The cold blue dawn spills over the outer Rukongai, illuminating the roofstops that shine with a frost t hat didn't exist minutes ago.
And in its center... something breathes.
Not calm. Not still.
Hollow.
As if the sound itself had been frozen, trapped in the throat of the world.
Deep down the abandoned street of District 68, a shape curves in the heart of a crater made of crystalline ice. From there rises a pale mist like the vapor of a newborn star.
The body is delicate, small, familiar.
Rukia Kuchiki.
But her chest rises with a rhythm that she does not control.
Her fingers twitch with movements that are not her own.
Her eyes widen - and the ice cracks outward in jagged veins across the land.
A ring of frost extends from her in all directions, turning dirt, air and loose reishi into a glassy sheet of lunar white.
Inside Rukia's own mind
She can't move. She can't speak.
She can only feel what her body is doing.
She feels her lungs inhale, but the breath is not hers. She feels her spine arch, but the movement is hollow and simulated like a puppet.
She feels her mouth open, forming a whisper that she never intended:
"...st...ill..."
Her voice is monotone, empty, stripped of emotion, like a Zanpakutō spirit that never learned to feel.
Rukia tries to scream.
But the sound remains trapped in her skull.
Back in Rukongai, District 68
Around her, the frost begins to thicken and take shape.
Human shapes.
Souls trapped in her reiatsu, frozen in mid-step, are rewritten by the pale corruption. Their forms distort into crystalline humanoids whose faces are soft masks of ice.
Their chests pulsate with a faint blue light - not life, but an order, an instinct.
Guard. Surround. Protect.
They kneel around her, motionless.
Rukia doesn't feel any of this. She only feels the weight of something else inside her, something that expands, spreads like roots through her soul.
A gust of wind sweeps across the district, carrying with it bright flakes of ice that float like shooting stars.
When they land, everything they touch freezes instantly: stone, wood, and event faint traces of spiritual pressure embedded in the air.
It is birth-cold, the cold of the void before creation, where nothing yet has meaning.
The body that once belonged to Rukia inhales again.
Her pupils shine like fractured moons.
And a whisper escapes from Rukia's lips:
"...purify..."
Back inside Rukia's mind
Rukia's consciousness flickers like a candle underwater.
She sees a hand (the hand she can't move) rise into the air. She sees the frozen buildings tremble to stand firm.
Rukia's thought screams, muffled, unheard:
"No...!"
Her true voice cannot come to the surface.
Every time she struggles, the void around her tightens, pressing down on her like a frozen womb.
She realizes with growing terror:
What controls her body is not borrowing strength. It's replacing her.
Her spirit is being folded inward, sealed, wrapped in silence.
Seireitei. 13th Division Barracks.
Miles away, Captain Jūshirō Ukitake rises from his futon, clutching his chest. His expression tenses and his breathing labours.
A signature of spiritual power cuts through districts like a knife - familiar but warped, beautiful but grotesque.
Ukitake mutters:
"Rukia...?"
The sensation is so powerful that it makes the windows of his barracks vibrate.
Sentarō Kotsubaki slides towards the door and almost trips over himself:
"C-Captain Ukitake! What's going on!? The entire barracks just... the air felt like it froze for a second!"
But Ukitake doesn't listen to him. His eyes are widen open, unfocused, fixed on something only he can feel.
Ukitake's voice becomes a whisper:
"She is alive... but this reiatsu- it's not Rukia."
Sentarō freezes and fear runs down his spine.
Ukitake's breathing becomes shallow. His hand shakes. His voice becomes strained:
"Something is wearing down her power and coming this way."
Back in Rukongai, District 68
Constructs change. Air trembles.
Rukia's body rises slowly, standing on unsteady legs that freeze the ground with every step. Her hair floats weightlessly around her, outside of gravity.
The entity tilts its head toward the horizon - towards the Seireitei.
Its first destination.
Its first objective.
Rukia's inner conscience pounds against the invisible walls of her prison, desperate, broken, terrified...
...and the entity forces her body to walk.
Each step leaves a trail of ice behind her.
Each step brings the anomaly closer to the heart of the Soul Society.
Each step increases the darkness surrounding the real Rukia.