Rukia wonders, sometimes, how this had happened, how she had come to be here, trapped, powerless, and pathetic. She doesn't have much to do these days besides wonder and think and remember.
She remembers that she vowed, once, when she was cold and hungry and desperate, to become strong, strong enough to escape starvation and this life, and drag her friends with her. Strong enough to do more than lead a hand to mouth existence in the streets of Rukongai.
Strong enough to save herself.
Yet here she is, a fragile, soft girl, high up in a tower with no way down, waiting to be rescued, or maybe just waiting for death.
Rukia looks out the window and wonders when she became so weak.
She had never thought of herself as weak before, not even when she had been on Earth, held captive in a powerless gigai. Even then she had been running, fighting, training, being. Here, she is nothing. Another nameless, faceless girl trapped in the highest room in the tallest tower.
She has never wanted to be weak. Weak people can't save anyone, weak people do nothing, weak people stand back and watch as everyone they love dies.
Weak people abandon their baby sisters to the streets with barely a backward glance.
If she closes her eyes, Rukia can just barely remember a tear streaked, guilt stricken face.
Hisana has always been the epitome of weak in Rukia's mind. Rukia wonders if it's in their blood, that frailty and vulnerability. She closes her hand into a fist and watches the blood drip down her hand as her nails pierce the skin.
It doesn't matter how weak she is now, or how long it takes, because she knows (knows, with an instinct burned into her from her time on the streets) that she will survive and she will escape and she will become strong, even if she has to destroy all of Soul Society to do it.