I was too complacent in my assessment of who my enemies were. Byakuya thought grimly, the pressure behind his closed eyes growing sharper, almost stabbingly painful, as his calm, indifferent demeanor began to fray at the edges. That famous stoic Kuchiki mask was about to crack; about to hatch something he had no name for, but it wasn't good. He knew that with certainty.
Is this week sent from the deepest bowels of hell, specially addressed to me?
Byakuya felt as though he was caught up in the current of a tremendous river, whisked along by its whim with barely any control over the state of events of the last few days.
As the hours passed since this day dawned, Byakuya had stopped counting his deep, calming breaths. They were less effective in their utility the more of them he took inside of himself. He was no longer feeling the efficacy of their vaunted serenity upon his spirit, but he was still trying to ebb the fury burning just below the surface. Stemming the flow of his anger as much as possible.
He needed to think and process what was happening, then bring to heel those responsible for this disgrace at his manor, because he couldn't just let this go; he couldn't allow them to get away with this. Therefore, he needed to be rational and calm.
Yet he was grappling with his temper, grasping for cold logic in this turmoil of temptation because it's easier than thought to tap into the reservoir of reiatsu at his disposal; like a sharp blade taking to soft, vulnerable flesh.
Damn it! No. I must not. I will not. Byakuya reproves his wayward thoughts again.
It was useless to give in to the tempting offer his emotions were offering; Byakuya knew that. Plus, he's not the type of man who can get away with an attitude of 'to hell with the consequences,' now was he?
While many believe him to be a man of unbending clout and mythical wealth beyond their imagination, possessing the ability to do as he will at the flex of his fingers, what they cannot begin to fathom is that power and position are expensive mirages—beasts that need to be fed constantly or they'll turn on their handlers. If Byakuya makes a misstep, it can be costly both in the long run and immediately, and not only to him.
The lord of a clan represents his entire clan with every breath he takes. If Byakuya loses face, his entire clan suffers from embarrassment.
To be dealing with this uncalled-for disruption imposed on him today is maddening. He had a plethora of things on his plate to do and not enough time to complete every task. And why is it happening? That's where all of this does not make sense; however, he spins it in his head. In the collective breadth of his memory, Byakuya cannot recall ever giving a woman a second glance to communicate a node of reciprocation for whatever antics she or they thought would get his attention for a moment. Yet they humiliate him like this!
Why are they all here?
Byakuya could understand if this situation grew from an official announcement of his and Rukia's decision to get married. He could foresee some grumblings and a bit of protest in that circumstance, in which the Elders would need to intercept and soothe any ruffled feathers from among the leaders of any noble family who felt slighted by the Head of the Kuchiki Clan; considering that they might have introduced their eligible daughters to Byakuya in the past, (and most have). It would be logical that some houses would feel insulted, coming to their own conclusions that he had made a mockery of their family and had been pretending to be a grieving widower, who wasn't entertaining lovers all this time. But that wasn't the case at all. There is no marriage.
Again, why are they all here?
As more reports and letters came in from his spies and the few servants he's allowed close to him in this crisis while he continued to witness the devastating occurrence live and in living color through the windows of his relocated quarters, Byakuya's expression grew colder and his thoughts became darker. He wanted all of them gone from his property; he wanted them gone now, but how to do that?
How should a man respond to this overwhelming force that greeted his senses? What words should he employ to describe the sum of his disgust in totality with the whole opportunistic feminine gender who had loftily decided in their collective cliques to imprint their will on his reality, intruding on him and everything he stands for and had planned to tackle this day?
The long, black cascade of tresses flowing down his back stood out against the light blue material of the robes he chose to wear this morning, the thick strands sitting on his shoulders like a dark cloak. The kenseikan was out of his hair, left in a safe behind one of the many tapestries along the walls of these apartments, and secretly under guard. Contrary to popular opinion, he didn't sleep with it in his hair to keep it protected, given that it's valuable enough to buy three mountains and more than a few noble families outright.
As a result of the morning he's been enduring, Byakuya made sure to exile every woman servant from his presence. He didn't care if that was unjust, he's about had enough of female attention for a score of lifetimes.
This was a dirty play, an injection of turbulence into his life he neither wanted nor asked for, and by 13 hells, how he resented its stifling present and those who brought it to his doorstep.
Since the days of his youth, women have had their sights set upon Byakuya, not only because he's the head of one of the most influential and wealthiest clans in the Seireitei but also because of his countenance given his lineage.
As a boy with a boyish perspective, Byakuya had not taken notice that his father, Sojun Kuchiki, was an exceptionally handsome man or that his mother was an unrivaled beauty and an embodiment of grace. What boy does? He only understood that they were parents, and he should respect, love, and obey them in all things.
But as he came into his maturity, with experience's horrible lessons clawed in his spirit over the decades, Byakuya made sure to cultivate a perpetual habit of disinterest in whatever schemes noble and common women alike believed would get his attention. Disdain for how they are willing, by extreme means, to go about tearing each other down with sharp tongues, brutal scandals, and lies all in the name of him looking favorably their way made Byakuya avoid women almost exclusively because of their sly natures.
What sort of trust foundation can a man build on such shakey grounds? As much as he is a master of spiritual reiatsus, when dealing with the opposite sex, he cannot understand the motive for what women did majority of the time.
Byakuya's witnessed women, just to obtain his approval, get one another kidnapped, flogged, wrongfully imprisoned, given extra duties, embarrassed and humiliated, brutalized, or set upon by ill-suited males, only to get closer to him. It disgusted him, and he made no pretense of hiding his disgust from them through his attitude or expressing with his spiritual reiatsu how their uncouth methods, ploys, and tricks only bought them his displeasure. But what was happening at his gates right now was organized. They have never been organized before.
Thanks to the information from his spy network, he now knew that each of his gates boasted an average of 90 to 150 women; their total numbers were close to 500, inclusive of their servants and attendants, and they were growing frighteningly by the hour, with the north gates being the most flooded.
Like an evil fog, they creeped out of nowhere onto his manor, and not even his most adept and sneakiest spies caught wind of what was happening before it was too late. This incursion is what caused him to relocate in haste from his chambers at the main house.
Caused me? Byakuya dwelled on that thought for too many heartbeats as the realization settled on his mind like fine powder; his mood stretching between annoyance and bewilderment. Before he registered his actions, he had begun pacing from one spacious wall to the next, deliberately moving from the large windows framing the view of his ruined day. They caused me to relocate. What is this?
In one play, the women of the nobility quarantined him to his estates, and he had it confirmed that it is only women of noble birth who are driving that rabble at his gates.
Why, they were even so bold as to send me their houses' insignias with each letter, rubbing my nose into the fact that I can't touch them without the detrimental political repercussions my clan would face if I but laid my hand on my sword. My house is infested, and I cannot so much as swipe at the rats.
Byakuya had no intention of reading any of their letters, of course. He wouldn't waste his time poring over what these women had to say to him. He wasn't exercising consideration for them in any way.
At this time of his morning, Byakuya would be in the middle of his training regiment, his muscles well-warmed with a good amount of sweat running down his back and legs, soaking in the fabric of his training clothes. It's been that way consistently for more than a two centuries.
Now his morning was ruined, if not the rest of the day as well, and he couldn't see how it wouldn't be even if all the women were to disappear like vapor on the wind. His schedule is in a state of disarray because of them.
He suspects treachery, of course; how could he not? Not for the first time, the elders have played dirty tricks on him to get their way when Byakuya puts his foot down on decisions they tried to impose on him. He wouldn't put it past them to hatch schemes to make him bend to their will. Therefore, it is not out of the ordinary for him to have questions plaguing his thoughts, like:
Are the elders behind this?
Did they organize this because I rejected that ridiculous notion of marrying Rukia?
How else could this have happened without my spy network being able to counter it beforehand?
Are my spies collaborators?
Is this Kaito's revenge for beating some manners into him?
Besides Byakuya, the Elders are the only other body of power at the Main Branch Estates, but he couldn't just go around pointing fingers without any proof. He had to admit that this scope of influence, organized between the time of the meeting and now, is far-fetched even for them to collaborate, but he couldn't sweep the possibility of it off the board yet.
Did the Elders plan this as a contingency, calculating that I would reject their proposal at that meeting? And if so, what was this supposed to make me do? No, that doesn't make any sense. He dismissed the thought. Patience. There are too many questions to think about. Too many possible outcomes and no clear path yet.
Byakuya Kuchiki felt like he was in a bad dream and unable to wake himself; he must be. What else but a nightmare could produce what is transpiring?
Have I finally gone paranoid, unable or unwilling to trust anyone, even my own spies and advisors?
On the part of the spies, he had only suspicions, which he will investigate later. On the part of the Elders, he had more than just cause to not trust them explicitly, specifically based on patterns after meetings on the topic of an 'heir' that went poorly, which is almost always the outcome. Though they behave with deference in public toward their young Leigh, it wouldn't be the first time the Elders struck out against Byakuya by proxy.
He glanced at the growing pile of letters challenging the might of his paige's organizational skills and inhaled deeply, trying to calm the heat in his veins, his thin lips—a flat frowning line on his face. Byakuya recognized the symbols of prominent houses easily enough by scanning the ring signates on the front of each letter. Not only because he had to know all the house insignias and crests by eye but also, not two decades before, most of these houses were suggested by the Elders as candidates for him to be wed to, and not for the first time either. He's been repeatedly told that these women are the best options for him as 'wife material,' as if he couldn't make a coherent decision on that for himself.
I made the right decision by not following my elders' suggestions and marrying anyone from the noble houses they wanted to tie me to. Byakuya thought surly as one more letter made its way to his paige, who cataloged it by house and rank in a book and then placed it among the rest.
"How many?" He asked the boy unexpectedly.
The son of a servant, Byakuya has known him from the first day of his existence, and though only 80 summers, the lad is extremely intelligent, competent, and fiercely loyal to him personally. Many times Byakuya has tested the boy, and he has yet to disappoint his Lord, a feat not many in his service can boast about.
"752, my Lord Byakuya Sama." The sandy-haired lad promptly responded, his voice cracking at interesting points as he spoke. Just then, another pair of letters arrived. "757," the paige updated him blandly, and Byakuya nodded, turning back to the window.
He'd told himself repeatedly since this day started that he would analyze these events as they unfolded stoically, without emotional interference, but holding on to that conviction was getting harder by the minute as his irritation climbed over his indifference inch by steady inch, like a bathtub filling up with acid.
Byakuya recalled how the elders hounded him relentlessly, going so far as to cook up elaborate match-making schemes to get him alone with eligible ladies in dark, secluded locations to create the illusory appearance that he was secretly enjoying rendezvous with them, trying to trap him into a marriage of honor, twistedly in the name of the maiden's virtue who agreed to entrap him in the first place.
When his battle with Ichigo Kurosaki concluded with him needing level-6 surgery immediately after he rescued Rukia from Gin Ichimaru's piecing sword, there was a reason he requested to stay at Squad 4 under the care of Captain Unohana to recover his strength: despite the number of physicians Kuchiki Manor has on staff and far more comfortable beds, it was safer there than at his home. At no time can he ever allow himself to be vulnerable, and to be honest, Byakuya no longer understands what it means to let his guard down and relax.
On more than one occasion, Byakuya's come home from the barracks or fresh from the battlefield, injured and bandaged, only to find his bed chambers occupied by a scantily dressed female waiting for him-(when they bothered to greet him dressed at all)- believing that their nakedness would be more impressive or attention-grabbing than decency in an appropriate setting. Members of his staff would find themselves out of work immediately if he was feeling generous.
Of course, the next day, a scandal would break out like clockwork. Something along the lines of how 'the 28th Head of the Kuchiki Clan has a taste for young males rather than willing new bile females.' or 'Byakuya Kuchiki only married a common woman as a placeholder for the role of Lady Kuchiki, as he continues his sport with males from his barracks.' Or 'the grandson of the great Ginrei Kuchiki is only proficient with a standard-issued sword of steel, not the one he was born with.'
Those rumors are often propagated by the females he shooed harshly from his bedchambers or tossed out as they were when they became adamant about offering him their sexual wares. But the same baseless rumors were equally ignited by the Elders through proxy. To pressure him into marrying someone of their choice, they'll go to different lengths, regardless of how tinted their actions become.
But what those women wanted wasn't him; Byakuya knows that. They are not interested in him.
Most women are motivated by his appearance and lust after his body. But the absolute truth behind their coquette smiles and batting lashes is that they lusted more so after his power and the wealth and prestige they could obtain to elevate their station and their households.
He was a meal ticket to them. They wanted his seed to impregnate themselves with his child and therefore a means to control him and the Kuchiki Line, as his offspring would, by default, be the next heir to the Kuchiki Clan.
Duty would compel him to father and nurture any child spawned from his loins, and he couldn't have a bastard as his offspring, so he would have to marry the mother before she delivered their baby. By this logic, if he was forced against his will to give up his seed in a situation, then he would be obligated to marry his rapist. Byakuya couldn't think of a more miserable existence for all eternity
The elders are not shy about striking at me, but they didn't do this; there is too much on the line for them to afford my attention straying in other directions. We had a poor meeting, but if they were going to strike at my flanks, it wouldn't be now.
It's summer, and he had to pay particular attention to overseeing the grain yields, fisheries, and husbandry monitored by numerous servitude farming houses on his other estates, which are responsible for the sector of not just his clan and its cadet branches but other houses allied with the Kuchiki Clan to ensure fairness and equality.
Without his oversight, chaos would ensue as greed manifests between houses, and it would be a pain just for them to work out the issues before the harvest, which is less than two months away. No Elder wants his or her household to have less than the proper grain shares. He had so much to do in the running of his household, much more so than the rest of the clan and the cadet houses. By 7 Hells, the number of meetings he had with other noble houses today alone was high.
Walking himself through a calm analysis of his emotional state, Byakuya had a thought monologue running through his head like background noise. His face is impassive; there is no evidence of what is happening behind those stale gray eyes, but the tension in the room—hells, in the entirety of the apartments—is as thick as porridge.
Earlier, when he tried to keep it business as usual upon arriving at the north gates, about to start his training regime in the small hours of the morning before the sun rose, the entire north gate moved with him on his way to the training grounds on the estate, as the women who gathered in that vicinity began pushing their way against the guard line after spotting him. The scene froze the blood in his veins, every hair on the back neck stood to attention. Byakuya wouldn't be ashamed to admit that it was easily the scariest thing he'd ever experienced in his all centuries as every head turned silently in unison to regard him. They were like an army of wax dolls unexpectedly coming to life with just that jerky turn of their heads.
Then, came the noise they made, so deafening to his sensitive ears that it nearly caused them to bleed. Women were screaming at him, cheering for him, crying, begging, cursing, and accusing him—some even launched objects at him. Why?
Because it was suggested that I marry Rukia? And only suggested at that. Even when I married Hisana, something the members of the peerage never tire of reminding me of, nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the Kuchiki Clan. In the Soul Society.
All four gates are blocked. After his appearance at the northern gates, a large contingent from the western gates moved to join their bands, where news of his arrival blazed like gasoline bathing a spark.
He couldn't even go outside from the quarters where he was forced to relocate, not knowing who was behind this or watching his every move.
Forced? The appalling thought threatened to overflow something inside of him that they could maneuver him like this.
What can he do about this? What move should he make against these women to make them leave? Violence wasn't an option, though he was beyond inspired by the idea. It's not that he was hesitant to draw his sword against women; he wasn't some backward, chivalrous male who saw women as the weaker sex and in constant need of rescue. An enemy is an enemy, regardless of their gender.
However, the individual clout each represented as members of their respective households makes a decision of violence indelicate and immediately more problematic, which would outweigh the satisfaction it would bring him in the moment if he were to wave his sword around.
A pang of jealousy accosted Byakuya for a fraction of a second for the simplistic ideals and solutions of Ichigo Kurosake and his own lieutenant, Renji Abrai. But then the moment passed. He was not them, and neither would he wish to be.
When you are angry, take no action. Byakuya reminded himself of the old proverb for what seemed like the 12th time since this morning's nightmare began, though his nostrils were flaring, his chest bowing with heated breathwork. Anger and impatience will only dull my senses and double the consequences I'll have to answer for when the dust settles. What can I use to get them to leave?
Now his thoughts started to sound desperate.
A political gesture to their houses? An unresistant look at the displeasure bubbling inside me with my spiritual pressure? No, that will not work. Damn it all. Damn it all!
Byakuya found himself running his fingers through his hair, something he never does. The idea of curling his fingers in the strands and tearing at them appealed to him like a teasing itch just inches out of reach. Slowly, he strained his fingers from his hair, letting his hands fall limp by his sides. Byakuya never likes being in any place he can't leave whenever it suits him, yet this is his home. Where these females chose to attack him is in his sanctuary. Here is the only place in the entirety of the Soul Society where he can be himself.
That they dare to do this to me!
Dark thoughts pinched at his resolve to remain calm and appear unaffected, but Gods damned them for this.
Is this what they call love? They did all of this, making me a hostage at my own home, because they love me? They adore me? His disgust redoubled, his exhales causing a breeze over his upper lip, down the collar of his robes.
Do they want me so much that, upon hearing the news of my possible betrothal to Rukia, they contrived this plot to get my attention? How shameful and desperate must they be to conduct themselves in this manner, and for what? Because of 'love'? Because they've known of me and admired me from afar for centuries? Have they wanted me for themselves all this time, and now is the best opportunity for them to act? What was their plan once they executed this uprising exactly? Did they think that I would be pleased by all of this discord? Was it their consensus that I would pick one of them to be my wife based on what? The prettiest among them? The most fashionable or daringly dressed? How about a few rounds of 'Spin the Lord', perhaps with me blindfolded in the center of all of them with a grin on my face, laughing like a fool in their midst?
His slippered feet began pacing up and down the length of the enormous living room-turned-office again, his mood descending markedly down a spiral by the hour.
Why should he give a thought to their feelings for him anyway? He has never once asked them about their feelings; he's never been curious about their feelings. Why give them a moment of his time that they have not earned? He's never cultivated relationships to inspire the women of the nobility into disturbing acts like what they are carrying out right now: halting the business of his manor with their petulancy and preventing him from moving about freely lest he rouse the beasts blocking the four main entrances of his estate into a frenzy like earlier this morning.
Before he fled to this secluded location, this room was tidy, neatly arranged, dust-free, and ready to receive a stately guest should one come up on the manor unannounced, and his duty as a member of the Shoichi prevailed on him to host them in secret. Now it resembled a way station for parchment as more letters reached the modest oak desk occupying the corner of the parlor.
Then the revelation of that statement took root as one word echoed around in Byakuya's mind. Fled.
If someone had told him that something like this could ever happen to him in a thousand years. If they had said that a group of women could take over his time, halt his business, and force him to run like a coward, Byakuya would have had that person flogged for saying such disrespectful, impossible things in his hearing. Yet here he is, cooped up in one of the guest apartments, forced to take flight from his ancestral home.
It was too much to take in. His pride was touched, and he could feel the deluge of rage trapped within, threatening to burst and cascade down on every unlucky soul in his proximity. By all 13 Hells, he's been ignoring it, but the chamber pot on this entire situation has been tipping backward with each descending thought he's had since this morning began.
To think that I, Byakuya Kuchiki, the 28th Head of the Kuchiki Clan and Captain of Squad 6, fled (fled!) to a secluded location because of women. I, who's faced armies, slaughtered hundreds with the flick of my wrist in seconds; thousands of razor-sharp blades fine-tuned uniquely to my control after uncountable hours of training and meditation were sacrificed; hours of my existence turned into a mockery in the face of this farce. Oh, how they must be tittering behind their painted fans at my expense at this. Damn them!
"M-my Lord," A servant's panicked stutter behind him to his left grabbed Byakuya's attention, and only then did he notice that the room was trembling. The wallpaper depicting the Kuchiki emblem was loud as it tore asunder under the strain of his spiritual pressure. A white porcelain vase wobbled from left to right from its perch atop a vanity before falling and then shattering on contact with the hardwood floor. The sound of broken pieces echoing down the halls.
The breathless way the man spoke and the strain on the faces of the other servants made it evident that Byakuya's overwhelming presence was cutting off their air supply. His temper was bursting at the seams of his control. Byakuya wanted to hit something, someone, or a number of someones. And yet his anger must go unappeased, pittering out like a flame in the wind. Quelled, again, in the face of who he is and the principle structures he represents.
I am the Head of the Kuchiki Clan. I represent the entire clan. Getting too self-absorbed in my emotional soup or acting selfishly is not an option for me. He repeated these things in his mind enough to believe them again, somehow managing to push down the stinging frustration in his gut.
This must be how Rukia felt when she went hollow hunting after that clan meeting. Byakuya mused empathetically. Though I initially bashed her recklessness, what I wouldn't give for a convenient enemy to draw my sword against right now—the stronger the better.
Noble women are zealot creatures who know how to get what they want by hook or by crook. They planned this out knowing that until they got what they wanted from him—and he still didn't know what that was—there was nothing that he could do to hurt them immediately and that it wasn't worth the effort in the aftermath to hurt them if he chose.
His power, strength, political clout, and wealth; his prowess with his sword. In the face of this masquerade, Byakuya could do nothing with all that he's amassed over the centuries of his lifetime.
Ignore it. Block it out of your mind, Byakuya. You are above these feelings.
Inhaling deep breaths, Byakuya adjusted his reiatsu content, willing it to become thinner, then lighter until the air was breathable again. The servants around him all took a collective breath into their starving souls. He heard some gasping repeatedly through their mouths as their nostrils were inadequate for the task of giving them sufficient air. Later, Byakuya learned that a few of his guards fainted in the wake of his brooding.
Of course, he wouldn't apologize or even manage to look sheepish. A lord never apologizes for his actions to his servants or to anyone beneath his station.
What have I ever done to these women for them to behave so brazenly? Do they believe that this is amusing to me? To have them besiege my estates? What's in their heads to unify their thoughts into the belief that I would be appreciative or even receptive to something like this? Was it the collective conclusion of their minds that my pride as a male would be preening from such a disgusting display of utter selfishness and childish demeanor?
His duties at the barracks that required his presence this morning have to be scrapped because of this embarrassment. This was the morning the new recruits were coming in fresh from Shino Academy, yet he couldn't leave his home to attend to his captain's duties because that mob out there would follow him to his barracks and even more shame would spread upon him, meaning he had to write a ten-page report for why he couldn't attend to his duties and send it to Squad 1 by the end of the day.
Byakuya resisted the groan of frustration that pricked in his chest, fighting to express itself inelegantly within his servants' hearing and gossiping tongues. It's not that he hates paperwork; he is an avid practitioner of calligraphy and takes pride in perfecting his hobby whenever he has a moment from his busy schedule to indulge. Admittedly, there was no beauty in report writing, not as he experiences when he's alone in his studio with his ink pots, extensive white canvas backgrounds to work with, and his customized brushes.
He would have to leave the job up to Lieutenant Renji Abari for today, and hopefully only today. Perhaps it's just as well, after yesterday's argument between them. However, it was more one-sided as Renji, with his out-of-control emotions coloring the skin on his face enough to match his flame-red hair, vented his spleen all over Byakuya's office, cursing out his captain, who was calmly watching his young second-in-command lose his composure over a matter they both didn't fully understand.
Byakuya should have had Renji arrested yesterday, and he had more than enough grounds to do so too. His lieutenant could have been slapped with charges such as: Acting with disrespectful conduct before a superior. Use of excessive profanity and indecent language in the presence of and directly at his superior officer, and repeated verbal threats to the life of his captain. Disturbance of the peace. Disruption of barracks operations with disorderly conduct. Destruction of the property of a captain with infrequency, erratic, and irresponsible employment of reishi governance. As a result, Byakuya will have to get a new desk and work done on the walls of his office thanks to Renji's manifestation of his spiritual pressure.
If he wanted to, Byakuya could sink Renji's career with a brush stroke. Renji would not, let's say, get an extended prison sentence in the punishment chambers overseen by Squad 2 or buy his ticket to his own execution with that show yesterday, but if Byakuya pushed hard enough with his political clout, not just as the head of a clan but as a member of the Shōichī and his position as a captain of the Goeti 13, then he could make life extremely unpleasant for the younger man.
At the very least, Byakuya could have gotten Renji demoted with that little performance he pulled off in his office, but he won't because he understands. He was young and foolish too, unable and, at times, unwilling to think things through. He knows what it means to be in love, so he understands what Renji must be going through.
Had he been in Renji's situation, forced to watch his commanding officer get married to his beloved, Heavens! Byakuya would have swallowed his pride and begged for a transfer immediately if only to get away from the couple and keep his sword from the throat of the man taking the woman he loves away from him.
If Renji had decided to draw his sword against him, however, this story would have a bloodier ending. Somewhere in his rage-filled head yesterday, wisdom prevailed.
Perhaps the boy is only infatuated with Rukia. Byakuya thought, trying to take his mind off everything happening around him with idle musings. Renji is a hothead, and the best way to do things in most cases for the younger man is to draw his sword and wave it around.
There was that pang of jealousy in his chest again.
But Byakuya never said that he's in love with his sister-in-law; he never said that he was over the heavens with itchy anticipation to marry her. He never said anything to give the impression that he was all set to be with Rukia. All of this started with a suggestion made by the elders. A suggestion he promptly dismissed as he found it so disturbing to consider, yet everyone was conveniently ignoring that critical tidbit.
Not only is he a century Rukia's senior, but she's his deceased wife's sister. How indecent is a marriage between them, as if he were swapping out Hisana for Rukia. While he could think of several houses that have gladly flaunted their practice of such immoral, scandalous behaviors with blood relatives, many without the sanctity of marriage even when children were conceived, the idea of being sexually involved with Rukia is so abhorrent to him that he doesn't have the context to properly articulate how wrong he considers it. Byakuya has never shown interest in Rukia; he hasn't loved another woman before or since Hisana.
Though Rukia looks like his wife—by Heaven's Grace, they are almost identical, especially now that she's reached her maturity—she is not Hisana; she could never replace Hisana. And he's not looking for a replacement for his wife with anyone.
Why can't anyone recognize that yet? Isn't 50 years and counting not enough to convince anyone with a brain between their ears that if he wanted to remarry, he would have had the mind to do so already? When he decided to break from tradition and marry outside of the nobility, not even the heavens themselves could have commanded him to do otherwise.
Byakuya sighed heavily, grateful that with all that happening right now—all the chaos outside and the anarchy—at least he didn't have to deal with elders on top of it yet.
I will find a solution to this problem before they descend upon me.
As if to spite him, Byakuya's spine stiffened as he sensed the first spiritual pressure coming toward his location. Closer, closer, closing in on him faster by the second. It wasn't his grandfather, who, despite the circumstances surrounding his involvement in this compilation of thorns in his side, was still welcomed in his presence. Byakuya has been actively avoiding Ginrei since their chat on the red pier at his grandfather's estates three days ago; four hours before he blew the roof off Captain Ukitake's office accidentally.
Then there was a second reiatsu, a third, and soon he was feeling all of them, including his grandfather, coming towards him. The Elders of the Kuchiki Clan were descending on him and Byakuya had a feeling them coming here will break the tenuous hold he's been balancing since this morning began.