AN: hi everyone!

so. this is my first bleach fic. the premise kinda has been kicking my ass so im giving it a shot. apologies if terms and other stuff is off - i just read the manga last year and watched a little bit of the anime, so i havent caught up to a lot of fandom stuff as far as like, preferred terms for things (soul reaper? squad? idk)

i am genuine when i say i have no idea how the endgame ship(s) for this are gonna look. i've picked out a few ships that i *have* decided on, but the rest are up in the air. its a little early for yall to get a sense of what that's all gonna entail, but i would love to hear thoughts and suggestions on that point as i get further into the plot. byakuya and rukia will be the center


Rukia adjusts the collar of her uniform and winces at the painful tug in her abdomen, the barely-healed gash that she'd given one of the Squad Four medics five minutes to pick at before she hurried out the door, shouting her apologies.

She was late then, even as she was leaving the Squad Four barracks, and she's even more late now, limping across the estate in her shinigami uniform, not having had time to grab anything more proper than a slightly cleaner change of clothes. Her shoes smack loudly against stone as she hurries in spite of the pain, following the lamplit path until she reaches the walkway leading up to the front entrance, secreted among a grove of heavy maple trees.

The door slides open seconds before she reaches it, an elderly servant waiting for her in the doorway, the warm lights of the inside of the estate forming a gentle halo around him.

"Miss Rukia! How good it is to see you." He smiles softly in greeting, the well-worn wrinkles in the corner of his eyes crinkling as he does. "We've been expecting you."

Rukia apologizes profusely as she bows, her cheeks bright red with embarrassment even as the wound on her side screams from the strain. "My squad was waylaid as we were returning by an unexpected ambush. I came as soon as I was able—"

"Please." He dismisses her apologies with a gentle shake of his head. "You are perfectly on time. Allow me to lead you in—our lady has been waiting for you."

Rukia cringes and slips her shoes off at the door. "Are they—"

Before she can finish, there's a loud crash of glass from the other end of the hallway, followed by a roaring laugh.

Rukia cringes harder and glances back over at the waiting servant apologetically.

"Our lady has been waiting," he repeats, his smile a little more strained. "Perhaps we'd best go to greet her."

Rukia continues to thread a string of murmured apologies as the servant leads her down the manor halls to the dining room, where a table has already been set.

Renji is already there, as are Ganju and Kukaku, their self-appointed benefactors. There's a smattering of bottles and cups, empty and otherwise, scattered around the table, including the remains of one on the floor in front of her where, judging by the angle, Kukaku must have just barely missed clipping the side of Renji's head. Ganju is fumbling with the stopper on a fresh bottle, his calloused hands tugging roughly at the neck.

"Are you telling me it's too difficult for you to open on your own?" Kukaku snaps at him. "Hand it over, if you can't manage it yourself."

Ganju wilts. "I have it, sis, I just—"

"Miss Rukia is here, my lady," the servant announces.

Three sets of eyes immediately turn towards her. Ganju's face lights up at the sight of her, the unopened bottle in his hands forgotten, and Renji's face softens once their eyes meet.

Kukaku, seated at the front of the table, grins ferociously, showing off all of her teeth. "Well, well, look who it is!" she calls, leaning back on her arm to get a better look. She's wearing a silk robe that's probably worth more than what Rukia makes in several months. It droops loosely off her shoulder as she tilts her head, exposing a generous amount of cleavage.

Kukaku's hair, as dark and as long as any noblewoman's, is swept back with an uncountable number of golden ornaments, intricate, pearl-tipped pins and clips that dangle loosely out of her dark hair and are easily lost within it.

Wealth is like that, though, among the Shiba clan—it clings to them lazily, like humidity. It drips off of Kukaku like rain and is forgotten just as easily.

Rukia self-consciously hugs the front of her robe and raises her hand in a weak greeting.

"You certainly took your time, kid." Kukaku's grin deteriorates into something less pleasant. She glances behind Rukia and waves the servant off with one bejeweled hand. "Tell them to bring the food out already, and another bottle of sake," she orders.

"Of course, my Lady," the servant murmurs politely before fading back down into the dark shadows of the hall.

Kukaku scrunches her nose, looking at the mess of glass on the floor around her. "And find someone to clean this up while you're at it!" she calls out to his retreating back.

Rukia shifts awkwardly as the soft whisper of the servant's footsteps fades away. "I'm sorry I'm late," she starts once the servant is gone, bowing again to Kukaku and Ganju. "I hurried as fast as I could, but I had to get the rest of the squad settled before I could leave."

Kukaku blows a strand of dark hair out of her face before waving Rukia over. "Cut the formal crap and come have a seat already so we can eat."

"R-right." Rukia holds her side as she straightens up, mindful not to put too much strain on her still-healing wound.

Kukaku narrows her eyes as Rukia shuffles over to the empty spot next to Renji, her shoulders hunched and back bent to accommodate her injury. "You're babying your side," she notes with deceptive calmness, eyes flickering down as she lifts a bottle of sake to refill her cup. "Wanna tell me what that's about?"

"Uh…" Rukia feels her cheeks and neck grow warm. She hazards one glance down at the cushion where she's supposed to sit, if only she could maneuver herself down there without drawing too much attention to herself. "It's nothing, really."

Kukaku glowers at her. "Wanna try that again?"

"I'm… fine." Rukia tries to straighten her back, feeling the pull of bandages around her midsection as she does. "It's just a little scratch," she mumbles, lying through her teeth. "Just a little sore."

"What was that?" Kukaku gestures impatiently at Renji. "Tell her to speak up, I can't hear her."

Renji sighs loudly and scratches the back of his head. "Awe, come off it, Kukaku." He glances at her, his casual posture belying the brief glimmer of concern in his eyes. "You okay, Rukia?"

"I'm fine," she repeats, tapping the front of her robe lightly, without actually pressing up against her bandages. "See? Just a scratch."

"You hear that?" Renji says. "She says she's fine."

Kukaku leans forward on the table, her breasts nearly spilling out the front of her silk robe. "If you're so fine, Rukia," she starts, "why don't you sit down?"

"O-of course I will." Rukia grits her teeth into the shape of a smile as she gently lowers herself onto the cushion, enduring Kukaku's narrowing glare the entire way down. "See?" Rukia forces out as she sinks down onto the floor. "Totally fine."

Ganju speaks up from across the table, his eyebrows creasing, "Are you sure you're okay, Rukia? Because we can have someone from Squad Four here in an instant to take a look if you're not."

"Really! Really, I am." She holds her hands up before he can protest. "I'm serious! I'll sleep it off tonight, and then if it still hurts tomorrow, I'll go back to Squad Four's barracks and have them do a more thorough job. It's not a big deal."

Ganju nods once, uneasily. "Well, if you say so."

"No concern at all for you young shinigami." Kukaku makes a rude noise in the back of her throat as she opens a wooden box on the table next to her and takes out her pipe. "Letting you walk around like that. Can't you see about getting her better assignments, kid? Aren't you the one who's handing them out these days?"

"Ah…haha… well…" Renji grimaces. "I'd have to talk to Captain Ukitake about that… We try to have at least one seated officer leading squads, so there aren't many other options besides one of us or the Fourth Seat."

Kukaku rolls her eyes disdainfully, the way she often does when shinigami politics - and Captain Ukitake in particular - come up. "Go ahead and talk to him, but we really know who's in charge of that squad. I don't see why you need him to sign off on anything when you're the one who's calling the actual shots."

"I want to take tougher missions!" Rukia protests. "I'm Third Seat, so anything Renji isn't handling—I want that to be my responsibility anyway. That's my job. That's how it should be." Kukaku raises a fine eyebrow at her, so she continues, "Captain Ukitake is still my Captain, even if he isn't present every day. Instead of fighting over that, I'd much rather hear about when everyone else here has been up to while I've been gone!"

There's a painful silence that follows, and Rukia wilts in the aftermath of her outburst.

"If…if you'd really rather we did that." Ganju looks to his sister first for her tacit permission, though Kukaku only huffs and turns away.

"Well." Ganju crosses his arms thoughtfully. "It's just been short missions here for a while, though Captain Zaraki is supposed to be leaving soon on a mission to hunt a hollow."

Rukia nods her head, glad to have a different squad at the center of their conversation. "That's unusual for him. Is it a particularly strong one?"

"According to Yumichika, it's killed over two dozen shinigami." Ganju scratches his neck. "But this is the first I'm hearing about it. I think he said someone from Squad Three told him about it, that they've been tracking it."

Renji grunts. "Well if your captain's gonna be gone, who's he leaving in charge? His lieutenant?"

"As if that lazy bastard is in charge of anything to begin with," Kukaku grumbles, the Captain of the Eleventh Squad being another common target of her ire. "The man can't see past his own stubby little sword."

"Well." Ganju shifts. "Ikkaku says the Captain is taking the lieutenant with him, so that means Ikkaku will be in charge. That'll also mean no missions for us until he gets back, since this is the best time for us to clean things up around our squad headquarters, you know."

"Meh." Kukaku blows out a blue-tinged ring of smoke. "Don't see why these captains are there in the first place, if all they do is offload work onto their men."

"Oh, come off it, Kukaku." Renji grimaces. "Our squad is hardly busy as it is, and it isn't all that usual for a lieutenant to step in for a captain, especially in administrative matters."

"Renji's right," Rukia adds. Captain Ukitake's illness is well-known, but most captains tended to focus their efforts more on higher level, conceptual work, save for the Captain Commander himself, and the Captain of Squad Four. "That's what a lieutenant is there for."

Renji strokes his chin appreciatively. "Besides, even I get to head out every now and then to have some fun. I got a little greedy and assigned myself to a quick mission in the human world. I'll be taking off tomorrow. In the meantime—" He nudges her lightly with his elbow. "—You can take it easy with that injury and catch up on some paperwork."

Kukaku snorts. "Well, at least this'll be a proper send off." She holds out her pipe and snaps her fingers loudly, toward the empty hall. "Hey, one of you lazy asses! Pack up some food for Renji. And would it kill you to move a little faster?"

The servant from earlier is there in a flash, bent halfway into a bow before Rukia can blink. "Of course, madam. I will have your dinner brought out now," he says before disappearing back into the shadows.

Renji lets out a long sigh. "C'mon, Kukaku, don't fuss so much over it. It's just a routine kinda mission."

Kukaku shoots Renji a glare and calls again down the dark hallway. "And put some aside for Rukia, too! She's going to be doing the work of three people while he's gone."

"You don't have to go through all this trouble just for us, Kukaku." Renji angles his head toward the hallway her servant had disappeared down. "And would it kill you to be just a little bit nicer to the people who work here? Sheesh."

"If they don't wanna hear about it, they'd work a little faster." Kukaku narrows her eyes. "And if you would stop being so stubborn and let us take you both in, I wouldn't have to waste so much of my damn time looking after you two."

"This again," Renji mutters. He rubs at his eye with the palm of his hand. "We can take care of ourselves, Kukaku. We're both doing fine."

Before Kukaku can retort, a fleet of servants flood the room with platters of food, covered with bright silver lids.

Rukia's stomach grumbles.

"See?" Kukaku says, jabbing one heavily ringed finger at her as if proving her point. "You both could be eating like this every night, but instead you're working under that incompetent Captain, doing the work of three people."

"Rukia can feed herself, Kukaku," Renji drawls, almost sounding tired. "And so can I." He lifts the top off of one tray and nods appreciatively at the roasted beef and vegetables underneath. "Maybe not as fine as this on a lieutenant's salary, but we get by okay."

Kukaku grumbles, and the majority of their meal is spent in the just-shy-of-uncomfortable silence that usually follows one of Kukaku's rants about adopting them both. As they're eating, another servant returns with wrapped bentos - several of them - and leaves them in a stack between her and Renji.

Rukia thanks them profusely, as she always does, though Renji is decidedly less enthusiastic about it. "You do too much, Kukaku," he says, though Kukaku finally tells him to shut the hell up and be grateful.

They're barely finished when he turns and looks back down the hall again, before tilting his bowl towards him as if checking to make sure it's empty.

Kukaku sniffs. "What? You impatient to get out of here or something?"

"Man. You watch us like a hawk," he complains. He sets his chopsticks on top of his bowl and sighs as he stands, straightening out his uniform. "I gotta head out early tomorrow, so I really can't stick around for too long to socialize."

Kukaku purses her lips. "Sure you do."

"I sure do, if I want to have any time to prepare before I go out Hollow hunting." He pats Rukia lightly on the head as he picks up a bento and turns to go. "And Rukia, I'm counting on you to enjoy yourself tonight, 'cause the next week is gonna be hell, what with you doing the work of three people and all." With that tongue in cheek remark, Renji turns and leaves, his bento tucked securely under one arm.

Rukia stays behind, and she endures Kukaku's loud fussing until she too finds an opening to excuse herself and return to the Squad Thirteen barracks alone.


im gonna tease things out pretty gradually, but ideally some changes should kinda stand out to you from the get go. hm! wonder what all of that is about.

anyway!

if you have questions or comments or anything (compliments? favorite lines? etc.) pls leave them. feed the poor author who asks for naught more than that