Usefulness!?
On the way to Squad Thirteen's barracks, the word caught a thread loop in Rukia's brain and, from then on, kept up in her thoughts unceasingly, as if her mind got snared in a whirlpool.
It infuriated Rukia, feeling chagrined as she is and unable to calm the pot of boiling emotions in her gut; this morning's meeting replayed in her head like ubiquitous music, heard everywhere and inescapable.
Something that never bodes well for any soul reaper for whom concentration and control are the keys to being effective, but Rukia couldn't help it. She couldn't shake the feeling that the Kuchiki Clan had made a fool out of her for over fifty years, and she was just realizing, for the first time, the full scale of their mockery.
Calm eluded her best efforts to snatch it for her benefit. It hasn't been possible to keep her emotions in check since she departed Kuchiki manor like a stormy petrel in a hurry, and as a result, the air around her continues to drop a few degrees lower, as evident from Rukia's foggy exhales, though it's nearing summer in the Soul Society.
Emotions, especially for soul reapers, are messy things. It's hard to keep them private from other soul reapers who are highly sensitive to changes in reiatsu. It takes physical effort to control regular emotional outbursts at normal levels.
While they may not be the full-on earth-shaking reiatsu rain when they happened, they're still detectable, even from miles away.
Raining reiatsu, as far as she's ever experienced it, is reserved for captains, lieutenants, and Ichigo and, as rumor has it, the third seat of Squad Eleven, who has achieved Bankai, Ikkaku Madarame. But that's just a rumor. Those soul reapers have surplus reserves of spiritual energy to spare due to their long years of consistent training, resulting in their advancement from Shikai to Bankai, or close to achieving Bankai in the case of lieutenants. Ichigo, however, is a different beast onto himself.
In all her years, regardless of her emotional state, Rukia has never had her reiatsu weather the environment, cracking walls or stripping the paint, which tells her that she has a long way to go.
Unfortunately for Rukia, she has to report for her duties at Squad Thirteen directly after this meeting with the Elders of the Kuchiki clan, which had emotionally soaked her in a tub filled with her anger. Wrung her out like a washerwoman's rag, then dashed her on a rock out in the sun to make dry, the stain still in the threads of her being.
Rukia felt seconds from screaming her throat out raw from the frustration of everything that's happened this morning. How was she supposed to hide her feelings from those around her directly after overhearing (alright, "eavesdropping") on a conversation turned beat-down between Byakuya and the Kuchiki Elder Councils? The contents that led to said beat-down weighed a ton and a half heavier than the pronouncement of being 'instructed' to breed with her brother under the auspices of a sham marriage.
It should have amused her, considering that Elder Kaito Kuchiki received the brunt of the beatings from Rukia's understanding of the incident. She couldn't find any sympathy in an inch of her being for the man, especially after listening to his rather colorful classification of what hers and Hisana's 'usefulness' should have been in Byakuya's life, told so indelicately before the entire Kuchiki council.
Rukia's face got so red and hot at the time that she wasn't sure if it was crimson out of boiling rage, embarrassment, or both.
The man is a fool, though, she concluded.
Rukia doubted Byakuya would've reacted as he did if Kaito had only insulted her, but to stir that pot of insults with his dearly departed and 'still' beloved wife's name in it is begging for a death duel.
What mad soul reaper wants a dual with Byakuya Kuchiki?
Okay, there's Kenpachi Zaraki, but he's not normal, and the same goes for Ichigo, whom she doubted would willingly fight her brother outside of absolute necessity. The 'sane' rules don't apply to those two.
She had to wonder what the old bastard was thinking or not thinking to insult not just her but Hisanna, too. Senility must be catching up with the old coot.
Kaito's words shouldn't have had any effect on Rukia. Years of verbal abuse in the slums of Hanging Dog from her earliest childhood memories have taught her how to give as good as she got. To survive, Rukia had to grow up fast in a world of ruthless, selfish adults. Being called foul names isn't new to her. It wasn't any vulgar names that reached her hearing, but what Kaito implied using her name that was boiling her blood.
Rukia was also used to speaking her mind back in Hanging Dog slums, a habit that interweaved with her personality.
Getting adopted into the aristocracy hurdled Rukia into a new world where her street personality wasn't acceptable. She couldn't express herself with ease or speak her mind around people who spoke in poetry and proverbs. She couldn't be too honest with people who are fluent in noblesse with their catty remarks, annoying tittering-polite laughter, and big-sounding words she couldn't understand at the time unless she read their tone, picking out the insults one by one.
In this world of aristocratic high society, she slowly began regretting her decision to be adopted into it. Slowly, Rukia came to hate it altogether. However, now that she was in it, she couldn't just get out and go back to how things were.
Days turn into decades, and the little street urchin learned how to adapt. How to hide that part of herself from others and how to become more Kuchiki lady than just Rukia from the slums, on the surface. At least that's the mask she wore before the servants and the nobles.
And in front of my brother.
She learned the strange customs of manners and proper respect (the finer arts of ass-kissing). Rukia learned how to have others kiss her ass properly as befitted her titled station as sister to a man she barely knows in a clan that nominally accepted her for the sake of her brother's will.
Byakuya would have done me a favor if he'd remained anonymous.
That thought had never occurred to Rukia. Regardless of how hard it got as she struggled with being a noble, she'd never thought to blame Byakuya for her problems before today.
How different her life would have been if Byakuya had let her be. Did fulfilling her dying sister's wishes mean he had to adopt her into the nasty viper pits of noble high society, who believed the sun sets and rises for their benefit?
If her sister wanted her to have a better life, Byakuya could have easily been her benefactor, couldn't he? He has the money.
Yet, all that he and Grandfather Ginrei offered her during that meeting in the school auditorium fifty years ago was an ultimatum, which is not the same as a choice.
If you dangle riches and opportunity in front of a poor young girl with nothing to her name who's barely known what a full stomach feels like on most nights of her life but tell her it's only available when she becomes a member of your 'rich' clan, only then can she receive these things. That's not a choice. It's a business persuasion tactic.
And I'm the biggest idiot in the Soul Society. Some random stranger comes up to me and says, "Hey, want to be my sister? Let me adopt you into my 'rich' family. And I, like a fool, went! Just went! Just like that. Rukia chided herself mentally, irritated that this was finally occurring to her.
Like a child lured by sweets, she went with Byakuya, becoming his 'sister, not entirely knowing why this man wanted her to be his 'sister' or what the details were.
Byakuya's explanation went something to the effect of, "Oh, my late wife died, and you look a lot like her. Red flags, Rukia! Red flags!"
Her disgust with her stupefying stupidity increases by the minute.
If she'd been in the Rukon District and some shady man came up to her with that kind of talk, Rukia would have kicked him hard enough in the nuts for them to take a transit to his brain, then bolted off like a bat out of hell in his opposite direction, hoping never to run into him again.
But seeing the headmaster and the superintendent of her academy, men who seem to float on their own power and positions about the school like untouchables, the definition of authority in the eyes of any student, bow their heads low, showing so much deference before this richly dressed man, placed Rukia in a state of awe. Why wouldn't it?
For a student from the slums for whom the headmaster and the superintendent were the standards of high class, then seeing that reality bend, quite literally, before a different truth out of respect and not a little fear is enough to impress anyone.
As she flash-stepped down the empty street, the chiding was nonstop. Mentally ass-kicking herself. Rukia's indignation grew more needling when she had to acknowledge that Elder Kaito had a right to say all that he said. Looking at the whole set from his twisted but not totally wrong perspective and then comparing the evidence to the facts that she had no idea she had a sister for over fifty years. Byakuya kept that little tidbit from her, going so far as to threaten the servants not to breathe a word of it to Rukia.
It makes matters even worse with Byakuya's refusal to remarry.
Many, looking in from the outside, would question what he was waiting for.
Lots of nobles don't have a healthy sense of morals, as they like to preach and pretend in the eyes of the public. The infamous aristocrats Rukia knew about, through the grapevine of the servant's gossip channels, had no compulsions about having secret relationships with their blood siblings or cousins, even marriages; relations by law, less so.
How did Byakuya expect the noble community to look at our relationship when he adopted me?
You pick up a teenager off the street who's the sister of your dearly beloved wife. Who looks quite strikingly like a younger version of your dearly beloved wife? A man in the depths of grief and loneliness? A handsome man in his prime without any children and a succession crisis on his hands? And you don't think about how that would look or calculate the consequences in the long run?
Anyone can easily believe that Byakuya has been biding his time, waiting for Rukia to grow up. Until such a time comes to pass, he would have complete guardianship of her as his sister by marriage and legally by law and is, therefore, in the position to dictate who she'll be married off to, not excluding himself should he legally reverse her adoption.
An adoption reversal doesn't take long to get done, as long as you have the money to hire a good Law Brother. And for any noble with money like sand on a shore (the Kuchiki Clan being the cream of the crop), that's a month's work for any Law Brother worth his salt.
It casts a bad light on the entire situation if you adamantly refuse to remarry. Forget being balled and chained to another soul; Byakuya Kuchiki has not once had a girlfriend since her sister died, and that's for decades! Not even an infrequent whore has ever set foot on the grounds of the manor to visit under cover of darkness. And the servants would know. The servants knew everything.
Even if it's outside of Kuchiki Manor, her brother is one of the most famous soul reapers in the Soul Society. He can't go into the World of the Living in some backwater town and not cause a stir because of his looks.
Another reason not to be married to him. What wife wanted her husband ruthlessly pursued by other women or be the target of that much jealousy and hatred? Someone not of the 'sane' variety, Rukia speculates.
Ah! So a true-blue-blooded noblewoman, then? That makes sense. "That x's me from the category of Lady Kuchiki," Rukia told herself sweetly.
Byakuya should have known what it would have looked like when he adopted her and withheld the truth from her, as he'd done.
What if Rukia was a fly-skirt like some girls she knew back in Hanging Dog? Fifty years is a long damn time. Within that time, anything clandestine could have happened. If Rukia was like those girls, she could have developed feelings for this man who took her in, fed her, and gave her all the finer things she'd never had, much less known that they existed.
"That must be how other nobles have looked at this entire farce of an adoption since its inception."
She felt disgusted. Sick to her empty stomach. The idea that Byakuya has been waiting for her all this time without entertaining other liaisons, at least from the gossip strangle that will develop from this incident, will seem so romantic, Rukia might have to find a convenient cliff to throw herself from to save her sanity.
Both she and Byakuya knew the truth, but that 'truth' wasn't going to be worth a green fig once this fiction blows up like a nuclear warhead on the noble circuit, then Soul Society proper. The timing of this morning's meeting couldn't have been more strategic.
Now that I'm at the age of maturity.
It's clear why what Elder Kaito said bothered her as much as it did. Rukia could see how it not only put a dent in the thick-skinned armor she'd grown and hardened as her protection against the world and all its nastiness but penetrated straight through it.
Elder Kaito spat the words like acid at her back, and for all she knew, they thought she hadn't heard them (having been dismissed from the hall like an errant servant). Later, the Elders would smile in her face as their twisted aristocratic rules of hospitality demanded.
What permitted her emotions to ignite this much rage under her skin? Why should she care about what Elder Kaito said or the revelation that she'd, for the past fifty years, been the laughingstock of the entire noble community? It shouldn't matter, just like all the other things that she had to endure did not matter. A private joke on a massive scale from the shallow nobility, with only her on the outside of it? She shouldn't care about it. Yet, denial or not, it still stings hotter than any pain she's ever encountered before.
It took Rukia five flash steps to get across the Seireiti from Kuchiki Manor to Squad Thirteen's Barracks. By that time, the whirlpool of emotions had churned its way into an acutely foul mood. She tried to keep it off her face, yet it showed she could tell because immediately after Rukia stepped through the outer gates of Squad Thirteen and the sentries' stiff reaction to her presence. The nobility has a reputation for facial obscurity, and Rukia has worn it often enough to be adept. This time she couldn't ignore the feelings nettling her under the surface.
Rukia was wearing a scowl in her facial muscles. Her eyes had narrowed into a glare, and she was ready to snap at the world around her. It wasn't fair, but it was her truth.
Bastards want to turn her into a babymaker for them, and with Byakuya, of all people. The man who kept the truth from her? This is the same man, because of his selfishness, who is about to cause an avalanche of ridicule and gossip to fall on Rukia's head from delusional nobles.
Because the 'bad guy' is a fixed role for me alone in every episode of the Kuchiki dramas. She thought wryly.
Imagine the number of spoiled noblewomen with their caps set for Byakuya all these years, coming after Rukia for this. Getting it into their empty heads that she was only pretending to be his sister while playing the role of the lover to the Head of the Kuchiki Clan behind the scenes.
Rukia wanted to scream, 'This is the same man who wanted nothing to do with me for over fifty years.'
Was reality upside-down since she woke up this morning? Surely something must be amiss. Rukia was positive as the ice in her zanpakuto that Byakuya did not want a marriage with her. He loves her sister, Hisanna. He will always love Hisanna.
The Clan Elders are trying to play matchmakers, but they are barking up the wrong tree. And in the process, taking away my choice on the matter of my life from my hands again.
In retrospect and in gratitude, Rukia surmised the wisdom of skipping breakfast this morning. The level of potent disgust muddling around in her soul would have demanded that her stomach evict any morsel of food she enjoyed before that meeting happened.
After Byakuya had dismissed her, Rukia hurried down the passageway out of sight of the guards and servants lined up outside the meeting hall. Making a left once she exited the wing, Rukia made her way to an alcove near one of the open floor-to-ceiling doors to listen in on the rest of the meeting. There were no guards here, but servants were known to pass by from time to time. In this case, her short stature came in as an advantage. It's not hard to hide behind a whopping great door like the one standing sentinel in front of Rukia, not when you're 4'8 in height. The door was just barely ajar, and Rukia practically disappeared behind it.
The sounds coming from the meeting hall were crisp and clear, their voices distinct enough for Rukia to make out who was saying what. She couldn't mistake Kaito's scratchy yet domineering voice, as he seemed to address her brother directly.
"Lord Kuchiki-Sama," the man was saying, just this side of respectfully, "as far as I am concerned, the only 'usefulness' Rukia should have ever served since her adoption into this clan is warming your bed. If proven fertile, perhaps she would have already succeeded where her mule of a sister failed so spectacularly to bear an heir. It wouldn't have mattered if she'd gotten pregnant inside or outside of wedlock; considering where Rukia is from, she couldn't pretend to know the meaning of virtue or decency. She must have been used to spreading her legs long before she got her monthlys. At least by bearing the heir, the girl could serve a proper purpose rather than what she's doing right now as Shinigami. Not even of any rank."
Rukia had no idea what started this conversation since leaving the meeting hall less than a minute ago, but she was too stunned to move after hearing this. Her mouth hung agape for any ambitious fly to pitch a landing.
What shook her back to reality was the flare of Byakuya's spiritual pressure, dark and terrible. Rukia could feel her brother's indignation burning hot to the core of her spirit at having such disrespect thrown in his face by a member of his council.
Rukia has never felt her brother so angry. The force of his spiritual pressure made her legs wobble. Her skin goose-bumped just as a cold sweat raced up her back and face like she had a fever.
Rukia's frozen brain communicated the sounds of a scuffle, then of fabric tearing; the walls were cracking as fissures zigzagged about their surfaces. The cries of alarm, then the sound of the guards running into the meeting room. A wet, sickening crunch passed her earring that she identified as the sound of a nose breaking under the force of a fist. More sounds followed. Efforted grunts clocked in time with the sound of a fist hitting flesh repeatedly and anguish cries.
Many voices were calling out, "Lord Kuchiki-Sama, calm yourself!"
"Please, I beg of you, my Lord Kuchiki-Sama. Forgiveness, Lord Kuchiki-Sama!"
"Forgiveness, my Lord!"
"Forgiveness!"
Rukia fled the scene on impulse.
That asshole!
The suggestion of what Kaito implied in that meeting made the air around her shimmer just thinking about what the spiteful, dried-up old fart said. Rukia had no misconception of her minor abilities, and in the best of times, she wasn't successful in hiding her emotions from any soul within a hundred yards.
Kaito's words shouldn't hurt so much. She shouldn't be paying for her privacy with the pain of a moment five flash-steps behind her, halfway across the Seireitei.
But thirteen hells! If a member of the Kuchiki council thinks this and thinks it has to be said enough to risk his life on that wager, does that mean everyone in the nobility thinks she's secretly bedding Byakuya?
The old Rukia from the slums wouldn't have cared about this. As misfortune would have it, as a result of all the cards played up to this point, intentional or not, these people 'really' expected her and Byakuya to be married.
Too bad they had the wrong girl.
If the council of elders is looking to force Byakuya to man the hell up and breed some unfortunate noblewoman pedigree, there are a plentitude of choices to choose from—me being the least likely option.
That was fine with Rukia as far as the distance between the sky and the sea was concerned. She didn't want Byakuya Kuchiki. Rukia Kuchiki doesn't want to marry right now, full stop.
The career she's been busting her ass off for from day one, as a Shinigami, is what matters to her—not being under some man's thumb as an obedient wife. Regardless of what it seems like to the dumb bastards of the nobility, Rukia's never shown anything in the scantest direction of romance towards Byakuya.
She's never thought of him more than the man who married a sister she never knew when she found out about Hisanna. Before that, Byakuya Kuchiki was a distant figure who had no idea who she was or the interest to invest in getting to know her.
By all accounts, Hisana Kuchiki was a sickly, frail woman who could barely walk at the best of times, but it wasn't out of pity that Byakuya married her sister. Pity doesn't invite the wrath of a council as formidable as the Elders of the Kuchiki Clan to strongly oppose the unlikely match, made worse because you are the head of the clan, and it is against the law of the nobility to marry a commoner.
Byakuya loves her sister. Present-tense. If the council wants to replace Hisana with someone new in Byakuya's life, it shouldn't be Rukia.
If Byakuya were a reprobate, Rukia would get the council's reasoning, as some men she'd known back in Hanging Dog would count it as an accomplishment to bed sisters. But no, Byakuya is not like that in the slightest; he would find it distasteful to be with Rukia. Nothing would make both of them more miserable than being forced to marry one another.
Up until that last incident, when the council tried to pin her on someone from a noble family, deadset on her marriage to the man who turned out to be a bastard son and not a true-blooded son of the house, Rukia never thought of what kind of man she wanted to marry.
It was around that time she started thinking about it, and it wasn't anyone like Byakuya that came to her imagination.
Yes, her brother is handsome; everybody with and without a pulse understands this. Dark-haired and gray-eyed, whose chiseled facial features knew only two expressions: blank stoicism and scowling. Should boredom ever become a physical manifestation, it would be in the guise of Byakuya Kuchiki. The man never laughs, smiles, or shows any type of emotion otherwise, although Ichigo claimed that he did, and Rukia quotes, "raised his voice during their battle.
The incident with Kaito and the council members is an exception since it involved disciplinary action. No lord keeps his household's peace by allowing disrespect to go unpunished; even Rukia knew that much.
No. When Rukia thought about loving someone, it meant she'd be unrestrained to be herself around them, not stiff up like in her infrequent interactions with Byakuya. The man she marries will know her unbridled and not from a distance. Her true self would be on display without her having to hide it from her husband because she would know the same about him.
In a marriage between her and another, Rukia would have a bond stronger than anything this world could throw at it.
She would have happiness in her home. She'll truly love her husband—honestly, no holding back—and he will love her the same, no exceptions. From that love, they would have a few children.
Rukia wanted martial arguments bereft of deference and ass-kissing; no honorifics anywhere in sight; and any name that came to her tongue, that's what she'd let him have in her fiery mood. When they made up, it would be passionate and sweet in their forgiveness of one another because they called each other out on their bullshit without worrying about being proper about it.
She couldn't imagine anything like that with Byakuya Kuchiki for any woman, least of all herself.
A gruff shout halted Rukia's movements just as she tensed to perform the last flash step. It would have taken her right to her desk, and the mountain of paperwork Rukia had no doubt was waiting for her.
The gruff sound came from Sentarō Kotsubaki running up to her at normal speeds and waving at her madly.
Rukia tsked softly under her breath.
He must have sensed my presence long before I entered the outer gate. Great.
It's in these moments that Rukia can empathize with the warrior class of the Soul Society. Men like Ikaku, Renji, and the MPV of them all, Captain Zaraki, who trained as much as they did in the downtimes when there were no enemies to wail on because they needed an outlet for the pent-up frustrations they dealt with daily.
''Rukia,'' the chin-bearded man called loudly. By the time he reached her, he was breathing hard.
''Sentaro," Rukia said, brow furrowing, "what's the matter?''
''Captain's orders,'' Sentaro said, heaving for breath, his hands on his knees. ''All able-bodied soul reapers from Squad Thirteen should report to the outskirts of the Rukon district. Hollows spotted.''
"Hollows again?" she said thoughtfully.
There must be a tear in the spiritual fabric; that's where they're squeezing through to get into the Soul Society.
Ever since Aizen made his escape before the captains and the entire Soul Society plus a couple of ryokas, more and more incursions have been happening, more than usual for the Soul Society records. Numerous investigations are being carried out in the general location where the leak is perceived to have come from, but so far, every one of them has turned up empty-handed.
Since Aizen's defeat at the hands of Ichigo, the hollow encroachment problem seems to be growing more rambunctious. This many incursions into the Soul's Society haven't been recorded for over a thousand years when the Seireitei was new.
"Squad Thirteen is the closest to that area," Rukia thought aloud, getting a better picture of what she and her squad mates will be facing off against. "What are the classifications of the hollows in the scout's reports?" she asks Sentaro.
She isn't as strong a soldier as her captain, and not even close to what Kaien's strength was. Rest his soul. Rukia understood her limitations. She has guts, bravery, and shit-all most of the time when she enters a battle. But right now, she had rage by the fistful, and before Sentaro showed up, she had no outlet for it. Even as she spoke with the third seat, his breaths were fogging in the morning light, being this close to her spiritual influence, barely under her control as it was.
Rukia was resigned to a day of sleeping asses and boring paperwork all through her five flash-steps to get here, but now. Now she had targets, and she was feeling particularly greedy to have them all to herself.
Foolish, Rukia! She chided herself. This isn't a bawl at a tavern.
While she can hold her own against hollows, it was sheer stupidity to believe she could run into the unknown and prevail regardless of how much Rukia's spoiling for a fight. She needs to think about this from a tactical perspective.
Enough with the stupidity for one day, already.
"Scouts report most of the ugly bastards are of the classifications from five to seven, and at least one Menos Grande was sensed, however not seen.
"How could they not see a Menos Grande?" Rukia asks, baffled.
Sentaro shrugs helplessly, unable to answer the question.
"Their numbers are two scores from their last location on the outskirts of the Rukon district.
"And Captain Ukitake?" Rukia inquired, "Will he be joining us in the fight?"
Important to note. A captain is a powerhouse and a rallying cry for moral support for any squad.
The bearded man scratched his chin like bugs were living in follicles there. "The Captain will be coming along but in a supportive role, and only active if things go completely awry.
"Let's hope they don't," Rukia said coolly, her voice steady despite the battle energy coursing through her being right now.
"We must wait for backup," Sentaro was saying, though Rukia was barely listening to him, even though he outranks her as a third seat, whereas she's of no rank. "The barracks are emptying even as we speak. They're getting ready to move out. We need you to join us."
"The barracks?" Rukia repeated it so quietly that Sentaro barely heard her say it. "Backup? Sure, if you want to wait for backup, then do what you must."
This morning had been a colossal disaster, colliding with her emotional state and fucking up her calm. Harsh words have twisted her insides, making her so pissed off that Rukia has no idea where or how to vent her fury. Now, an opportunity presents itself before her like a feast laid bare in front of a starving man. She had the information, the location, the number of enemies, and their classification (their strengths and weaknesses were more or less known to the Soul Society), and she was supposed to wait for backup?
"Let Captain Ukitake know that I'm going on ahead," Rukia told the third seat, turning on her heels in the direction of the Rukon District, her back now to Sentaro.
"W-W-What?! By yourself?" Sentaro said, sputtering, his fogging breaths coming out in little puffs, "You can't, Rukia. It's a direct order from Captain Ukitake to form up in the barracks before filing out." Sentaro said, loudly. He is naturally loud. "You'll get in trouble."
"I'll do my paperwork when I get back," she told the man tersely, flicking the hilt of her zanpakuto with her thumb. It made a soft click as the first inch of the blade was removed from the scabbard. "Let my captain know I take full responsibility for disobeying his orders if it pleases you, Sentaro-san," Rukia told the stuttering, bearded man, drawing her sword entirely from its scabbard.
They both knew what the penalties were for disobedience, especially a direct order.
"Rukia," Sentaro started, but Rukia's done with listening or following the rules; at least that's what she felt like here, at this moment.
"Mai!" Rukia commanded her zanpakuto with authority. Her voice was not an octave louder than conversational, yet the force of that one word spoke to the rest of the surrounding area, washing over the land like a tide.
Turning her zanpakuto in a circle counter-clockwise, the invitation to the consciousness dwelling within her soul's core to rise was sent out, commanding it to inhabit 23 inches of standard-issued steel. It answered as the air got noticeably colder when the transition began in earnest.
A blast of icy wind shot out from around Rukia, sending Sentaro blowing backward ass-over-elbows like a tumbleweed at the mercy of a high wind.
Her katana—the blade, hilt, and tsuba—were turning completely white as her Shikai manifested.
"Sode no Shirayuki," White, snowflake-like tsuba, a white hilt, a white blade, and a long white ribbon on the end of the pommel. Regarded as the most beautiful zanpakutou in the Soul Society.
Rukia had to survive hell in the slums of Hanging Dog. She fought tooth and nail to protect herself and, when she could, her friends, though most of them died anyway. She studied hard to build up her education from scratch to be good enough to pass the entrance exams at Shinōreijutsuin Academy. All on her own, Rukia survived battle after deadly battle, determined never to play the role of damsel in distress, being of help rather than a hindrance, trying to be tough as nails, and never complaining no matter how bad things got. She might not play a significant role in the Seireitei, but she played her part. Yet, to the members of the nobility, she'll only ever be good enough for bed sport—a street rat in an expensive dress among the aristocrats.
She gritted her teeth in anger, and the ground beneath her feet, a meter in circumference, turned to ice. Rukia tensed, then flash-stepped, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
If Rukia had only turned around and seen Sentaro's face, she would have seen his terror plain as day. Her spiritual pressure, unleashed in Shikai's mood under the influence of her emotions, became a catalyst for the fear generated in the older man's spirit.
He couldn't form words. Forget words! Sentaro, the third seat of Squad Thirteen, couldn't bring his body under his command. Rukia's ice had not touched him; he got blown back from the release of her Shikai, yet he was frozen stiff on the manicured lawns where he'd been tossed like a piece of parchment because the spiritual reiatsu Rukia was letting off was not that of an unseated office.
"That," Sentaro swallowed hard over the dryness in his throat, finally finding the words to speak, "was a lieutenant-level spiritual pressure," he whispered after inhaling a shaky breath.
Scramming to his feet, the third seat nearly tripped over his robes as he broke into a stumbling run, crying out at the top of his recovered lung, "Captain! Captain Ukitake!"