She left just before sunset. She had secured Kon in the bathroom by taping him to the back of the toilet and adding an extra strip of tape across his mouth. No doubt Ichigo would find him, but it would buy her enough time to put some distance between herself and the house.
She ran until she reached the road that led to the cemetary, then turned right, away from the parts of the city she knew, along a main road that rose steadily, hugging the side of a hill. The sky darkened and night fell. To her right, she could see the lights of the city springing into life and their reflections in the river beyond. Where the road forked again, she took the downward path. It led her through trees, then past the first houses of an unfamiliar suburb.
And, as she ran, she stilled in herself the emotions that had once been so potent. She felt the old steel running through her body. The clarity of her vocation, the weight of her responsibilities, the laws that, as a shinigami, she stood for and would uphold. Four months was nothing. It was a dream. Barely a heartbeat in her own world. So she would return and she would forget.
His face.
His courage as he had stood, facing the gates of hell.
Running beside her, between the gravestones at the cemetary.
Standing by his mother's grave.
Peering at her face as she had tried to say good-bye.
She thought of Orihime and the other schoolgirls, of their invitation to the beach that summer, of their questions about her and Ichigo; as if, in their eyes, it was possible for her to be with him. They believed that because she had let them believe it. Because she had lied to them. Because she had lied to herself:
"You're a mess, Kuchiki Rukia," she said aloud, slowing to a walk.
"Ha! Rukia!" A shadow brushed past her. She saw the flash of a blade and reacted instinctively, springing away. She caught herself when she heard laughter.
Standing opposite her in the street, having stepped down from the air above her head, was a shinigami she recognised. He looked a little older than she remembered and he wore the badge of a vice-captain, but, nevertheless, she knew him and her heart sank because, of all the people in the world, she had not wanted to lie to him:
"Renji," she said.
"If it isn't the criminal, Kuchiki Rukia."
She put her head on one side, trying to decide if he was teasing her, but there was something more than mockery in his voice. There was anger too: "Where the hell have you been?"
"I've been working."
"Did you forget to report in? Four months, Rukia, and we find you in a gigai, all dressed up like a human girl."
"I'm not dressed up!"
"Do you know who you are? You're Rukia fucking Kuchiki! Don't think you can fool me. We grew up together; we're both from the Rukon. I can see through you now, just like I always could."
She stared at him; there was no mistaking his fury now. The tone she had first taken for mockery was merely restraint. He was shivering as if the emotion would consume his whole body: "Where the hell do you get away with dressing up in human clothes? Where do you get away with wearing such a human expression, Rukia?" He took two steps towards her across the tarmac and added, more quietly: "So, tell me, where is the human boy who took your powers?"
"Who told you I'd lost my powers?"
"Don't fuck with me. Where is he?" When she didn't answer, he moved to within an arm's length of her and drew his sword: "Tell me, Rukia, or I will cut you."
He wouldn't. Not Renji. She held her ground, her jaw set, determined to call his bluff.
He swung the sword. She felt it bite into her cheek before he brought it round again for a second blow. This time, she tried to dodge. He was too fast her. It opened a gash in her arm and knocked her off her feet, and blood began to flow from both wounds. Panting, she stared at him in disbelief. She saw a stranger. Not the boy she had grown up with.
He was a spirit from another world. That knowledge closed over her like an icy hand. If she was no longer a part of Renji's world and she could have no place in Ichigo's, then where did she belong now? She searched his face, but found nothing but cold anger. "Where is he, Rukia?"
"I don't know."
"The next cut will kill you." He started to walk towards her. He didn't hurry. He carried the sword as if it were an extension of his arm. She didn't need to sense his reiatsu to know that he was powerful and stronger now than the last time they had trained together. "The Central Forty-six chose to send us to find you. They thought it would be a mercy."
As he spoke, another figure faded into existence behind him. He was of a slighter build than Renji, with long black hair that he wore clamped into silver hair clips. Over the black shihakusho of all shinigami he wore a white cloak, apparel that marked him out as a captain amongst the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. Rukia's breath caught in her throat:
"Byakuya nii-sama!"
"Rukia." The figure acknowledged her with a nod. He kept one hand on his sword.
She had no way to defend herself and no intention of betraying Ichigo, so if they meant to kill her, then they would have to kill her. And it was better that it was them and not two nameless shinigami coming for her out of a sense of duty. But would they see it through? Renji put his head on one side, puzzled by her hesitation. He hadn't expected this.
"What do you think, Captain Kuchiki?" he asked her brother, but, if Byakuya replied, she didn't hear it because, suddenly, a burst of blue fire roared down the alley. Renji sprang out of the way. And all three of them turned towards its source.