A/N: I post this story with great trepidation, because it's the first I've ever posted in this fandom, and Byakuya is not the easiest character to start with. Still, I was inspired to try to get into his head after watching Episode 94, where Rukia wakes to find a cushion next to her, still warm, and she realizes that Byakuya had been watching over her while she slept. I couldn't help but wonder what had been going through his head at that time, and this drabble resulted from that curiosity. Please let me know what you think!
He could not say why he continued to sit there, measuring time with the space between each shallow rise and fall of Rukia's chest. She was under excellent care, he knew, because he had ordered the caretakers for her himself. And his orders were, unquestionably, always followed. Already, she had received medical treatment from the fourth division, her external wounds healed and invisible as if they had never existed. It was the internal wounds that would take much longer to heal, the ones that festered, that turned into silent enemies hell-bent on wreaking havoc on their host.
Byakuya closed his eyes briefly, as the sight of Rukia lying before him became replaced with Hisana's image in his mind's eye. Both so still, so pale, so…fragile. Watching Hisana die, wasting away day by day, losing the battle with her illness…he had hated that fragility, because it meant that she wasn't fighting it, that she was succumbing to her death. And he had despised himself, because he was a warrior, and this was a battle that he could not fight for her.
His steel grey eyes opened, and before him was Rukia, not Hisana. Rukia, who had fought her enemy, despite still being weak from Aizen's attack and the injuries she had sustained in the real world. Rukia, who had only left herself defenseless in order to save the lives of two young children. Rukia, who was not fragile, but a warrior herself. Rukia, whose enemy had a face, had a name.
Earlier, Kurosaki Ichigo had asked him a question. He had asked him if it bothered him that the Bounts had deliberately chosen to attack Rukia because of her weakened state. Byakuya had not answered, not because he did not have an answer to the question, but because he refused to dignify that orange-haired brat with a response that in any way revealed his thoughts on the matter. But he knew that Kurosaki had been correct in his assessment of the Bounts' motives. They had targeted Rukia, when she was alone, defenseless, without even her zanpaktou to aid her in battle. And that was something he could not forgive.
Byakuya rose gracefully from the blood-red cushion, his robes making no more than a whisper of sound as they settled around him. His lips tightened into a thin, straight line, the only outward sign of feeling that he allowed himself to display, even though there was no one to see. His hand went to the hilt of his zanpaktou as he looked down at Rukia for one last, long moment.
This time, there was an enemy to be fought. There was a battle to win. Whether his motive was revenge for Rukia or the ultimate protection of Soul Society, it did not matter.
All that mattered was crushing the enemy.