Sometimes ya just wanna go where nobody knows your name... in my case there was a reason for it. I didn't want all of my friends (not to mention the younger squad members who looked up to me as their Lieutenant) to see me making a general ass of myself by drinking myself into a puking stupor. My Captain was as nose-in-the-air as they came, and on a good day he was only supercilious, the rest of the time he came off goddamn condescending. If he caught wind of me lowering my exalted status as his second-in-command by drinking in a common sake house like a ruffian, I'd get a lecture on Proper Decorum As Befits A Lieutenant Of The Thirteen Court Guard Squads... and if anyone could manage to speak in capitol letters it would be Byakuya Kuchiki of the Noble House of Kuchiki. Or rather, I'd get a lecture from him if I was lucky and he was generous, more than likely he'd probably just give me that Look, the one that said he was wondering what he had ever been thinking taking a mongrel stray dog like me in as his Lieutenant and expecting me not to act like the rowdy I was.

:Pompous ass,: I thought sourly as I knocked back another shot of the clear liquid that smelled like astringent and burned like acid fire. This sake, purchased from one of the tumbledown shacks that served as sake-houses here in the Rukon District, was clearly brewed in the moonshine method. You could use that stuff to strip paint, or burn a hole through cement; but it was cheap, it was strong, and there was plenty of it, and right then that was all I cared about.

"Leave it," I said when the barkeep came round with another bottle to top off my cup.

He took one look at my attire of tattered and worn cloak (to cover my Soul Reaper uniform) and hood and cowl ( to hide my hair and distinctive tattoos) and quickly concluded that I wasn't someone he wanted to argue with. Not that he'd have any trouble holding up his end of an "argument" with any of the Rukon toughs that practically lived in places like these... Rukon barkeeps could have all been cloned from a single man so similar were they in form an demeanor. Blank, stoic faces, shoulders like oxen and arms like tree-trunks with which to smash in the heads of any man trying to cause trouble (or dodge payment) in his bar were the earmarks of a Rukon District barkeep.

:Who knows,: I thought with a dull humor creeping around the edges of the alcohol and black despair. :Maybe they were.:

If all the rumors about that creepy captain of the Research and Development Squad and his odd little leiutenant were anywhere near accurate then it wasn't impossible that the Rukon District was staffed by a clone army of barkeeps.

I measured out a small cup full of the new bottle and knocked it back, feeling it burn its way down my throat.

"So which is it?" the barkeep asked, setting himself down at the table I'd grabbed in the back, far away from the rest of the crowd. I blinked a little, taken a bit aback. This specimen was obviously a little more social than his fellow clone brethren.

"What?" I asked, irritated by the non-sequiter.

"Job, money, or woman?"

"Woman," I grunted, knocking another back to soothe out the sharp, jagged, cold spike of loss I felt at the reminder of her, of what would never be-

Another drink.

"Hn," the barkeep grunted. "The most common of the lot of 'em. I swear sometimes I think they were invented to keep us barkeepers in business."

He cracked a wry smile at his own joke and added.

"And to test men's souls to the limit."

I'd drink to that. I saluted him with my cup in agreement with his statement and felt a little more of that heated numbness seep into me from the afterburn.

"I don't think I've seen you around, boy," he said. "You new here?"

My stray dog instincts, born and honed here on the rough streets of the Rukon District, warned me that this could be a loaded question; he could be just idly curious, but it was more likely he was fishing for information, trying to find out whether my purse, so generous until now, could stand to be forcibly lightened... and if anyone in the tattered patchwork of gangs and alliances there in district fifty-two was going to take revenge for me. There were a number of barkeeps who wouldn't have any qualms about lightening the load of a financially solvent drifter or two, and even less of a problem with directing various members of other gangs there-abouts to do the lightening, for a small fee of course. In Rukon, information was the coin of the realm more often than not.

"Just passing through," I said shortly, my tone conveying that I didn't want to talk about it.

I wasn't ready to talk about anything. However, the subtle sliding of my cloak to one side to reveal the well worn and very obviously high quality hilt of Zabimaru said all I needed to say. Zabimaru was sleeping right then and in his quisceint form looked just the same as any other sword (better than most of course) so it wouldn't give away my origins; more than likely the man would think me nothing more than another Rukon tough, or perhaps a mercenary or assassin, but nothing more than that. I wasn't eagre to enlighten him about my true nature. Soul Reapers were not exactly beloved out here in Rukon, most of the souls on this side of the fence either didn't care one way or another or actively disliked them.

I remembered well my own resentment toward those distant, faceless numbers who lived safe behind their precious walls and barriers. I remembered how I had resented the fact that they lived in a world apart from the one I knew, the world where everyday was a new challenge to find a way to scrape up enough food to live to see the next one. A world where the run-down, leaking roof over my head was defended tooth and nail from any other person (older-boy or adult) who might try to take it. Where there was never enough heat in the winter, or medicine when one of my own got sick, where the rags of our clothes were all more thread and hole than cloth. A lot of us Rukon kids day dreamed what it must be like to live in a place where they serve you all the food you can eat and you never have to worry about whether or not the next storm will bring the roof in on you or of the next bout of summer fever will be your last.

:There are still some times when I hate them for it, just a little bit,: I thought to myself.

I hated the wall, the attitude of Us and Them, the condescending pity that even my own best friends felt toward all of those outside, when they bothered to think of them at all. But every time I felt a small pang of anger burn in me at some casual off-hand remark about the poor bastards who had the misfortune to live in the Rukon District, I felt an even greater one aimed at myself.

I don't know what I expected to be able to do about the sad way everyone in the lower districts was forced to live but something in me was ashamed of the fact that I hadn't done anything. I lived day in and day out, fighting Hollows, doing my duties as the second-in-command of the Sixth Squad, trying to reach a goal that was, by now, completely out of my reach, and before I realized it another year had passed. I'd go visit my friends graves on the anniversary of the day I left them and that life behind to follow Rukia into a new world and it always made me think that despite all of my personal sucess, nothing had changed at all.

"Strange days these," he said in a ruminating tone.

"Waddaya mean?" I asked unsteadily, pulled out of my inner thoughts by his remark.

"First all that to-do with the Ryoka invading, wild rumors flying about it and those folks at the big house don't make any sort of announcement or nuthin'. Then next we know there's Hollows around every corner an' not enough Reapers to keep 'em all down."

Ah yes, first that debacle with those bastards Gin and Aizen trying to kill her to get at that damned hogyoku and Ichigo and his friends rescuing her (when I couldn't). Naturally, after the arrancar battle the Seireitei was going to great lengths to keep things quiet.

"Been awful quiet up there on the hill lately," he added.

And succeeding, apparently.

"Yeah," I said, not really because I agreed with him but because it seemed like he expected me to make some kind of comment.

"You're a quiet one," he noted.

I smiled a little dryly to hear that, because most people who knew me, either in person or by rumor, had me pegged as a loud-mouthed punk. I picked up another shot of sake and downed it without a word.

"So what's 'er name?" the barkeep asked.

I debated not saying anything but then decided, what the hell, he wasn't going to be talkin' to anyone.

"Rukia," I replied.

Right at that moment I couldn't have handled saying her last name, it was bad enough that I knew she was out of my reach for good, reminding myself that she was now adopted nobility and I was still nothing but a jumped up street cur would have just been pouring salt in the wound.

"Nice name," he said. "What's she like?"

How did you describe perfection? She was a thousand contradictory things all made into one person; cool and passionate, brave and vulnerable, powerful and frail... she was my summer and winter. She was my whole world. She was my goal, my unattainable star, I would have (and had) walked right into hell for her sake, I'd follow her anywhere just so I could be by her side.

"She's amazing," was all I said.

"Well, you're not the first man who's walked in here lookin' for a bit of the bottled numb on account of a woman and you won't be the last," the barkeep answered to that. "From what I can tell the breed always seems like they're more trouble than they're worth. Heartache, pain and misery follow in thier wake and that's the honest truth. But... it's also true that they can change the colors of this awful place from drab to glorious with just a smile. One look from that special lady has the power to make this horrible life into something more than just somethin' you bear with every day; they make it special."

I hadn't realized it, but I'd been unconsciously nodding at what he was saying.

"Now you gotta decide if that wonder you get when your lady looks at you and smiles is worth all the trouble that comes along with 'er."

I snorted at that.

:Some decision.:

I downed another drink and nodded at him in a partly friendly manner. He at least had the basics down, even if he didn't really understand the situation.

I couldn't tell him about the real situation, how I'd loved her from as far back as I could remember. How we'd grown up together, gotten into messes and out of scrapes, always knowing we could depend on each other for a rescue if needed. How we'd turned these mean streets into something like a home, and a motley collection of street kids into something like a family. How our family had faded away one by one until only we remained and how I'd followed her into the Soul Reaper Academy. She was going to go anyway, her mind was set on it, and I couldn't let her go alone, she was all I had left and she was my whole world, so I followed her. The academy had been another world for us, a world filled with nobility and incomprehensible (often stupid) rules. It felt a little bit like expecting a fish to fly sometimes but we stuck through it together and eventually carved our own places out. Even though we'd been separated by classes (me in the advanced and Rukia in the regulars) we'd managed to keep a close relationship all throughout the years it took us to graduate... until he showed up.

:Bah!: I scowled hard at my drink, the merest reminder pricking at a continuously sore wound and calling up old and unwanted memories of that day.

I'd just passed my second exam and I was bursting with the news to share with my best friend in the whole world. Sure, by then I'd had other friends in the academy, but she would always be first in my heart. I recalled now how excited I'd been, almost flash-stepping (which was against the rules on academy grounds unless in the training ring) in my eagerness to find her and tell her about it. But then they had appeared before me in the place where they shouldn't have been... a collection of noblemen. I'd recognized them by their distinctive hair decorations of course, someone from one of the Great Noble Houses was visiting Rukia. I remembered feeling surprise and then worry when I saw the look if numb shock on her face. My first thought flashed to Zabimaru, the sword I was just beginning to build a rapport with, my instinctive mistrust of the aristocracy prompted me to think if they'd hurt her in any way then, nobility or not, they were gonna regret it. It turned out to be even worse however, they hadn't wanted to hurt Rukia, they wanted to make her one of them.

I remember how my whole being had seemed to seize up for one instant in dismayed denial. Rukia was my closest and truest friend, the only person I really trusted in the whole world, they couldn't take her from me! Sense reasserted itself an instant later and bonked me on the back of the head telling me not to be so selfish. Rukia was finally going to get everything she deserved, fine clothes, food, a nice place to live... all the things I couldn't give her. And they wanted to make her part of their family, she'd finally have a real family, not just some cobbled-together gang of runaway toughs scrabbling for food and shelter. How could I stand in the way of that? I couldn't, not and call myself her friend. So I forced myself into doing the hardest thing I'd ever done, then or since, I forced myself to smile and congratulate her and act like this was the best thing ever (even though to my lights it was anything but). I desperately hadn't wanted to let her go, everything in me had screamed to hold on to her no matter what... but the one thing I would never do was put myself forward when Rukia's best interests were at stake. I hated it with everything in me, but for her happiness I'd let her go.

:Except that I'm a lot more stubborn and stupid that even i had given myself credit for,: I thought morosely into my drink.

On returning to my barracks and staring up at the ceiling, feeling a gaping hole in my life where Rukia had fit just an hour ago; a sudden, crazy, irresistible thought occurred to me. I'd seen her tears flicker in the air as she'd walked past me, and part of me knew that the decision I'd made might have been the wrong one. I couldn't reverse it, but there had to be something else I could do. In the Academy I wasn't best known for thinking things through and strategizing (rather the reverse being true), but that didn't mean I was incapable of it, it just meant that I didn't waste energy on the stupid stuff. However, I'd been a street kid, a gang leader no less, and no-one who had that kind of responsibility, even if it was by unspoken agreement, got it by being stupid.

There were ways things were done in Hangdog, certain ways to get status in the ever-changing pecking order on the streets. The cunning and the strong could carve out places where they were respected, and any kid who survived for any length or time became instinctively aware of the rules. The mean streets of Hangdog you had to be tough and smart to get by. I applied my street dog survival instincts to the problem before me. The Kuchiki Clan were second to almost none when it came to power and influence in the Seireitei, but there were other ways to reach a level that was roughly equal to that. So then, if I wasn't born into the nobility, and no clan in their right minds would want to adopt a mangy street cur like me, then I'd just have to carve out my own niche there at the top. If Rukia as a Kuchiki was forever out of the reach of a mere low-ranked Soul Reaper, then I'd just have to fight my way to get to where she was.

It seemed a little silly now, but it had been important then... I drawn out my sword Zabimaru and ran my thumb along his edge, my blood welling up and running down his still-quiescent blade ( Zabimaru had yet to introduce himself to me then).

"Listen up and listen good," I told it fiercely, standing alone in the middle of my room. "You an me, we're gonna get to where she is. No matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, we'll claw our way there. We're gonna be by her side again. If there's an obstacle in the way we're gonna smash through it. Ya hear me?! I swear it!"

That was the first time Zabimaru ever roared.

"Was it all for nothing then?" I wondered to myself.

I recalled how I'd pushed myself. Second place was never acceptable to me anymore, I had to be the best. I went back and retook my first two exams, no longer satisfied with merely passing them. I'd gotten a Seat, Twentieth Seat (the lowest) right out of the academy but that wasn't good enough. I pushed myself. I completed every task set to me and then some (even if my methods were a little unorthodox sometimes). I bulled right through the Hollows, Zabimaru and I sliced them up like cutlets. On every battlefield I was the first to enter it and the last to leave it. I practiced and trained zealously when I wasn't out on assignment, pushing myself to get better, stronger, more powerful. I asked for extra training, Ikakku from Squad Eleven even took me on to teach me a few things. Even when Izuru and Momo told me I should calm down and take a break I never let up. Even when I was exhausted and trembling, I would let myself give in.

:I'm sure Captain Unohana got tired of seeing my face getting dragged in every other day for exhaustion or injury from those "training exercises" I took out against live Hollows,: I thought wryly.

I knew for certain that she had a special lecture memorized just for me.

I climbed through the ranks, but slower than I would have liked. First Eighteenth then Sixteenth Seat in Squad Three, then Fourteenth Seat in Squad Seven, then Thirteenth in the same squad, then Twelfth in Squad Two (the ninjas thought that my unusual skill in tracking was something they'd find useful) then I got promoted to Tenth Seat in Squad Eleven, then up through Ninth Eighth and Seventh Seat in the same squad. It took me a number of years but I made it to Sixth Seat back in Squad Five where Aizen promoted me to Fourth Seat. At last a Third Seat position opened up in Tenth Squad and I found myself serving one rank under Rangiku Matsumoto... who promptly pushed all of her unfinished paperwork off onto me, knowing full well how very desperate I was to master all areas related to finally attaining the rank of Vice-Captain. Call me suspicious, but I don't think she gave me the paperwork to help me master the fine art of bureaucracy.

I worked worked myself hard, struggling to acheive through pure strength and detirmination whatever I hadn't been born with naturally. It was embarrassing, but I even asked Captain Unohana to teach me upper class etequiette. If that's not devotion, I don't know what is. But even so, making my way through the ranks on merit alone, without influence or family connections... it's not a swift or sure process. I'd lose a few years here, a decade there, another few years here proving myself over and over again, showing that just because I wasn't high born and just because I'd been an uneducated street dog from the second lowest province in the Rukon District, didn't mean that I could be dismissed out of hand.

The years passed. I barely ever got to catch a glimpse of Rukia and then it was only at a distance. I was powering through the ranks at a rate unheard of from someone of my background and situation but I was still so far away from her. I watched sadly as the Rukia with the wide smile and enthusiastic attitude was slowly reformed into someone I barely recognized, someone remote and distant as a star. Her manner and bearing became queenly but a little cold, just like his. Her face never wore an expression anymore, and I had always thought of Rukia as being very open and expressive. She never seemed to smile or laugh... just like the ass who'd stolen her away from me. He was making her into a little copy of himself and all I could do was stand by and watch! It pissed me off to no end, and I swore that when I could finally stand next to her as an equal that I'd bring back her smile. I'd bring back to old Rukia I once knew. The Rukia who smiled, and teased me about my red hair and yelled at me for waking up late (even though it was her fault in the first place) and agrued with me over who got the last slice of bread for breakfast. I made a mistake in letting her go, but as soon as I made Vice-Captain (which was a rank acknowledged to be roughtly equal to the lesser nobility in the Seireitei) I was going to fix it and bring her back to me.

Except that someone else beat me to it.

I considered that for a long moment staring down into the depths of my little saucer of sake as though it were a scrying bowl that would let me divine a way out of this situation I was in.

Forty years wasn't long as Soul Reapers reckoned time, and two moths was barely an eyeblink to some of them. It was long enough for a backstreet nobody to force his way by sheer power and grit alone to the position of Vice Captain and short enough for everything he'd worked for to be pulled right out from under his nose. I felt bitterness and despair well up in me again and fought them back.

The battlefield I was fighting on wasn't something I could smash through with my sword. The battlefield of the heart wasn't about who was stronger or more deserving. The heart did whatever the hell it wanted, and the rest of you was left to follow along after it. There was no way to force a persons heart into loving someone or not loving someone. There was nothing I could do. I had already lost.

I picked up the bottle and downed about half of it in one large gulp. It burned good.

So here I was, Vice-Captain, Espada Slayer, one of the very few officers that had unlocked their Bankai ( you could probably count the others who had managed the feat on one hand). A stray dog from the Rukon District was holding a distinct possibility of being promoted to Captain of a squad... and I felt like the most miserable man alive. I didn't want to be Captain, and the damned Vice-Captain rank I'd pushed myself through hell to acheive meant nothing to me without her.

In that moment I was simultaneously so filled with sorrow I wanted to crawl into the bottle and never crawl out again, and so filled with rage that I wanted to pick a fight with the nearest thug and let it escalate until we wrecked the place and I was the only guy left standing. Of the two options I naturally liked the second one better. I was even looking around for some poor likely-looking bastard to set things off with when that last little bit of sense still hanging around me chose that moment to assert itself. It told me I had way more power and training than every thug in that whole province put together and that if i picked a fight with any of them I stood no chance of feeling satisfied and someone might wind up dead. I looked around me and found to my dismay that I was right; if I wanted a good fight, I wasn't gonna find it here.

I refilled my saucer of Sake and stared down into it. I'd been down before (frequently in fact) but I'd never been down and out. What the hell was I supposed ta do now?

Here it is, Chapter One. You all might want to get comfortable, we're in this one for the long haul. I want to thank everyone who's been reading and reveiwing my previous stories that I've posted for Bleach so far. I hope you'll tell me what you think of this one, I know it seems like poor Renji gets to be the odd man out again but sometimes a little pain is necessary for personal growth... besides, you have to admit that he lends himself just so well to angst that it's almost impossible to resist. So, please tell me what you think about this one and look forward to the chapters to come.