She had been taken out of the Shino early and missed out on nearly two years of her training. She'd barely begun to develop her skills with a sword and had no experience of working as part of a squad. She had excelled in kido in the academy, but as soon as she joined the Gotei, it became clear that her skills were mediocre at best.
All these things were unacceptable to Byakuya who set up a programme of remedial training. The instructors were dour-faced men who fought like machines and, though they adjusted their styles to match her level, they were capable of enduring hour upon hour of heavy combat.
After nearly two months under her brother's roof, she was mentally and physically exhausted.
The man she was fighting barely pulled his blow as he slammed the bokken into her chest, sending her sprawling.
"Get up," he said.
"I'm done."
"Get up."
She rolled onto her side and tentatively ran her fingers from her breasts to her belly just to be sure that all her ribs were still in place. Her body was a mass of bruises. But this was the first time she had tried to call off training early:
"I'm done for today. That's enough."
"We have another hour to complete."
"I can't." She turned her face away as she got to her feet, unwilling to let the man see she was on the verge of losing control. She ached, but, worse than the pain, was the trembling; she didn't trust her muscles to carry her any more. Didn't trust her legs to let her stand or her arms to hold the practice sword.
"Another hour," said the instructor.
"I can't."
"I am under orders to train you for another hour."
"Then I refuse." She loosened her grip on the bokken and let it fall at her feet. She wasn't aware of the other's approach until he spoke:
"You are not at liberty to refuse."
"Nii-sama!" She turned.
As ever, his face was unreadable, but she regretted at once that her exclamation had betrayed the mixture of fear and awe she felt towards her brother.
Since beginning this regime, Byakuya had never once shown an interest in her training, but here he stood, dressed in the white haori of a captain's uniform, his long hair tamed by the kenseikan he wore always to signal his status.
"You are not at liberty to decide when a fight will end unless you have first defeated your opponent."
Rukia stared at him then back at her instructor:
"It's impossible. I'm sorry, Brother."
"Then train until it is possible."
"I can't."
His eyes narrowed:
"Then it will be impossible. You make it so. Where is your sword?" She glanced down with hatred at the bokken. She could still feel the impacts in the sinews of her wrist where she had tried to defend herself. Byakuya made a soft sound in his throat: "Where is your katana? Is the blade sound?"
"Of course."
"Show me."
She stared at him for a moment, then stepped over to where she had carefully laid the zanpakuto aside to begin her training. She unsheathed the blade and obediently held it up so that he could see. He nodded:
"You will fight until the blade shatters."
"Uh?"
"You talk to me of 'possible' and 'impossible' and I tell you: you can fight until the blade shatters. From the moment it is born, it exists as a reflection of your soul." As he spoke, he unsheathed his own blade and held it out, so that the sunlight flashed briefly on the metal: "It alone tells me what is possible." He moved so quickly she had no time to act. And yet her body reacted. After months of training, her sword intercepted his with no conscious thought or movement on her own part. She caught the flat of her own blade against her left palm and the power of his blow rung down both her arms. "Good." Again, he swung. And again, she defended herself. Backing away. Even holding back, and she did not doubt that he was holding back, those blows fell with a power she could barely comprehend. With each one, she felt the breath knocked from her own body. So she was panting raggedly as she parried. And parried again.
He frowned. Changed the angle of his blade. Feinted left. And she missed the tell-tale change in his posture. In the next instant, he had swung the flat of his blade into her side in a blow that lifted her easily into the air. She crashed to the ground, the impact eliciting a cry of pain. "Quick reflexes mean nothing if you can't fight with your head." She saw his feet approaching through the grass and tried to raise herself. It felt as if all her muscles had turned to water. "Get up."
"I can't."
"You're wrong."
He switched the blade in his hand, and she heard it whistle softly through the air. Her body reacted again without her mind. She twisted and caught his attack near the hilt of her katana. And stared. The sharp edge of his blade was pressing down on her sword. If she hadn't parried, he would have cut her.
"What are you doing?"
"Stand up, Rukia."
"I can't."
Another punishing blow crashed across her sword. She caught it, twisted, and rolled out of his way. He was mad. But she was on her feet now. Two steps on, she fell, her legs inevitably giving in to exhaustion. But for now, her fear overrode the tiredness and she was back on her feet, stumbling into the longer grass beside one of the ornamental pools. He came after her with all the grace and silence of black smoke.
"Take your stance, Rukia." When she failed to defend herself, his blade cut through the edge of her juban.
"Hado no san jou san. Sokatsui!" Desperately, she tried kido. He only deflected the fire with his sword and came at her again.
She had come now to the edge of the water and there was nowhere for her to retreat to. She parried his blows until, finally, one hit home, opening up a gash of red in her shoulder. She cried out. He didn't even hesitate. She caught his next attack, and the one after.
"What is it? Are you afraid, Rukia?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"What does it matter? What does it matter right now?"
Tears of pain and exhaustion rolled unchecked down her cheeks. It mattered because she needed to know: had she angered him? More than usual? Did he really hate her so much? He meant to hurt her, but would that be enough? Did he want to leave a scar? Something that would force her to remember? The tip of his blade slashed her right arm. This wound was shallower than the first, but no less painful and her voice broke as she asked:
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter. Concentrate."
She did. She couldn't feel her body anymore. Her muscles were on fire, pushed beyond then limits of her strength. Her movements now came from something else, somewhere else, so it seemed to her that she was standing at a distance, watching the fight. "You have nothing to fear," Byakuya said, in his maddeningly soft voice: "Not because I will not cut you, but because your fear will not help you. Nor will your pain. Nor will your weariness. Nor your anger. Then discard them."
She didn't need to be told anymore. If she so much as acknowledged her body's condition, she knew she would fall to his next blow. She could see herself from afar. Left. Right. He was keeping up a pattern, swinging to one side then the other. He could have ended it in a heartbeat if he'd wanted to, she knew. But he was playing with her.
Playing. Well, perhaps. But she might have found it easier to believe he was enjoying this had his face shown emotion. Any emotion. Anything but that blank, calculating stare.
No. Concentrate. Left. Right.
Instead of parrying the next blow, she feinted and brought her blade in low, under his. She heard his intake of breath. His reflexes were lightning quick and something struck her hard across the jaw, sending her toppling backwards into the shallow water.
She sat up. She'd fallen into water lillies and a few inches of water, but it was still a relief to feel its cold touch lapping about her ankles and hips, quenching burning muscles that immediately began to cramp.
He had stopped. She touched her jaw, expecting blood, but there was only a tenderness that would turn into bruising. He must have struck her with the hilt. Byakuya, standing on the water's edge, was frowning down at his sword hand where a thin stream of blood was coursing into his palm from a cut on his wrist. He looked at his hand, then at her and, in a rare moment of insight, she thought she saw an echo of discomfort in his eyes, brushed aside as quickly as it came. He stepped forward and offered her his left hand: "I did not expect you to cut me."
She stared at it.
After a moment, he let the hand drop to his side: "Anger is a human emotion," he said. Then, when she continued to scowl he added: "Stay there if you will. I would require that you do not disturb the fish unnecessarily though. They are quite sensitive, I find."
As he turned away, she struggled to her feet. As human as it might be, anger was, for now, the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground right there:
"Why?"
"Why?" He looked back at her: "I wanted to show you."
"I know you're stronger than me! I know that! You always will be!"
"Is that what you believe this was about?"
"What else then?"
"You have misunderstood the lesson."
"Whatever you want me to be, I'm not that!"
He turned to face her, his eyes a little wide. He had not, it seemed, expected this. Indeed, for the first time, he seemed genuinely troubled by her reaction:
"Do you understand what you have chosen? This path? The fate of both worlds rests with us and you think it is enough to fight with half your strength? Or a quarter only?" She stared at him, the words sinking in slowly: "The balance. That is what matters. The balance of souls and the laws that govern that balance. That is what we were born for. It is the only reason that souls like ours exist."
"I know, but" –
"Then your anger is a distraction. All your emotions. Put them aside, if this is what you want. They are for the souls in Rukongai, the ones who will circle forever between life and death. Not for you. Clean yourself up," he said, as he turned away.
"Is that what you told your wife?"
"What?"
"That they're just a distraction, your emotions? Fear? Anger? Love maybe?" She shuddered at the venom in her words: "Did you tell her that you never had any intention of being so – human?"
He stared at her. What was that expression? It was so fleeting she couldn't catch it before he turned and started walking away from her. She stared at the white expanse of his back: the flared haori and the black number six framed by a diamond between his shoulder blades.
Then she sunk down in the grass with the sword across her knees.
