"Your sister is very ill," Rukia's new brother informed her. "You must not say anything that will distress her."
Rukia stood, straight-backed and wide-eyed. In the scant hours since she had arrived at Kuchiki Manor, she had been scrubbed to within an inch of her life, stuffed into a stiff satin damask kimono, and had her normally intractable hair tugged and twisted into as respectable a hairstyle as the grim-faced maidservants could manage.
"Yes, Brother," she murmured. That's what the maids had told her she must say. They told her to speak softly and keep her eyes lowered, not to shout assertively as they taught at the Academy.
"Do not mention that you were attending the Academy or that you plan to become a shinigami. Do not speak of the hardships you faced in Inuzuri. Tell her that you are in good health. Tell her you are grateful that the Kuchiki have adopted you. Tell her that you forgive her."
"Yes, Brother," Rukia repeated.
Her new brother was not like anyone she had ever met. He was powerful, more powerful than any of her teachers at school. Her roommate had told her that as both Gotei captain and head of one of the Five Great Families, he was one of the most powerful people in all of Soul Society, despite his relative youth. He wasn't mean. Rukia had known lots of mean people. Everyone in Inuzuri was mean, even her and Renji and Fujimaru. Mameji hadn't been mean, and neither had Kosaburou, but maybe that's why they had died first. Most of the people at the Academy were mean, too, but not all of them. Renji's new friends were nice, and so was the hakuda teacher and the pretty upperclassman who led the catch-up group for students from the Rukon who weren't very good at reading.
Kuchiki Byakuya was something else. He was too powerful to be mean. He existed and people scurried about, doing whatever he said. Rukia was one of those people now, too, she supposed.
"She may wish to call you," Byakuya then said a name Rukia had never heard before.
"Why?" Rukia asked, so confused that she forgot she wasn't supposed to say things that weren't "Yes, Brother."
Byakuya stared at her with his cold, grey eyes. "Because that is your name."
Oh. Rukia hadn't thought about her Real Name in a while, probably not since they had required her to write a surname on her enrollment forms. When she said she didn't have one, they wrote down Inuzuri instead, because Seireitei people were very invested in making sure she never forgot where she came from. When she was little, she had rather liked the idea of having a name that was so secret, it was even a secret from her. There was power in names, but no word would have such power over her, because Rukia was a mask, a form of camouflage.
But when Byakuya spoke The Name out so casually, Rukia realized that in disuse, it had lost all its power. It was nothing to her. Just some sounds. Perhaps there were kanji to go with it. She didn't care.
"My name is Rukia," she informed him.
Kuchiki Byakuya stood and Rukia could feel his reiatsu swirl around the room like a living thing. She braced for the rebuke. She didn't think he was a man who yelled, but he might be a man who hit, or he might be a man who had other people yell and hit for him.
"I shall call you Rukia, as you request," he finally replied. "But you will allow my wife to call you whatever she wishes."
"Yes, Brother," she replied.
He was not going to reprimand her, as it turned out, he was just tired of the conversation. He swept from the room. The silent servant in the corner made a little motion, and Rukia realized that she was supposed to follow.
Kuchiki Manor was a terrifying place of identical, inscrutable corridors, the Seireitei in miniature, but Byakuya treaded its halls as though it rearranged itself according to his whim. Rukia trailed closely on the tail of his flowng silks, afraid that she would be lost if she strayed from his wake. They would have to send an expedition out to find her, and that was sure to make Byakuya cross.
They eventually reached a doorway that looked like every other doorway in the house. A woman opened the door and spoke to Byakuya in hushed tones that Rukia couldn't catch. "Wait here," Byakuya ordered Rukia. "I will summon you."
Rukia peered through the doorway into a plain, sun-splashed room. The outside shoji were thrown open, and the smell of fresh flowers from the garden almost, but not quite covered the miasma of looming death that filled the room.
It was a much nicer place to die than the moldy squat where Mameji had coughed himself to death, in Rukia's opinion.
Byakuya knelt at the side of a futon spread out on the gleaming floor. Rukia couldn't see the person lying there, but she could hear Byakuya talking to them, his words unclear, but his tone gentle.
You can order me about all you like, Rukia sang in her head. It will not give me the ability to make her live.
Byakuya turned and gestured for Rukia to approach. The nurse immediately took Rukia by the elbow and ushered her closer, as though Rukia might be too afraid to approach. There were certainly things Rukia was afraid of, though she didn't like to admit it. Dying sisters was not one of them.
Lady Kuchiki was dying very beautifully, at least. Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent, her cheeks and lips lit a pretty pink by what was surely a low-grade fever. Her dark hair looked soft and silky, and Rukia longed to touch it. She was easily the loveliest person Rukia had ever seen.
"Hello," Lady Kuchiki said, her voice vague and dreamy. "Are you really my sister?"
Rukia blinked, unsure. "I'm told so," she replied. She wondered, suddenly, if Byakuya might be trying to slip an imposter past his dying wife. She wouldn't mind if that were the case, although he could have brought her in on it.
"Yes, of course, she is," Byakuya assured them both, with complete seriousness. Rukia was honestly starting to wonder if this guy was for real. "She came from Inuzuri. She is the right age. She looks very much like you, Hisana, and her reiatsu is similar to yours."
"Oh, I am sure you did a good job, Byakuya," Hisana mumbled. "I just thought she might be a dream. Hello, sister! What are you called?"
"Rukia," Rukia replied. Hisana had asked. Byakuya hadn't told her to lie about it, only to answer to the False Name if Hisana wanted to call her by it.
"Oh, that's such a nice name! Did you make that up yourself?"
"Yes," Rukia replied.
"You're here," Hisana sighed, reaching out one of her thin bony hands. Slightly reluctantly, Rukia took it. "I looked and looked for you in Inuzuri. Imagine you finding me here instead! You must be very clever!"
"I was very good at hiding," Rukia replied, letting Hisana encircle her hand with fingers like bird-bones.
Byakuya's eyes narrowed at her.
"Rukia," Hisana said, her voice sounding very pained. "I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I left you. I have regretted it every day since. I couldn't think of another way, but I should have-"
"I forgive you," Rukia interrupted her. Rukia was a very good liar, and this was an easy one. How could she possibly forgive this strange, porcelain doll of a woman whom she hadn't known existed until a day ago? And for what? Rukia had known plenty of horrible people in Inuzuri, people who hurt or stole or delighted in casual cruelty. What had this woman done? Looked out for herself? Good for her! Renji had almost gotten himself killed once, for Rukia's sake. She'd never been so mad at him before or since, and she'd make him swear never to risk his life so cheaply again. Presumably Hisana hadn't always been so frail, but who's to say they would have had a better life together? They had both made it out. If things had been different in the past, maybe they wouldn't have. Regretting what they had done to get here was too close to tempting fate for Rukia's tastes.
Hisana's chest was wracked with a sudden fit of coughing, which she tried awkwardly to cover with her other hand. "Don't," she wheezed. "I don't want you to forgive me. I just want you to know that I am sorry."
"Hisana," Byakuya said, and Rukia was surprised at how tender his voice could be. "I know you are excited to see your sister, but you mustn't overtax yourself. Rukia is still settling in. Let's let her get back to unpacking. You can see her again tomorrow."
"It was nice to meet you," Rukia said, the way Renji's polite friends would have.
"I'm sorry," Hisana repeated as her nurse dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. "I'm sorry!"
Rukia felt a touch at her elbow and realized that the young woman who was responsible for making sure she looked correct and got from place to place was hovering gently behind her. She could still hear Lady Kuchiki's apologies as she was pulled from the room.
"What's wrong with her?" Rukia pestered her keeper, whose name turned out to be Mikan. Over the next few weeks, Rukia's hours would fill with tutors and instructions in the strange activities of noble ladies, but her arrival had been so sudden that no one knew what to do with her, so she sat in the garden, watching Mikan embroider. Her stitches were small and precise, like marching ants.
"Hmm?" Mikan asked.
"Lady Kuchiki," Rukia repeated.
"She's ill," Mikan replied, still focused on her sewing.
"Is it contagious?" Rukia asked morbidly.
"Of course not," Mikan replied, her voice mild. "You and Lord Kuchiki would not be permitted to see her if that were the case."
"I took a healing course at the Academy," Rukia announced. "I learned about some diseases." Rukia had really enjoyed the healing class. There was an entire track you could take, and apparently a division of the Gotei was devoted to the art. Most of the snobs at school looked down at it, but perhaps they didn't know what it was like to watch a friend die slowly of chronic lung rot or glow with the high fever brought on by a broken bone. Besides, unlike most of her other classes, she actually found the subject interesting.
"It's something that cannot be healed," Mikan said.
"Did something happen to her?" Rukia pressed. "Did she get attacked by a Hollow?"
"You shouldn't worry about it," Mikan said stiffly, tying off her thread. "She did not get attacked by a Hollow."
"Do you not know, or did Byakuya tell you not to tell me?" Rukia pestered.
Mikan's lips pressed into a thin line. "Both," she said under her breath. "And please call him 'Brother.' Or Lord Kuchiki, if you prefer."
"How long have you been here?" Rukia asked.
"Two days," Mikan admitted.
"Two days!" Rukia exclaimed. "Do you think they hired you on purpose so you wouldn't be able to tell me anything useful?"
"I think they hired me on purpose because they needed another lady's maid," Mikan corrected. "Ladies of your status usually have a personal attendant."
Rukia's brain still refused to grasp this concept. Mikan, with her crisp uniform and neat hair and quiet voice, belonged here in Kuchiki Manor in a way that Rukia wasn't sure she ever would. "Aren't you curious, though?"
Mikan stuck her lower lip out thoughtfully. "Well, yes. But I am also interested in keeping my job."
Rukia wondered, not for the first time, about the security of her own position in Kuchiki Manor. She couldn't be fired from being adopted, could she? Sent back to the Academy, if she failed to prevent Lady Kuchiki from fading away? She wondered. She wondered if that would be so bad.
Rukia half expected that Lady Kuchiki would die in the night. That would certainly fit with the strange, fairy tale quality her life had taken on.
Lady Kuchiki lived, though, and the next morning, Rukia found herself taking breakfast with the lord of the manor. She made the mistake of eating as soon as the food was given to her, instead of waiting for Byakuya. She didn't get yelled at, though, unless you counted Mikan's furious whispers (Rukia did not; Mikan was not scary at all).
Byakuya was dressed in his shinigami clothes- an outfit similar to the one he'd worn when Rukia first met him. He'd traded out the flowy, gold-trimmed haori he'd worn then for a sturdier, sleeveless one, a captain's haori. Rukia wasn't one of those people who swooned over Gotei officers, but she found herself longing to see the six slashed out in bold black strokes on his back.
Byakuya hardly said anything while he ate, which Rukia found profoundly off-putting. Mealtimes were one of the only times she had been able to consistently spend with Renji since coming to the city. Back in their lazy Inuzuri days, he talked a mile a minute while he ate. Forced to fit an entire day's worth of events into three thirty minute meals, he now talked five miles a minute.
Rukia tried not to think about that. She had forbidden herself from missing Renji. It was best, for her and for him, to make a clean break of it. He was proud of her and happy for her. She owed it to him not to look back.
Of course, Rukia couldn't talk to Byakuya. She was only supposed to speak when spoken to, and she had nothing to say to him, anyway. She wished he would say something to her, anything. Ideally, he could tell an exciting story about some gnarly Hollows he had slewn, but she'd be just as happy to hear about his snobby noble friends or whatever boring books he liked to read, anything to fill the horrible silence.
Finally, after he had finished his meal, her noble brother addressed her. "I am going to work. Hisana was not well this morning. She needs to rest. You will not be able to see her. Perhaps, this evening. After I return. If she is feeling better."
The day passed with agonizing slowness. Rukia attempted to read a book, a novel that had been selected for her, but the plot was insipid and the dialogue stodgy. Mikan started her off on her own embroidery project. It was a simple thing, meant for a child. Even so, Rukia struggled to get the tiny needle to go where she wanted and made a hopeless tangle of the embroidery silk. The best part of the day was when she was permitted a brief turn about the garden, even though she was shadowed by the purple-clad House Guard the entire time.
Byakuya returned in the evening, as promised, his white coat disappointingly un-splattered with the blood of his enemies.
Hisana had not had a good day.
They ate dinner in silence.
Hisana was unwell again on the third day, which is the same day that The Tutor arrived.
The boredom had been better.
In the days that followed, Hisana's condition did not improve, but neither did it take any dramatic turn for the worse. Twice, Rukia was bid to come see her sister. Byakuya was present at both occasions.
Rukia had slowly been getting used to Byakuya. He was sort of like a particularly awe-inspiring natural object, like a large tree or a rock. He might not provide much in the way of conversation, but he didn't require much, either. Hisana seemed oddly immune to his imposing aura. She would slump against his shoulder in a pile of gorgeous shawls, like an elegant doll discarded by a careless child. She would occasionally ask for a sip of her tea, or to have a shawl added or removed, and he would oblige with surprising tenderness.
Rukia gave brief, anodyne and mostly fabricated reports of her studies. She related the dreadful afternoon she had spent at the home of Byakuya's aunt, drinking grassy tea and having the accomplishments of four indistinguishable female cousins enumerated for (presumably) her inspiration.
No matter how cheerily she tried to relate these doings, Hisana's face would always turn sad, and she would begin to apologize and say "I wish…I wish…" Byakuya would pat Hisana's hair and thank Rukia for her visit, and then she would be hustled off by a servant again.
"Did she seem any better today?" Mikan would ask as they returned to Rukia's rooms.
"No," Rukia replied.
"Oh. Well, I'm sure you're a comfort to her, at least."
Rukia was not so sure.
It was Saturday, and a particularly clement one. Byakuya did not usually go to work on Saturdays, and he and Hisana were sitting out in the garden. Rukia had been expecting a summons all morning, but when it came, it was not the one she expected.
"Lord Kuchiki has been called away to work," Mikan explained. "Lady Kuchiki would like to remain sitting in the garden, so you are to keep her company." She paused. "You should bring your embroidery."
"Give me your embroidery," Rukia demanded, "so I can pretend it's mine. Mine is terrible."
"You don't understand," Mikan explained, "You're supposed to sit there and do it."
"I can fake that," Rukia insisted.
Mikan gave her a very stern look.
"If the shock of my awful embroidery kills her dead, it will be your fault," Rukia insisted.
To her deep shame, Rukia's bullying skills failed to overcome Mikan's love of rules, and she arrived in the sunlit garden, clutching her little basket of tangled silk and stabamajigs.
Hisana was sitting up under her own power for once, although her eyes were half-lidded and sleepy. Rukia did not have much experience with cats, but her sister reminded her very much of the orange one that used to hang around the back of the Academy cafeteria, which was very well-fed and never seemed more than a quarter awake.
Hisana was more awake than she seemed, though. Her head swiveled slowly around at Rukia's approach, and a smile crept onto her face as Rukia stumbled through her formal greeting, then murmured something polite in return.
Rukia took her time arranging her kimono after she sat down, and then took even more time unpacking her embroidery basket, hoping her sister would lose interest in her. It didn't work.
"I loved doing embroidery," Hisana sighed. "I will make Byakuya show you some of the obi his grandmother made. They're so beautiful and clever! I learned a few of the stitches, but then my hands got too shaky."
Rukia finally got around to pulling out her work. It was supposed to be a little rabbit jumping beneath a summer moon. In actuality, it was a beautiful abstract composition of colorful, hideous tangles of embroidery silk. Rukia poked at one half-heartedly with her needle.
"Not everyone is good with their hands," Hisana admitted gently.
"I'm good with my hands," Rukia assured her. She was aces with a lockpick, for one thing. "I'm just more used to doing, um, practical things."
"Embroidery can be quite practical," Hisana pressed. "Some of the stitches are very useful for repairing bad tears, or covering stains. You can make a practically ruined garment look even better than new."
"Oh," Rukia replied, and thought of Kosaburou. He'd been the best at mending and alterations, keeping them all in clothes that fit reasonably well. Rukia had always liked his neat, even stitches, but he would have loved to learn a fancy trick to make his patches look more decorative.
Hisana gave a few coughs into her handkerchief, and sniffed. "I would have taught you. I would have fixed your clothes for you." She wiped her nose with the handkerchief. "If I could get better, I would teach you, but I don't think that's going to happen."
Hisana glanced over at her maid, who watched them both with sharp, concerned eyes. "Yoshiko," she begged. "It's so warm today. Could you get us some cold tea?"
The maid shot Rukia a glare that said she would be held personally responsible for any harm that befell Lady Hisana in her absence. Rukia looked down at her disastrous embroidery, and wondered why anyone trusted her with anything.
Hisana waited for Yoshiko to disappear inside before she spoke again. "I am going to die. No one wants me to say it, but I think it's going to be soon."
Rukia wasn't exactly sure what to say to that. In Inuzuri, the proper thing to do in this situation was to talk about the new life Hisana would have to look forward to in the Living World. But in Inuzuri, you weren't supposed to form attachments, and if you did, you weren't supposed to admit it. Hisana had a husband who adored her and a beautiful home and Rukia didn't blame her for not wanting to let go of them.
"Byakuya has promised me that he will take good care of you. He can be…stiff, but he has a good heart. He keeps his promises. I have been a bad sister, but at least I could do this. I wanted to do more. I am sorry."
Rukia set her jaw. Maybe she only knew how to be an Inuzuri person, but that was Hisana's own fault. It was better than being silent. "Shut up," she said, very quietly. "I didn't come here to be taken care of. I came here to meet you."
Hisana blinked at her, surprised.
Do not speak of the hardships you faced in Inuzuri, Byakuya had told her. Fine. She wouldn't.
"Inuzuri may be a dump, but I had friends there, people I loved. They're…elsewhere, now, and I wouldn't trade knowing them for anything, so stop feeling bad about leaving me there. I'm not mad at you, not even a little bit." She wrinkled her nose. "You're not dead yet, and I would like to know as much of you as I can while that's still true. So stop wasting my time with all this 'sorry' stuff. If you get better, you can be sorry then."
Hisana stared at her for a long minute and Rukia started to get worried that maybe yelling at a dying woman wasn't a very good idea after all.
"There's not much worth knowing," Hisana finally said, her voice creaky around the edges, "but go ahead and ask, if you have questions."
There was a jerk in her gut as Rukia realized she had waded into hazardous waters. In the first hours of learning she was to be adopted, she had wondered frantically about what her sister would be like, and had abruptly stopped when she had learned the state of her sister's health. Attachments were dangerous, volatile things, and opening her heart to someone who was actively dying was a tremendously foolhardy undertaking. Like it's ever stopped you before, a voice that sounded an awful lot like Renji's echoed through her head. Whether or not he was correct, she realized that if she ever did see him again, she would never be able to look him in the face if she hadn't done her best to get to know her sister.
"What were you best at in Inuzuri?" Rukia demanded, because that's what Renji would want to know, too. Maybe she wasn't supposed to talk about her time in Inuzuri, but Byakuya had never said she couldn't ask about Hisana's.
Hisana thought for a moment. "Inuzuri? Fast talking, probably."
Rukia nodded. A very useful skill, and one she was not too bad at herself. "Is that how you snagged Byakuya?" she asked, lowering her voice.
Hisana gave a delicate little snort that turned into a soft cough. "Oh, no. No, I tried everything to keep him from falling in love with me, and it didn't work. It has proved to be very useful as the Lady of the Kuchiki, though."
Rukia nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe I was wrong earlier. Maybe I do need you to teach me things. LIfe in Inuzuri made sense to me, but I am completely in over my head on this noble stuff. Byakuya's aunts are gonna eat me alive."
Hisana gave a tiny head shake. "It's all the same, it's a confidence game. Look. You know how when you are cheating someone at cards-"
"Cards?" Rukia echoed. "I don't know how to play cards. We watched people gamble sometimes, but cards were hard to come by, and none of us knew the rules anyway."
Hisana blinked. "Oh!" She thought for a moment. "Now that I think about it, I suppose it was a bit of a wild story, how I lifted my first deck of hanafuda cards. It was on my way back to Inuzuri, after I failed the Shin'ou entrance exam."
"You did what now?" Rukia exclaimed, and promptly stabbed herself in the thumb with her embroidery needle. "Ow!"
Unfortunately, just at that moment, the door to the house swished open, more forcefully than Rukia would have expected from Hisana's gentle maid, perhaps because it was not. It was, in fact, Hisana's angry husband. For a brief moment, Rukia's muscles locked in terror.
Before his feet left the engawa, though, he took a deep breath through his nose, and peace came over his features. It was a rather remarkable transformation. "Hisana, I am so sorry," he exhaled. "Once again, the truly mind-boggling incompetence of my fellow Gotei captains has wasted my time and yours."
"Who was it this time?" Hisana asked. "Not my dear friend Shunsui?"
Byakuya glowered. "Shiba."
Hisana smiled. "Oh, you must forgive him, Byakuya, he has a good heart."
"If only he had any kind of brain whatsoever to go with it." Byakuya took a moment to take in the scene. "You seem very cheerful. I take it Rukia has been an adequate diversion in my absence?"
Rukia's thumb stung awfully, and she squeezed it in her fist, willing Byakuya to notice her as little as possible.
"Rukia has been been wonderful," Hisana replied, "and I need you to teach her to play koikoi."
Byakuya's face lost its battle with placidity and crumpled into confusion. "What? Why?"
"I will eat all my soup every day if you let Rukia come visit me and teach her to play cards," Hisana announced. "It will be fun for me to watch and when I am better, I will teach her to play zanmai."
Another emotion broke across Byakuya's face, and even though Rukia hadn't known him for very long, she could tell that it was a great rarity to witness this one.
"Hisana," he said quietly, "you know I am not very good at cards."
"I know," Hisana replied. "But you are very easy to cheat against, and that is the important thing."
