From Within

Summary: A different past, a different world. Something is wrong in Soul Society; every night, Rukia searches through Rukongai, and in the corners of Seireitei there are whispers.

Warnings: T for creepiness and cursing.

There will be spoilers up until the most recent chapter of the manga, as things are revealed and I incorporate them into this story.

Chapter 1

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This was not something he had ever wished to see again. It was a behavior too familiar, much too familiar. An echo of a sound that had vanished long ago.

Rukia was searching.

Byakuya crouched on the rooftop and watched his little sister walk down the filthy street, holding her thin scarf around her against the cold. She was looking for a person, scanning the face of every beggar crouched in the gutter and every thug leaning against the wall in the shade of an eave.

He didn't know when it had started. She'd been quiet but not unhappy when she entered the thirteenth division, or so he had thought. But ten years ago, perhaps, or twenty, he'd noticed how tired she seemed, and ever since then there had been something different about her. When she spoke to him, she was polite and small as always, avoiding his glance and speaking little: Yes, Nii-sama. No, Nii-sama. But when he saw her alone in the gardens, she moved slowly, without purpose, and nothing in her expression responded to the life glimmering on the lake and hovering in the trees around her. This, too, was familiar.

There was the death of Shiba Kaien to consider; he had heard her through her door as she wept for her vice-captain, but he couldn't imagine how that might have caused this. Rukia would know that Shiba had been reborn in the transient world—she wouldn't be searching for him in Rukongai.

When Byakuya had first followed her, his first conclusion had been that she must be searching for Hisana. But the next time he followed her, to ensure her safety as she ventured further and further out into the more dangerous districts, he had noticed: she wasn't looking at women's faces. She was looking for a man—a young man, if he was right.

He saw her trudge home safely once more, and then he took to his own study, lighting his lamp with a careful hand. He knew very little about her personal life; if there had been a man who had hurt her, who had abandoned her . . . he would track the man down himself and separate his head from his body, if only he had the slightest idea of who it might be. Had Rukia found love, twenty or thirty years ago? If she had conducted a romance privately, keeping it secret from him . . . her motives for doing so would not be obscure.

His lamp burned through midnight and into the chill of morning. The usual documents he had to sign as head of the Kuchiki family were spread out on his desk, but found that he retained little sense of them, even after picking them up to read three or four times. Superimposed over them was always the image of Rukia following in her sister's path, wandering through the alleys of Rukongai until she was too weak to stand, until her spirit ebbed and faded. Rukia . . . the walls of the Kuchiki manor had not protected her.

In the night, Rukongai's shadows seethed through its maze of crumbling mortar and rotting wood. He would not relinquish Rukia to them as he had relinquished his wife.

It was an effort to keep his face expressionless when the absence of his vice-captain at his side was so apparent. All of the other captains and vice-captains had arrived by now for the weekly officers' meeting; even Oomaeda and his vice-captain Madarame had bumbled in by now, trailing crumbs and mud, and bull-headed Kotsubaki had apparently managed once again to drag his captain from the barstool upon which he had undoubtedly greeted the dawn.

It was a disgrace; perhaps in the past Kyouraku had been an amiable, womanizing kind of drunk, as people said, but now he was certainly nothing more than a shabby alcoholic. It was unspoken knowledge that Kyouraku would have been dismissed if there had been any other capable alternative to take his place, but it seemed that men with both loyalty and spiritual strength were scarce on the ground in these years.

With the leaders of the Gotei 13 assembled before him, Byakuya could not help but think that Seireitei's days of greatness had passed.

There stood Komamura, who was not even human; Ukitake, who did little more than take handkerchiefs and tea from his vice-captain; Zaraki and Kurotsuchi, lunatics, both of them. Kotetsu the captain was a puddle of a woman, who was rumored to suffer from nightmares, and Ichimaru, with his bizarre sense of humor and odd affectations, was hardly any better. And he himself had broken the law as not a single Kuchiki in memory had done.

At last, his vice-captain skidded in from the doorway, just as the Captain-Commander struck his staff against the floor and called for order.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she whispered. And—yes, there was still alcohol on her breath too.

"We will discuss this later, Kotetsu-fukutaichou," he said, not averting his gaze.

Yes, he would discuss it later, reprimand her, assign punishments. But the next week, it would be the same story.

Disgrace, said Senbonzakura.

And what would happen when the aged Captain-Commander was no longer there to head the Gotei 13? Aizen and Tousen could be relied upon to continue to support the law, even though neither of them had the power to match Yamamoto's flames, but would it be enough?

Ignorant people might suppose the law to be like stone, but those who understood the law knew that it was fragile.

Byakuya was not too young to remember it. His grandfather had been in the fight; Byakuya had been a child, waiting behind the gates to hear whether the leadership of his family had now been passed to him. But his grandfather had returned, and the maids in the kitchen had been crying.

Traitors, they had said. Not lowly men, but captains who had banded together in a conspiracy: Hirako, Shihouin, Muguruma, Outoribashi, Aikawa, Urahara. They had tried to overthrow the Central 46 and take control of Soul Society.

A/N: So what do you guys think? I aim to make this like a 30k word story if people are interested. I have it all planned out already too.

Yes, Oomaeda is a captain and some people are captains of different divisions. And some people are just not there. There is a reason! If some characters seem a little OOC, there is also a reason for that, but I am trying to keep them as true to their real characters as possible, while incorporating the different backstory.

I want to reiterate that I don't necessarily agree with or approve of all of Byakuya's opinions or views.