Bounded...

...by chance or by destiny

Welcome to Black Sun, White Moon, dragoneyes's one-page shrine dedicated to the relationship between the two characters Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia from the popular manga/anime Bleach created by Kubo Tite.

Beware that the site is packed with unmarked spoilers, so you may want to avoid roaming around through the shrine if you haven't finished reading the manga/watching the anime...if you aren't scared of spoilers then, hey, welcome again!

This shrine was created for the Valentine's Day Marathon held on the shrine-related LJ community Amassment, and as I found strange that there wasn't a shrine for Ichigo and Rukia listed in there, I decided to make one myself.

This shrine is listed at...

The Black Sun

...or the Shinigami by accident

The sun that locks Heaven.

Full Name: Kurosaki Ichigo
Age: 15
Race: Human, Shinigami (Soul Reaper), Vizard (Visored)
Date of Birth: July 15
Occupation: High school student, deputy Shinigami
Relatives: Isshin (father), Masaki (mother), Karin (sister), Yuzu (sister)
Zanpakutou: Zangetsu

Ichigo is a high school student that is shown, since his first appearence, to have the unusual gift of seeing ghosts. He has naturally orange hair which gives him a flashy and somewhat punkish look, and that apparently are reason enough for people to start a fight with him and for teachers to think him some kind of street punk. As a matter of fact, Ichigo is very straightforward and, as most of teenagers, lacks the ability of being subtle, thus probably the reason why he's seen in such a way.

When he was 9 years-old his mother dies, leaving him with his father and younger sisters, and for most of his life Ichigo think that the incident was his fault. Only in the 21st chapter of the comic he finds out that she was actually killed by the Hollow named Grand Fisher.

Ichigo is stubborn and straightforward, and tends to lack judgment when he's in the middle of the battle. He's brave and selfless, but as most teenagers, he's the tendency of thinking to be able to defeat everyone and everything no matter who or what he's to face, unconsciously considering himself invincible. Several times during the series he forces people to smack some sense into him when he stubbornly tries to fight opponents objectively obove his level.
Nother the less, Ichigo has a good heart, he hates to see his friends suffer, and would do anything to protect them, even risking his life, and his streanght notably increases when he's fighting to save them.

The White Moon

...or the Shinigami by choice

The moon that eclipses the night.

Full Name: Kuchiki Rukia
Age: unknown
Race: Shinigami
Date of Birth: January 14
Occupation: Shinigami of the 13th Division
Relatives: Kuchiki Isana (sister), Kuchiki Byakuya (adoptive brother)
Zanpakutou: Sode no Shirayuki

Rukia is the Shinigami in duty of protecting Karakura Town.
At the very beginning of the series, she tries, after being severly injured, to lend some of her Shinigami powers to Ichigo in order to defeat an Hollow attacking his family, and ends up being completely drained of her abilities.
She's short black hair and dark blue eyes, and is caracterized by a small body frame which makes her look somewhat easy to break though she is usually anything but that.

When she was still an infant, she died and was sent to Soul Society with her older sister Hisana. Realizing she'd be unable to survive if she kept caring for her baby sister, Hisana decides to abbandon her. Rukia grows up not knowing anything about her. She later decides to become a Shinigami and she's adopted in the Kuchiki family by Byakuya.

Rukia is strong and mature, and she's able to accept full responsability for her actions. She's willing to sacrifice her life to save other people and this trait of her personality is shown since the very beginning of the series when she protects Ichigo - a stranger to her at the time - with her very body from the attack of an Hollow. She's usually also quiet, serious and polite with most people, especially those she consider to be higher in rank or importance than her.

Sun and Moon...

...in between dawn and twilight

The rain drags Black Sun down...

...but the rain dried by White Moon.

The first light

...or how the sun met the moon

Ichigo and Rukia meet in the very first chapter of the manga, when Rukia enters Ichigo's room, thinking him unable - as most humans - to see her. The boy however shows immediatly his unusual abilities by not only seeing her arrival, but actually kicking her for entering his room like that. As Ichigo seems more annoied by her presence than anything else, Rukia is dumbstruck and can't seem to preocess the fact that there actually is a human with enough spiritual power to not only be able to see her but to actually touch her as well.
As soon as Ichigo begins to deal with her like she is some kind of human annoying kid, however, Rukia immediately binds him with her Shinigami powers showing that she isn't willing to be treated as a brat by some random teenager boy who doesn't know his place. Still, once again Ichigo takes her aback when, hearing an Hollow attacking his family, he breaks his bounds with his own spiritual power to rush to help them.

As the story proceeds, Rukia teaches Ichigo how to be a proper Shinigami, seeing how at the end of their first encounter he stole all her powers by accident. The two have a very straightforward relationship and both will tell each other right away if something doesn't quite fit them well. They both have strong and stubborn personalities, probably the reason why at the beginning they seem to clash quite often when stating their opinion about certain matters.

The real first time in which they get to know a bit more about each other (actually in which Rukia gets to know a bit more about Ichigo) is when the boy fights against Grand Fisher, the Hollow that killed his mother when he was still a kid.
During the day of the anniversary of his mother's death, Ichigo goes with his family to the cemeteray in which she's buried to pay her a visit, after asking Rukia if he can "take a day off from being a Shinigami". At first Rukia is shocked that he even requested something like that, but when the boy tell hers the reason behind it, she let's him go and tags along against his will to make sure he doesn't get in trouble with any stray Hollow in the meanwhile. Still Rukia feels that something is off with the death of Ichigo's mother and suggests she might have been killed by and Hollow targetting Ichigo for his unusually high spiritual power. What she doesn't anticipate is the boy's reaction: he gets considerably annoied and tells her that it was his fault if his mother died and that not every death has to do with Hollows.
Rukia is later seen thinking about Ichigo's words, calling herself a "fool" in her thoughts for what she said to the boy and probably realizing that her words were kind of insensitive (trying to rationalize the demise of someone's precious relative while they're visiting their grave, it's not one of Rukia's most brilliant ideas...).
At some point during the day, Grand Fisher attacks Ichigo's younger sisters and when the boy realize what is happening and rejoin with Rukia, another interesting - though brief - interaction happen between them. Ichigo wonders aloud if Rukia is going to ask him anything about what he said her earlier and, after a moment in which the woman thinks about his question, she replies by asking him in return if he would even answer to her inquiring in the matter, adding that she won't ask anything - it's not her place to pry into Ichigo's problems (a "deep deep problem" she calls it) - but that he can talk to her about it whenever he feels like it.
As the fight between Grand Fisher and Ichigo takes place, another hint of the fact that now Rukia understand exactly what is going on in Ichigo's mind: she stops herself from interfering because she realizes that Ichigo is fighting for his pride and she knows that when it comes to a fight for one's pride, nobody can interfere or it will kill their pride. So she stands aside, fighting herself from jumping in and help him, and just wish for him to not die.
In the end, Ichigo manages to severely injury Grand Fisher and the latter runs away, leaving him with Rukia in a scene in which, after stoping him from trying to follow the Hollow, she just thanks him for surviving.

The midday light

...or how the sun saved the moon

In chapter 52, Kuchiki Byakuya and Abarai Renji come to the human world to drag Rukia back to Soul Society, because apparently giving one's powers to a human is against the Shinigami laws and punishable by a sentence of death.
Rukia is first approached by Renji while she's thinking about her current situation with Ichigo and her classmates, finding herself to think that "whatever she likes him or whatever she hates" and her relationships with her human friends are all nothing but trouble. Renji demands that she take them to Ichigo so that they can kill him, because that were they orders they were given, but she tries to play dumb by pointing out that just because she is in human form it doesn't mean that someone actually got her powers. Renji however doesn't buy it and when Ichigo comes around to try save the day, he almost immediately understand that he's the one with Rukia's Shinigami abilities.
As Ichigo seems to be the one bound to lose the fight, Rukia jumps on Renji trying to prevent him from further injuring the other boy and trying to allow the latter to have some time to run away. Ichigo, however, doesn't take a step back and actually, when he sees Rukia trying to protect him, he unleashes a sudden and powerful attack which send Renji flying several feets away from where he was standing.
Ichigo seems about to reverse the outcome of the battle, but at this point Byakuya intervene, easily defeating him. As Ichigo is bleeding on the ground, Rukia tries to reach for him to assure herself of his status, but she's stopped by Renji who ask her if she realize that by trying to stand for the human boy she's just bound to get a stricter punishment. To this statement she replies by shouting that there is nothing wrong with her running to the boy on the ground seeing how all of that has happened is her fault, and she's probably about to try and go again to other's side when she's stopped first by Byakuya's words and then by Ichigo himself when he shows to be still alive and grabs Byakuya's ankle as if he still wants to fight.
At this point Rukia immediately appears to be relieved by the fact that Ichigo seems to be well enough at least to speak, but when Byakuya threatens the boy to cut his arm off if he doesn't let go of him, she panics again and kicks Ichigo's hand away herself, suddenly acting cold toward him and coming up with a lie in which she suddenly came to her right mind and now sees what Ichigo really is and adding that she'd gladly take any punishiment she deserves. At first the boy doesn't understand what's going on, and try to ask an explenation out of her, but then she looks at him with teary eyes and tells him that if he dares to move from were he's, she'll never forgive him: he's barely alive, he only has few moments to live, he can as well spend all of his streanght in surviving.

The next time the two meets, is on the bridge that connects Rukia's prison in Soul Society.
Rukia calls Ichigo an idiot for trying to save her, though she expressevely told him not to, she looks both sad and relieved to see him, and most of all she looks confused, like she doesn't know herself if she is happy or not to see him, especially in front of the fact that Ichigo came to her rescue though he's a deep wound on his abdomen. The boy, however, interrups any further complain from Rukia, by telling her that whatever she says, he isn't going to run away, so it's useless to try to convince him: he came to save her and will drag her out of there by force if he needs too. At these words, Rukia tries to protest that he should at least listen to opinion of the one he's going to save, but Ichigo replies she should just think about screaming for help and then gently points out that she thinks too much about other people's well-being and she should think about herself a bit more too.

When later Rukia is about to be executed, Ichigo makes another sudden entrance. The first reaction Rukia has in seeing him is - again - to call him an idiot for trying to save her when he could get killed, and - again - Ichigo ignores her orders to run away, determined instead to save her until she finds herself thinking that the boy really grew strong in her absence.
In the end Ichigo entrustes Rukia's safety to Renji, and stays behind to fight Byakuya, reasoning that if he's able to defeat him than there won't be anybody strong enough to catch Rukia again.

The last light

...or how the moon helped the sun

After the whole Soul Society arc, Rukia decides to stay in Soul Society while Ichigo goes back to the human world. Upon getting to school again, the boy is introduced to Hirako Shinji, a Visored (a "Shinigami who stepped in the realm of Hollows") that points out the fact that the Hollow inside Ichigo is growing stronger and stronger and as he should have already noticed by then. Because of his words, Ichigo become broodier and broodier, to the point that he's hesitant to fight against the arrancar Ulquiorra and Yammy and is unable to properly protect his friends.
He only snaps out of it when Rukia comes back to the human world and smacks some sense into him by dragging him to fight a random low-level Hollow. As Ichigo doesn't find the will to fight, Rukia shouts at him to get a hold of himself and that if he's so concerned about not being able to protect his friends or if he fears so much the idea of getting possessed by his inner Hollow, then the solution is easy in both cases: he just needs to get stronger. Upon hearing those words, the boy finally gets back to his hold self and easily defeats the Hollow he was fighting.

The midnight light

...or my reasons to love them

Ichigo and Rukia are very special to me, they made me love the idea of a het pairing again after a long long time of abstinence. The main problem I was having at the time with girl-boy relationships was the fact that the girl was always extremely weak both phisically and psycologically where the boy was extremely strong in both of them. They seemed to me like unequal and unrealistic characters, especially in their interaction with each other.
Ichigo and Rukia's relationship, however, is very well balanced. They both show weakness and streanght, and usually when one shows the former the other shows the latter and vice versa. They help each other to overcome their moments of sadness and they are actually there when one of the two needs the other.
They also have a very straightforward relationship, a thing that I feel every couple should have: a strong bond exists not when you don't have problems with each other, but when you're able to overcome those problems together. If they'd have a perfect relationship in which they never fight or tell each other exactly what they think about a certain topic, again it would just look unrealisting and uninteresting, but the dymanics between them is so explosive that I feel extremely energized whenever they begin to discuss about something.
Another aspect that I like about them as a couple is that they have a positive influence on each other. Usually Ichigo has the tendency to jump into fights without properly evaluate his opponent's streanght, probably thinking himself invincible as most teenagers do, and when it happens that he tries to start a fight with someone far more powerful than him, Rukia is quick to stop him and smack (sometimes even litterally) some common sense into him. At the same time, when Rukia felt guilty during the whole Soul Society arc and thought she didn't deserved to be saved, Ichigo acts by ignoring her wishes and by trying to save her until he manages to, so that she can decide herself to stay if she so wished rather than be forced.

Shadow bits

...for friending purpose