He wanted to run.
He wanted to scream at the gods for the amount of misfortune that had just been laid upon him.
Hisana was gone. Too many times to count in the past year, Byakuya had woken up in cold sweat, reaching out for his wife. But he found the other side of the bed cold with her absence every time.
He still remembered the morning she had died as vividly as though it were yesterday. He remembered the pain, the guilt, the overwhelming sorrow.
She was sorry? For not being able to repay the love he had given her? It haunted him. If she died thinking she had been anything less than the most perfect being in existence, then he had failed her.
And then there was her dying wish, which he was about to fulfill.
"Byakuya-sama, please find my sister."
He had done so. And that was the saddest thing of all. Had she held on for just one more year, she could be standing here with him, ready to hold the sister she had searched for all those years. But fate had been cruel.
"And if you find her, please do not tell her I was her sister."
No matter how often he had tried to convince his wife that she had only done what she thought was best, her guilt had never faded. If anything, it had grown. But he would respect Hisana's wish, no matter how much his heart longed to tell the girl waiting outside the door that someone had spent her life devoted to her, dying for her.
"So please, I hope you will let her call you 'brother', Byakuya-sama."
"Rukia of Inuzuri is here, sir," a woman's voice said, deeper and yet richer than he had expected, "I humbly ask permission to enter."
The elderly servant standing beside him turned towards the door, "You may enter,"
Byakuya inhaled, preparing himself. He did not know what to expect. Hisana had said Rukia shared her likeness, the one time she had spotted her in Inuzuri. But how much did they truly resemble each other? Surely if they were uncannily alike, among her many trips to Inuzuri, someone would have mistaken Hisana for Rukia, and they would have found each other.
The door slid open, and a dark-haired girl slipped inside. She kept her head down as she closed the door and bowed to them.
His eyebrows knitted together, though he tried to keep his face blank; they were similar. They shared the same petite frame, and Rukia even kept her hair the same length, coincidentally. But all siblings could be so vaguely alike.
The servant spoke again, kindly. Byakuya was surprised, though not unhappy, that he seemed to be extending unusual respect to someone not of the nobility, "Rise. We can hardly speak with you if your voice is directed at the floorboards."
He watched her slowly raise her head, appraising the other three men standing around him with certain apprehension. And then she raised her eyes to his.
Whatever he had been expecting, it had not been this. He lost himself, his reiatsu suddenly uncontrolled, but he barely noted it. 'They could be twins,' he thought, horrified.
He was looking directly into the eyes of his beloved wife, but within her eyes was a different story. Hisana's had always exuded warmth when she would look up at him – on their nightly walks through the grounds of the manor, beaming up at him when he returned home, smiling sleepily when they laid in bed at night. Rukia's eyes were becoming more foreign by the second. They stared up at him, fixed; a faraway emotion lit in the depths, becoming more and more frozen with what he realized with alarm was fear.
"Byakuya-sama. She cannot right herself under this pressure."
Byakuya's thoughts came to a halt, quickly getting his reiatsu under control, reeling in the power which he now realized had been affecting Hisana's younger sister so far that she was on the verge of collapse.
She walked towards them, her eyes now cast downward. The servant began to tell her of their purpose here, and she responded to him in her now-cracked voice. It occurred to him how odd it was that he was meeting his sister-in-law for the first time, although she could not be allowed to know that.
He felt his heart sink as he observed her. Her skin was now covered in a light sheen of cold sweat, brought about by his sudden loss of control. While at first glance her eyes had held a trace of determination and strength, she now seemed drained.
Two minutes in the presence of Hisana's treasured sister and he had already made a grievous error.
Of course he had.
What reason would she have now to accept the adoption offer? He had terrified her. What person in the right mind would accept being his adoptive sister after he had practically attacked them?
The servant had finished explaining the proposal, and Rukia had begun to fidget uncomfortably, whether she noticed or not. And he saw that same spark of determination ignite in her eyes again, with a mix of what looked like anger.
She opened her mouth to speak, "I—,"
The door opened with considerable force, a red-haired student rushing into the room, "Rukia! How do you like me now! I passed the second phase! Now if I pass the…next…"
The boy had looked up to see who Rukia was speaking to. Byakuya noticed the boy staring at him, analytically, it seemed. He watched the realization of his station settle into the boy's face as it became frozen with his childish excitement over his grades.
His reiatsu flared again, but he did not rein it in. Rukia had already suffered from it, so it was safe to assume it would not shock her a second time. It was the boy he wanted to intimidate, if only subtly. This meeting could not have gone much worse, and the red-headed statue frozen just inside the doorway was not helping his mood.
'Neither of us is in any mental condition to consider this further. In either case, her mind is likely made up. I've failed as an older brother before I've even begun,' he thought darkly, disgusted with himself as he left the room, and Rukia, behind.
"She is…healthy, Hisana," Byakuya managed to choke out. He stood in front of Hisana's memorial portrait on a wall of candles and other deceased members of the family – like his parents.
Coming here never elicited anything but grief for him, particularly with Hisana's passing so fresh in his life. He always made sure to come at night – it had been their favorite time of day, and if he came at night, the chance that a member of the family would come by accident and catch him with tear tracks on his face was much less likely.
'I think…I think I've already begun to fail in what you've asked me to do. But at the very least, whether she agrees to enter the family or not, I will do everything to ensure her safety.' He lapsed into simply speaking to her in his mind. Did it matter, in the end?
'I do not wish to cause her pain by being thrust into a new life, as you were. If you were ever aggrieved by something I could have fixed…I promise I will not fail you by letting her experience the same grief.'
'I will protect her, as you asked. I will not tell her the truth. However, for whatever it may be worth…'
"…I think she would prefer you as a sister than me as a brother."