"Would you like me to save you?... Just kidding." — Gin Ichimaru.
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In hindsight, she should not have slept when she did. After having been given a 24 hour countdown, maybe sleeping for over eight hours as the first thing she did was a very foolish thing to do.
She had a little over half of that time remaining and she haven't done anything that remotely suggested that she would be leaving with someone who was still technically a stranger. A high noble Shinigami Captain stranger.
Not only that but she had been ignoring Renji since she woke up and also that she have yet to tell anyone that she would be leaving soon. How soon? In a couple of hours? For how long? Unknown.
Looking back at her decisions now, no doubt she had picked the worst one. But then again, that was the beauty of hindsight – organized regret.
As for whether Byakuya Kuchiki might be lying, she'd entertained the thought for a brief moment before ultimately dismissing it.
She lived in the tail end of the Rukongai. She knew just how unfair life could be. Yes, she was naïve and strongheaded like Renji liked to say but she wasn't entirely stupid, okay?
A Shinigami Captain had come into their home and politely asked to speak with her in private and in the blink of an eye they were gone from her doorstep to the mountain road. He remained courteous and polite throughout their talk, even when she might have insulted him with her manners or lack thereof.
If he were trying to kidnap or kill her then he would have done so in the blink of an eye. She had too many fears at the moment and adding rampant paranoia to it would do her no good.
"Ruki Ruki! Renji and Kiko and the others caught a small big animal so we're having breakfast today, yay!" Titi, an easily excitable girl and one of the youngest among them, ran into her and shook her out of her stupor.
"Tell them I'll be up in a minute." Titi was already gone before the rest of the sentence flowed out. She shook her head softly with a fond smile. "Time to face the music, Rukia."
She had been so out of it that she didn't even know when Renji and the others left, returned with an animal, and was already halfway to breakfast.
"Finally decided to stop sleeping, did you?"
"Shut up, Renji."
In no time at all the food was ready and was shared to everyone and as they ate Rukia got another good look at what she was about to give up.
Maybe the guilt of knowing just how much she wanted to see her sister again and the likely choice she would make but she couldn't eat more than a few nibbles before giving someone the meat to eat.
"I'll be leaving soon." She finally spoke up as most of them were getting done with their food.
"Leaving for where and how long will you be gone for?" Someone asked. At this point the circle they had formed while eating had grown silent.
She almost hated herself for doing this but she had to say it. No matter how she looked at it, she was being the overly selfish one here.
"That man yesterday, the Shinigami, I'll be going with him." She said tentatively.
"What are you talking about, Rukia? Why will you be going with him?" Kiko, the biggest boy in the group, looked around in confusion and then at Rukia for an answer.
"My sister." She said, "He told me that my sister is alive and she wants to see me."
She was waiting for the next salvo of questions to be thrown at her – The shocked outrage, the numerous whys, the shouts of disbelief, the silent pleading, the loud pleas – and bracing herself as she readied the replies and explanations she had rotating in her head... but none came.
She did not know when she started staring at the floor but she raised her head and what she saw was sad smiles, silent tears and understanding eyes.
"W-What…"
"Some of us suspected after you returned yesterday but we were afraid to say anything in case we were wrong… or in case we were right." Nanamura, arguably the oldest among them, said with a sad smile. "You are terrible at lying and keeping a secret, Rukia. We knew something had happened for you the moment you started worrying about us."
Her cheeks burned in embarrassment and she ducked her head lower making everyone laugh at her.
The laugh died down and this time when Rukia looked up there were more smiles than tears. Sad smiles, pained smiles, well-wishing smiles…
Someone spoke from her side, and it was Kiko who wore a fading pained smile. "Nana is right, Rukia. Your sister is alive and she's looking for you, that's more than most of us will ever have. You have been offered a way out of here and a ticket to a better life, a chance most of us will never get, so don't wait a single second worrying about us."
One by one they each gave her a form of encouragement and reassurance and even the little kids who were crying at the news of her leaving never once told her to stay and that they were going to miss her a lot.
Breakfast had turned into an emotional buffet with shots of waterworks at every turn but it had left Rukia feeling very light. Almost peaceful even.
After breakfast ended she went to the back of the house and saw Renji standing there with clenched fists.
"You're not going to say goodbye?" She asked with a raised brow, with her hands folded over her chest and her feet idly tapping at the ground.
No matter how much they were constantly at each other's throat, they had grown up practically together and he was arguably her best friend — if best friend meant making you eternally angry and prone to murder plots.
Renji said nothing and looked away stubbornly.
Rukia looked exasperated. "Renji…"
"I'm not going to say goodbye, Rukia." His sudden declaration took her back but before she could fire back at him for being childishly difficult he continued on with all seriousness.
"You're going to be a Shinigami, right? Then I'm not going to say goodbye because I'll be seeing you later when I enroll to become a Shinigami."
She opened her mouth to berate him, rebuke him, or even scold him but nothing came out so in the end she just smiled ruefully.
"You're an idiot, Renji."
Renji bristled with righteous fury. "Don't call me an idiot, you idiot."
She scoffed derisively while smiling widely. "But you're an idiot, Renji," she said persuasively, as if trying to convince him of the idea. "How are you going to get to the Shin'ō Academy from here?"
Renji growled, his inner fire all but stoked with Rukia's belittlement. "That guy said the next entrance exam is still months away, right? I'll take the next entrance exam and if I get in before you then you're the bigger idiot."
"We'll see then." Rukia said smugly, radiating a baseless confidence that itched Renji the wrong way.
"Yeah, we'll see." Renji matched her energy, flaunting the same baseless confidence as Rukia, probably having borrowed it from the same source as well.
"I see you're done with your goodbyes, Rukia. If that is so then we should be on our way."
The two of them flinched with different exaggerations when they heard Byakuya's voice from behind them. He came too early before the given deadline. Like eight hours too early.
"Shit. You almost scared me to death there, Mr. Shinigami." Renji made a gesture of patting his heart to make sure it was in place before finally regarding Byakuya.
A casual glance told Renji that the man looked just as immaculate as the day before, that not even a single strand of hair was out of place.
Byakuya's eyes frowned at the banal address and immediately corrected Renji lest he stand to hear it one more time.
"You'll either call me Lord Kuchiki, or Captain Kuchiki. Those are the only titles you'll address me from now on."
"Yessir." Renji's spine straightened under the man's gaze which the man seemed to approve of as he gave the boy a nod.
He turned to Rukia and asked again, this time his tone more neutral than the pressing one he had used for Renji.
"Are you ready to leave, Rukia?" He asked again. She first spied a look at Renji, the both of them sharing a tacit nod, before him a nod.
Other than a few patched up clothes, she didn't have any other possessions. So other than the clothes she was wearing, she carried nothing else. Which was probably for the best as Byakuya wouldn't have let her haul such baubles along with her.
"Good. I want to get there by nightfall so we'll have to make haste. Hold on tight." He picked her up after that warning and as soon as she settled comfortably in his arms, he disappeared without sparing as much as a glance at Renji.
Left alone in the back of their house, Renji cursed at no one in particular as he vented his frustrations and heavy emotions in the wind.
Hours later, Renji absentmindedly walked along the mountain road, passed where he met Byakuya, and went even deeper.
He picked up a stick along the way and when he finally found a nice spot covered by rocks and sparse green he took off his shirt and started swinging the stick the same way he pictured he would swing a sword.
After what felt like hours went by – in which liters of sweat were expunged in tandem – , he was forced to drop the sword and grab his knees as he fought to breathe. It was way harder than he thought. His arms, his back, his waist and his shoulders ached brutally.
"For a short 15 minutes of terrible workout, you look all bummed out, kid. Ain't all that sweet to swing a sword now, is it?"
Renji's hazy vision was forcefully cleared as he looked around for the voice.
"Eyes a'swimming, red. Rushing it makes yer focus a lot worse."
Renji slowed down and tried taking a more steady uniform breath and this time when he looked around he finally saw someone sitting on one of the rocks that he was sure his eyes had swept passed like three times.
He finally got a good look at his audience. Shinigami.
"Ting ting. Correct answer, red."
He was a Shinigami alright, but different from other Shinigami, this one wore a mask. A completely black and featureless mask. His clothes covered every inch of his body, including his gloved hands, so that not an iota of skin could be seen.
"So sonny, what's got you worked up to waste your energy in that abominable exercise? Your girl left you? Want to become a Shinigami? Your girl got whisked away by another guy?"
Renji opened up his mouth to speak but he was just as easily floored by the words that left the masked man's mouth.
"Oh~ looks like I got it all in one go. Perfect score for me."
Renji shook his head and picked up his stick to continue his training. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted on his first day of training.
"Please, Mr. Shinigami-"
"Call me Black."
Renji took a deep breath in. "Please. I need to focus on training so I can take the Shinigami exam this year, Mr. Black."
"Just Black." Black shrugged lazily. "I'm cool with allat, but yer doing it all wrong."
Renji was about to say something back before he caught himself and took note of his current situation. Here was a Shinigami telling him his training to become a Shinigami was wrong.
"Can you please teach me? Even if it's just how to properly swing a sword, I'll be really grateful."
"Hmm." Black leaned forward and stroked his mask in a weirdly natural way as if he was really stroking his chin. "Eh, who knows? It might be fun. Bossman did it and the other guy turned out fine."
The casual and flippant stride he was taking everything made Renji skeptical but he wasn't exactly basking in help baskets.
"You'll do it?" He couldn't hide the hope in his voice.
"Sure, why not?" Black said. "Coincidences like these never happen, you know."
The way that sentence was phrased sounded sketchy but Renji was all too focused on ecstatic at the fact that he just got a Shinigami teacher out of nowhere.
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