A/N: This was written in comlete speculation. If you notice any inconsitancies with the manga, please let me know. For Benihime I used a mashing of many different people's ideas on her character (most noteably Lacewood's), and a little bit of my own ideal. I hope you like her, and the story, and, hopefully, review:) Enjoy.
An Evolution/A Warping
I.
She will always remember her, always recognize her.
She was never as much of the complete sovereign entity that Benihime was, but she was imperial all the same. Her beautiful face was a mask of stoicism, her mind an impenetrable wall of self righteous opinions. The dancing, though, was the true indicator, the perfect embodiment of her person. The patterns, the grace, and ultimately the very damage such movements created was enough to characterize her verbal barbs and aristocratic front.
"Give it to my sister," Benihime tells her master one day, when frustration hangs in the air like a haze. "She will protect it."
He watches her carefully now, as she pinned up her heavy red hair around the angular cheekbones. One flower here, another there, and jewels glint amongst the strands. A long pipe protrudes from her mouth. "She is being reborn soon."
Urahara knows better than to trust his constant companion completely. "Is that so?"
She unfurls one-half of her bun, carefully, so as not to disturb the ornaments she has so carefully arranged. "Yes," She replies loftily, and then exhales more of the smoke she had been holding in out, to the already cloudy room. "It is so."
He adheres, finally, and resumes his calculations. "Then we shall go visit your sister soon."
"I am to act as your soul, you understand." A rustling of cloth is heard, and he feels a tickling of her fingers on the back of his neck. "I will make you trust me completely."
"I know," He says, and allows her hand to remain.
"I know you know," Benihime is in the teasing mood, and leans down. Urahara notes she smells faintly of plums. "You know everything," A pause, and her nails dig in only slightly. "Master."
II.
The child is simple enough to find. An abandoned bundle of cloth, a wailing infant, a discarded life- it matters not to him. Benihime asked, he answered: morals are of no use here; it is a question of which action is the lesser evil.He decides, after lifting the folds of the blanket gently, that the babe's face looks strong, perseverant. This is a good thing.
"We are siblings now," He coos, not being able to help himself. "Such a poor thing we must meet this way."
The 78th district of Southern Rukongai offers little to no hospitality. Sun shimmers off the shattered glass on the dirt roads as callous-footed persons go about their unwholesome business. Unsupervised children leap over broken barrels and splintered wagons to god-knows-where, avoiding old foes and new ones alike as they weave through the crowds, learning to grow up just like the dirty citizens around them.
Somehow the poor disarray of what should have been human society does not come as a surprise to Urahara, and he tells Benihime so as he completes the delicate surgery in one of the many back alleys.
"It is not at all unexpected," She hums, dangling from his side. "But it is sickening."
"I imagine you do not care for your sister's new living quarters?"
It is not even a question that needs answering, and so he does not wait for one. He instead purchases a bucket of water (overpriced, though he does not haggle, for the appearance of the vendor is pitiful) and hand cleans the new little person, who he now finds out is female.
"Watch out," He tells the caretaker who does not care at the volunteer orphanage, "She will grow up with a royal attitude."
The man just smiles half-assedly as he leaves. "Oh, they all grow up like that here. Anti-authority problems all around." He remembers something. "Wait! Has she got a name?"
He forgot, but Benihime supplies. "Her name is Rukia."
Urahara smiles cheerlessly as he hears her call out farewells to family.
III.
"They've found out about your gigai plans," Benihime states, and there is a question in her voice. That is unusual."They have," He confirms. "Yoruichi told me just an hour ago. We will be leaving as of this morning."
Benihime cocks her head to the side. "So we are to run?"
Urahara meets her eyes. "What else would you have us do?" He asks, and closes the door behind him.
"I would have us fight." She stands and looks down on him with scorn, her paramount figure adorned with all the usual embellishments. "I will not have us be the cowards on the tips of everyone's tongues."
"And have us instead be the object of everyone's pity?" Urahara countered. "Be subject to the amazing and great power of the Soukyoku? No, you know the impact of that better than I. Even you, in all your majestic immortality, would cease to exist after that."
"They will be laughing," She insists, a sneer overcoming her pretty face. "They all will be."
"They will be laughing when we are dead."
He looks on warily as she approaches him, places a finger underneath his chin. "You can do whatever you want, sire, but you should know that I do not appreciate being overruled." He face hovers inches from his, daring his defiance.
"You never do," He says with a rueful smile. "But I think I have a track record of defying your wishes."Her face melts into contempt and her red lip curls up into a snarl. "I will not flee to a world in which I do not belong."
"Oh," Urahara says, his fingers encircling her narrow wrist, "But what world have you ever belonged in but mine?"
IV.
"And what is your name?" He asks, pulling the limp girl up with a jerk.She stands, shivering, in white, while the boy in front of them (Kurosaki's kid, Urahara notes mentally. It certainly took him long enough to attain power.) slumps into a useless heap.
"My name is Kuchiki Rukia," She introduces formally, though her quiet voice betrays her weakness. "13th Division-"
"Rukia?" He interrupts her. "Is that your name?"
The girl looks, for all intents and purposes, taken aback. "Yes. I've been called that ever since I was a child."
"Kuchiki, eh?" He continues, before suspicion can take hold. He had hoped for anonymity in the child he met in Rukongai. Instead he got a noble. "I wonder what a Kuchiki is doing disobeying the law."
Rukia is speechless.
"It doesn't matter much anyway, does it?" Urahara tips his hat with a grin. "Would you like some assistance?"
The girl continues to tremble. Ironic, he thinks, that she should be cold when her sword is of that very nature. But the rain is bone-soaking and all-consuming, and the new situation must be dealt with. He marvels at the luck that brought him such circumstances.
He catches her on her fall downwards, scooping her around the waist as the power drain finally takes its toll.
"Lucky," The former-captain tells his sword, and she laughs a hollow, cackling laugh, and he feels the corners of his lips turning upwards.
V.
"The boy, Ichigo, said I should apologize," Urahara tells her one day, after the rescue group's return to Soul Society."I heard," Benihime replies stiffly. She does not like him.
"I agree."
Her head snaps around, loose hair swaying with it. "You will not."
"I feel," He says patiently, as he has learned tolerance over the years. "That she deserves it."She stares at his wide-spread hands in disgusted disbelief. "It is bad enough that you made me train against the boy, but to apologize? Sode No Shirayuki would never take it sitting down."
"Zangetsu seems to think she would appreciate it."
"Zangetsu," She counters, "Is a naïve green-horn."
"I don't know," He says, teasingly. "He's seen her more recently than you have." When her face reddens in embarrassed defeat, he manages to muster up some seriousness. "We'll be seeing her tomorrow."
And they do. Benihime watches silently, stubbornly, as Rukia stands in the room awkwardly, as her master jokes stupidly, as the shop turns suddenly serious, and as the moment finally comes.
"I'm sorry," He says, and Benihime is startled to find she can detect true genuineness in his tired voice. "For everything."
Benihime could always remember her, always recognize her.
Her sister: Imperial, tall-standing, beautiful, graceful. Cold. She could understand the patterns of her dances, the pattern of her movements, and the boldness of her actions. She knew her, moreso than any other one of their brethren, moreso than perhaps even the child.
"Thank you," They both say, smiling gratefully, submissively, and bow lower than they should, forgetting that they had any right to object, any right to ask for what they deserved.
And Benihime wonders, staring at her master, who it was that warped her sibling into something unrecognizable.
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