11. mirrors of cloud and sky
Title: Cracked Reflection
Word Count: 391
Rating: G

In the weeks following the Deathberry Party's departure, Rukia had to admit she was a little startled at the turn her dreams had taken. Besides that one intense night in the tower, she had dreamed of Kaien-dono only two or three times, total.

Instead, her dreams revolved around a cracked, blue sky.

After studying the image in her mind after one awakening, she concluded that it was what she had seen when Aizen had made his escape from Soul Society. The clear blue sky with a few wisps of clould, cracked like a mirror showing the blackness beyond and the monsters within the looking glass.

Rukia was uncertain why this image would disturb her unconsious more than Kaien-dono's death. Certainly, it was the moment where the man behind all the efforts to have her killed had escaped, but he'd been more or less driven off.

Not liking that she had no idea what about that image made her so uneasy, she set herself to figure it out. Renji was quite disturbed when he followed her up to Sokyuko Hill and stood back while she went to the spot where Aizen had held her up by the neck and ripped through her body. Slowly, she tipped her head back and examened the place where the sky and been broken.

It was completly unmarred, but that didn't stop her frown.

Just as she was getting ready to give up, her eyes for a moment superimposed the steel and concrete of the human world over the view of Soul Society, under the broken sky. Directly under the cracks, where the monsters arms were reaching was a flash of orange hair and black robes.

Rukia stilled for a long moment as she carefully looked over the view of Soul Society and the unbroken sky, and understood.

"Renji."

"What? Can we go now? This place creeps me out."

"What trouble is Ichigo in now? Tell me."

There was a long silence from him. Then, "I'm not even going to ask how you do that." A slow intake of breath. "He fought with the Arrancar. And lost."

"...I see."

Her greatest fear was that the cracks would she'd seen in the sky would be mirrored in the human world, and the monsters would decend on the happily oblivious population and one substitute shinigami.

"I'm going with you."