When she had last been on this bridge, Ichigo had tried to rescue her. Now, she was being escorted by six veiled guards. From four points on the collar she wore, red ropes extended to hang on their staffs. If she tried to run now, the contraption would tighten and choke her, so she walked quietly between them, her head down, her hands tied behind her back.
No longer confined in the seki-seki and with her senses no longer suffocated by her brother's presence, she could begin to sense spiritual pressures again, sprinkled across the sereitei like flecks of light. She had been blind to them for so long that it was a revelation and a relief to use her powers again and see the world in a full spectrum of colours, from the faint souls of ordinary people, spread thin across the streets of Rukongai, to the potent shades of the soul-reapers in the city below. It took her a moment to realise she had been searching for Ichigo's reiatsu, but it was not there. Instead, she found another she knew. Renji's spiritual pressure was fluctuating wildly. He was not alone in that regard; she could sense bursts of energy all across the sereitei.
"What's going on?" she asked the guards.
No-one answered. They kept walking. She tried to drag her feet a little to see if they would slow, but their pace never changed and, if she wanted to keep from strangling, she would have to keep up. They passed through the shadow of a tower and out onto another bridge in the bright, summer sun.
Renji's reiatsu flared briefly. Was he stronger than she remembered?
Her thoughts were interrupted as, away to her left, she felt two spiritual pressures vanish. She turned her head, trying to see between the billowing robes of the prison guard. Smoke on the horizon. People were fighting then, and people were dying. Where did she fit into this? And, moreover, where did Ichigo fit? Could one ryoka cause such havoc? She didn't believe so; the divisions must run deeper: fractures within Soul Society itself and dissent amongst the ranks of the shinigami.
She turned her attention back to Renji. He seemed to be moving away. His reiatsu was becoming more and more distant.
And then she realised that he wasn't moving. In some way, he was fading. "No!" Within heartbeats, she could no longer feel him at all: "It disappeared! Renji!" She didn't think as she sprang towards the edge of the walkway, trying to catch a glimpse of the streets below. The collar tightened and she gagged, brought up short. A step back released the mechanism and the pressure on her throat. She took a sharp breath: "Renji! Renji!" She willed her sense of his reiatsu to return.
Her awareness of him had once been absolute. Back in Rukongai, she could not have imagined the terrible absence that struck her now. The space in her mind where he had been, that indelible stain on her own soul, was gone. In its place, nothing. A blank page. Whatever had been written there was already losing substance in her memory. Staring hopelessly at the city below, she whispered: "Please don't say that this was for me."
"Poor, poor vice-captain," said a singsong voice. Rukia froze.
The man who was striding towards her across the bridge was familiar to her, but she knew him only through her brother. Captain Ichimaru Gin of the Third Divisionhad greeted her in passing on formal occasions because she was the sister of a well-respected comrade. For her own part, she had taken an instant dislike to the man. He had the demeanour of a snoozing cat: languid, half-lidded eyes and a permanent smile on his lips, as if he was prithee to a joke that no-one else had heard. His reiatsu was strong, though subtle, and, on the few occasions when she had been forced to spend time with him, it had felt as if he was seeping into her, filling up all the fine cracks in her façade.
Stopping a few paces away, he leant casually on the railings of the bridge to gaze out over the sereitei: "Abarai Renji believed that he could protect you, Rukia."
"Did my brother send you?" His lips spiked into a tighter smile and then he yawned, acting as if he hadn't heard. "Is Renji dead?" she pressed.
"No, but he will be very soon, unless I step in."
"Step in?"
"Would you like me to save you?"
She stared. To either side of her, the guards stepped back, shocked:
"Captain Ichimaru" – began one, but Gin contnued:
"I can, you know. You, Renji Abarai-fukutaichou, eventhe ryoka who came here to find you."
Her mind worked quickly. For all their emnity, her brother was still the only one she knew of whose opinions and actions could hold weight with the Central Forty-six. There had been no time for her appeal, so her only hope now lay in something like this: a last minute move by one of the captains. An action taken against the Central Forty-six would bear heavy penalties though, even for them.
Gin took two steps towards her and the guards quailed back. Those at the back let go of the ropes that held her.
Where can I go? She wanted to ask: where can I run to that they won't come after us? And how will we reach the others, Ichigo, Renji, let alone save them? But as he reached out to take the collar from around her neck, the questions meant little. She felt only a deep, draining gratitude.
He never touched the collar. Instead, she felt his hand in her hair. He cupped her face, lifting her chin so that she stared into those lidded blue eyes. The fingers brushing her cheek were so nearly the touch of a lover that she shivered.
"I lie," he said. His breath was on her face. She heard the words and didn't understand.
He stepped back, still smiling and, slowly, she realised what he had done.
Her resolve was gone.
Yesterday, she had let go of the hope of returning home, of seeing Ichigo, of walking again in the hills of the Rukon. Yet offered one chance, a sliver of hope, she had clutched at it with all the hunger and greed she'd guarded so close. She wanted to live. Despite everything, she wanted to live so much.
He had known that: "Bye-bye, Rukia-chan! See you at the sokyoku." And he laughed as she dissolved.
She dropped to her knees and screamed, the sound torn from her body by frustration. It wasn't her voice. Every desire, every loss, everything she had experienced in that long, long life was bound into a single howl of rage that cut off abruptly as the collar closed around her throat.
She was dragged to her feet before it could choke her and she stood there, swaying, shivering in the bright heat of a summer afternoon. Then the procession moved forward and nothing had changed. Nothing could change now. For her, at least.