Author's Note: If this is the first of my stories you've clicked to take a look at, first off – yay, thank you! Rukia has just left Ichigo in the world of the living and is being accompanied back to Soul Society by Byakuya and Renji, so a new chapter arc is about to begin. This is written from Rukia's pov. Since Kubo never followed her this far, we're about to stray off into lesser known territories, so this is an excellent place for you to start following the story.
(If, after reading this, you want to go back to the very beginning, just click on my profile and it will give you access to all the stories leading up to this point, although, if you know Bleach, you probably don't need reminding).
For you fabulous, wondrous people who are following me: Shadewolf7, Truantpony, ForbiddenME, Pinky357, Immortal Vows, Chellythemadhatter, Insomniatic95, Sallythedestroyerofworlds23, UNTensaZangetsu, Xdark FangsX and Superlynx,and BobTheSexyTurtle, .love, Ennaalemap and Makykay15: many thanks for the reviews and support for what is a considerable project.
Just to let you know, the whole series,up to the end of the Soul Society Arc, was written and finished before I began uploading it, so if you do choose to follow it, I won't disappoint or leave it unfinished. If you come with me right to the end….. Well, that would be amazing. Everything will be a little different from hereon in. Kubo's given me the basic yardsticks to build up a picture of Rukia's thoughts, memories and motivations, but I hope you'll enjoy everything that falls in between.
Back to the story…..
"What was he to you?"
They were the only five words her brother spoke to her as they passed through the dangai, the precipice between worlds. When she didn't answer, he continued to walk in silence. Renji too. Years since they had last spoken and now he had nothing to say.
They stepped out of the senkaimon into the monolithic Court of Pure Souls: pillars, halls and courtyards that had stood far longer than the reckoning of human time. And the great double-doored gate between the worlds. It closed behind them, cutting off a source of ethereal light, leaving them standing in a stone square in the heat of a summer's afternoon, an azure sky above, the city of the dead all around them.
She hadn't known what to expect when they reached Soul Society. She had imagined Byakuya would take her back to the manor house. Transgressions amongst the noble families were almost always kept behind closed doors and dealt with by the household, so she was surprised when Renji and Byakuya left her at the Department of Research and Development; her brother, without so much as a farewell. Renji blinked and nodded and said her name, then hurried after his captain. How could she have expected anything more from him?
She was taken into custody by four white-clad guards. They put a collar around her neck from which ran thick lengths of rope that they used to tie her hands behind her back. And, just so, she was escorted into the department.
The people here knew her face. If they didn't know her personally then they knew of her brother and of the name, Kuchiki. They turned to each other as she passed, and she caught her name in whispered fragments of conversation. No doubt this was what Byakuya had wanted: a way to humiliate her so that she would not forget this lesson.
They passed through rooms full of computer monitors and readouts, rooms where display screens offered the only light, their gaudy neon glow picking out the pale faces and white coats of the scientists at work there. Only when she was alone with the guards in the corridor did she dare speak and then it was with a nervous laugh that she tried the bonds on her wrists:
"Come on, I'm not really that dangerous, am I?"
They didn't answer and she steeled herself for the possibility that she might have to play her brother's game through to the end. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, more softly.
"Orders."
"My brother's orders."
"The orders of Central Forty-six."
Her steps faltered:
"What do Central Forty-six want with me?" But again they didn't answer. One of the guards took her arm to make her continue walking.
The Central Forty-six. No wonder Byakuya had acted in the way he did. He could not go against their orders. Nor could she, so ingrained was it in her consciousness that their word was absolute. If they had devised some punishment for her, she would have to weather it with dignity. To go against them was something she could not even contemplate.
Because they were the bedrock on which Soul Society existed, the supreme arbiters. If the shinigami were responsible for maintaining the balance of souls between worlds, then the central Forty-six were the ones who observed and monitored that balance. They issued their orders directly to the Captain-Commander of the soul reapers and such orders were carried out efficiently and to the letter, for fear that a foot wrong could tip the very existence of both worlds. It was not for any one shinigami to understand how the balance could be maintained. For that, they needed to have faith in the body who issued their orders. Blind faith.
How, Rukia wondered, could she have come to the attention of Central Forty-six? She was not important. But, then again, they would not care about that. She thought back to her classes, many years ago: protocol would demand that any crime be taken to them that threatened the balance. If she had misjudged Ichigo, she supposed, it was possible that her actions could have had a devastating effect. The powers she had handed over could have been used to take life indiscriminately. For the first time, she considered what she had done in the cold light of day and realised how dangerous it had actually been.
But Ichigo had let her train him. He had done only the work that she herself would have covered had she been able to continue her commisssion.
So, would they want him?
No. Byakuya would have killed him without a second thought if Central Forty-six had believed him to be a threat. Ichigo, then, was safe, and it fell to her now to accept her reprimand with good grace. If she could do that then she might, at least, succeed in frustrating her brother.
The guards led her to a cell that resembled an airlock, empty save for a raised surface in the middle of the room. It looked like an operating table, though the space was too small and ill-equipped to be a surgery. The guards untied her hands and left her without a word. As the door hissed shut behind them, she sat herself on the table and looked around. The walls were plain, white, offering no hint as to what the chamber was for.
After a little time, the door slid open again and a small man, with vestigial horns sprouting from his forehead, scuttled in. Rukia had never seen him before, but he approached her with a nervous smile:
"Lady Rukia, it is, er, necessary for us to check the level of your reiatsu. If you would be so kind as to hold out your hand?"
She did so and he put a small silver band around her wrist. When it snapped shut, there was no sign of a join. "Thank you," he said and darted out again.
She sat there, turning the silver bracelet around and around. Suddenly, she wished that Byakuya had taken her home. In the face of a thousand unknowns, maintaining any kind of defiance was draining. She didn't like the Department of Research and Development, which was famed for putting its search for knowledge above any one individual's well-being. She was in awe of the Central Forty-six. She had not wished to come to the attention of either. She was tired and miserable and she wanted to go home.
The man returned, pulling behind him a vast machine with wires and buttons and screens. It looked distinctly medical in nature and her sense of disorientation decreased:
"Why am I here?"
"We need to check if it's safe for you to be removed from your gigai."
"Safe?"
"Remarkable technology," he said, as if he hadn't heard her. He touched one of the wires to the band on her wrist and the metal seemed to soften, enveloping the tip of the device before it hardened once more. His finger lingered a little too long on the soft skin inside her wrist: "Truly remarkable. A gigai that obscures all spiritual pressure. Such a shame."
"Why a shame?"
"We have orders to destroy it."
Rukia felt a tug of sentimentality towards the body she wore:
"Why?"
"I don't know." His attention had shifted towards the readout on the machine. He touched some dials and rubbed his chin: "Ah, Kuchiki-sama, are you of a level where you have achieved shikai?"
"Yes."
"But you are currently unable to sense any reiatsu?"
"No." She shifted uncomfortably.
"Truly remarkable."
"The gigai was created tp obscure my reiatsu. I didn't want Soul Society to be able to trace my spiritual pressure," she admitted, but he wasn't listening to her. The readout, it seemed, was far more interesting. When he spoke, it wasn't clear whether it was for her benefit or for his own:
"After you transferred your powers to the human boy, your spirit body would have immediately started to regenerate. But, from the moment you started wearing the gigai, it began to convert the spiritual energy you had left into the bonds that tie the soul to the body."
"That's impossible."
He glanced over, as if remembering she was there:
"Your powers decreased daily. Another week, at most two, and you would have been tied into that body permanently."
"Permanently?"
"Well, at least until the body wore out. Like a human, I imagine."
"I don't understand. What does that mean?"
"For you?"
"Yes, for me!"
"Well." He considered her for a moment: "It makes the practicalities of retrieving the gigai from the soul much more difficult."
"I'm trapped in this thing?" she demanded, a spike of panic barbing her words. Worse than an eternity as a shinigami was surely an eternity trapped in a shell with no powers, no strength. No purpose.
"Trapped? No, no. We're under orders to release your soul from the gigai, Kuchiki-sama," he said, unhooking the machine from the bracelet on her wrist: "I'm to report to Captain Mayuri now. Please make yourself comfortable."
"Hey! No, wait!" But the door had already closed behind him and she didn't need to check it to know that it was locked. Seated on the table, she pulled her knees up to her chin.