When Renji cut off the mental connection from his end and continued on his search through the Katschei's castle for Aizen's heartstone, Rukia reluctantly allowed their connection to fade into the background.
:Typical Renji,: Rukia snorted to herself. :Charging in like an idiot and leaving me to figure out some way to keep everything else together. No wonder I don't have as many problems with Ichigo as any other Soul Reaper probably would… I have a lifetime of experience in keeping hot-headed idiots out of messes too big for them to handle by themselves!:
Soul Society should give her an award or something for all of the non-sense she had to put up with.
:And speaking of non-sense, how in the world do they expect me to just come up with a way to open communications with my elder brother? I can't just make it up by wishing for it!:
She had no idea how she was supposed to go about magicking up some kind of messenger to secretly carry the information to her brother, trying that communication spell that Lt. Kotetsu had used to communicate the message of Aizen's betrayal was a complex and delicate spell that was still outside of her ability to perform (and Aizen would be alert for it anyhow). Perhaps she and Inoue and Hisana, or Isana or whatever or who ever she was in this lifetime would be able to think something up.
Rukia looked over at her reincarnated older sister. Hisana was taller than she had thought she'd be. He skin was a light, healthy bronze. The resemblance to her former incarnation was unmistakable, but her current form looked older and wiser, more mature and capable even in sleep. She looked like an elegant noblewoman. Rukia could easily imagine her standing at her Elder Brother's side and not looking out of place, except that even in sleep her face was a mask of worry and misery. Clearly her dreams were being haunted.
When Rukia examined her surroundings, the silver and crystal mirror that was arrayed opposite their very beds caught her attention immediately.
:This must be the mirror the Renji was talking about,: Rukia thought, suddenly eaten alive with curiosity about it.
Now she sort of knew how Pandora had felt when Zeus had presented her with her box.
:I wonder what's so unusual about it...:
Rukia climbed out of bed, straightening her rumpled uniform. The fact that Renji had cautioned her about it just made her want to look at it even more. He should have known that about her, the moron. Rukia stepped closer to it and looked at her reflection. It started to waver, as though someone had thrown a stone in a still pond. The heartstone in her hand began to throb and hum slightly and it seemed to her that the mirror lit and dimmed in time to the rhythm that she was certain was Renji's heartbeat. They were resonating. A sudden spark of intuition told her that if she closed her eyes and commanded it, that, as the holder of the heartstone and de-facto mistress of Katschei's Realm, the mirror would show her anything she asked...
Including the contents of the heartstone she held in her hands.
An unexpected tug of greedy curiosity, a very feminine wish to know all that was kept secret from her, pulled sharply at Rukia. The idea that she would finally get to know for certain, for once and for all, how Renji really felt about her was a temptation too powerful to be resisted. Their interactions over the years had been filled with playful banter and teasing and bluster but she had always sensed that it covered up something entirely different. Sometimes she felt like they had given each other roles to fill and that there was something else there behind the role she had given Renji, but despite her self-proclaimed bravery in battle, Rukia had never been quite brave enough to ask about it. Part of it was that she thought she might just be projecting onto him what she secretly wanted there to be. She might be a Kuchiki, a rank so high in their world that even a Captain would consider it an honor to approach her, but it was something that had been bestowed on her. Renji might have been a "mere" lieutenant, but he had fought and worked and strove for every single one of his accomplishments on his own strength. In Rukia's mind that still sort of made him better than she. Love and sorrow, abandonment and competitveness, pride and insecurity were the mixtures of their simple and complicated relationship. She couldn't just ask him how he felt about her, she might not (in fact, probably would not) hear an honest answer from him, both because of the impropriety of his attacking her noble brother's pride by presenting himself (a mere lieutenant) before her, and because... because he was Renji and she was Rukia and if he ever did say something like "I love you" she'd never let him live it down. That was also how their simple and complicated relationship worked.
But here... Rukia looked down at the glowing heartbeat she held in her hand. Here she had all of the answers. She wouldn't have to ask permission, or try to wade through the tangled web of their complications to get at the truth, she could just look in and see… and all of the answers she wanted would be given to her. It was the same sort of temptation that came from accidentally running across someone's diary and wanting to read it. Rukia's heart sped up in excited anticipation as she looked back at the mirror and decided she was going to do it. She would see what secrets Renji's soul hid.
Her conscience, inconveniently, chose that precise moment to rouse itself and nag at her.
Renji had given her his heartstone both as a way to protect her and as a sign of his trust in her, she would be acting in very bad form, and betraying that trust, if she just forced her way in and started poking around in all the corners.
:But it's not like he didn't know it was a possibility,: she rationalized to herself. :He did give me his heartstone after all, and if he did that knowing it was a possibility then he probably wants me to look in there and see how he feels about me. Yeah, I'll bet he's just doing this as a way to get out of actually having to say the words.:
The pang of guilt wavered a little in the irresistible pull of curiosity that led her to see what secrets he kept from her. After all, she was his oldest and bestest friend, he had no business keeping things from her. She'd just have a quick look... one quick peek and then she'd put it away. Renji wouldn't even have to know...
Rukia stood before the mirror that wavered and filled with light and held the precious stone cupped tightly in her hands, close to her chest so that she could feel the soothing spiritual presence emanating from it. She closed her eyes briefly and then opened them...
"Show me," she murmured.
"After all... I was the one who didn't let you go."
Rukia stared in rapt fascination at the scene that was engraved so indelibly in her own memory. The day that she was called out from her class and shown to a meeting hall to be greeted by the august personage of none other than the Kuchiki himself, decked out in the full regalia of his office with some of his elders in tow. She'd been shocked and confused by their sudden, strange and inexplicable offer, and truth to tell more than a little relieved when Renji came bursting in to rescue her.
But now she was reliving the moment from the other side of the fence, feeling Renji's thoughts and emotions on that day. So she felt the way he had forced a smile on his face, forced himself to pretend to be happy for her, forced himself to hold back his own wants and dreams with her in order for Rukia to be able to grasp a once in a lifetime opportunity without being burdened by him, someone who wasn't good enough for her anyway. Rukia was dismayed, elated and confused all that the same time to discover that Renji's feelings were not at all what she had assumed them to be. Rukia had always sort of thought that, whatever her own budding feelings for her long-time friend had been, that they had been unrequited and even their friendship starting to fade a little as he apparently moved on without her. It came as something of a shock to her system to discover that that wasn't the way he felt at all. He'd let her go, in fact, pushed her away, because he cared about her? What kind of crazy, mixed-up nonsense was that?
Before the realization could really sink in, Rukia was pulled sharply out of her little dreamworld, by the sharp sting of someone slapping her hand like she was a misbehaving five-year old.
"Bad Rukia!" an unfamiliar, yet somehow very familiar voice scolded her, like a mother reprimanding their child for misbehavior.
Rukia blinked and gaped in shocked surprise at the awake form of her reincarnated sister who looked like she was in full mama-mode and that Rukia was about to get scolded.
"You know better than that!: Hisana continued now that she had Rukia's full attention. "How would you like it if someone went around invading your privacy like that huh? What if Renji had gotten hold of your heartstone? I'll bet you good money he wouldn't have looked in it if he'd had the chance. I'm surprised and disappointed in your behavior."
Hiana held out her hand palm up, with all the look of a mother set on confiscating her child's new toy for misuse of it.
"Come on, hand it over," Hisana said peremptorily. "If you can't be trusted to treat Renji's heartstone right, then you are clearly not mature or responsible enough to have it."
Rukia curled her hands possessively around the stone and turned her body protectively away from the older woman.
"It's mine!" Rukia snapped, not caring that she did in fact sound like a whiney five-year old. "He gave it to me."
"Yes and look what you went and did with it," Hisana rebutted. "That wasn't good of you Rukia, not good at all."
Guilt, mixed with a welter of other emotions, chiefly regret at lost opportunities welled up from within Rukia, making her suddenly start crying. Instinctively she dove for the nearest source of comfort, a woman who should have been a stranger, but whose aura spoke to Rukia on the deep and instinctive level, developed as a baby, of safety and comfort. Hisana caught her in her arms and held her, smoothing a soothing hand over her back.
"How could he keep this from me all this time?" Rukia sobbed. "Why wouldn't he tell me? He could have told me, I would have understood..."
"There there, I know..." Hisana soothed.
"And he thinks he's doing me a favor? How could he just let me go like that? I spent years feeling like someone's unwanted pet!" Rukia continued sobbing, and they were real tears, tears for all the chances missed and roads not taken. "I think I hate him a little for that, and how dare he have loved me all this time and never once let on, never even hinted at it? That Momo Hinomori knows more about his true feelings than I do!"
"Try to look at it from his perspective," Hisana counseled soothingly. "He probably only did it because he felt that it's what was best for you."
"Who does he think he is?" Rukia replied, eyes red and puffy now. "Who asked him to decide what's best for me?"
"True, good love is always selfless," Hisana said. "I wish I could say I've always been a selfless person, but it seems that that isn't true."
Now tears were welling up in Hisana's eyes. Guilt, an old, constant and familiar friend to Rukia Kuchiki welled up in the eyes of her sister's reincarnation as she opened her mouth, clearly to apologize.
"Don't start," Rukia said.
Hisana bit her lip and looked even worse.
"Look, Hisana..." Rukia said softly, looking deep into the eyes of her awakened sister. "I know you tried. I do. But... you were young. I mean, you couldn't have been more than what, twelve when you had me?
"Eleven," Hisana said soft and low. "I was eleven."
"Eleven isn't old enough to be essentially a parent, not in that awful place," Rukia continued. "You were still just a baby yourself, and you would have had reiatsu enough to feel hunger too."
"But I abandoned you, my little sister, my only family. I left you with strangers because I was scared and confused and I... I didn't know what to do. You wouldn't stop crying, and you couldn't eat anything I found for you and I kept getting weaker and hungrier. And... I was so selfish. I ran away because I wanted to eat and I couldn't carry you anymore."
"It's okay, Hisana, it's alright," Rukia soothed, comforting her this time. "I can imagine what it must have been like, lost and alone in a strange, terrible place burdened with something so heavy that it wears you down day in and day out. I think you were strong to try for as long as you did. But you got scared, it's okay, you were just a child. You couldn't be expected to be an adult. Everyone has them, you know..."
"Has what?"
"Moments in thier lives, certain points where we become something other than who we are. Sometimes we can hold the line, but there are other times when its just too much and we do something we never thought we'd do. It haunts us, those decisions, those regrets. You can't take them back, no matter how much you wish it, you can only live on, trying to one day find another way to make it right."
"I went back," Hisana sobbed, begging with her eyes still. "I went back for you, I swear i did. But I couldn't find you anywhere. I looked. I searched for you everyday."
"I know. I know you did sister," Rukia said, sympathetic tears now welling up in her eyes. "And just the thought that there was someone out there, even if I didn't know it, who spent so much time and had so much love for me through my life just makes me very happy in a way I haven't felt in a long time."
They embraced once more, this time as sisters with wounds healed and bridges burned.
"Rukia, can you forgive me?"
"As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing left to forgive. I know what it's like, you know, to live every day, day in and day out, feeling utterly unworthy of being alive. I know how it feels to have every little happiness turn to ash in the wake of shame and sorrow."
"What happened?" Hisana asked, all motherly concern.
"I killed my lieutenant, a man I greatly respected and... admired maybe a little more than was proper," Rukia replied.
She told her sister the story of that night and how the events still haunted her. She'd never been able to confide them to anyone she thought would really understand. Her brother had gruffly congratulated her on doing her duty and Renji hadn't been available at that time to talk to, all of her squadmates (with the exception of the Captain and two First Seats) resented her for what she'd done, and even her dear captain, so understanding about everything else said that she had done the right thing by preserving Kaien's honor. Not one of them really understood. But Hisana did. Her older sister across two lifetimes held her and soothed her while Rukia at last cried out decades worth of grief and pent up emotions, finally letting go of the last vestiges of pain that lingered there in her heart. It felt good, and it built a bond between them that had been a long time in coming. When the last of Rukia's sobs dissipated, Hisana wiped the traces of tears from her face and smiled reassuringly at her younger sister.
"So now what?" Rukia asked, her voice just a little rough from recent greif.
"Priorities," Hisana replied succinctly. "I'm going to go check to see that my son is safe. Then, we're going to see what we can't manage about getting a handle on things around here. After all, it's pretty clear to me that we can't leave things up to the man, they'll just be stupid about it, plotting courses of action with far too much testosterone and property damage."
The two of them shared a very female look and rose as one to go and check on the young boy sleeping in the third bedroom. Isana bent over his form, tears of her own welling up in her eyes from sheer relief.
"He's here, he's okay," the young mother whispered to herself.
Then she straightened her spine and her face settled into an expression that, while still calm and kind, held something more of a valkyrie in it, all steel and resolve.
"He is well, but he is far from safe. As his mother it is my place to see that that situation changes. I believe that I owe this Aizen fellow more than a little repayment for all of this nonsense I have been through."
If Rukia herself had not felt the same way, she would have shivered a bit for what Aizen might just have coming to him.
"That's all well and good," Rukia said. "But as much as I dislike to rain on your parade, what can the three of us do that a full council of the most powerful fighters, strategists and ninjas that the Spirit Realm has to offer haven't been able to manage?"
"Well..." Hisana said, laying a finger aside of her cheek and cocking her head just so, the shine of intelligence in her eyes. "We shall just have to see about that, won't we?"
Her smile, much like the one that Captain Unohana had from time to time, was all womanly softness, but there seemed to be the black aura of danger hovering about it, like wind on the wings of a storm.
:No wonder she was able to stand beside Elder Brother with her head up,: Rukia thought to herself with a shiver. :She may look like an ordinary housewife but there's something about her that feels kind of scary. Like a mother hawk who has had its babies messed with and now intends to eat the perpertators.:
Resolutely, Hisana turned to leave the room with her son in it, softly shutting the door behind them and turning her attention onto other matters to be taken care of.