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.
Abarai Renji
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 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?”
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.
Renji broods on his relationship to the Kuchiki family.
Life would be so much easier if he could just hate the bastard.
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.
Renji deals with his new job, and the echos of his old one.
Renji collapsed into his desk chair with a groan. “Who knew I’d ever appreciate paperwork?” he muttered, slumping over. Paperwork, at least, didn’t explode or kill anyone or change into weird, unpredictable hybrids.
Renji gets an offer and wibbles hesitates over it; Byakuya pounds talks some sense into him.
Renji liked to think that he stayed alert for anything, even when he was at home.
Anything, however, didn’t usually include a tiny brat of a fellow vice-captain landing on his shoulders and pounding him on the head with a small but very hard fist.
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.
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.
