Rukia had been really happy lately, because she'd found her real older sister!
Or more accurately—she had been found by her real older sister, Hisana.
And just like that kind Shinigami taichō had told her a few days ago, her sister's status now was anything but ordinary: she was the wife of the current head of the Kuchiki clan—one of the Five Great Noble Houses of Soul Society.
For Rukia, who'd spent her life scraping by in the farthest, roughest corners of Rukongai, that was already something beyond imagination.
Not to mention the fact that her brother-in-law—Kuchiki Byakuya—though a bit stern, was genuinely kind at heart, and was even willing to acknowledge her as his adoptive little sister, granting her the Kuchiki surname.
Rukia remembered that the moment she heard the news, she actually forgot how to breathe.
So… something this dreamlike could really happen to her?
Rukia wanted to lie to herself and say it was all a dream, but it was reality.
A dream so beautiful it made her feel like she'd used up all the luck she would ever have in her life.
"Rukia, are you ready?"
Outside the room, her sister, Kuchiki Hisana's voice came through—soft, and even a little weak.
"Just a second, nee-sama!"
Rukia tidied up her appearance, then stood from the vanity.
She didn't like dressing herself up like this, but today was different.
Today was the day Byakuya would formally grant her the "Kuchiki" surname. He didn't plan to make a huge spectacle of it, but because it still needed to be announced to quite a few nobles affiliated with the Kuchiki clan, Rukia—as the future head's "younger sister"—should naturally present herself properly.
The door opened. Hisana saw Rukia's slightly refined look today—aside from her still-fragile frame, she already carried the faint air of a young noble lady.
"You look beautiful today, Rukia~"
Hisana gently took Rukia's hand, smiling as she spoke.
"I'm not as pretty as you, nee-sama~"
Rukia smiled back.
Along the way, the sisters still had endless things to say. Decades of separation—decades of yearning, guilt, and longing—could never be poured out in only a few short days.
But when they arrived at the hall where today's announcement was supposed to take place, they were surprised to find far fewer nobles waiting than expected—and most importantly, the key figure, Kuchiki Byakuya, wasn't there at all.
Only after Hisana asked someone did she learn the reason.
With Higashino Shuuichi gone—along with the Katana-gari-shū under him defecting as a group—the authority to handle noble-related affairs had returned to the Gotei 13. Some noble factions, long accustomed to acting arrogantly over the past decades, couldn't adapt all at once.
As the saying went: it's easy to go from frugal to lavish, and hard to go from lavish back to frugal. Those Tsunayashiro-aligned nobles had been causing trouble nonstop lately.
And the Sixth Division—originally responsible for handling noble affairs within the Gotei 13—had been drowning in work.
Byakuya had intended to attend today, but right at this moment, a member of the Tsunayashiro main house tried to forcibly abduct the wife of a Rukongai commoner, only to be caught on the spot by a seated officer from the Tenth Division.
Ordinary nobles could be handled by Sixth Division officers, but a member of the Tsunayashiro main house…
Byakuya could only go personally.
And without Byakuya present, this "surname granting ceremony" naturally couldn't proceed.
That was why only a handful of nobles were here.
"It's okay, nee-sama. Even if I don't get the surname, I'm still satisfied."
Rukia saw the guilt clearly rise on Hisana's face again, and hurried to comfort her.
"I was going to become a Shinigami in the first place! I just didn't pass the initial exam, but I'll keep trying!
One day, I'll enter the Shin'ō Academy, and I'll become a real Shinigami!"
Hearing Rukia's dream, Hisana immediately thought of the two previous Kuchiki heads who had died one after another.
Ever since marrying into the Kuchiki clan, Hisana had been very self-aware—rarely involving herself in any decisions, barely keeping up with major events in Soul Society, focusing only on being a good support for Byakuya.
But if even a noble clan head's life could be so dangerous… how much more so an ordinary Shinigami?
In Hisana's eyes, Shinigami weren't nearly as bright and glorious as they had seemed back when she was just a Rukongai commoner.
Death was just as common for Shinigami.
Maybe even more brutal than it was for Rukongai civilians.
At least, that was the impression Soul Society's changes had left on her since she entered the Kuchiki clan.
So deep down, Hisana truly didn't want Rukia to become a Shinigami.
But driven by guilt, she also didn't want to crush Rukia's dream right after finally finding her again.
So when the words reached her lips, Hisana swallowed them back.
"I believe you can do it, Rukia~"
Instead, Hisana gave her warm encouragement.
After that came another long stretch of sharing—one pouring out her longing, the other quietly listening.
Time passed. Rukia said goodbye to Hisana for the moment.
Because she had plans today with Abarai Renji and Kira Izuru.
Originally, she'd wanted to surprise her two friends by telling them her new name… but now it seemed that surprise would have to wait. Still, she could at least share the joy of having found her real sister.
After all, Rukia had been "invited" from Rukongai to the Kuchiki estate by Kuchiki Shinigami. Abarai Renji and Kira Izuru had no idea what had happened.
Kira Izuru had even written back earlier that Renji—the idiot—had been so worried about Rukia's safety that he'd charged the South Gate of Seireitei multiple times. If it weren't for the fact that Renji was weak and didn't look like someone deliberately causing trouble, he would've been thrown into the Ninth Division's prison long ago. (The Second Division's Maggot's Nest had already been destroyed—and even if it still existed, someone at Renji's level wasn't worthy of being locked up there.)
So no matter what, Rukia had to go see Renji and Izuru today—mainly to see Renji, so he wouldn't cause any more ridiculous chaos.
But Rukia had overestimated her speed.
She mistakenly treated the time it took for the Kuchiki Shinigami to bring her to the Kuchiki estate as if it were the time it would take for her to return to her home in Rukongai.
Now that she still wasn't a Shinigami, couldn't use Shunpō (Flash Step), and had stamina only slightly better than an average Rukongai commoner, by the time she reached her old home in South Rukongai, it was already the next morning.
Renji and Izuru weren't there.
Rukia knew Izuru had probably returned to the Shin'ō Academy.
Apparently, during a previous testing mission, Izuru had met an extremely powerful Shinigami taichō. The taichō had verbally agreed to Izuru's request, and Izuru had assumed the taichō would never remember a nobody like him.
Yet the very next day, Izuru received an enrollment notice from the Shin'ō Academy—accepting him as a transfer student.
Back then, Rukia had been unbelievably jealous.
But only a few days later, she herself had suddenly become the "future little sister" of the Kuchiki clan head—one of the Five Great Noble Houses—an experience even more dreamlike than Izuru's.
As for Renji… there was no need to guess. Rukia knew he had definitely run off to that dojo that had only recently opened in South Rukongai District 1—the one called the Iba Dōjō.
Rumor had it that inside that dojo, it was easy to run into official Shinigami, and that quite a few members of the Gotei 13 liked to come there to spar.
After Renji's last failure, he'd pinned his hopes on using this to grasp the threshold of becoming a Shinigami.
So finding Renji wouldn't be hard!
Rukia quickly left her old home and set off toward the Iba Dōjō.
The distance wasn't extremely far, but it definitely wasn't close either. The dojo had likely been built a little away from the area center, considering that Shinigami sparring could easily affect the surroundings.
Rukia had to pass through at least a few bustling streets.
And while crossing one of them, she accidentally overheard someone asking about the former Grand Blade-Hunting Chief, Higashino Shuuichi.
"So I'm telling you, they never should've brought that Soul Society traitor back in the first place! Saying he was 'wrongfully accused'—look at the mess he caused this time!
You don't even know, that day, right in front of me, a Shinigami-sama's Zanpakutō suddenly materialized!
My gods—my stall got completely destroyed, and that Shinigami-sama nearly got killed by his own Zanpakutō!
Tell me, isn't that Higashino Shuuichi disgusting?!"
"What nonsense are you spewing?!
The Gotei 13's official report from the last incident has been out for ages! Only a few dozen Shinigami were injured, and not a single one died. We Rukongai civilians—some of us got caught too close and got hurt, and yes, a few died, but most people were just injured a bit. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as you're saying!"
Because Hisana knew some of the inside story, when she explained things to Rukia, she naturally said a lot of good things about Higashino Shuuichi. On top of that, Rukia had met Higashino Shuuichi that night and had an excellent impression of him—and he was also the key reason she'd found her sister again.
So in Rukia's mind, Higashino Shuuichi had been wronged.
She couldn't stand hearing someone smear him right beside her.
"Not that many deaths because the Gotei 13 Shinigami-sama reacted quickly and caught that evil Higashino Shuuichi in time! Otherwise, how could there have been so few casualties?!
Little girl, you're too young. Don't let someone fool you!"
"You're the one being fooled!
Everything I know was told to me by my sister—and my sister is Kuchiki Hisana. How could her information be fake?!"
Rukia shot back angrily.
"HAHAHA—your sister is Kuchiki Hisana? Little girl, why don't you say you're a Kuchiki too?
One of Soul Society's Five Great Noble Houses—the Kuchiki clan—is that something you can just 'claim'?
Try a lie that's a bit more convincing. Then maybe I'll listen to you~"
The moment he said it, the surrounding Rukongai civilians burst into laughter as they looked over.
Clearly, none of them took Rukia's words seriously.
But there was one exception.
It was the person who had just been asking that passerby about Higashino Shuuichi.
"You just said… your sister's name is Kuchiki Hisana?"
This person turned around and looked at Rukia with the only visible feature beneath her covering—those golden-yellow eyes.
For some reason, the instant Rukia met that gaze, she felt a faint, almost intangible sense of authority.
It was strange. She'd only ever felt something like that in her brother-in-law Byakuya's eyes.
And compared to Byakuya's deliberate severity, the authority in these eyes felt calmer, more natural—like it was simply something she was born with.
That made Rukia instinctively wary.
"N-no, I didn't… I was joking."
Rukia took half a step back.
"That's one of the Five Great Noble Houses. I'm just a Rukongai commoner… how could I possibly reach that high?"
She said it, even though the woman hadn't moved a single step. Yet Rukia still felt pressured for reasons she couldn't explain.
"A Rukongai commoner, hmm? Heh. Your clothes don't look like it~ And…"
The tall woman with golden eyes only smiled at Rukia's evasive answer. She didn't press further. After letting her gaze sweep past Rukia—toward somewhere not far behind her—she already had an answer in her heart.
But she didn't do anything else.
She simply let Rukia go, turned around, and left.
Only after the woman completely disappeared from view did Rukia finally let out a breath.
That invisible pressure had been unbearable.
But thankfully, the woman left just like that. The passerby who had mocked her was also gone. The little incident seemed to have ended—Rukia should continue to the Iba Dōjō and find Abarai Renji.
However, just as she left the district center and stepped onto the narrow path leading toward the dojo, a male noble blocked her way.
"So you really do look exactly like the Kuchiki clan head's wife. If no one had told me you were her little sister, I might've actually mistaken you for that lady myself~"
The male noble laid out his intentions the moment he appeared—plain and simple.
Even an idiot could tell he wasn't here with good intentions.
And right now, Rukia still wasn't a Shinigami…
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