Title: Dance Before the Darkness – Part 1: The Law and the Lost

Ratiing: PG

Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite

Characters: Kuchiki Rukia, Kuchiki Byakuya

Warnings: A very little swearing. Violence. Angst.

Spoilers: This covers the period from just after Aizen, Tousen and Gin have ascended to Hueco Mundo up until Orihime is taken by Ulquiorra. So, basically, if you've seen the series, no spoilers.

Summary: Eight weeks after facing execution, Rukia has chosen to go on living. But it is harder than she thought. The man who rules her future is a brother whom she barely knows. Old friendships are threatened and her own loyalties are spread thin between this world and another. In the midst of all this, the sins of her past are catching up with her.

CHAPTER 1: THE WHITE BLADE, DEATH AND THE GIRL

The light that fell in shafts from the slanting windows was already thin with the shards of winter, and it was cold, uncomfortably cold, in the darkened training hall. Except that Rukia had never felt the cold.

She knelt seiza at the far end of the room, eyes closed. Anyone entering might have been forgiven for assuming the place was empty, though the improbable stillness of the figure in black nevertheless held a heavy presence. She had the hall to herself and, for now, that suited her needs. She had no desire to discuss recent events with her colleagues and certainly had no intention of letting them see her train when her energy was at such a low ebb. No, let them wait until she was stronger, in all things.

Eight weeks after she should have been executed on the Sokyoku, she was back here.

She was right back. At the very beginning.

It had been a long time since she'd had to visualise her spiritual energy. When she did, it was as streams of silver light. Beginning again from nothing was like discovering yourself back in the body of a child. It was frustrating, a constant realisation of weakness. Calling on her powers had, until now, been no more difficult than choosing to move an arm or a leg. Then again, she thought ruefully, such things became hard, if not impossible, in the event of a physical injury, so why should a spiritual injury be any different? Because that was what they had done to her. They'd drained her reiatsu to the point where it was all but gone and then, like a knife jammed into an open wound, the seki seki had ensured that it could not heal. It was only in the last two weeks that she'd noticed any improvement in her situation; her shinigami uniform had manifested once more, and the hilt of her zanpakuto.

The analogy with an open wound was perhaps a little too close to the bone. She found herself wondering if, like a physical wound, such a thing could fester and become infected. Her dreams these last few weeks had been vivid and disturbing, and that was a new thing; they'd started only after she'd been released from the seki seki.

No. Concentrate.

She visualised the energy flowing down the length of her arms. She held her sword across her knees. Or, at least, had it a blade, it would have rested across her lap. For now, the hilt alone lay in her right hand.

Her reiatsu was barely recognisable, even to her own senses: just a few sparks, like grains of sand, running through her fingers. When first she'd been able to reach it, she'd been frustrated to find there was no steady flow to channel; nothing to grasp. With practice though, she'd discovered other ways to control even so slight a stream of energy. She could stem its course, she discovered. Seal it and allow it to gather in the focii in her wrists. When it was sufficiently dense, she could release it. Not in the wild bursts required for kido, and, initially, because of this, she'd assumed the discovery was useless. She could collect together enough energy for a hado spell, but, upon release, it had done nothing but drip blue fire from her fingertips, thinning out to the point where she'd had to shake the excess from her hands. Where it fell, it didn't so much as scald the floor. No, not enough for kido, but kido wasn't her only power.

She inched the energy out of her wrists. It wasn't something she could ever remember having been taught. As far as she was aware, she'd never been so starved of power as to force herself to develop a technique like this, and yet, it was something. Concentrate.

Ice formed across her right palm.

"San no mai, shiro fune." Spoken softly, as she released the rest of her energy.

She opened her eyes.

Her sword lay across her knees, the blade from hilt to tip, formed entirely of ice.

Oh, but she had longed for this. A sigh escaped her lips, even as the object of her desires began to melt away before her eyes. She traced the familiar shape with one finger, her touch leaving a silvery line down its length as it briefly refroze the ice.

"Extraordinary," said a familiar voice.

She started, the motion knocking the sword from her lap and causing the blade to shatter. It sent a whiplash pain through her belly and she gasped even as she tried to hide it. Why, she wondered, did it hurt? After all, it was not her zanpakuto shattering, though the sensation was not dissimilar to the way in which other soul reapers had described that experience. Perhaps, in some way, it was. Easier to create and easier to break, but somehow connected to her own soul still. "What is that technique?" asked Ukitake, from the doorway. She hid her discomfort in a bow of obeisance to her superior.

"Shiro fave," she said, without looking up.

"Are you alright, Kuchiki?"

"Yes, Sir." She began wrapping the broken sword hilt as Ukitake stepped into the room:

"Quite 've developed a command technique that doesn't require your sword to be in shikai."

"I found that a very limited flow of spirit particles could still be manipulated, but, as to its application, well, you can't fight with a blade made from ice."

"Achieved with barely a whit of spiritual energy though."

She bristled:

"With respect, Sir, it's not as if I am completely devoid of" – But he was smiling at her and, realising that he was teasing her, she fell silent:

"I'm glad you're feeling better. I know how frustrating this has been for you, but it is only a matter of time. Until today, I was unaware that you'd begun training again." She looked away. If honest, she'd been afraid he would try to stop her. "I don't mind what you do in your own time, but please be aware that when I remove my staff from active duty, it's usually because I think they need a break."

"Understood. Only, it's been so long" – she began.

"Should I remind you that imprisonment does not constitute a break."

"Of course, but I" –

"Don't make me order you to enjoy yourself, Kuchiki."

She looked up and her face cracked a small smile then:

"Sorry, Captain."

"I prescribe patience, lots of rest and, possibly, even a little merry-making."

"Merry" - ?

"A party."

She frowned, but Ukitake was pointing to a clock on the wall: "More specifically, about now, in the grounds of the Kuchiki mansion, and in your brother's honour." Her heart sank:

"I was meant to welcome the guests!"

"He sent a hell butterfly."

"Oh no."

She flung her bag over one shoulder and ducked under her captain's arm, as he held the door open, to hit the corridor at a sprint, calling back her thanks over one shoulder. Ukitake watched her go, smiling, then glanced back into the room where the only trace of her spiritual presence were the shards of ice lying scattered across the floor.


It was hard, sometimes, to be two people at once.

Rukia stared at her reflection in the mirror, at the dark eyes that looked wider than usual now that she had pulled her hair back from her face and tamed it at the nape of her neck with golden pins, and delicate chains that ran back across her head like braids. She'd always hated these occasions. Living on the streets, she'd learned the fundamentals of survival the hard way and had come to despise ornamentation. There was nothing practical or meaningful in it. The rigours of formalwear were designed to contain, restrain: from the stiff obi that forced her back straight, to the tight folds of the kimono that kept her from taking wide strides; all these things ensured a kind of grace and delicacy of movement that left her feeling oddly vulnerable and out of step. Rukia, the child from Rukongai, still ran in the streets of her mind, climbed trees, scaled walls, donned the uniform of a shinigami and gave hell to anyone who tried to underestimate her.

But she had made a promise to herself.

In choosing to remain here, in Soul Society, she had chosen to embrace a second, shadowy partner in her soul. Sometimes, she believed it had been there from her birth; sometimes it seemed like a newborn child, emerging wide-eyed into this world. This second, she associated with the name Kuchiki. It was noble, dutiful. Dilligent. Proper.

Rukia had once despised it, seeing there nothing more than her brother's projection of the proper manners for a noblewoman. She had denied its existence. Any compromise on her part was a weakness, a resignation to Byakuya's will.

He had, it seemed to her, wanted nothing more than a paper cut-out, a woman he could call his sister, but who would spend the greater part of her days in contemplation of her endless gratitude towards his person. He wanted someone who would spend her days quietly, and without complaint, enclosed in the walls of his house.

He wanted her sister.

But Rukia had never known her sister. She knew only what Byakuya had told her: that Hisana had smiled often, was acquiescent, and always wore the pastel colours he picked out for her.

Rukia, tonight, was wearing purple.

Yes, there were ways to compromise. She was learning. If you stepped onto a path of your own free will, with your dignity intact, then it wasn't a weakness. Perhaps it was even a strength. It just took a little courage.


By the time she joined the party, it was in full swing. The audience hall was crowded with guests, many of whom had spilled out onto the lawn. It was early winter and the weather was mild. A firey sunset dissected the sky with streams of pink and orange light. The leafless cherry trees formed a black lattice against the sky while, in the lengthening shadows, the household servants moved silently from tree to tree, lighting lanterns that hung from their branches.

Byakuya was standing on the decking outside the audience hall, looking as immaculate as ever. Tonight, not a hair was out of place. Not a single crease marred the fall of a blue silk kimono, on which a pair of dragons wound up towards his shoulders, their embroidery so fine that they were only visible when he turned towards the light.

As she joined him on the threshold between the warmth of the house and the cool of the garden at dusk, he turned towards her and nodded once before placing a cup of sake to his lips and taking a long draft. What was that? Approval? She sighed and followed his gaze out across the garden.

"The musicians were recommended to me by Kyoraku-taichou. They come from a region called Saido, beyond the Rukon, largely outside of our jurisdiction. Such music has been played there for thousands of years."

"Oh. Good," she responded. To her left, she caught the hint of a smile behind the cup he had lifted again to his lips:

"I bore you."

"No!"

"It's true. I have bored you every day you have attended me." She glanced over to see if this was criticism, but, if anything, his eyes betrayed only mild amusement: "Rukia, why did you not let the servants tend to my wounds?"

She stared at him, suddenly uncertain of how to answer. It had been her decision. Unohana had shown her how to bathe the wounds and dress them, and Rukia had even taken care of some of the household tasks. The truth was that she had wanted to. In all the decades that they had called one another a family, she'd barely spent more than a few hours with him each day, breaking fast or taking dinner, always in an atmosphere of staid formality. That hadn't changed, but her own attitudes had. Nothing in Rukongai had prepared her for a family like this one, but it was with the full weight of her stubbornness that she had resolved to somehow make it work.

"I'm of no use to Ukitake in my present condition," was all that she said: "It hasn't been a trouble to me."

"Indeed."

His musicians had begun to play in earnest: a flute shimmering above stringed instruments with notes so clear that they seemed to shape the air around them. Byakuya crossed to the edge of the decking and leant on the wooden barrier, watching his guests. Several couples stepped out into a clear area of grass and began to whirl and dance in time to the music. Rukia watched in fascination. It was the first time she hadn't spent one of these soirees tucked into a corner trying not to be noticed.

The music was pretty. Beautiful, in fact.

"Nii-sama, who are they?"

"You know the captains and vice-captains, of course," he said, gesturing to the crowd.

"Hm."

"The other guests are offshoots of the noble families: Shiba, Shihoin, Kuchiki; these are the names you recognise. Nado, Sakeraga, Daibuno; perhaps these are less familiar."

The shinigami did not, as a rule, dance, she noticed, but there were young men and women, strangers to her, turning and stepping to the sweet, clear music. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the decking. There was something intoxicating about that rhythm, fast enough to be insistent, yet slow enough to draw you in. "You should dance," said Byakuya.

"I should – what?"

"You can, can't you?"

"I" – she looked longingly at the couples moving so gracefully beneath the lantern lights. To follow the steps, yes, that would be easy, but they were nobility; every one of them shone with it.

Instead of answering him, she closed her eyes and stepped back from the edge of the deck, one hand still resting lightly on the railing. Barely moving, she traced the pattern of the steps with her feet. Then opened her eyes: "Two steps backward, as if the partner wanted to approach. Then three forward, but, at the last, she turns and passes behind him. Leading, for just one step. It's a dance for lovers, if they wish to tease one another."

"Or for opponents in battle, if they wish to test their strength," he said.

"I find the two are not so dissimilar." She turned wistfully back towards the garden, aware that he was watching her now.

"Love and combat," said Byakuya.

"You don't agree."

"It's an astute observation. Of the two, though, I believe, combat is the only one that requires you to win. Love, on the whole, requires you to lose, with good grace." She frowned at him. For once, he seemed to have relaxed a little and was leaning with his elbows on the edge of the decking, his grey eyes softer than she remembered them: "My cousin asks after you frequently." He gestured towards a man in the crowd: "Tonight, he cannot keep his eyes off you. If you require me to slit his throat on your behalf, then I shall do so gladly."

She looked over to where a young man in a scarlet kimono was, indeed, watching her intently from beneath a shock of dark hair. He looked to be a couple of years her junior, the brooding type. As their eyes met, he didn't look away:

"I don't think the preservation of my virtue necessitates murder," she said carefully as the boy broke away from the crowd and started to walk towards them. With each step, he seemed to gain a little confidence so that, by the time he reached her, he was positively glowing with it. A bow from the waist. A hand proffered in invitation:

"Would the Lady Kuchiki care for the next dance? With my greatest respects."

She glanced at Byakuya. He had straightened and his eyes were hard, yet still he nodded once:

"I have yet to see my sister dance."

"I would be honoured," said the boy, and suddenly his hand had found hers and he was leading her down to the lawn. The grass was slick with dew, licking about her ankles and, despite herself, she laughed when he broke into a jog to get them back to the impromptu dance stage in time for the music to begin.

This time, the lowest of the stringed instruments was replaced by a drum, while the others, along with the high steel flute, sprang into a bright, leaping rhythm. This dance was different. She watched. Or, at least, something inside her watched.

Mai.

She'd never had to think up the release command for her sword. It had been there, just the same as the sword's name. Shirayuki followed her opponents' steps in battle, learning their rhythms, recording the beat to which they moved. Then she turned their music against them. Rukia danced always at a counterpoint.

Tonight though, the soul in her sword only watched: one phrase, then two, and by the third she had no difficulty in repeating the steps flawlessly. Her partner grinned, clapped his hands and switched left as she switched right. This went on for a dozen more rounds until, all at once, she turned and someone else took her hand. It was not forced. He turned her, still within the beat and cadence of the dance, so that she faced him and, as the next sequence began she had to dance with him instead of the boy who had invited her onto the floor.

She smiled. A few decades of training as a shinigami had given Renji, whether he liked it or not, a strange kind of grace, so he moved with ease and followed the steps well enough. Yet the paces were just a little too wide, too bold; the claps too loud. When the routine required two actions at once, his brows drew down into the most charming frown and, when next she spun, she threw her head back and laughed because he spun her too fast. She couldn't remember having this much fun. Not since they were children. There was freedom in this. A routine, yes, and they'd never been bound by any routine when they were kids, but now that both of them were grown, it felt good to grasp at small freedoms.


She was still dancing in the moonlight. Kaien's gaze was intoxicating. Had he ever looked at her this way before? Had he ever taken her hand so firmly in his own that he had almost crushed her fingers? Not in her living memory, and yet he had done so tonight. Laughter bubbled up in her throat as she felt her sandals scrape over the roots of the sakura trees. Joyous. Uncertain. They had come to the very edge of the lawn, away from the other dancers. Now he took her hand and started to walk with her into the shadow of the ink-black trees.

He led her down to the ornamental garden where slick shadows marked the edge of the fish pond and a grey bridge rose over the water like a colourless rainbow. A silver willow tree caught the ebb and flow of nighttime breezes.

He took her other hand in his own and turned to face her. She felt her heart start to beat faster in her chest. She didn't know why. They had been alone together many times and this was no different.

His hand cupped her neck and she felt herself go still.

She had dreamed of this moment, so many times. Trecherous dreams. They had been discarded in the cold light of morning, in the easy words they exchanged as commander and subordinate, in the way he mocked her, and in the affection he guarded for another woman. In the way he called her by her given name, but insisted she use an honorific for his. They had fallen away like dry scraps of paper.

She could shake them off, but not when he stood before her and looked at her in such a way.

Suddenly, he embraced her. A stillness had come over the garden. The wind had stopped, and he stooped and rested his head on her shoulder. Her hold on him tightened, her fingers digging into the heavy fabric of his uniform and the thick black hair at the nape of his neck. Strange. She had the sudden idea that they had stood like this before and, alongside her desire, there was, all at once, a dark ribbon of fear.

I will lose him, she thought. No. This is here; this is now. But don't let go. Don't ever let go.

She wondered at the silence of the garden, which had only moments before been filled with the sounds of distant music from the party. This calm was unnerving. Suffocating. Not a calm at all, but a weight. A presence. Reiatsu. "How" - ? she began.

It had been growing in such tiny increments that she'd not even noticed and that wasn't surprising; Kaien was undoubtedly sufficient distraction, but reiatsu wasn't like this. It didn't rise slowly out of nothing. It belonged to souls. It went where they went.

When Kaien straightened, he was staring over her shoulder. She couldn't move.

"Hollow," he said, and he stepped past her to confront it. Except her senses were telling her something else. Her senses were telling her that the only presence in the garden now was his own, but it was vast and dangerous, unlike anything she had encountered before.

Her muscles were locked. Her arms hung at her sides. A part of her wanted to turn around, but the air was so thick now that no effort on her part could force it aside. And anyway, did she really, she wondered, want to know what was behind her.

No.

She was trembling.

There was no hollow and no fighting and all she heard were his footsteps coming back to her across the grass. And still she didn't turn.

Long before she expected him to reach her, a hand flashed out and wrapped around her waist, his palm pressing down on her belly. The energy centre in her body lay just beneath his touch now: the very heart of her being. And, time and again, this motion on his part had stilled her in her training sessions. Stay, think, become aware: that was what it meant. It had always been his way of telling her that she had acted out of turn, but it had never been so strangely intimate. She felt dizzy. "Do you remember?" he asked: "Kuchiki, don't tell me you have forgotten."

"Kaien-dono?"

"Who you are." She didn't answer. His breath on the back of her neck made her shiver and, with a certain self-disgust, she realised she didn't know if it was with fear or pleasure. "You are shinigami. You bring death. Death is the beginning and the end of your existence. Death is the stroke of your sword and the touch of your hand. It is what binds you. Even in your kiss, in your sweetest caress. It is the reason why we danced tonight. Did you ever doubt that? It is the only thing you will ever give and the only time you will ever really feel." She shivered as he pulled away. "Deny it to me. What you felt that night, to hold my life in your hands. There's nothing more precious and no battle could ever compare. Because what accolade could be more fitting for a reaper of souls than to take the life of their fellow god. You are perfect, Kuchiki. You are everything I ever made you."

"Who are you?"

"You were mine the instant your blade pierced my heart."

She felt sick, but it wasn't the pressure in the air anymore, or even the thought of his touch. It was the sense that he had touched upon a truth somewhere, something buried so deep that it seemed to break inside her at his probing. Something she would have died to have kept hidden. Something she would die for, even now.

With a snarl of rage, she reached for her sword and whirled to face him. Then stopped. There was nothing in her hand. A dark purple kimono shrouded her body, with sleeves that stretched down to her hands, all fashioned from the finest silk. Tonight, she had chosen to wear purple.

And Kaien? Kaien was laughing at her, standing there, one hand hooked into his belt, the other deftly spinning his katana. He was just as she remembered him. Except it wasn't his katana.

Sode no Shirayuki span as his fingers twisted the white ribbon that adorned her hilt. Rukia's hands had frozen over the point on the belt where the sword normally hung. She could no longer feel the familiar reiatsu of her zanpakuto. "You are perfect, Kuchiki, absolutely perfect," he said, grinning lazily: "What need have you of this?" And at the end of one swing, he brought the sword crashing down onto the rocks at his feet.

Rukia flinched and staggered backwards. The blade had not broken, but she had felt the impact, and the insult as the sword was dragged unceremoniously over the gravel towards her by the silk ribbon. He whipped it out of her reach the moment she stepped forward to reclaim it. Another triumphant spin and he slammed it down again, making her stagger sideways. "Can't break a blade like this, can you? Not on rock; not on stone" – he unsheathed her sword and, without hesitation, drew it across his palm; the streak of blood was colourless in the moonlight – "Not on my own tough hide. A blade like this can pierce anything. Must be a way to break it though; isn't that right, Kuchiki?" She had started to circle him warily, her eyes never leaving Sode no Shirayuki, until he flash-stepped. An instant later, he was before her, his fingers cupped beneath her chin. Her face stared back at her from the blade of her own zanpkakuto. Tilted briefly, she could even see the reflection of the full moon emerging from the clouds behind her. And then she felt him push the blade into her body. Her lips pulled back in a grimace of pain.

He asked her to look him in the eye as he pulled the sword to the right and then the left, all the while, his fingers resting lightly on her chin. When he withdrew the blade, it was with a wet sound, and she folded backwards, landing at an angle on the sloping lawn. The smell of her blood clogged her senses. It mingled with the sweetness of the grass. And the wound in her belly stretched too deep. He's cut me in half, she thought. And it was her last coherent thought before she started screaming.


Screaming. Without sound. Only now her hands were bound and her feet too.

She sat up, wide eyed and gasping. The room was dark. She was soaked in sweat. The bindings on her wrists and ankles were silk sheets and, squinting through the dark, she could make out the familiar details of the room in her brother's house. It became apparent, after a moment, that she was engaged in a one-sided battle with her bedcovers. Extrictaing herself, she moved quickly to the door, pulled it open, crossed the decking and stumbled down onto the lawn. She managed two paces, barefoot through the grass before she dropped to her knees and was violently sick.

They weren't like ordinary dreams. They were the reason she found herself wondering if wounds to the spirit could fester as easily as wounds to the flesh if left untreated. When they'd drained her energy, when they'd left her in the seki-seki, had some disease crept in, something that her body rejected as fiercely as a poison?

It had started with dreams of her execution, but always, in them, there was no human boy coming out of the brown smoke to save her. There were only flames, consuming her body. Her death was preceded by a judgement read aloud to the assembled shinigami: a catalogue of her crimes. Gradually though, the fate of Kaien had taken a more and more prominent place in those proceedings until everything else had faded out. All that remained was him and his laughing accusations.

She'd dreamed of him every night for more than a week now. Every night she found herself alone, unarmed, and, every night, he found a way to kill her. Then, every morning, in the small hours before dawn, she came out here and emptied her stomach. Just like poison.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Tears and perspiration. There was no dignity in this. She would do her best to hide any sign of her weakness before the servants rose. As she made to stand though, she hesitated.

Byakuya?

Surely that was impossible. The man's spiritual pressure was like a spotlight; it was hardly reasonable to believe he might be able to sneak up on her. Yet, as she crouched there, she realised she could no longer doubt it. There was a whisper of his presence: just an echo and no more. But, overlying that, was the uncomfortable sensation that she was being watched.

You bastard, she thought. Of all people, I would not have you see me like this.

He did not, however, make any move to approach her and, after a moment, even the frail sense she had of his spirit faded.

Good, she thought, turning back towards the house. Choosing not to see the things we don't want to see is at least one thing we can agree on.


Byakuya did not return to his quarters that night. He went to the reading room. It had seen little use in the past half century since Hisana's death. There were few books here that he had not read to her and, since he had no inclination to read them alone, they had gathered dust here as the years had turned into decades. He came here, sometimes, to think.

He gave the surface of the writing desk a desultory rub with his sleeve. He should ask the servants to clean in here more often or risk it developing a mausoleum-like atmosphere. With a grunt of disapproval, he took a seat anyway and lit a candle. The only surface untouched by a grey down of dust was an ornate miniature cabinet of drawers set on one side of his desk. It had been opened recently and, on that occasion, he'd taken the time to wipe off the worst of the delicate, grey snowfall. Now, he opened it again and took out the self same object he'd placed inside on his last visit.

It was a scroll of paper, folded into a concertina. He spread it before him and let his eyes drift over the words without really reading them.

He didn't think she was ill.

He'd had enough experience of sickness to be fairly certain of that. Of course, there were other reasons why women were sick every morning, but that line of speculation led to dangerous territory; nothing in the rest of her behaviour pointed towards that, so he was willing, perhaps even eager, to sideline the possibility for now.

Not ill. At least, not physically.

He brushed one hand over the paper, evening out the creases.

His strange little sister.

A few months ago, his interest in her well-being might have been purely academic. He'd done many things for Hisana. Taking Rukia in had been, for a long time, the one he had regretted the most. If that was heartless, then he was heartless. The girl had hated him the moment she'd clapped eyes on him. It would have been easier if he could have hated her right back, but how could he hate the living image of his wife? It was as if the very powers that had taken Hisana away were mocking him. It had been easier then not to engage with her. He'd tried to do only what Hisana had asked: protect her and accommodate her within the walls of his house. It hadn't worked. At times, he'd felt a confusing fondness for her; at times, a resentment; at times, he'd found himself fiercely possessive of this one link to the woman he had loved.

But times were changing and he was changing. More importantly, she was changing. Beyond recognition.

She'd started answering back.

Oh, certainly she had a bluntness about her: a habit of speaking up when manners might have guarded against it. Years ago, she had even raised her voice in temper to him, but this was different. She had started offering her opinions. They were often converse to his, but still, for the first time in his life, he realised, he was learning something about her.

She'd taken it upon herself to tend him in his convalescence, so, as was his wont, he talked about small things while she worked. She'd gone to move some papers on his desk:

"The ink is still wet."

"Ah, sorry," she said.

"Calligraphy is one of the few activities Captain Unohana has deemed safe for me while I am recovering. That particular script is very ancient. Beautiful."

Unexpectedly, she had, after a moment's pause, responded:

"I've never really seen the point of it myself."

He looked up. She was standing very still beside the writing desk in the infirmary. For all the world, he thought, she looks as if she expects a reprimand, and he had, indeed, bristled at the comment, but he was careful not to let that show as he responded:

"Why is that?"

"It's very pretty. I can see that," she said, glancing at his letters: "But it's prettiness for pretty's sake. Nothing more. Who can it help?"

"Beauty is not a practical quality. Aesthetics does not require a purpose."

"It just seems a little selfish to me." She was sifting dead flowers out of a vase beside the window, folding them into her hands and leaving just the fresh blooms.

"You would do well to learn to appreciate beauty for its own sake."

He thought perhaps he'd gone too far then because the conversation faltered and she left soon afterwards. The next day, though, when she returned to treat the wound in his side and he sat in stoic silence, she spoke suddenly:

"I thought the human world was beautiful."

And he understood at once that she was continuing their conversation.

It was a reaching out, a first step. The first time he had discovered something new about her was also the first time she had given him a reason, albeit small, to acknowledge that she was not Hisana nor even an echo of her.

She was not Hisana.

Dawn light was beginning to creep in through the reading room window, rendering his candle unnecessary. He began to read the script before him in earnest:

'Kuchiki Rukia is hereby posted for the duration of two months, to zone one eight eight ninety, one point five spirit miles in radius, where she will be charged with the duty of protecting and cleansing human souls.' There followed a rafter of rules and regulations: the fine print; he knew it off by heart, having written out commissions for his own squad.

"I thought the human world was beautiful," she had said. And he had asked her:

"Why didn't you report in after all those weeks? When we believed that you were dead?" And she hadn't answered. Did you not think I could protect you? Did it never cross your mind that I would have tried? But those were the questions he left unspoken because he knew that it hadn't. The truth was that protecting Rukia was proving a little more difficult than her sister had anticipated.

"She's strong," Ukitake had said as he'd handed Byakuya the commission: "And I don't think any of us will know how strong until she's actually tested."

Until today, Byakuya had been willing to accept those words as empty platitudes. Ukitake was all for everyone's fulfilling their potential and had made no effort to hide his disapproval when Byakuya had asked that his sister be passed over for the position of an officer. Time, however, had conspired to prove him wrong and, this morning, he had finally been forced to dispell any illusion he may have been living under.

She had sensed him.

He'd hidden his spiritual presence and yet he had distinctly seen her stiffen and turn her head in his direction, then hesitate, as if she didn't want him to know that she knew.

It had shaken him. Another nail in the coffin of his ever mistaking her for Hisana again. Here, in his own house, was a being with a power level to rival some of his finest officers. With the possible exception of his lieutenant, Abarai Renji, he didn't believe there was a single man in his squad who could have seen through that concealment. So why had it taken him so long to notice her?

Had he really so grossly underestimated her? She had applied herself in her work. She was effective; efficient, both in her swordwork and her kido, but that wasn't usually enough to get you noticed in the squads. And the harsh truth was, she wasn't brilliant. She didn't shine. She was clumsy sometimes, made mistakes, didn't think things through, held back too much and acted sometimes as if she didn't trust her own blade. Flawed techniques. And, as for errors in judgement, well, the last four months spoke for themselves. No, nothing she had ever done was outstanding.

Except for one thing.

Because, fresh out of the academy and green, she had killed a vice-captain-class shinigami with a single stroke.

When you considered it coldly in the light of day, laying aside her guilt, the fiasco of a curtailed trial, even Byakuya's appeals to the authorities on her behalf and the inevitable ill feeling within her squad; when you got right down to it, well, that really was something.

Save that they had never spoken of it, and they never would.

With this in mind, he folded up the commission and replaced it in the drawer, then opened the window onto a spill of early winter sunlight. A dry, chill breeze swept through the dust on the table and not for the first time, he thought about re-opening this room, purchasing new books, filling the shelves with new stories. If he discarded these old volumes with their faded pages nobody would miss them.

Nobody would stop to wonder why he didn't read them anymore.