whoa...fuzzi told me this was a good story but damn this is to good to stop great job.

Before I begin let me say that I thoroughly loved this story. The depth you created and the emotion that you imbue throughout are exceptional. I have read it before and having found it again am adding it to my favorites.

My only piece of advice is that while I applaud you giving a warning of abuse at the end of this chapter, you should probably have placed it before the story.

Please don't be offended there is a reason I'm giving this advice, it's because I recently came across a message from another author and I don't want to risk losing you as an author or this story.

"THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTICE TO THE GOOD PEOPLE ON FANFICTION-DOT-NET

I am so mad right now I can barely type. Going around FFN right now is this guy named Lord Kelvin who is reporting stories using something called RedBooton. I'm not sure I get all the minor implications of the situation, but what I understand is that they report you if you a.) have anything even remotely implying / ography, or b.) you suck at grammar and spelling. And maybe also if you break any of the other, more minor rules of the site.

AND THEN THEY DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT. I KID YOU NOT.

This is an extremely real warning: several stories that had explicit content have disappeared completely and without a trace, and their authors are nowhere to be found. Even if you don't have anything truly adult posted, you are at risk if you use poor choices of vocabulary. (The example I read was using the word "cock" in place of the word "rooster." Completely innocent, but still in danger of being deleted.) And like I said: they get you for excessive issues with spelling or grammar by using the guideline that all work posted is supposed to be relatively free of errors.

AND THEN THEY DELETE YOU OFF THE WEBSITE.

Easy things they look for (the list came from Lord Kelvin himself):

1. Title not G rated.

2. Summary not G rated.

3. Violence above current rating.

4. Language above current rating.

5. or explicit above current rating.

And if you violate any of those standard rules, they go all Mikami on your ass and DELETE DELETE DELETE!

Is this getting pounded into your heads yet?

The useful link I found on the issue is to the right, in the brackets. Copy-paste it into the browser and remove the spaces for the whole story. { civilinitiative . . /2010/08/ redbotton-issue-and-what-it-means-for .html}

This notice will be taken down after exactly a week, as I learned that Author's Notes with no real fanfiction content are (yet another!) violation of the rules of the site.

If any of you find this information I posted in this informative chapter to be incorrect, PLEASE let me know!

Best of luck,

CK” *This comes from the second chapter of UekiKosuke “Could it be”, I don’t know if the link is correct as I couldn’t get it to work for me.

I true enjoy many of your stories and your writing style so I ask that you please take care to guard yourself from the worst outcome here.

Keep up the good work!

It took me two days of staying up until 2:30AM to finish reading this. I was reluctant to stop the first night and I wouldn't have if I hadn't needed to go to work the next day. I loved this so much. I cried when Rukia died and when Ichigo was explaining it to the kids. Ok, pretty much up until the end of talking about Rukia's death directly I cried. You are one of the few who can ever get a reaction like that out of me. You are simply an amazing writer and I wouldn't be surprised if you one day wrote a fictional novel and got it published.

You are honestly the best writer I have seen on ff so far. I aspire to have your talents.

All your work conveys emotions straight into me from the words on my screen. You should keep writing and never give it up as long as you enjoy it and never listen to someone who tells you to do otherwise.

Wicked Winter

As much as I've enjoyed (gaped at in mute horror) everything I've read up to this point, I couldn't even finish this chapter.

That is simply the most preposterous thing I've read in a good long while.

There has been nothing to hint at anything of the sort, and then you decide to drop this contrived bomb on us? o.O

Yeah, don't hate Rukia. Sure she's an abusive witch who has single-handedly ruined her marriage and estranged herself from her family and friends.

But really it's Ichigo's fault he gets smacked around... because he doesn't love her? No that can't be right. He's obsessively in love with her in a spineless yellow doormat kind of way...

But wait, he's really a homo in extreme denial. Oh sure, that makes sense... not.

And of course he deserves it, because he... wait what did he do? Did he cheat on her? No. Never crossed his mind.

Did he fall in love, but not act on it? No... Never crossed his mind.

Seriously. WTF?

I really wasnt expecting rukia to die. This chapter was heart breaking and i really felt for Jyuushiro who had already suffered from guilt with shiba's death. But the scene with ichigo is what really hit me and overall this whole chapter was so well written! Her death was honestly a surprise to me but i cant help but wonder what the future would have been like with her present? because i thought i was leading to one of those "everyone( even the ex) becomes friends" stories.

An honor to read.

This is an incredible story. The theme is realistic and original, as I've never seen another fic that's taken this side of Ichigo and Rukia's relationship. It is canon that Rukia's light-hearted beatings on Ichigo could twist into something like abuse, and you have managed to alter all the characters into something different yet essentially themselves, which is great because no one can stay exactly the same after something like Aizen's war. I can see Ichigo and Byakuya developing this close relationship because Byakuya has been mellowing out ever since the Soul Society arc and Ichigo would be more mature after becoming a married man. Their slow progression into love is endearing and realistic in that no one really jumps into a relationship immediately, especially people like these two. I also adore the fact that Ichigo and Byakuya were pretty much married in spirit long before they realized it. However, I am disappointed that Rukia was killed before the matter was settled, though I see how that was a likely scenario because of the bad condition Rukia was in and how she didn't really care about herself anymore. All in all, this story was excellent, with a great plot, dynamic characters (I even liked the OCs), and made me stay up at night when I should be working on other things. Great job!

I didn't mean to disappear into the sunset with that flame. I meant to read this chapter the next day and say that I was pissed because you're such a good author and not because I feel you're a bad one and say that of course I'm still reading, even if I'm, well, was, fuming on the inside. (not much energy now)

Except I haven't been reading. It's not you. It's RL. I've had the chapter still open in a tab halfway through until my bf came by yesterday and closed it, because he decided I didn't need all those tabs open. -_-

Finally read it. It was depressing, which is probably why I haven't done it sooner - I kept needing something to cheer me up. I quit on that idea when trying to watch Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" and got my stomach turned inside out. Well, more inside out than it was anyway.

I'm rambling. Sorry. Yeah. Erm. Sorry about making the previous one a flame. I'm a passionate sort of person. Will claw at people if enraged. Will hug them to death if happy. Will bitch and snarl when pissed. As I said, I'd have written sooner, but there was uni, and people being sick and dying and having died and then there was a little gas problem in my apartment that wasn't taken care of for more than two weeks, because the gas company people kept not showing up and then there was being ill at school and staying home and now there's being dizzy, tired, having a beating eye, being in some sort of weird pain that took over my entire body and settled its weight on my chest and fuck if I know what it is, but I'm going to the doctor's tomorrow. And I also seem to be sneezing and my head and stomach hurt in more than just a vague way (as opposed to the muscles) But the review was long overdue.

Btw, before I forget, the chapter fit quite well and I liked it. Ichigo & Byakuya are brilliant and somehow Urahara always makes me crack a smile. A wide smile. So seeing him in the bedroom was sort of like a hidden Easter Egg.

And I seem to also have a perfect lack of concentration rendering me incapable to study or to not ramble. So bear with my rambling, since I can't get rid of it.

I've been thinking (on and off) about the escapism accusation I brought you, that you beat off. Well, I haven't read the rest of the story, but I did skim it and saw what happens and here's a second thought.

I guess it does work out perfectly and it works. Except it doesn't work because it works too well. It's still convenient. It still feels as if God (aka you, the author) didn't know what to do with her best, so Rukia was given this as a solution. *nods* And that's what happened, didn't it? It was convenient and nice and saved her and you had every reason to do this, because there was no other future for her. You say so yourself. So here's what I think...

...Then again, Neil Gaiman, my favorite author, as in "my favorite person who is an author" not my "best books written by" favorite author, if you know what I mean, says that when people tell you that something is wrong with your story, they tend to be right, but when they tell you what is wrong, they tend to be wrong, so I may be wrong, but hey...

Basically, she's a complicating element which disappears at the height of complicating things. I think I've said that before. Well, I was considering. Is her death really that much of an issue to me? Not really. It's the timing, which makes things just a bit too easy for the characters. They are spared some difficult moments, some choices, some potential inner evolution by this. Matters don't get resolved, but averted, somehow.

I am a cruel author. If I were one of my main characters, I'd shiver in fear. I got my Urahara raped, if that's saying anything. I'm also a cruel person, a non-compromising person, even with myself. I want to see a problem solved, not disappearing. I felt the need to see things a bit more settled, even in an uncomfortable compromise, before they were destroyed yet again by her death. If her death is due to a hybris, I want to see the hybris more clearly. I need... I need to know that things would have worked out for Ichigo & Bya even if she'd been around. That Ichigo would have been able to solve his issues with her. That he'd have been able to stand up and face the world and that she'd have found her own peace, even a half-peace, before she died.

But you're right, it is your story in the end, so I'm dropping the topic. If you weren't a good author, I'd have dropped your stories long ago. Or at the moment I stopped liking the plot. As it is, I'll keep reading. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, because God knows I need something light and non-depressing, or maybe write the damned chapter I'm supposed to have finished a month ago or whatever.

Anyway, I'll see the story to the end. I'm in no danger of forgetting about it or just leaving it off even if somebody does show up again and get rid of all my tabs.

Rukia get counseling and stop letting your insecurites destroy yoru amrriage, you've got kids to think about.

Alright. This. Is a flame.

Just so you know.

And the only reason I haven't started screaming and kicking yet is that you said in the AN at the end of the chapter that you had something planned. And I decided to trust you.

But still!

*rage mode back on*

I'm not getting any bloody tissues! I'm not sad she died, I am ENRAGED! What's up with you, woman? Have you lost your mind? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, she doesn't know what to do with Rukia, so she kills her off, what sort of a writer are you? And exactly at that point, if that isn't author escapism, then only killing her right before Ichigo and Byakuya had to acknowledge their feelings might have been that! And even so, it still spells E-S-C-A-P-I-S-M. You chose a difficult topic, stick with it! You can't just take her away because you feel that there isn't much you can do with her!

Oh, so bloody convenient, now the show can go on with everybody patching up their lives without the annoying complication element, while also adding drama. Well, I don't agree with it-that much you should be able to tell by now.

Seriously, the timing is horrid, the reason to do horrid and there were a million things you could do with her instead of killing her off. So it was getting complicated to find a solution-well, you brought us here, so deal with it! But killing the characters you want to get rid off, gods, I'm so mad at you. You're better than this! You're better than terminating Rukia because Ichigo and her are complicated.

Here's a list of things that could have happened (except they won't, because a certain author chose the easy way out):

She could have lived, gotten her own place in Seireitei, started having the kids over for periods of time, worked hard and eventually found a guy whom she never beat up to patch her life up with. Social stigma eventually disappears, especially if people had their fill of the gossip.

She could have ended up in a coma, from which she would have woken when her daughter was 25 and discovered that life goes on and that Seireitei forgave her in the mean time.

She could have forsaken Seireitei and become a wandering shinigami, visiting her old family from time to time.

She could have ended up in Hueco Mundo, where she would spend a damnably long amount of time and been a hermit of sorts.

She could have moved to the real world and started a business, pretending to be human.

So she would have suffered in Soul Society-still, that would have been better for you as an author than this silly quick escape that made everything so much easier-including Byakuya's problems about her being in the family and what the elders would say.

Gah! How could you do the convenient thing! I can't believe it!

I knew there was something wrong with that fever. There's a golden rule in fiction that says things aren't mentioned if they're not relevant (thank god)

But i'd forgotten about it.

E! Nice kissing scene! And the way he told Ukitake was just so good.

Gah! I pushed the wrong button and my previous version of this review promptly got deleted. *mumbles madly*

Anyway, as I was saying before *growls at silly browser*, I found out something fascinating during Japanese literature class today. It was about the following haiku:

"The sakura trees at night. From some houses, you can hear the sound of the koto." (the koto is a musical instrument. And my translation isn't perfect)

Anyway, we started discussing the poem and somebody mentioned that it combined two senses: sight and hearing. And then added, "and maybe smell, too?"

"No," the professor answered. "Sakura isn't perfumed. Peach flowers are, but not sakura. They're purely visual."

And that's when I remembered all the "cherry blossom smell" references you have around Byakuya and, well, thought "oh, my, draco will be interested in this."

According to other sources, they do smell, but ever so faintly.

About the current chapter: Ichigo and Rukia are breaking my heart. I love it when people make their characters so very real, so very life-like, even if it hurts so much more to see them in situations such as this.

*sulks around*

*reads the next chapter, even if she should actually read her 900 page book that her teacher wants her to return on Thursday and that she only read 20 pages of*

oh, gods, the craziness. I'm quoting this fic like mad to one of my colleagues and fellow Bleach fans (who has read some chapters of Seireitei Monogatari and enjoyed them profoundly, except her reviews happen less often than actual UFO sightings)

Btw, I got hit over the head with papers today by my English teacher for giggling uncontrollably. This same colleague of mine had done the evil thing of getting me in that mood. She said "Justice".

I should have never linked her to that particular chapter of Minutes to Midnight...

I should stop quoting this fic, too. She has a very good memory for funnies...

Oh, man, I'm screwed tomorrow.

Zaraki is as amazingly blunt and bluntly amazing as ever :D Byakuya is great, but Ichigo with a hangover has to be one of the most awesome things ever.

"Kami-sama" indeed )) Orihime not being the king ))

Also love the way the reiatsu burns away the alcohol, but not the hangover *rofl*