Knowing the history of Byakuya’s promises, Rukia makes one of her own, and hopes Renji can accept it.
A subtle softening passed over her brother’s face. Nothing so overt as a smile, but Rukia brightened to see it. I’ll make our house proud, she assured him silently. I will. I promise.
Rukia gets exasperated and points out the obvious to Renji. Spoilers through manga 181.
“Get it straight,” she snapped at him. “I am fully recovered. I have not had my spiritual energy drained. I am not in a false body that keeps draining it. I have not just come out of a prison that also keeps draining it.” Each not was punctuated by a brisk shake.
Slightly twisted ficlet about the aftermath of the Soul Society arc. Spoilers through manga 181.
“Nii-sama?” she asked, a bit cautiously just in case this was a symptom of madness, or some strange family ritual she’d never heard of.
Rukia campaigns against her brother’s stoicism.
Rukia drew some odd looks, marching through the main offices of Sixth Division with a tray of tea.
Byakuya and Rukia speak of regrets and possibilities.
“Tell me about Hisana.”
Renji catches a glimpse of Rukia dealing with her own new position.
It was good to know she hadn’t lost any of the edge off her vocabulary after all those years in a noble house.
Byakyua watches Renji and Rukia, and tries to plan a future.
For a long time, Renji had walked at his heels, as if tame, always watching but never challenging.
He was no longer tame, and thus became worthy of consideration.
Byakuya causes there to be romance, like it or not.
Rukia sank back, arrested by the phrase marry out of the house. She remembered the conversation she and her brother had had in the garden one evening, about regrets and stubbornness, and spouses and honor. Her heart couldn’t decide whether to stop beating or to race.
Rukia and Renji, and, in fact, most of Soul Society, prepare; plotting continues.
He looked up at her with entreaty. “Are you sure I can’t just stay the third morning?”
Very memorable ceremonies.
But however much of a pain parts of it had been, it all came down to this. To he and Rukia, having escaped from the layers of their formal robes and elaborate hair ornaments, down to a yukata apiece, in a dim bedroom that belonged to them.
Rukia talks to her brother about career plans.
Kuchiki was her House, just as Rukongai was her past. And neither a survivor of Inuzuri nor a daughter of Kuchiki needed anyone holding open doors for her. She’d open her own damn door.
Rukia and Orihime have some soft, quiet moments together. Written for Porn Battle, with the prompt: Rukia/Orihime, grooming as foreplay/a sign of affection.
Rukia sighed happily as the soft brush stroked through her hair. One of the things she liked best about being assigned here, or at least about staying with Orihime, was having someone to brush her hair in the evenings. It reminded her of growing up, when the girls had saved broken combs to wash in the canal and do each other’s hair with.
Post Soul Society arc, Rukia has to deal with lingering injuries and Byakuya finds old habits of care returning.
It had been coming for days; she’d felt it like a presence standing behind her shoulder, stepping closer and closer again until it merged with her backbone and unstrung her. She didn’t know why it was now, why this hadn’t happened when she was locked away or about to die or at some other time that made sense. She just knew she couldn’t hold it back any more, and a few hot tears spilled over as her breath rasped harshly in her lungs.
Yamamoto wants some captains back. Hirako doesn’t trust him a bit. But there are other people who have a stake in the argument, and he has a harder time saying no to them. Alternate storyline, because if KT really intends to break them up, well I’m just not having with that.
Hirako Shinji sat very still on one of their salvaged couches, eyes fixed on the dapper First Division vice-captain standing calm and collected in front of him. “He wants us to what?”