Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo!


The whole room had been overturned. Rukia had gone through every nook and cranny she could possibly find. There was nothing. No evidence of more journal entries, and no proof of Hisana's recovery. Finally, Rukia slid down onto the hardwood floor in defeat. "Okay, Hisana, you win. The diary entries get to stay hidden."

Sighing in defeat, she gave the room one last thorough search before admitting defeat and retreating to her quarters. "Perhaps Byakuya has them," Rukia thought as she contemplated the possible locations of the missing entries. "He must have found them," she paused, "or maybe they don't exist." What if the entries didn't exist? Rukia wasn't sure if there was another set of entries, but there was evidence, the snapped strings and missing dates. She prayed that there was another set.

She glanced over to the drawer that contained the entries. Why hadn't her brother found them? Ah, right, he left the room untouched after her unfortunate death. Rukia sighed. Those entries could do much better than sit at the bottom of her drawer. She decided she'd give them to her brother the following dinner.

Reaching over, Rukia's fingers grasped at the frame that contained the picture of Hisana and Byakuya. She wondered what her brother was like when Hisana was still alive. There was no way he could have been the silent, bitter man that she knew today. Was he kind? Did he show his emotions to Hisana? Did he love her? Rukia shook her head after the last question came to mind. Of course Byakuya loved Hisana. If he didn't love her, why marry her in the first place and sully the Kuchiki name?

"He must have loved her very much to go through all that trouble," Rukia thought as she carefully set the frame down in its respected place. Hisana looked healthy in the picture; it was probably taken when they first got married. "Silly me, I never bothered to check for a date," she chuckled, reaching for the frame. Before taking it apart, she stopped. "Maybe I should give this to Brother as well with the letters." She sighed and placed the frame back where it belonged.


"Brother, I got these from Hisana's room. They are her diary entries. I believe you should have them, so please don't be upset with me," Rukia said, trying not to let her voice waver. She sighed and shook her head as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. "No, no, that sounds horrible." She paced around, trying to think of the right thing to say. "Look, brother! I found Hisana's diary entries. Want them? Ohh!" She smacked herself after making the latter speech. "With words like that, he'd disown me from the family."

She bit her lower lip, trying to think. "The truth perhaps? But he's not exactly a compassionate man nor sentimental." Rukia let out a sigh of her pent up frustration and anger. Frustration from being unable to think of the right thing to say to Byakuya. Anger from not being able to find Hisana's other diary entries and unable to think of a question.

"Lady Rukia, it is time for supper," a servant said meekly as she peered into the room. "Lord Kuchiki is already waiting. Please don't dawdle." The servant then scurried away without another word.

Rukia nodded and grabbed the diary entries off her desk. In a rush, she had forgotten the entries were under the picture frame of the noble couple and the frame went flying. Rukia reached out fast in an attempt to catch it but it brushed against her finger tips and hit the floor with a crash. The photo lay in a pile of the broken glass. "Ohhhh," Rukia groaned, "why me?" Already late for supper, she quickly swept the shards and fragments beneath her bed with the photo, deciding to clean it up later, replace the frame and then give it to her brother.

"Brother, I'm sorry I am late," she said as she took her seat and set the diary entries carefully on the empty chair next to her. Byakuya eyed the papers for a moment, but dismissed the thought, believing it to be paperwork. After all, he usually did his paperwork during supper; why shouldn't Rukia do so as well?

Deciding to be compassionate with her questions today, Rukia asked, "How did you and Hisana meet?" She figured she could get him to talk for at least half of supper before she'd present to him the diary entries.

"In Rukon," he answered. "I was sent on a mission to go after a criminal Shinigami. It was in her district and by accident, she had gotten involved in the mission."

'So much for a romantic meeting,' Rukia mused silently to herself as she listened to her Byakuya's voice, going on about the mission and his time with Hisana.

"After the mission, I made excuses to go back to the Districts just to see her. I stayed out as long as I could just to spend time with her. Finally, I proposed." Byakuya finished. Realizing he had gone on rambling, he looked away to hide the tint on his face.

Hearing her brother talk like that was a completely different side to Byakuya. Rukia realized it was a cameo of what Byakuya used to be like when Hisana was still alive. 'Just a regular guy hopelessly in love...'

She took a deep breath and reached for the stack of papers she had set down earlier. "These are for you," she said, her voice already wavering. She held them out for Byakuya to take with shaky hands. Unsure why, Rukia even bowed her head down to him as if she was a lowly messenger delivering something.

He looked at her blankly and then reached across the table to take the stack of yellowing papers. He frowned, now seeing the familiar cursive handwriting and stationery. "Rukia, where did you get this?"

"I'm sorry, Brother, but it's just that you don't answer my questions thoroughly," Rukia said, keeping the waver out of her voice. She tried to speak out confidently. "You're not very good at answering questions so I wanted to find out more about my sister. I found out more from her friends than you've ever told me!"

"You went to Rukon?!" Byakuya interrupted incredulously.

Rukia ignored the interjection, and continued on. "I went into her room. I know you told me not to, but I just had to. It was a way to get closer to Hisana and I found these entries and I kept them to myself, but as her husband, I believe you deserve to know about their existence and at least know what some of her thoughts were!" She stopped herself from going on and just looked at her brother for any sign of reaction.

He was silent, staring down at the entries, not making eye contact with Rukia. She stood there, silent and waiting for some sort of punishment he was going to come up with. She had done so much that was worth a punishment. Sneaking out into Rukon, breaking into Hisana's room, talking back to him, raising her voice at him and even pointing out some of his flaws. Finally, he spoke, "you're dismissed," and then began leafing through the papers.

"He's not mad?" Rukia wondered in surprise as she turned around to leave. She had expected some sort of snide comment like when she had questioned if Hisana really loved him or not. She began to leave and Byakuya let her go without another word.


Once back in her room, Rukia sighed, quietly apologizing to her brother for hurting him like that. She reached beneath her bed for the broken frame and glass. She reached for the photo and set it on her bed while she quickly swept up the glass and put it in the trash. "Well, at least I can see when this was taken," Rukia said, attempting to be optimistic at the current moment.

"What the?" Rukia said as on the back of the photo was not only the date but some sort of poem written in that all-so familiar handwriting. "1943 was when this was taken," Rukia said, getting the date first before reading the poem. "On the back of the mirror, A spring unseen, A flowering plum-tree." (Poem originally written by Basho).

"I wonder what that means," Rukia sighed, reading the poem again. She could have asked Byakuya, but she didn't want to drag him into all of it again. "A clue maybe?" She wondered, thinking outside the box. "But what do mirrors, springs and trees have in common? Well, for starters, trees flower in spring, but how is it 'unseen' and where does the mirror fit into all of this?"

Thinking, she read over the poem again. "On the back of a mirror? Perhaps it is literal?" She instantly thought of the vanity in Hisana's room. There was a mirror big enough to hide diary entries behind it. "But is Hisana a literal person?" Rukia wondered, "and is it that mirror or another one in the house?" She shook her head deciding it would be worth a try and once again, she was going down the hallway.

Much to her surprise, the door was unlocked. She turned the knob slowly and stepped into the room. Someone had been there earlier and Rukia assumed Byakuya. He had left a lamp in there by the windowsill and must have left the door unlocked for the servants to clean the dust. Well, at least she didn't have to tiredly pick the lock and lock it from the outside again and again. She went straight to the vanity and sighed as she pushed her hand behind it into the small dusty space between the mirror's back and the wall. She shuddered in disgust as she fingers tangled themselves in a spider web.

"Oh my god," Rukia gasped as she felt something jammed in there. She tugged at it, but it was hopelessly stuck. She gave it another sharp tug, but it didn't budge an inch. Deciding that she would break whatever it was behind the mirror with all the excessive tugging, she pulled her hand out, wiping the dust off on her robe. She moved to the front of the vanity and secured her grasp on the table front and began to pull.

The vanity moved slowly, making a creaking sound. There was a thunk when whatever object stuck in there hit the floor. A small cloud of dust blew up from the impact of a dusty object to a dusty floor. "Oh god," Rukia sighed, her face contorting into a disgusted expression when she realized she was going to have to stick her whole arm into the squalid space.

She lay down on the floor reached in, past all the dust bunnies, hair balls, and spider webs until her fingers traced over the solid object. She pulled it out and discovered it was a book, thankfully not moldy. She closed her eyes and blew on the book, sending more dust and dirt everywhere. The book was small, leather-bound and with a ribbon for a bookmark. Standing up, she walked towards the window where the light of the lamp and moon could illuminate the book's features.

There was no title on the book, no words on the spine and it was too thin to have been a reading book. And why on earth would Hisana steal a book from Byakuya's library and hide it? She turned to first page; it was blank. She turned to the second, expecting some sort of title page, but all she got was another empty used to be white page. On the third page, written in neatly in the center was: "Property of Hisana Kuchiki." Rukia instantly turned to the next page. That page and the rest of the pages were lined and covered with handwriting that depicted events. Rukia had found the second set of diary entries.