Chapter 3: New Orders

She knew she could win and that's when Rukia found herself in a dance, lost in a pattern of pushing and pulling to the music of ice and water.

Somewhere between Metastacia deflecting everything she could throw at it and Captain Ukitake gathering his feet long enough to distract the hollow, she had managed to freeze Kaien's body and that's where it got weird.

Sode no Shirayuki moved and she felt her spirit move, but she didn't move. There was a push and a pull in her ice that rang through the air and right into her very core. It made her heart skip beats and her breathes come quick and choked as if there was water filling her lungs. Her Zanpakutō felt hot in her hands but all around them the rain slowed and the puddles on the ground froze. She could feel every blade of grass, every leaf on the forest floor. Every rain drop hovering around her, every cell in Kaien's body.

He wasn't dead. The hollow hadn't taken him completely, there was still hope. She knew she had to do something. That's when she felt it; the ice pulling at her and as she closed her eyes she could see it move and pulse as it wound around Kaien's spirit; separating him from the hollow's dark binding tendrils. All around a small white spirit blue and silver battled black and red and Kaien's body looked so frail and breakable.

Spirits were so easily broken and for the first time ever Rukia realized just what she was fighting for.

A spirit can't defend itself. That's what I'm here for.

Racing forward Rukia cut at the black wisps trying to break her ice. Her sword went right through them and they didn't stop their assault, but she heard an inhuman scream and found herself smiling. She wasn't going to lose this round. She wasn't going to lose Kaien or her Captain.

Water surged and there was a deafening echo of glass shattering all around and Rukia found herself on her knees, Kaien in her hands, shivering and coughing up water like he had just been pulled from the bottom of a lake. She quickly turned him onto his side and looked around the glen frantically. Captain Ukitake was shakily picking himself off the ground; his captain's jacket had been discarded at some point and his remaining uniform was torn and bloody. Her Zanpakutō was yards away, sticking up out of the ground with the blade down, its white hilt encased with ice. She didn't even remember letting go of it. She didn't remember…much of anything.

That's when the silence hit her. The hollow was gone.

The hollow was gone and Kaien was here and… she won? She won.

She won.

Roughly one month later...

The fact of the matter was that being near death and being involved with death was something that came with his job. Being a Shinigami, Kaien's very existence was to deal with death in every shape and form that one could find it. The good, the bad, the depressing, the happy and everything in between; death took many, many shapes and he was familiar with them all.

His job was to fight for, against, and with death; to do everything he could to keep it equal and balanced while his heart still beat, his lungs still breathed, and his body still moved. At least… that's what he wanted to believe. Whether he could truly live up to those words now was a different matter entirely.

Miyako was not as lucky as Kaien this past month. She was slain by the same creature that had very nearly succeeded in killing Kaien. And now with his wife, his best friend, and his greatest reason for living gone, Kaien wasn't sure how he was supposed to keep the equilibrium between life and death when his own life was now completely out of balance.

The monster was cunning -especially for a hollow- with its ability to take over the bodies of Shinigami and control them. Miyako was sent out with a team to investigate after another group of Shinigami disappeared and Kaien had had a bad feeling at the time about letting her go, but she had insisted that it would be fine. Her smile convinced him…it always did. Soft, pure, and confident; the minute her delicate lips curled upwards, the strong Vice-Captain Shiba would instantly cave every time.

Miyako was the only one to return that night— unconscious and beaten, but breathing. That was all Kaien had cared about; she would wake up, her wounds would heal, and life would go on.

And then she woke up.

She woke up and left a trail of bodies in her wake as she escaped the sanctuary of the 13th Squad and fled to a widespread forest in Rukongai. Kaien knew from the minute he saw the massacre that his wife was already gone, but that didn't stop him. He knew she was dead and he knew it was a trap, but still Kaien threw all caution to the wind and took off after Miyako into those woods and searched. Searched and searched and searched until his feet were hurting and his clothes were torn and his body was so hungry and thirsty that the idea of food or water made him sick.

If it was for vengeance, purpose, or just because he had lost all sense of sanity he couldn't tell.

The whole night was a blur in his mind: searching for Metastacia in between raindrops and lightning strikes, followed by a short and very one-sided battle once he found the vile Hollow. His Captain had shown up somewhere in the middle along with Kuchiki Rukia and saved him before he too could be consumed and lost like Miyako. He had screamed for them to go; to leave him with the hollow so that he could exact his revenge, so he could join her. Nothing else mattered to him at that moment. But two days later he was waking up in the fourth squad buried under some smothering emotion he couldn't describe. He was angry for being alive and uncertain about how to carry on without Miyako.

He had friends and mentors there alongside him but it felt like forever since he realized he wasn't alone. His body healed quickly and he resumed his duties but it was like he was walking through a dream. Like the past month was nothing more than just a really bad nightmare and he would wake up soon, but in the end he knew the reality of it all. She was gone and he was alive and he had to press on no matter what because, as his Captain told him, that is what Miyako would have wanted him to do. To keep doing his job and to continue to be the person she fell in love with.

So he buckled down and tried his best to put on a good face and keep his usual jokes rolling like he always had, but that was exhausting on a good day. He was tired and feeling like anything but himself and while no one said anything to him directly, he knew that everyone could see it. He noticed the way they tried to laugh a little too much at his cracks and the way they picked up his slack when he forgot to do something in his duties. No one would get annoyed if he was late or blame him for snapping in a moment of emotion. He appreciated it at first, but now it was starting to get on his nerves.

He wanted everyone to treat him the way they used to because maybe if they did that, he could start to feel more like his old self. But the catch twenty-two was that unless he started acting like his old self first they wouldn't treat him that way. So it was up to him in the end to change, but he couldn't find the motivation to do that.

Not here, not right now.

Kaien looked at the ornate headstone in front of him where he sat on his knees; its usual grey was reflecting a deep orange from the setting sun behind him. Reaching out he traced the simple rose above Miyako's name and let his arm fall limply back to his lap. He knew there was a reason to keep moving forward, he just didn't know how to put one foot in front of the other right now. He would figure it out again one day or at least… that's what he desperately hoped. He felt like he knew who he was supposed to be, but at the same time he'd forgot how to be that person.

She told me to keep walking and I will. Somehow. Some way.

Soft, wary footsteps shuffled through the gravel behind him and stopped a couple of meters away; Kaien didn't need to turn around to know whose light steps they were. Usually he would have been able to sense her presence long before he would hear her, but lately everyone has been catching him off guard. "Kuchiki, what did I tell you about sneaking up on your senior officer?"

"S-sorry," Rukia cut off as Kaien turned to face her, forcing his cheekiest grin in some ploy to let her know he was just trying to joke around. It wasn't very convincing. Still, Rukia smiled back and tried to counter the uncomfortable air she felt more often than not around her vice-captain these days. "Captain Ukitake is looking for you."

"Is he now?" Kaien stood up stiffly. He had been kneeling for a long time; longer than he had been intending, which was a usual occurrence recently. Time swept past him and he wasn't sure if it was too fast or too slow, but in either case it was ticking by and he was staying stagnant. "Where might I find our dearest Captain?"

"He is still in his office."

"Geez, this late?" Kaien shook his head as he walked towards Rukia and slung an arm over her shoulder to drag her along with him. The young girl always looked full of life, her large eyes shone with curiosity and she was always eager to learn something new. Kaien had spent many days training with her but ever since Miyako's death, he had barely seen her. He felt bad about keeping his distance but Rukia took it with the same ease as she did most other things.

The two walked in silence for a while and Rukia eventually shrugged out of his arm to trail behind Kaien a couple of steps. She seemed to be doing that a lot recently; staring at his back as he walked away, his shoulders a little lower than they used to be and his feet less sure of where they were walking. She wanted to talk with him but she didn't know what to say. She had never been very good at comforting others, especially those she looked up too. They were supposed to be the strong ones, the ones who knew what to do and where to go. He was the one that had taught her to use her Zanpakutō; he was the one that was there when she discovered its beautiful shikai form. He had hugged her and told her she was on her way to be a great Shinigami.

Now he was lost and she was useless. Rukia found herself in that position a lot and she hated it more than anything else.

It was a short walk to Captain Ukitake's office, but Kaien took his time and it was almost dark by the time he was knocking on the captain's door. Rukia left with a quick bow and good-bye, and Kaien watched her dash off down the hall before turning back to the closed door when a voice spoke up from beyond it.

"Kaien, you should know better than to knock on my door." The older Captain's gentle voice was muffled behind the closed door. He smiled as Kaien poked his head inside and gestured across the table where a steaming cup of tea was sitting. "You never had to do that in the past so you don't need to start now. Take a seat."

Kaien cringed as he thought about his stiff knees. "I've been sitting for a while; I think I'll stay standing if that's okay."

Ukitake nodded. He looked over his vice-captain quickly as he slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him before putting a piece of paper that had been on his lap on the table. Kaien looked like his old self minus the slouch in his stature, but Ukitake knew better. The vice-captain was tired and lacking motivation, the Captain hoped he was about to do the right thing. He slid the paper across the table letting his fingers linger on the top a moment before leaning back. "You have been given a new temporary assignment."

Kaien didn't move for a second, eyeing the paper warily like it was a bowl of old fried rice he wasn't sure he wanted to eat or not. Slowly he stepped forward and picked up the paper and read it over once. Twice. When his eyes went to the top of the paper for the third time Ukitake began to get nervous. He couldn't tell if Kaien was angry, glad, or even if he thought it was some joke, which is what the old Kaien would have played at after reading the notice just one time through.

Kaien looked up at his Captain in disbelief; this couldn't be serious, it had to be some joke. Temporary as it was, they were expecting him to leave the squad for an extended period of time? Was his demeanor falling apart that much? Had Captain Ukitake and the rest of his friends lost faith in his abilities as a vice-captain?

"Sir," Kaien started slowly as he looked Ukitake dead in the eyes. "This says that I am being sent into the field to supervise over a town in the human world called Karakura?"

Captain Ukitake simply nodded.