Title: On Sokyoku Hill
Summary: Byakuya stands at the edge of pain.
Disclaimer: Bleach does not belong to me.
Byakuya stands at the edge of pain, and waits for it to engulf him.
The soutaichou has finished talking, and the assembled group waits for the sokyoku to be released. And in that moment, just for a moment, Byakuya looks up at the sister he vowed and has failed to protect.
Her smile is serene, and her fingers are limp, dangling softly, and it breaks his heart because he realizes that Rukia has never been anything like Hisana. Never, until today, when he sees a calm on her face that is nothing of Rukia and all of Hisana, this peaceful dying beauty of resignation, has Rukia truly looked anything like Hisana.
Rukia has always been much too alive.
Rukia hurts, and Rukia worries, and, alone in the Kuchiki manor at night, when she thinks her nii-sama is far away and can't hear her, Rukia mourns. She is a thousand different people and emotions, and even if happiness never seems to have a big enough portion, she is always so very alive. She is here in a way Hisana, fragile and ethereal, never was.
Maybe that is why Hisana never seemed to leave.
And now Rukia, this vivid picture of all the small joys and excruciating miseries of life, will suddenly cease to be, and the void of her absence will be as solid and distinct as her life has been, instead of the nebulous, formless longing Hisana left behind. She will be gone, and while he no longer has any illusions about it being unbearable, because he has borne so much more, it will hurt.
It will hurt a lot.
He hears the sounds of the sokyoku being released - the surging power, the waves of reiatsu swirling and concentrating, and finally, the feel of burning spiritual energy fanned by the wings of the transformed kikou-ou.
He knows that it is too late: he has made his decision, and the Central 46 have made theirs, and Rukia has made hers, to accept this.
He knows that it is too late: and even that doesn't matter because if he had a whole lifetime, he would still have to make this same decision - and he doesn't think it would hurt any less.
He knows it is too late, even for miracles – but, standing here at the edge of pain, he cannot stop praying for one.
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