"You said hell will only take a full soul. What does that mean?" Hisana sat on the ground. The icy door to the hell Hisana was faced with only moments earlier had continued to rage on in its deafening sounds.
"It means Sosuke Aizen stole a piece of your soul to implant a powerful object inside of Rukia without interruption. That piece that lives inside your sister keeps you from death itself."
"I'm immortal?" Shi no Tenshi nodded.
"Only until you find a way to get the missing piece back."
"Find a way? I'm on the threshold of hell's door!" Hisana cast a furtive glance over her bare shoulder.
"You have me. Our abilities Hisana, are so similar that we've been linked together since your first birth. You can do awesome things, terrible things. But you can also do miraculous things. Together we could be unstoppable."
"Cheat death, you mean."
"There are…laws, rules to the power over death."
"Rules?"
"You cannot be revived more than once and you cannot revive others. Not more than once. Death is a prideful being. He doesn't like to be fooled more than once."
"I can revive others!" Hisana jumped up. "I think there has been a mistake. I can't bear such responsibility. I don't want the power over life and death. Just let the underworld take me already."
"Even if I obeyed, you would not be accepted. Not until you get that piece back."
"And if I get it back I die immediately?" Shi no Tenshi glanced at Hisana, her beautiful, meters-worth of hair fell over one black eye.
"No. You get to live until your new life pans out." Hisana's jaw dropped.
"What will happen to Rukia once I find a way to retrieve it?"
Her zanpakuto shook her head. "I do not know. But we must hurry and return you to the Soul Society. Time doesn't work the same as it does to the living souls there.."
"What about when I return? What will change?"
"I'm afraid that's what you'll have to find out for yourself, mistress."
Hisana came to with a snap, unexpectedly, looking around and groaning inwardly. A ringing was quickly fading from her ears. She touched her arms and face in disbelief. She couldn't remember if she had imagined it. She saw her rags and realized she hadn't, otherwise she would be in silks on an estate with a man she realized she was in love with.
There was a crowd of souls very recently arrived in the soul society, waiting to get placed into their proper rukongai districts and directions. Gruff-looking, low-ranked shinigami men were rounding these souls up and guiding them to different lines. She was grabbed by the scruff of her collar and shoved into a line by one man.
"Excuse me! I'm looking for Captain-" The soul reaper rolled his eyes.
"You're not going to be meeting up with any relatives any time soon, miss. Move on!" Hisana quickly remembered how much of a nobody she was. No one was waiting to yield to her every behest. She waited in the line, sorting out her thoughts. She didn't even have her zanpakuto with her to talk to. It was in the Kuchiki estate, no doubt, along with her other possessions. Assuming Byakuya hadn't tossed them to the curb posthumously.
As she got to the front of the line, the Soul Reaper at the gates gave her a once-over before preparing a wax seal mechanically, bored with his repetitive work.
"Name?"
"Hisana."
"Surname?"
"Kuchiki." The soul reaper looked up at her in alarm before busting a gut. Shaking his head in bemusement, he stamped her papers, his shoulders still shook with his uncontainable laughter as he gave her an over-dramatic bow.
"To your respective district, madam." She pouted, clutching her papers, looking them over. But she never understood how the sorting of souls into districts worked. It had always been one of squad three's responsibilities. She was guided to a group by her papers, a group that was then led to a specific district.
Arriving there she pouted at her luck.
Not this place again, she thought. The downtrodden buildings, the carefree drunkards, the shy girls selling themselves in alleys under the guise of innocent street vendors, all of them told Hisana what she didn't want to hear: that she was back in the district she was originally sent to, the seventy-eighth. It seemed escaping the place was much harder than she realized.
She took her first un-labored, deep breath in a long time. Byakuya was still the only thing on her mind. She should have been thinking of how to retrieve her sword and her soul but he was the one thing preoccupying her thoughts and it made her brain feel fuzzy.
Finding her in such a place once was astonishing. For him to find her a second time, in the off-season when all the migrant workers were back and over-crowding the streets, would be impossible. Especially since he thought her dead. The shinigami barked instructions, laws, other various things to the group of bewildered souls that had no recollection of previous lives and who were desperately trying to grasp the reality of the situation, paying the soul reaper hardly any mind. Hisana, still well versed in the laws people didn't obey looked around to begin scouting a place she could set up house. Even if it was only for a night, she needed to afford herself protection.
Once set loose, she walked the roads until she came across a rubble heap by the river that ran through the outer districts. She set about fixing certain junk pieces together, securing the crooked ends together with twine at the top and rocks at the bottom. She threw pebbles on the loose roof to keep wind from carrying her structure away. By the time she completed her handiwork she noticed she had a crowd of curious onlookers.
It was a group of kids ranging in age from toddlers to larger children. Most were scratching their head.
"Oi! What are you doing, building on our property!" One larger boy shouted, scratching dandruff from his hair like a stray dog. He had red hair and reminded her an awful lot of Renji when he was a small boy. She smiled warmly at the thought and this confused the boy. "Hey, I'm talking to you-"
"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was your property. I just needed to find a place to sleep." The boy and other children seemed startled by this. Reading their expressions and judging by the darker dirt stains on the backs and sides of their robes, she assumed that the idea of sleeping under anything other than the stars was unfathomable to them. "Would you like to sleep here with me?" The boy looked at his companions who seemed excited at the idea. The team of kids scrambled towards her asking questions and prodding her. She figured that once she found her way back to the Seireitei, the children could take up the home.
Rukia obeyed her summons by the advisors, arriving punctually. Her silk robes had become a part of her regular wardrobe over the years yet they still made her ill at ease. She entered the room and all heads bowed, chorusing a kind greeting. The advisors were more accepting of Rukia than they had been of their lord's late wife simply for the fact that her presence did not at all interfere with Byakuya's duties.
After all formalities were done away with, Rukia sat stiffly to await what the group of men had to say.
"My lady," Ijiri began. "It has been many years. You have adjusted to the customs and traditions of so many Kuchiki daughters before you. But now we have a crucial proposition for you."
"Yes?"
"We need an heir."
"Excuse me?"
"His lordship has refused to discuss the matter that once concerned him. But we have many eager suitors waiting to be adopted into the Kuchiki clan upon their marriage to you."
"I don't understand. I wasn't born to noble blood."
"A small detail that will be overlooked by your marriage to a distant cousin of the Kuchiki clan. That way the children of your union will be unquestionably a Kuchiki." Soga assured. He handed her a list of names and brief descriptions.
"They will be set up here for a month. We agreed it was enough time for your decision." Yano explain sympathetically, reading her expression of woe. She scanned the list. Four names to start. Three men were third cousins once removed and one was Byakuya's own second cousin.
"Akitada!" Hisana pushed through the sweaty throngs of people. She couldn't believe her amazing luck. She knew squad six controlled various different districts but never assumed they would patrol a lowly district like the seventy-eighth. She had seen her former comrade patrolling the street with two other soul reapers while helping the children she had taken in figure out how to identify and pluck different plants to make dyes that people would purchase for a fair amount of money. "Akitada!" A stunned couple parted as Hisana frantically pushed through them and called out to her familiar. Her calls reached his ears the closer she got. He spun around, brows scrunched in the confusion that someone from the slums should know him so casually. When his eyes fell on Hisana, his expression softened to her good looks. When she caught up with him her face and chest were drenched with her sweat.
"Do I know you miss?" he politely extended a clean handkerchief and she embarrassedly took it.
"I suppose you wouldn't remember me."
"We've met before?"
"As children." Hisana lied effortlessly.
"Children? I was never allowed in the Rukon districts as a boy."
"I was the daughter of one of your family's servants." Akitada seemed to remember something. "What was your name again?"
"Hisana."
"That does sound very familiar." Hisana's face lit up in hope that he would listen to her. "How can I help you, Hisana?" She cast a furtive glance around her and stared back at him.
"Would you mind coming to my house to talk?" He shook his head and proceeded to follow her as they slowly made their way back to a skid row. They walked through a shack that was barely standing. She pulled out the only cushion for him to sit on. His disgust was plain on his face but it didn't bother Hisana because his opinion of her didn't matter.
"I need an audience with your captain." This brought his wandering eyes to meet hers directly.
"It's impossible. How do you know of Captain Kuchiki?"
"He's infamous!" Hisana exclaimed. "How could I not know about him?"
Akitada blinked. "Why do you need an audience with a man as esteemed as him?"
"I can't tell you the specifics." He shook his head regretfully.
"Then I cannot help you." He rose to stand but she grabbed the cloth around his knee and pulled desperately.
"Akitada, please," He sympathetically looked down at her pretty face. "I need this. He'll see me, I swear it!" He let out a deep breath at her touch, and before he spoke again a group of children hustled through the door holding various plants and flowers, crowding Hisana who swiftly released Akitada's pant-leg. She smiled and praised them for their efforts before clearing her throat.
"We have a distinguished guest." The children turned to gawk at Akitada and his crisp shinigami uniform and bowed deeply. They displayed a proper greeting that most rukongai residents didn't know existed. He was fascinated. Hisana turned back and gave the children instruction for certain dyes before dismissing them from the room softly.
"Your children are impeccably behaved."
"They aren't mine. They're orphans that live with me and I teach them how to make money instead of stealing it."
"But they're orphans, street rats." Hisana frowned angrily at the name and Akitada quickly apologized. "I need to return to the Seireitei. But I will return in a few days."
"But I-"Hisana tried to have him hear her request but he flew out the door.
"You seem very aggravated today, Rukia." Captain Ukitake casually wiped away the rogue drops of tea that had splattered from the cup that she ungraciously dumped a serving of tea into.
"I'm fine." Rukia stood, waiting patiently for her captain to give her the proper reports for delivering that she had unwittingly wetted with the beverage.
"You haven't been home in days."
"There is nothing there for me to do. My barracks here are perfectly suited to my tastes."
"I'm sure Byakuya would like to hear from you or even see you from time to time." Rukia let out a snort and Ukitake flinched and added, "Then again, I suppose he does value his solitude."
"He has banned everyone from his quarters except for a select group of servants and people staying in the manor have a curfew so that he is not disturbed."
"I'm guessing the curfew was specifically designed with you in mind?" Rukia nodded to her Captain.
"He also hates it when I bother him with all the inconsequential details of my week. But it's the only thing we can talk about." Her solemn expression pinched Ukitake's heartstrings. He couldn't understand Byakuya before, but to adopt his wife's sister and then ignore her was below the belt.
"Then he probably hasn't told you that the head captain has put him on an assignment this week to the world of the living?"
"Huh?" Rukia's eyes widened. "I was never told about this." Both captain and subordinate lowered their voices. The subject matter was supposed to be for the head captain and Captain Kuchiki's ears only. "Is it a mission like his last?" Rukia's hands tremored and she tried to casually grip her hilt with both hands to play it off.
"I'm dreadfully afraid so, Rukia. Renji told me that Captain Kuchiki was to leave after midday today and wouldn't be back for a full week."
"Renji told you?" Rukia perked up and Ukitake kept his smile from reaching his lips.
"He's a bright man but I'm afraid in this situation his sharpness is only going to hurt him. I've told him to do all he could to not interfere with Captain Kuchiki's assignments but he still insists on keeping track of them and telling me in full detail about them." Rukia grimaced.
"I can't imagine why." Her lie was evident but Ukitake refused to press the matter. "I suppose I will return to the estate tonight. The bed I have there is a little better than the one in the barracks."
"I should imagine so." Her captain smiled. Rukia hesitated in the doorway.
"Captain?"
"Yes?"
"They want me to get married."
"What?"
"The family wants me to marry a distant relative for an heir."
"But you're so young!" Ukitake defiantly stated.
"They hardly mentioned my brother at all," She added and Ukitake flinched once more.
"You think Byakuya commanded them to do this?"
"It is just a speculation." Rukia glumly stared at her socked toes that wiggled around their straw sandals. Ukitake pressed his lips together, trying to find the right thing to say. She was so fragile in every aspect and had become so unreadable with every passing year that he found himself tiptoeing around her during subjects relating to the Kuchiki clan.
Rukia's expression seemed open for input now.
"You know you needn't do anything they suggest. They are after all suggestions."
"But who will continue the family if I don't?"
A valid point, he thought sadly. "There's time. For both of you to figure out the situation. I'm sure if you can talk to Byakuya upon his return he will be clement." Rukia bowed, feigning hope poorly, before taking her leave and returning to her duties.
Akitada kept his word and returned days later. The subject was very much the same as the last time they had spoken. It felt like she was bartering with him and he seemed to not hear her pleas. In fact, his mind seemed somewhere else entirely as she spoke passionately.
"Akitada, please," Hisana was gritting her teeth in her struggle to not throttle his neck. "get me an audience with Captain Kuchiki."
"I'm telling you it's impossible. Men like him don't talk to people like you." Akitada said staring at the blue sky dreamily, oblivious to her impatience.
"Yes, yes, yes," Hisana waved her hand. "Because I'm a commoner and he's a noble-"
"A high noble." Akitada added, chipper. Hisana thinned her lips.
"A high noble. Word on the street is that he was married to a commoner." Akitada's eyes opened in a snap.
"How do you know about that?"
"When a supposed woman from our district is rumored to be wed to a high noble, we can't help but feel a little proud of her." Akitada looked around.
"How do you know she was from district seventy eight? And in the south rukon, no less?"
"Word gets around." Hisana shrugged.
"No, it doesn't. Not concerning that. Not even Lieutenant Abarai knows what district she comes from." Hisana felt her robe sticking to the dubious amount of sweat that had pooled on the surface of her skin. The sudden heat wasn't helping any. Akitada's eyes rounded in realization. "You knew her personally, didn't you?"
"Yes!" Hisana agreed quickly.
"What was she like? She must've been perfect."
"She had several flaws."
"I doubt it. Captain Kuchiki can't even put up with a single wrinkle in our uniforms." Hisana forced a laugh guiltily. He put up with so much.
"She was a lot like me. We were practically the same person." Akitada shook his head vehemently and took both of Hisana's hands.
"You're too good for the captain. You're beautiful and kind. You even take care of orphaned children here! He wouldn't be able to see past your rank. To him, you wouldn't be fit to even kiss his feet." Hisana wiggled uncomfortably to hear Akitada down-talk Byakuya when the opposite of what he was saying was true. She had treated Byakuya that way. Knowingly and then unknowingly.
She tried to slip her hands away from his grasp but he held on tightly. "It's the strangest feeling and I've tried to sort it over in my head since meeting you again, but it's like I've known you before in another life perhaps, like I've loved you before-"
"Akitada!" She tried to forcefully remove her hands but he had gotten much stronger than she ever remembered. He blinked and she knew his eyes were focused on her lips. "Please don't talk like that." He let go of her and she turned her entire body away from him, sliding a few paces down the crooked edge of the river's shore. He slid down beside her so that she was trapped between him and the rushing current.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"I can't love you-"Akitada grabbed her, boldly, in a boyish manner, to kiss her. It was inexperienced and innocent. She shoved him off, standing, and refraining her urge to slap him. "You can't go around ignoring how a woman feels. I tell you I can't love you and I mean it!"
"Why?" He stood to tower over her. He had gotten much larger since she last saw him. His barreled chest was thrice as wide as hers.
"I'm older than you." Feeble, she thought. Akitada gave her a once-over and his lip curled back.
"You're younger than me."
"What? I'm n-"She caught her reflection for the first time in the gloss of the river's surface that they stood by. She was youthful. Her time in the underworld had not aged her. Probably due to the lack of the concept of time. "Akitada, how long has it been since your captain has had a wife?"
"How is this relevant to our conversation?" She sternly locked her gaze onto him and he looked upward, as he seemed to be calculating something in his head. "At least…fifty years?"
"F-fifty?" Her mouth went totally dry.
"Why do you ask?"
"You will get me an audience with him, right?" She reminded. Akitada rocked on his feet.
"I can't make such a promise. He barely speaks to anyone. He doesn't just let anyone into his office."
"What about his home? Could you get me to his estate?"
"Of course!" He smiled, remembering something. "His sister would definitely hear what you have to say. Maybe she would be able to pass on the message." She stumbled back. Her knees nearly gave out.
"His sister?"
"Are you alright, Hisana?" Akitada reached out and grabbed her arm to stabilize her balance. "You look very pale. Are you going to be sick?" She shook her head.
"Who's his sister? I never knew he had a sister when my friend married him."
"I suppose you wouldn't. His clan adopted her maybe a year after the lady's death. It think her name is Reiko or Ryoko, or something along those lines."
"Rukia?" Hisana whispered but her voice felt echoed like she was in a dream-like state. Akitada's features brightened up.
"That's the one! Wait- don't cry- Hisana!" Akitada pulled her into a loving hug and she broke free moments later.
"I think it would be better if you took me to the estate first."
"Very well. I will apply for you to get the proper papers to pass into the Seireitei with me. I'll be able to take you straight there once I talk to his sister." Hisana smiled gratefully and sprung up in order to get her arms around his tall neck.
"Thank you!"
Rukia was about to leave her office for the night when a knock on the door caught her attention. A tall man stood there looking tired yet buoyant.
"Can I help you?" The young man bowed formally.
"I'm very sorry to intrude, Lady Rukia."
"Oh, you don't have to address me so formal." Rukia was puzzled by the sudden visit. She never got visits, especially unannounced ones. The man seemed shocked at something on Rukia's face and she became self-conscious that there was something in her teeth or something she left on her cheek.
"My name is Akitada, the fourth seat of the sixth division."
"So you're in my brother's squad." Akitada nodded.
"I came on the behalf of someone I hold dear. She wants to desperately speak to you about an urgent matter. I was wondering if you would allow her onto the Kuchiki estate to see you. I know it's a lot to ask."
"She wants to speak to me? Who is she, do I know her?"
"She's from the rukongai, actually. You don't know her at all and she wouldn't even tell me what it is she needs to see you about. Well, actually she said she needed to see Captain Kuchiki but I told her that you would be much easier to get ahold of and maybe you would be able to plead to him on her behalf but-"
"I'm sorry I can't help her." Rukia spoke quietly. "I wish I could persuade my brother so easily but he won't listen to me. I wouldn't want to hear her and get her hopes up for whatever it is."
"Perhaps it's just as well. She's from the seventy eighth. It's a very bad place, that district is." Her thin eyebrow rose.
"The seventy eighth?"
"Yeah, the south Rukon."
"The south?"
"Do you know her? Her name is Hisana." The moment the last syllable of the name fell from his lips, Rukia's gut was thrown for a loop. The familiarity burdened her. This feeling mixed with the knowledge of this woman's whereabouts stirred an irksome trepidation in her.
"I can't say. Have her come to the estate tomorrow. I'll make sure the guards on the north gate grant her passage through."
"Really? Thank you, Lady Rukia!" Akitada smiled brightly, bowing once more before leaving her office.
Rukia felt heavy. The random, brief conversation she had just held left her feeling worse than the conversation she held with Captain Ukitake about her brother. Something was certainly amiss and she couldn't help but feel that the two conversations were intertwined.
Unable to shake these musings Rukia extinguished the light in her office, heading for the estate that she had been avoiding since the order was given of her impending courtship.
Author's Note: What is Byakuya even doing?
Everything seems to be going so smoothly… C:
Thank you for your reviews, please keep it up! It let's me know that my writing isn't falling on blind eyes.
