First off, I'm sorry for taking a huge break and not updating you guys on this story's status. I had so much planned for this but a lot of things kept me occupied. It's been a long time since then and I feel picking up from where I left off wouldn't work out. So now I'm labeling this story as "incomplete" and taking this final chapter to reveal some things I was planning on doing:
Why Kinomi died at a young age: Remember how Ichigo and his family have a high reiatsu? Kinomi is the same, except her's grew at a faster rate than the rest of the family. Her physical body couldn't grow as fast as her reiatsu, so it ended with her body failing on her and being unable to support her spirit.
How she raised to Lieutenant so fast: This relates to her rapidly growing reiatsu from above. Being in Soul Society relieved the pressure on her body. The spiritual environment was able to help her body support her soul, and made it easier for her to control her reiatsu better. Already having an advantage in a large supply of reiatsu, going through the academy's training was easier for her than others. It was going to be revealed that she still has problems honing her skills, due to her power still growing abnormally.
I don't remember what else I was going to do with the story at the moment. If I'm missing something you want to know, please feel free to tell me via IM or review, and I will answer it in here. Meanwhile, I'm going to start on a Prince of Tennis story. I feel my writing has improved ever since starting college and I want to see the results!
Thanks to everyone who stuck with Seireitei's Snowflake as long as you did! Once again, I'm sorry it ended this way, but I'm grateful for anyone who took their time to read this! This is now officially INCOMPLETE.