The morning air within the Kuchiki estate was, as always, exceptionally refreshing. A product of a lot of kan paid for far too many Kidō Corp labour hours. Though it was one of the only things that the Kuchiki family, with all its extreme conservatives, were actually willing to dish out money on aside from training facilities and enough complex Bakudō barriers and seals to sink a battleship.

In actual fact, the Kuchiki estate wasn’t all that visually impressive. It was beautiful in its own minimalistic way, but it was hardly a gaudy palace that some of the other Noble Families resided in. The Kuchiki was almost miniscule in size, possessing only a few main family members rather than the bloated families where you couldn’t accurately count their numbers the first time around even if you tried.

The Kuchiki family was different, in that way. Conservative in the most innocuous of ways; diet, training, mentality, money, politics. Everything was influenced by the trademarked Kuchiki pride, or at least the handful of elders would love for that to be the case.

The elders could hold power over the lesser parts of the family, those that lived just outside of the Kuchiki’s main estate, though still within Kuchiki owned land. They lived extremely strict and regimented lives, even if they didn’t necessarily wear the Kuchiki name; however, they lived lives of relative comfort and ease, never needing to so much as work, for the Kuchiki clan would provide with its immense wealth and political power.

Something that the elders loved to harp on about was the astoundingly high level of education amongst the branch families and even the twigs that grow from those branches. All told, the Kuchiki family have relatives in almost every administrative and scholarly field that Soul Society has to offer.

Of course, this is impressive. Extremely impressive in fact, but it was all done on the order of one man. There was no goodness in the action, even in the man who had ordered it to be done had every good intention. He had merely said to do so, and the elders were forced to go along with his plan.

The elders, while at least half of them were pleasant—if old and stodgy—the other half were almost malicious, having sat atop their high peak for so long that they couldn’t possibly relate to the struggles of anyone but themselves and their nearest peers. Hundreds of years, in some cases.

Honestly, if you were to look back in the history of the Kuchiki family and the rise of its power, there was an almost unmistakable turning point. It was long ago enough now that only some of Soul Society’s oldest members would actually remember it from their own past, rather than from a book on the Noble Houses and their respective histories.

Though, many would remember the reign of Ginrei Kuchiki within their lifetimes. The stoic 27th Head of the Kuchiki Family and the Captain of the 6th Division. Before Ginrei the Kuchiki family was merely one that held an absurd amount of political and economic power, only a middling clan when it came to the introduction of military might to their repertoire.

Ginrei’s father was a Lieutenant, pushing Ginrei to become more, and using every inkling of his own power to aid Ginrei in growing his power beyond mere talent. And, of course, his bet paid off.

Ginrei was the man that grew the Kuchiki family into, potentially, the most powerful and influential house in Soul Society, and even after the death of his children and his grandson, Byakuya’s, instatement as the 28th head of the Kuchiki family the man still held an astronomical amount of power.

Though Ginrei, ever the minimalist, rarely exercises that power in recent years. He has been more than happy with leaving it to his grandson rather than undertake an issue himself. However, he’d never once admitted to anyone that his power had been waning even before Byakuya had been born, and that he’d hardly been powerful enough to fix many of Soul Society’s most recent issues.

The last time that Ginrei had ever truly fought with someone, was during Byakuya’s instatement into his position as the next 6th Division Captain, and Ginrei had lost horrifically, though none—not even the spectacularly loudmouthed Kyōraku, at least at the time—had recounted quite how badly.

There was possibly only one person outside of the Court Guard that knew of that, and it was Rukia Kuchiki, the only other Captain-class Soul Reaper within the Kuchiki family. And she only came to know that from a much older Ginrei himself. Ginrei had, thankfully, loosened up in his twilight years, even finding a small amount of child-like mischief once his great, great granddaughter was born to Rukia and Renji Abarai.

Even if his great, great granddaughter didn’t hold the Kuchiki name, he had declared her as legitimate for all intents and purposes—though it didn’t quite stop the elders from squabbling over whether the adopted Rukia’s child was much more than a bastard, even if she retained her last name after marriage to an exceptionally powerful Soul Reaper who serves underneath the family’s head himself.

That very child was… a bit of a wildfire, with traits of mother and father interweaving into a truly terrifying existence. She’d even gone so far as to antagonise the son of the Kurosaki family for a good thirty years before she realised that she was being ridiculous and finally got together with the boy and had a child not ten years later after she’d claimed they were, ‘Taking it slow’, which was just about an antonym with the girl.

Well, anything she could do to irritate her mother, Rukia Kuchiki could only assume. There was nothing to make Rukia feel old like realising that she was a grandmother. She almost hated that her daughter had decided to follow the human timeline of events rather than Soul Society’s generally accepted timeline.

Especially when you were talking about Captain or Lieutenant level beings, with lifespans that could reach into the many hundreds of years, maybe thousands if you were good enough at not dying. Rukia hadn’t even thought about having a child until she was a hundred and fifty-five years old, at least. Ichika had a child when she wasn’t even forty!

Of course, with the nebulous way that souls aged in appearance, it wasn’t quite as horrifying as the rough equivalent of a five-year-old becoming a mother, but there was certainly an air of mortification around it. Especially now that her daughter looked as old, if not older than herself.

Rukia took in a deep breath, silently praying that the stupid Bakudō wards that created the air’s freshness would prove their money’s worth and actually calm her at all. Of course, it didn’t. With a sharp exhale, Rukia stood from her seat within the Courtyard, trying desperately to ignore the deluge of Kuchiki guards that hid themselves out of sight of the house’s residents. A fallacy when it came to the senses of a Captain, mostly anyways.

She lifted a long, thin pipe to her lips, gently pulling on the contents of it and letting the warm, velvety smoke leak into her mouth and down her throat, soothing her airways and sharpening her mind. It wasn’t quite a drug, proving almost no benefit at all other than its pleasant taste and feel—though the 12th Division stated that it gave a minor increase to focus amongst those that found concentrating a difficulty.

She exhaled into the open air; the thick smoke almost instantly being dissipated by the very same Bakudō wards that proved so good at stripping the air of any pollution. She stood, overlooking the courtyard that was little more than a tasteful stone path through shaped patches of strictly cut grass. Some would call it ugly, Rukia included, but damned if it didn’t fit the place.

With an elegant step, she disappeared from her spot and reappearing on the wall that stands just tall enough to see outside the oppressive, blank walls that the Kuchiki Family had installed almost more than half a millennium ago now.

She could see the massive buildings off in the distance, most of them being administrative or scientific in nature and little of which were residential aside from the household of another Noble Household.

Standing a far stretch from there was a sprawling maze of walls that she lovingly remembers as where she once spent most of her time, traversing those streets on Court Guard business underneath Captain Ukitake, who she has since taken the place of as the Captain of the 13th Division.

Now, as a Captain, she barely had to move, if she really didn’t want to. The average Soul Reaper doesn’t quite understand the levels to which you could simply shirk duties and forgo politics. The 11th Division was almost a testament to that, at least in the past.

Captain Zaraki, a truly terrifying man to be in the presence of, was historically flippant about any and all duties he might have, only really following orders when things got really serious—and even then, he’d only follow them the way he wanted to.

Though, things seemed to have changed since then… Zaraki Kenpachi was almost more unnerving to be around now, since the Blood War. He was still just as terrible with directions, seemed to show almost no interest at Captain meetings, could care less about the politics that were slowly undermining the power that the Court Guard had; but despite so many parts of him remaining just the same…

A wave of spiritual pressure touched against Rukia’s own, if only for a moment. It wasn’t anything special, power wise, in fact it was almost underwhelming—but Rukia’s eyes were pulled towards the origin of it regardless. She tried to pinpoint it, preying on the residual energy that remained after the origin was hidden away from her senses.

Her eyes met a direction, that lead to an estate, that made the short woman frown apprehensively. She ran a hand through her long, black hair—exceptionally thick in a way that seemed to remind certain people of past Captain Unohana. She’d even dressed as her once, parting her hair down the middle and weaving it into the Captain’s signature front facing braid. It was thoroughly unappreciated by those who had been mortally terrified of the Captain, though the current Kenpachi seemed to find it disturbingly hilarious.

She looked closer at the estate, trying to find any inkling of the spiritual pressure that she’d sensed so clearly despite its weak overall power. It was hard to stand out in such a spiritually polluted environment—testament to the way that the Court Guard barracks and offices were laid out, to keep the thousands of extremely powerful Soul Reapers from literally making sections of the district inhospitable to the average soul.

But this pressure was so clear. It almost felt as if it were unimpeded in such a way that she’d only experienced a few times, as if it were the clear water of a pond, rather than a river through an industrial district. It was hard to place where she might have felt it before, but Rukia realised that she wasn’t going to be able to get information on its source so easily.

Not with the origin point being dead within the Shihōin Estate, or the Onmitsukidō base of operations, or the 2nd Division’s barracks. All of which were extremely close together, for reasons that were blithely obvious.

“Michiru!” She called clearly, her voice resonating with a slight pulse of spiritual pressure. In the very next moment, a woman dressed in a Soul Reaper’s shihakushō appeared, the only thing slightly unique about her clothing was the symbol of the 13th Division and the way that she wore her bronze-coloured hair, weaved into a bun held together tightly by a net of braided hair.

The speed at which the girl moved may have surprised someone, especially with the sizable weight that the young Soul Reaper carried on her body. But every person within the 13th Division was personally trained, either by herself or her Lieutenant. It also didn’t hurt that the young woman had somewhat of a talent for Shunpo and the art of movement in general.

“Yes, Captain Kuchiki!” The girl greeted loudly, with an overly serious edge.

“Just Rukia, or Captain Rukia if you must.” Rukia demanded with a sigh, knowing that the girl wouldn’t adhere to her order, or she would try, and it would be so painful to watch the girl stammer out her name that she’d be forced to renege on her own order. “Regardless, did you feel that spiritual energy from only a moment ago?”

The weighty girl looked up at her, her rounded face scrunching up in concern, “I–I must apologise Captain R–” she swallowed heavily, “R–Ru—Captain Kuchiki!” She stammered out, eventually reverting to her formal addressing of the woman despite her orders to the contrary. Her wide cheeks were red with embarrassment, though Rukia just sighed and waver her hand dismissively, prompting the now 5th seat Soul Reaper to continue.

“I did not feel the spiritual energy you speak of. May I ask that you describe it?”

Rukia spent a few minutes trying to describe the sensation to the not that much younger woman kneeling before her, before pulling out paper and drawing examples involving bunnies. Bunnies always helped in explaining things.

Unfortunately, despite her 5th seat’s focused expression, Michiru was unable to recall such a spiritual pressure—an oddity with her relative level of spiritual sensitivity.

Rukia sent her away, staring off into the distance, looking at the estate that the spiritual pressure had originated from searchingly. She’d both never felt anything like it before, and also found it eerily similar to something she’d felt in the past—however, her mind couldn’t quite put together what it was.

But just as she was about to move off of the wall, beginning her day and the duties that came with it, there was a flash of movement to her left, forcing her to take a quick step back and draw her Zanpakutō to clash with a blade that had been swung at her with all the causal ease she could muster.

“Good.” The clear, regal voice of her older brother, Byakuya Kuchiki rang out across the estate, “You are far better at this than you were when you first became a Captain, Rukia.” She snorted at the man, rolling her eyes at the man’s perfectly maintained hair, separated with the Kuchiki clan’s ornamental hair piece and neck covered with the white, silk wrapping.

“I was much worse at Shunpo back then, Byakuya.” She said adversarially, though he was already looking out towards the Shihōin estate, away from her own sword wielding form. “You felt it too?”

“Indeed.” He said slowly, though his eyes narrowed slightly, a large expression for the classically stoic man.

“Do you know what it was? I swear I’ve felt that spiritual pressure before, I just can’t tell exactly where I–” Rukia lifted her eyes to look at the man, finding his expression even harsher still—intense in a way that she hadn’t seen on him in decades, not since he was concerned that Ichika had somehow found herself within Hueco Mundo.

Which she had, as a matter of fact. Watching Byakuya give her the dressing down of a lifetime, as her Captain no less, was possibly the most gratifying moment in Rukia’s existence, shortly following behind the massive relief after finding her resting upon the corpse of a Menos Grande she’d slaughtered because, ‘It looked comfortable!’

“I believe…” Byakuya began icily, “that it may be the spiritual pressure of a Blank.” Rukia stopped, scrunching her brows together and looking to the estate once more in confusion.

“A Blank?” She repeated, dumbfounded, “but why?”