of your arrow or my Zanpakuto? 
Better this way, I'd say. At least this way the soul's destruction served a 
positive purpose in allowing you to fight again!"


     If she'd had the resources of Soul Society... but those are hardly 
available here. And, however one looks at it, he /does/ have his powers back. 
Pragmatism wars against a very real sense of disgust, all the greater because, 
even as he inspects her face closely for any sign of shame, she doesn't seem to 
feel herself in the wrong at all. Which seems entirely unlike the shinigami in 
general, who looked down upon the Quincy for destroying Hollows outright.
     "Well.... yes!" He has to admit to the truth of her statement. "But it is 
for exactly that reason that the Quincies were deemed a danger and hunted down--
and now you're turning about and not only destroying it, but trapping and 
tormenting it? At least destruction lasts for only an instant, before it fades!" 
There is a certain chill logic to her words, though. The neat, practical side of 
himself has to see her point. But the rest of him, the emotional side he tries 
not to evince, can only reject her words. "It never occurred to me that you 
might go so far as to use a human soul as a mere tool--what are you, Aizen? What 
happened to you?"
     At the same time, he has his powers back. Whatever the means, he has them 
back. Reminded of that fact, Ishida looks away uncomfortably, still torn by the 
urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her, and the obligation to thank her 
for what she's done. And, to tell the truth, he would have to think about it for 
a while if told he could release the spirit, at the cost of losing his powers 
again.

(OOC) Rukia says, "It's too late for me to continue. I'm thinking just a fade at 
this point, as we're pretty done. Just to sum up: Rukia didn't know the soul 
still lived and it wasn't part of her original plan... but she doesn't care and 
blames Ishida for making a big deal over it. So she'll storm off thinking he's 
an utter ingrate and a bleeding-heart besides. <3"
(OOC) Rukia says, "And as for what happened to her... hm. She'll just stare when 
he says that. Like she believes he should damn well know what happened to make 
her callous."
(OOC) Ishida laughs.
(OOC) Rukia of course fully believes any changes in her outlook are due to 
having been sentenced to die by Soul Society, having her execution date pushed 
up unbelievably rapidly, and even her own brother wouldn't lift a finger to so 
much as ease her fate.