Bleach - Buyer's Remorse - Part Five
Feb. 28th, 2011 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22a/n: Here is where things get a little bit different. More clues are given. More red herrings to lead the way. Enjoy!
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: M
Warning: Non-explicit noncon, foul language, speculation, nonconsensual drug use, flagrant alcohol use, possible slash, het, or femslash, NO romance/no pairings
Description: For all he can't remember, this is something that he'll never forget.
(One)(Two)(Three)(Four)(Five)(Six)(Seven)(Eight)(Nine)
“Matsumoto-san?”
By the gods, she hopes that her voice isn't shaking as much as she thinks it is. She curls her fingers into fists to keep from trembling, and she hopes her eyes aren’t still red from holding back the tears.
“Can I talk to you?” she adds a second later and fights the urge to flinch when the older woman looks her over.
The vice-captain blinks, looking honestly surprised by the request. But she nods anyway.
“Sure,” Matsumoto says and steps back, pushing the door open further. “Come on in.”
Rukia resists the urge to wring her hands together, no matter how much she wants to. It's not going to help things, and she's stronger than this. She is. She survived the seventy-eighth district of Rukongai after all.
This is nothing to lose control over.
Rukia repeats these words to herself over and over as she follows Matsumoto down the cluttered hallway of the lieutenant’s apartment and into a vaguely messy room that smells faintly floral. There are comfortable cushions scattered across the floor, and Rukia sinks into one gratefully, unable to fight the shiver that races down her spine. She feels like she hasn't been able to get warm since...
Since going to the meeting for the Shinigami Women’s Association last night and waking up in Rukongai that morning. All without a fucking clue as to how she had gotten there and why she was naked.
“Sake?”
Rukia shakes her head, suspecting that maybe alcohol is what got her in this situation in the first place. She doesn't remember drinking, but then, there's a lot of things Rukia doesn't remember.
“No, thank you.”
Matsumoto flops down into a cushion of her own, the motion somehow graceful. Even as she whips a cup out of nowhere and pours her own drink. After taking a long swig and refreshing her cup, she levels a kind look at Rukia, a silent request to start talking.
“I apologize for bothering you on your day off,” Rukia begins first. Since really, if there's one thing she's learned with the Shinigami, it's that free time is to be savored, especially in Matsumoto's case. “But I couldn't think of anyone else.”
At this, Matsumoto straightens, the curiosity in her eyes sliding to a wary sort of caution. There is something about her posture, however. Something very, very worried.
“Whatever it is, I'll listen,” she murmurs and moves almost like she wants to touch Rukia but thinks the better of it.
Rukia nods and inhales slowly; she tries to find the right words, but there aren’t any. Not for this. Her legs are folded beneath her, and her palms are resting on top of her thighs, but she's sweating so much that she has to wipe them on the fabric of her hakama. She wants to fold into herself like a child but keeps her back ramrod straight. She's a Kuchiki after all and a Shinigami; she won't let this defeat her.
Even if it feels like she's failing with each passing second. Even if it means admitting something like this.
“I think...”
She trails off, eyes skittering away from Matsumoto as though that will make this any easier to admit. Her next breath is shaky, and the strength of her resolve is the only thing that keeps her going.
“I think that I was raped.”
It sounds even more terrible to admit the truth aloud, but what else can Rukia think? Her memories of the previous night are a fractured, disordered mess. She doesn't know what happened or why she woke up in Rukongai. In an unfamiliar inn. In an unfamiliar bed.
She doesn't know why she woke up completely naked, her clothes folded beside her bed and her body wiped clean. The sheets smelled faintly of sex, and there were... marks. On her collarbone. A few on the inside of her thighs. One that resembles the press of fingers around her wrists. She keeps self-consciously tugging on the sleeves of her shihakushou, if only to hide the purple from prying eyes.
Nii-sama can never know. How could she possibly tell him this? Tell him that she’d been careless and possibly drinking too much? Tell him that some man, that some stranger, had forced himself on her and inside her and she couldn’t even remember his face? How could she ever tell him?
There's a gasp. Rukia doesn’t need to look up to know that Matsumoto is staring at her, but she forces herself to anyway.
“Are you sure?” the older woman asks. Then, she shakes her head, setting her sake off to the side, completely forgotten. “Of course you're sure,” she amends with still widened eyes. “You wouldn't have come to me if you weren't. Who was it?”
The last is more of a growl, a demand, as though Matsumoto is just asking for someone to punish. She'll have to get in line. Rukia has first dibs. And then, she's pretty sure nii-sama, Renji, and Ichigo will all want to have a go.
Provided that Rukia knew the identity of her encounter of course. Which she doesn't.
“I don't know,” Rukia admits, and it’s halfway to a whisper. Her fingers curl and flatten against her thighs. “I can't remember anything.” She pauses, swallows thickly, and forces herself to look at Matsumoto again. “I don't know what happened.”
It takes only a moment before Rukia suddenly finds herself in an embrace, and a part of her is so ridiculously grateful that all she wants to do is hold on, let go, and weep. But she doesn't. She lets herself ease into Matsumoto's comforting hold, lets some of the tension seep out of her body, but she swallows down anything resembling tears. She's stronger than that, stronger than this.
If there's one thing Rukia's not going to do, it's cry. Never again. She promised herself that decades ago.
Never again.
“I'm so sorry,” Matsumoto-san whispers. One hand strokes Rukia's hair, so gently she can hardly feel it at all.
She's apologizing, but it's not her fault. That's just the universal response when someone shares bad news. It shouldn't make Rukia feel better, but it does. Even if she still can't stop trembling, her mind soaked with unwelcome thoughts of the faceless man who must have perched over her, touching her with strange fingers, his lips and tongue without her permission.
Rukia feels ill. Her stomach churns, and acid creeps into her throat. Her fingers want to curl around Sode no Shirayuki, but there's no direction to aim her wrath, no way to make her feel safe again. The man is a mystery, and one she fears she won't be able to solve.
“I didn't know what to do,” Rukia murmurs because things are different now.
She's no longer a girl on her own in Rukongai with no one to tell and no one who’d care whether she lived or died. She's supposed to be safe now, but that's been shattered to dust. Rukia feels like she's been set adrift without a safe harbor.
“That's why I came to you.”
Matsumoto draws back, eyes searching Rukia's face. “Have you gone to the fourth yet?”
Rukia just shakes her head.
“Then that's the first place to start.”
Rukia's gaze snaps toward Matsumoto. The idea of telling anyone else what happened is both humiliating and uncomfortable. And gods, what if they tell her brother?
“I can't--”
“Rukia, you have to,” Matsumoto interrupts, leaving no question in her voice. “You can't remember anything that happened. You need a healer.”
The idea of someone examining her makes the disquiet in her belly grow. Her arms wrap around herself before she can convince herself to do otherwise.
“They'll tell nii-sama.”
“Not if we don't go to Unohana-taichou.” Matsumoto moves back into Rukia's line of sight, forcing the younger woman to meet her gaze. “Look. Isane's my friend. If we tell her not to talk, she won't. Would you be okay with that?”
Rukia doesn't really see where she has any other choice.
o0o0o
The bruises are gone, but the memory of them remains. Kotetsu-fukutaichou is an excellent healer, but Rukia still finds herself rubbing fingers over her wrist where the bruises once were, as though desperate to remind herself they had even existed. All she wants to do is forget, but there's been far too much of that already.
“Your blood results came back,” Kotetsu is saying, her eyes flicking between Matsumoto and Rukia before resting on the file in her hand once more. “I put a rush on them and made sure they were marked as anonymous.”
“Thank you,” Rukia whispers, and Matsumoto's arm across her shoulders is a warm comfort that she greedily accepts. She steels herself before asking, “What do they say?”
Kotetsu looks uncomfortable. Which in Rukia's world spells very bad news.
“You're healthy, Kuchiki-san, but we did find traces of a substance in your system. It means you were drugged.”
Rukia licks her lips with a suddenly dry tongue. “Drugged?” she repeats, a shiver tap-dancing up and down her spine. “What kind of drug?”
“It makes you highly suggestible, eager to do anything someone might ask.” Kotetsu is sympathetic. But she barrels on, as though saying it quickly will ease the hell that Rukia's life has suddenly become. “Its primary side effect is an irreparable loss of memory.”
Irreparable.
Meaning, without an investigation, without retracing her steps, Rukia will never know what happened. Not even who. Or why. She'll never get that night back; it will forever remain a huge blank spot in the back of her mind. Forever stolen from her.
She shudders, bile creeping into her throat again, and wonders if finding the nearest waste bin might be a good idea. She doesn't know if she'll be able to keep down the small meal Matsumoto encouraged her to eat earlier.
Rukia closes her eyes, tries to keep a firm grasp of her control, forcing herself to breathe.
“There's more, isn't there?” Matsumoto questions, and she would know. Kotetsu is her friend; she would know how to read her expressions.
Rukia isn't sure she wants to know. But she opens her eyes anyway. Just in time to see Kotetsu's reluctant nod.
“What is it?” she demands.
Kotetsu sighs, closes the file, and tucks it under her arm. “I know I said I’d keep this to myself, but at the time, I hadn't known you were drugged, Kuchiki-san. I'm required to report all cases involving that to my captain.”
“What?” Dear kami she hopes her voice hasn't come out as an outraged shriek. “No, you can't do that,” Rukia bursts out, heart leaping into her throat. “I don't… I can't…”
She can't seem to form words. Not when her body wants to forget how to breathe. Rukia clamps her mouth shut, reminding herself to be calm.
She can handle this. She can do this; she can recover. It's not the end of the world. Is it so much to ask to let the rape fade quietly into the past though? To let her handle it at her own pace? She doesn't want anyone else to know, least of all nii-sama. And she knows good and well that the first thing Unohana-taichou will do is tell him.
Matsumoto squeezes Rukia's hand, a silent support. It just doesn’t help any.
“You have to?” the older woman asks. “There's no way to keep this quiet?”
Kotetsu shakes her head, terribly apologetic. Her face is full of misery that probably mimics Rukia's own.
“I do. I'm sorry.”
Rukia had thought things couldn't get worse. She'd been so very wrong.
o0o0o
“Please relax, Kuchiki-san.”
Unohana-taichou’s voice is impossibly gentle. As though she's talking to someone she thinks is going to break at any second, and does Rukia really look that damaged?
But the next thing the captain says makes her breathe easier.
“I'm not going to tell your brother.”
Rukia exhales in a big rush. Her shoulders sag with unreasonable relief.
“But,” Unohana-taichou continues with troubled eyes, “I’d highly suggest that you do so yourself.”
She shakes her head so quickly that it makes her dizzy. Rukia's fingers curl around Sode no Shirayuki's hilt, wishing she'd let herself be weak and ask Matsumoto-san to accompany her. Not that it would’ve done much good. There’s nothing in this world or the next that could ease the queasy churn of her belly.
Gods, what nii-sama would think of her if he ever knew? Her face must say as much since Unohana-taichou reaches forward to take her hand.
“Do you honestly think he’d blame you, Kuchiki-san?” She shakes her head. “Your brother cares for you very much.”
“I know, but...” Rukia can't quite put it into her words, and frustration colors her tone. “He won't understand,” she finally whispers. “He'll be angry, and I can't even begin to imagine what his reaction might be.”
There's a moment of silence where Rukia hangs her head, eyes closed, and puts a tight lock on her imagination. The terrible scenarios that flash through her head aren’t helping her composure. All Rukia wants to do is go home, take a long hot bath, curl up in her bed, and surround herself in safe familiarity. The only place that could possibly be better would be the comfort of Ichigo’s closet. Safe and secure behind those doors with the pulse of his wild reiatsu all around her. Not to mention all the way in the living world and far away from whoever did this in the first place.
“Kuchiki-san.”
It's hard to ignore Unohana-taichou when she uses that tone. Her inflection soft and understanding, her concern highlighted by the motherly gleam in her eyes. Her voice gentle and coaxing, encouraging without demanding a thing.
“Do you know why I suggested you speak with your brother?”
Rukia's brow crinkles. “You think it will help?” she suggests without really knowing what else to say.
Unohana-taichou sits back in her chair. She still has Rukia’s hand somehow, but the touch is light and easy.
“No, Kuchiki-san. It’s because several months ago, Kuchiki-taichou almost died after ingesting the very same drug that was found in your system today.”
Her breath catches in her throat. Nii-sama? Really?
“They were trying to kill me, too?” she asks but can’t quite believe it.
Nor does Unohana-taichou apparently.
“No. I believe that the perpetrator did not intend to harm your brother. At least, this was the case for the others.”
Rukia's eyes widen, and she slumps against the back of her chair. “There were others?”
“As I said, I strongly suggest that you speak with Kuchiki-taichou,” Unohana-san says kindly, neither confirming nor denying Rukia's statement. “I am certain that he will not react as badly as you imagine he will. He is your brother, after all. He does love you very much.”
Rukia holds her breath for a moment but nods slowly, still trying to comprehend what Unohana-taichou wants to tell her. Nii-sama was drugged, too. Did that mean he was also assaulted? That he’d been…
Rukia feels her brain break. She honestly can’t believe her ears. She can’t believe it at all. Nii-sama is so strong. So unbeatable. This is… This is outrageous! This is insanity!
This is… probably true. If it were anyone other than Unohana-taichou, Rukia would think them lying. Telling tales. But this is Unohana-taichou. She doesn’t lie. Not about something like this. And she’d never even hint at something of this magnitude if it weren’t confirmed in her mind.
But it’s nii-sama! It’s Kuchiki Byakuya! Captain of the sixth division. Head of her clan. So strong. So powerful. So cautious. How could this ever have happened to him? How is it even possible?
How?
Her thoughts are like a broken record. Turning and turning over this idea. But no matter how many times it goes around in her head, she still can’t imagine this to be a reality. Unohana-taichou believes it, but this is her brother. This is someone she can trust, but nii-sama is too smart to fall of the same trick Rukia herself did. Unohana-taichou wouldn’t lie, but…
But… But…
But Unohana-taichou is right about at least some of it. Rukia really should talk to him. And as soon as possible. It’ll be uncomfortable, but if there's any chance that he’ll understand, Rukia is willing to face that a million times over. She doesn’t know how or even what she’ll say.
And really, maybe that’s the worst part of all of this.
o0o0o
Matsumoto volunteers to go with her, but Rukia reassures the older woman that she'll be alright. This is something Rukia needs to do on her own. Not that she doesn't appreciate Matsumoto's support. But no one needs to know nii-sama's secret either. Especially if he suffered a similar fate to her. Especially if he wasn’t only drugged and then very ill.
Nii-sama has never been particularly approachable, but this situation seems all the more nerve-wracking. Rukia's sweating bullets and feeling cold all over as she knocks on the door to his private office at the Kuchiki manor. She can't imagine telling him something like this over dinner or during one of their quiet tea sessions. Bad enough that she’s going to tell him at all.
He bids her enter, and she does so with trepidation wrapping icy fingers around her lungs. She never imagined that telling nii-sama something so personal would be worse than facing off against the ninth Espada while he wore Kaien-dono's face, and yet, it is somehow.
He's sitting at his desk when she enters, frowning over a piece of paper. But thankfully, he looks stronger and healthier than he has in the last few months. His skin isn’t as pale anymore, and there are no longer circles underneath his eyes. She supposes that Ichigo has been badgering him again to eat more. Still, he’s too thin for her own comfort. Much thinner than he was at this time last year.
If Rukia had needed another further reason to hate her rapist, she had one now.
“Are you busy?” she asks, awkwardness swelling in the room so thickly that she'd be surprised if her brother doesn't feel it already.
Maybe there's something else, too. Something in her tone or in the oddness of her visit that makes him put down his brush. He glances up at her, grey eyes filled with concern.
“Is something the matter?”
To anyone else, that would seem cold, but Rukia has learned to hear the warmth in his voice. To see the slight pinch at the corner of his mouth. To taste the flicker of worry in his reiatsu.
This is her brother. He cares for her and only wants her to be safe and happy. He would never blame her. Something she tries very hard to remind herself.
It mostly works.
Rukia inhales slowly. “I have something to tell you.”
She’s grateful that there's an extra cushion present, even if nii-sama is hardly in the habit of having visitors. Though Ichigo has been spending an awful lot of time with him as of late, and it does have a familiar edge to its energy as she settles in.
Byakuya inclines his head, face perfectly blank. “I'm listening.”
Her hands are in her lap, and she tangles her fingers together, if only to keep them from trembling. She's practiced this speech in her head since she first decided to tell him. It feels like ages ago, like years, even if barely a few hours have gone by. Still, the words are jumbled together, threatening to spill free in a frenzied and senseless mess.
This is her brother. He cares for her. Loves her even. Really, he does. He may never have said so aloud, but Unohana-taichou believes it. And maybe a big part of Rukia does, too.
“Nii-sama… I…”
But this is so hard. Harder even than admitting it to Matsumoto. Than admitting it to herself as she stared at the bruises darkening her skin.
“I…”
The words are thick and heavy on her tongue. Weighted on her soul.
“Rukia,” her brother interrupts before she can try again, and it’s perhaps the gentlest she's ever heard his voice. The softest she’s seen his eyes since he told her of his wife. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I will listen.”
It’s almost imploring. Not quite begging but more than a request. And she can see the worry that now etches the lines of his forehead.
Rukia swallows. Her fingers rub over her wrist. There is nothing left to do but to speak. There's no way to treat this delicately or make it any easier.
She can do this.
“Nii-sama… last night, after my meeting, I woke up in Rukongai. I… I don’t know how I got there,” Rukia confesses in a rush, unable to hold her brother’s gaze as the truth spills out. “I don’t remember anything. Not a thing from the time we met for dinner to this morning. But judging by the evidence, I'm pretty sure that… that I was raped.”
She doesn't look at him. She just gives in to the urge to twist her fingers together, as the weighted silence seems to crash down over her shoulders, pulling her under. Nii-sama doesn't speak, doesn't say anything, and Rukia just wants to scream at him to say something, anything to break to the horrible silence.
Reiatsu threads into the room, just a tiny curl but strong enough to make the walls tremble. Her brother is as still as death and twice as horrible in that moment. As terrible as staring up into Aizen’s dead eyes and knowing that he plans to kill her, to destroy her utterly, and that he doesn’t care.
But all of nii-sama’s glacial fury is directed elsewhere. It doesn’t even touch her at all.
“Who?” he demands in a tone so cold that she expects ice to rime the walls and tinkle across the floor like fine glass. “Who did this to you?”
“I-I don't know.” She shakes her head because she can tell that he's murderous; she's just unsure who is going to bear the force of it. “I can't remember. Unohana-taichou says… She says that's because of a drug that was used on me.”
If anything, this is even worse. He just sits there looking out and seeing nothing.
“Impossible,” Byakuya breathes.
Rukia's head snaps up out of sheer disbelief. Her jaw threatens to drop; her heart stutters in her chest.
“It's not,” she bites out and feels her belly lurch. “I really don't--”
Byakuya jerks out a hand. Which effectively stops her mid-sentence. Rukia only watches as he slowly pulls his free fingers away from his desk, knuckles still white.
“No, I believe you,” he begins carefully, softly. “I merely… I meant…” He gazes down at her, and his eyes say everything that he can’t. He looks at her as if all his nightmares have suddenly come true. “It just seems so impossible that we’ve suffered the same thing.”
But… It can’t… She doesn’t…
Rukia feels the world wobble. It makes so much sense.
Lately, he’s been so… well, not quiet. Nii-sama is always quiet. But he’s been off. Different since his illness. Since he was poisoned – drugged, a voice whispers – and nearly died. And not just in deciding that Ichigo’s suddenly his best friend. Truth be told, Rukia’s actually rather relieved for that last part. Relieved that her brother finally has a real friend.
But it hasn’t made sense before. And now, it does. So very much. So painfully much.
Rukia feels sick to her stomach. Feels as though the world’s been yanked out from underneath her. Like it’s spinning around and around and leaving her behind. Even more so when things shift in her mind.
Nii-sama. Ichigo. Suddenly and unexpectedly friends. Others, as Unohana-taichou implied. More victims. Someone else. Someone besides her brother and her.
Her brain goes to Ichigo. To his odd behavior since his last birthday. To going months without visiting Soul Society. To being almost uneasy in his own skin. To the odd way Ichigo looks at anyone outside his closest friends and those he trusts implicitly.
She isn’t quite certain what happens next. Rukia just knows that she’s losing her very small lunch in her brother’s waste basket and that he’s kneeling down next to her. He holds her hair back from her face the entire time it takes her to stop retching and even gives her a handkerchief afterwards. She wipes her mouth but doesn’t look at him. She’s too afraid of what she might find. Afraid that he’s just as broken as she feels.
“I have failed you,” he murmurs then, and pain flutters briefly across his entire being before it's carefully shuttered away. “I’ve failed you yet again. Yet another failure on top of all the others. If I had only stopped it myself, this would’ve never happened to you.”
Her fingers fist in the cloth of her hakama as her head snaps up. Disbelief makes her rock forward until their knees touch.
“No, nii-sama. I don't blame you at all. I didn't...” Rukia sucks in a breath. “Why would I? How could I? He almost killed you! This man… this rap--” She shook her head. “You almost died!”
She can see when her brother bites back his retort. His shoulders are squared, back stiff. But his eyes say it all as they always do. Rage, sorrow, guilt, regret. Rukia’s nearly frozen in place as she watches them skim across the surface, but she finds that she can finally breathe when she sees a new emotion emerge. The worst possible one.
Self-loathing.
“It isn’t your fault, nii-sama,” she states, and her tone is absolutely final. A voice she’s never dared use on him before. “It isn’t your fault. And it… it isn’t mine either. It happened. Now, it’s over.” Her fingers reach for his sleeve. “I want it to be over.”
He stares at her in silence for what feels like an eternity. He wants to believe her. Rukia wants to believe it, too. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s all they need.
They don’t hug. She’s his sister, and he’s her brother. But it’s always been a line that isn’t crossed. An awkwardness of their interactions. A wall that hasn’t fallen.
But somehow, her arms wind around his waist then and her head finds its way to his shoulder and she just breathes in his scent. And somehow, even better, he pulls her closer.
*****
a/n: Another victim and the plot thickens. Such a topic shouldn't have been so much fun to write, but it was. I enjoyed diving into the darker side of things. It was a challenge.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Next chapter gives us a LARGE clue that spells the perpetrator for the observant. Stay tuned!
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: M
Warning: Non-explicit noncon, foul language, speculation, nonconsensual drug use, flagrant alcohol use, possible slash, het, or femslash, NO romance/no pairings
Description: For all he can't remember, this is something that he'll never forget.
(One)(Two)(Three)(Four)(Five)(Six)(Seven)(Eight)(Nine)
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Buyer's Remorse
Part Five
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Buyer's Remorse
Part Five
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“Matsumoto-san?”
By the gods, she hopes that her voice isn't shaking as much as she thinks it is. She curls her fingers into fists to keep from trembling, and she hopes her eyes aren’t still red from holding back the tears.
“Can I talk to you?” she adds a second later and fights the urge to flinch when the older woman looks her over.
The vice-captain blinks, looking honestly surprised by the request. But she nods anyway.
“Sure,” Matsumoto says and steps back, pushing the door open further. “Come on in.”
Rukia resists the urge to wring her hands together, no matter how much she wants to. It's not going to help things, and she's stronger than this. She is. She survived the seventy-eighth district of Rukongai after all.
This is nothing to lose control over.
Rukia repeats these words to herself over and over as she follows Matsumoto down the cluttered hallway of the lieutenant’s apartment and into a vaguely messy room that smells faintly floral. There are comfortable cushions scattered across the floor, and Rukia sinks into one gratefully, unable to fight the shiver that races down her spine. She feels like she hasn't been able to get warm since...
Since going to the meeting for the Shinigami Women’s Association last night and waking up in Rukongai that morning. All without a fucking clue as to how she had gotten there and why she was naked.
“Sake?”
Rukia shakes her head, suspecting that maybe alcohol is what got her in this situation in the first place. She doesn't remember drinking, but then, there's a lot of things Rukia doesn't remember.
“No, thank you.”
Matsumoto flops down into a cushion of her own, the motion somehow graceful. Even as she whips a cup out of nowhere and pours her own drink. After taking a long swig and refreshing her cup, she levels a kind look at Rukia, a silent request to start talking.
“I apologize for bothering you on your day off,” Rukia begins first. Since really, if there's one thing she's learned with the Shinigami, it's that free time is to be savored, especially in Matsumoto's case. “But I couldn't think of anyone else.”
At this, Matsumoto straightens, the curiosity in her eyes sliding to a wary sort of caution. There is something about her posture, however. Something very, very worried.
“Whatever it is, I'll listen,” she murmurs and moves almost like she wants to touch Rukia but thinks the better of it.
Rukia nods and inhales slowly; she tries to find the right words, but there aren’t any. Not for this. Her legs are folded beneath her, and her palms are resting on top of her thighs, but she's sweating so much that she has to wipe them on the fabric of her hakama. She wants to fold into herself like a child but keeps her back ramrod straight. She's a Kuchiki after all and a Shinigami; she won't let this defeat her.
Even if it feels like she's failing with each passing second. Even if it means admitting something like this.
“I think...”
She trails off, eyes skittering away from Matsumoto as though that will make this any easier to admit. Her next breath is shaky, and the strength of her resolve is the only thing that keeps her going.
“I think that I was raped.”
It sounds even more terrible to admit the truth aloud, but what else can Rukia think? Her memories of the previous night are a fractured, disordered mess. She doesn't know what happened or why she woke up in Rukongai. In an unfamiliar inn. In an unfamiliar bed.
She doesn't know why she woke up completely naked, her clothes folded beside her bed and her body wiped clean. The sheets smelled faintly of sex, and there were... marks. On her collarbone. A few on the inside of her thighs. One that resembles the press of fingers around her wrists. She keeps self-consciously tugging on the sleeves of her shihakushou, if only to hide the purple from prying eyes.
Nii-sama can never know. How could she possibly tell him this? Tell him that she’d been careless and possibly drinking too much? Tell him that some man, that some stranger, had forced himself on her and inside her and she couldn’t even remember his face? How could she ever tell him?
There's a gasp. Rukia doesn’t need to look up to know that Matsumoto is staring at her, but she forces herself to anyway.
“Are you sure?” the older woman asks. Then, she shakes her head, setting her sake off to the side, completely forgotten. “Of course you're sure,” she amends with still widened eyes. “You wouldn't have come to me if you weren't. Who was it?”
The last is more of a growl, a demand, as though Matsumoto is just asking for someone to punish. She'll have to get in line. Rukia has first dibs. And then, she's pretty sure nii-sama, Renji, and Ichigo will all want to have a go.
Provided that Rukia knew the identity of her encounter of course. Which she doesn't.
“I don't know,” Rukia admits, and it’s halfway to a whisper. Her fingers curl and flatten against her thighs. “I can't remember anything.” She pauses, swallows thickly, and forces herself to look at Matsumoto again. “I don't know what happened.”
It takes only a moment before Rukia suddenly finds herself in an embrace, and a part of her is so ridiculously grateful that all she wants to do is hold on, let go, and weep. But she doesn't. She lets herself ease into Matsumoto's comforting hold, lets some of the tension seep out of her body, but she swallows down anything resembling tears. She's stronger than that, stronger than this.
If there's one thing Rukia's not going to do, it's cry. Never again. She promised herself that decades ago.
Never again.
“I'm so sorry,” Matsumoto-san whispers. One hand strokes Rukia's hair, so gently she can hardly feel it at all.
She's apologizing, but it's not her fault. That's just the universal response when someone shares bad news. It shouldn't make Rukia feel better, but it does. Even if she still can't stop trembling, her mind soaked with unwelcome thoughts of the faceless man who must have perched over her, touching her with strange fingers, his lips and tongue without her permission.
Rukia feels ill. Her stomach churns, and acid creeps into her throat. Her fingers want to curl around Sode no Shirayuki, but there's no direction to aim her wrath, no way to make her feel safe again. The man is a mystery, and one she fears she won't be able to solve.
“I didn't know what to do,” Rukia murmurs because things are different now.
She's no longer a girl on her own in Rukongai with no one to tell and no one who’d care whether she lived or died. She's supposed to be safe now, but that's been shattered to dust. Rukia feels like she's been set adrift without a safe harbor.
“That's why I came to you.”
Matsumoto draws back, eyes searching Rukia's face. “Have you gone to the fourth yet?”
Rukia just shakes her head.
“Then that's the first place to start.”
Rukia's gaze snaps toward Matsumoto. The idea of telling anyone else what happened is both humiliating and uncomfortable. And gods, what if they tell her brother?
“I can't--”
“Rukia, you have to,” Matsumoto interrupts, leaving no question in her voice. “You can't remember anything that happened. You need a healer.”
The idea of someone examining her makes the disquiet in her belly grow. Her arms wrap around herself before she can convince herself to do otherwise.
“They'll tell nii-sama.”
“Not if we don't go to Unohana-taichou.” Matsumoto moves back into Rukia's line of sight, forcing the younger woman to meet her gaze. “Look. Isane's my friend. If we tell her not to talk, she won't. Would you be okay with that?”
Rukia doesn't really see where she has any other choice.
The bruises are gone, but the memory of them remains. Kotetsu-fukutaichou is an excellent healer, but Rukia still finds herself rubbing fingers over her wrist where the bruises once were, as though desperate to remind herself they had even existed. All she wants to do is forget, but there's been far too much of that already.
“Your blood results came back,” Kotetsu is saying, her eyes flicking between Matsumoto and Rukia before resting on the file in her hand once more. “I put a rush on them and made sure they were marked as anonymous.”
“Thank you,” Rukia whispers, and Matsumoto's arm across her shoulders is a warm comfort that she greedily accepts. She steels herself before asking, “What do they say?”
Kotetsu looks uncomfortable. Which in Rukia's world spells very bad news.
“You're healthy, Kuchiki-san, but we did find traces of a substance in your system. It means you were drugged.”
Rukia licks her lips with a suddenly dry tongue. “Drugged?” she repeats, a shiver tap-dancing up and down her spine. “What kind of drug?”
“It makes you highly suggestible, eager to do anything someone might ask.” Kotetsu is sympathetic. But she barrels on, as though saying it quickly will ease the hell that Rukia's life has suddenly become. “Its primary side effect is an irreparable loss of memory.”
Irreparable.
Meaning, without an investigation, without retracing her steps, Rukia will never know what happened. Not even who. Or why. She'll never get that night back; it will forever remain a huge blank spot in the back of her mind. Forever stolen from her.
She shudders, bile creeping into her throat again, and wonders if finding the nearest waste bin might be a good idea. She doesn't know if she'll be able to keep down the small meal Matsumoto encouraged her to eat earlier.
Rukia closes her eyes, tries to keep a firm grasp of her control, forcing herself to breathe.
“There's more, isn't there?” Matsumoto questions, and she would know. Kotetsu is her friend; she would know how to read her expressions.
Rukia isn't sure she wants to know. But she opens her eyes anyway. Just in time to see Kotetsu's reluctant nod.
“What is it?” she demands.
Kotetsu sighs, closes the file, and tucks it under her arm. “I know I said I’d keep this to myself, but at the time, I hadn't known you were drugged, Kuchiki-san. I'm required to report all cases involving that to my captain.”
“What?” Dear kami she hopes her voice hasn't come out as an outraged shriek. “No, you can't do that,” Rukia bursts out, heart leaping into her throat. “I don't… I can't…”
She can't seem to form words. Not when her body wants to forget how to breathe. Rukia clamps her mouth shut, reminding herself to be calm.
She can handle this. She can do this; she can recover. It's not the end of the world. Is it so much to ask to let the rape fade quietly into the past though? To let her handle it at her own pace? She doesn't want anyone else to know, least of all nii-sama. And she knows good and well that the first thing Unohana-taichou will do is tell him.
Matsumoto squeezes Rukia's hand, a silent support. It just doesn’t help any.
“You have to?” the older woman asks. “There's no way to keep this quiet?”
Kotetsu shakes her head, terribly apologetic. Her face is full of misery that probably mimics Rukia's own.
“I do. I'm sorry.”
Rukia had thought things couldn't get worse. She'd been so very wrong.
“Please relax, Kuchiki-san.”
Unohana-taichou’s voice is impossibly gentle. As though she's talking to someone she thinks is going to break at any second, and does Rukia really look that damaged?
But the next thing the captain says makes her breathe easier.
“I'm not going to tell your brother.”
Rukia exhales in a big rush. Her shoulders sag with unreasonable relief.
“But,” Unohana-taichou continues with troubled eyes, “I’d highly suggest that you do so yourself.”
She shakes her head so quickly that it makes her dizzy. Rukia's fingers curl around Sode no Shirayuki's hilt, wishing she'd let herself be weak and ask Matsumoto-san to accompany her. Not that it would’ve done much good. There’s nothing in this world or the next that could ease the queasy churn of her belly.
Gods, what nii-sama would think of her if he ever knew? Her face must say as much since Unohana-taichou reaches forward to take her hand.
“Do you honestly think he’d blame you, Kuchiki-san?” She shakes her head. “Your brother cares for you very much.”
“I know, but...” Rukia can't quite put it into her words, and frustration colors her tone. “He won't understand,” she finally whispers. “He'll be angry, and I can't even begin to imagine what his reaction might be.”
There's a moment of silence where Rukia hangs her head, eyes closed, and puts a tight lock on her imagination. The terrible scenarios that flash through her head aren’t helping her composure. All Rukia wants to do is go home, take a long hot bath, curl up in her bed, and surround herself in safe familiarity. The only place that could possibly be better would be the comfort of Ichigo’s closet. Safe and secure behind those doors with the pulse of his wild reiatsu all around her. Not to mention all the way in the living world and far away from whoever did this in the first place.
“Kuchiki-san.”
It's hard to ignore Unohana-taichou when she uses that tone. Her inflection soft and understanding, her concern highlighted by the motherly gleam in her eyes. Her voice gentle and coaxing, encouraging without demanding a thing.
“Do you know why I suggested you speak with your brother?”
Rukia's brow crinkles. “You think it will help?” she suggests without really knowing what else to say.
Unohana-taichou sits back in her chair. She still has Rukia’s hand somehow, but the touch is light and easy.
“No, Kuchiki-san. It’s because several months ago, Kuchiki-taichou almost died after ingesting the very same drug that was found in your system today.”
Her breath catches in her throat. Nii-sama? Really?
“They were trying to kill me, too?” she asks but can’t quite believe it.
Nor does Unohana-taichou apparently.
“No. I believe that the perpetrator did not intend to harm your brother. At least, this was the case for the others.”
Rukia's eyes widen, and she slumps against the back of her chair. “There were others?”
“As I said, I strongly suggest that you speak with Kuchiki-taichou,” Unohana-san says kindly, neither confirming nor denying Rukia's statement. “I am certain that he will not react as badly as you imagine he will. He is your brother, after all. He does love you very much.”
Rukia holds her breath for a moment but nods slowly, still trying to comprehend what Unohana-taichou wants to tell her. Nii-sama was drugged, too. Did that mean he was also assaulted? That he’d been…
Rukia feels her brain break. She honestly can’t believe her ears. She can’t believe it at all. Nii-sama is so strong. So unbeatable. This is… This is outrageous! This is insanity!
This is… probably true. If it were anyone other than Unohana-taichou, Rukia would think them lying. Telling tales. But this is Unohana-taichou. She doesn’t lie. Not about something like this. And she’d never even hint at something of this magnitude if it weren’t confirmed in her mind.
But it’s nii-sama! It’s Kuchiki Byakuya! Captain of the sixth division. Head of her clan. So strong. So powerful. So cautious. How could this ever have happened to him? How is it even possible?
How?
Her thoughts are like a broken record. Turning and turning over this idea. But no matter how many times it goes around in her head, she still can’t imagine this to be a reality. Unohana-taichou believes it, but this is her brother. This is someone she can trust, but nii-sama is too smart to fall of the same trick Rukia herself did. Unohana-taichou wouldn’t lie, but…
But… But…
But Unohana-taichou is right about at least some of it. Rukia really should talk to him. And as soon as possible. It’ll be uncomfortable, but if there's any chance that he’ll understand, Rukia is willing to face that a million times over. She doesn’t know how or even what she’ll say.
And really, maybe that’s the worst part of all of this.
Matsumoto volunteers to go with her, but Rukia reassures the older woman that she'll be alright. This is something Rukia needs to do on her own. Not that she doesn't appreciate Matsumoto's support. But no one needs to know nii-sama's secret either. Especially if he suffered a similar fate to her. Especially if he wasn’t only drugged and then very ill.
Nii-sama has never been particularly approachable, but this situation seems all the more nerve-wracking. Rukia's sweating bullets and feeling cold all over as she knocks on the door to his private office at the Kuchiki manor. She can't imagine telling him something like this over dinner or during one of their quiet tea sessions. Bad enough that she’s going to tell him at all.
He bids her enter, and she does so with trepidation wrapping icy fingers around her lungs. She never imagined that telling nii-sama something so personal would be worse than facing off against the ninth Espada while he wore Kaien-dono's face, and yet, it is somehow.
He's sitting at his desk when she enters, frowning over a piece of paper. But thankfully, he looks stronger and healthier than he has in the last few months. His skin isn’t as pale anymore, and there are no longer circles underneath his eyes. She supposes that Ichigo has been badgering him again to eat more. Still, he’s too thin for her own comfort. Much thinner than he was at this time last year.
If Rukia had needed another further reason to hate her rapist, she had one now.
“Are you busy?” she asks, awkwardness swelling in the room so thickly that she'd be surprised if her brother doesn't feel it already.
Maybe there's something else, too. Something in her tone or in the oddness of her visit that makes him put down his brush. He glances up at her, grey eyes filled with concern.
“Is something the matter?”
To anyone else, that would seem cold, but Rukia has learned to hear the warmth in his voice. To see the slight pinch at the corner of his mouth. To taste the flicker of worry in his reiatsu.
This is her brother. He cares for her and only wants her to be safe and happy. He would never blame her. Something she tries very hard to remind herself.
It mostly works.
Rukia inhales slowly. “I have something to tell you.”
She’s grateful that there's an extra cushion present, even if nii-sama is hardly in the habit of having visitors. Though Ichigo has been spending an awful lot of time with him as of late, and it does have a familiar edge to its energy as she settles in.
Byakuya inclines his head, face perfectly blank. “I'm listening.”
Her hands are in her lap, and she tangles her fingers together, if only to keep them from trembling. She's practiced this speech in her head since she first decided to tell him. It feels like ages ago, like years, even if barely a few hours have gone by. Still, the words are jumbled together, threatening to spill free in a frenzied and senseless mess.
This is her brother. He cares for her. Loves her even. Really, he does. He may never have said so aloud, but Unohana-taichou believes it. And maybe a big part of Rukia does, too.
“Nii-sama… I…”
But this is so hard. Harder even than admitting it to Matsumoto. Than admitting it to herself as she stared at the bruises darkening her skin.
“I…”
The words are thick and heavy on her tongue. Weighted on her soul.
“Rukia,” her brother interrupts before she can try again, and it’s perhaps the gentlest she's ever heard his voice. The softest she’s seen his eyes since he told her of his wife. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I will listen.”
It’s almost imploring. Not quite begging but more than a request. And she can see the worry that now etches the lines of his forehead.
Rukia swallows. Her fingers rub over her wrist. There is nothing left to do but to speak. There's no way to treat this delicately or make it any easier.
She can do this.
“Nii-sama… last night, after my meeting, I woke up in Rukongai. I… I don’t know how I got there,” Rukia confesses in a rush, unable to hold her brother’s gaze as the truth spills out. “I don’t remember anything. Not a thing from the time we met for dinner to this morning. But judging by the evidence, I'm pretty sure that… that I was raped.”
She doesn't look at him. She just gives in to the urge to twist her fingers together, as the weighted silence seems to crash down over her shoulders, pulling her under. Nii-sama doesn't speak, doesn't say anything, and Rukia just wants to scream at him to say something, anything to break to the horrible silence.
Reiatsu threads into the room, just a tiny curl but strong enough to make the walls tremble. Her brother is as still as death and twice as horrible in that moment. As terrible as staring up into Aizen’s dead eyes and knowing that he plans to kill her, to destroy her utterly, and that he doesn’t care.
But all of nii-sama’s glacial fury is directed elsewhere. It doesn’t even touch her at all.
“Who?” he demands in a tone so cold that she expects ice to rime the walls and tinkle across the floor like fine glass. “Who did this to you?”
“I-I don't know.” She shakes her head because she can tell that he's murderous; she's just unsure who is going to bear the force of it. “I can't remember. Unohana-taichou says… She says that's because of a drug that was used on me.”
If anything, this is even worse. He just sits there looking out and seeing nothing.
“Impossible,” Byakuya breathes.
Rukia's head snaps up out of sheer disbelief. Her jaw threatens to drop; her heart stutters in her chest.
“It's not,” she bites out and feels her belly lurch. “I really don't--”
Byakuya jerks out a hand. Which effectively stops her mid-sentence. Rukia only watches as he slowly pulls his free fingers away from his desk, knuckles still white.
“No, I believe you,” he begins carefully, softly. “I merely… I meant…” He gazes down at her, and his eyes say everything that he can’t. He looks at her as if all his nightmares have suddenly come true. “It just seems so impossible that we’ve suffered the same thing.”
But… It can’t… She doesn’t…
Rukia feels the world wobble. It makes so much sense.
Lately, he’s been so… well, not quiet. Nii-sama is always quiet. But he’s been off. Different since his illness. Since he was poisoned – drugged, a voice whispers – and nearly died. And not just in deciding that Ichigo’s suddenly his best friend. Truth be told, Rukia’s actually rather relieved for that last part. Relieved that her brother finally has a real friend.
But it hasn’t made sense before. And now, it does. So very much. So painfully much.
Rukia feels sick to her stomach. Feels as though the world’s been yanked out from underneath her. Like it’s spinning around and around and leaving her behind. Even more so when things shift in her mind.
Nii-sama. Ichigo. Suddenly and unexpectedly friends. Others, as Unohana-taichou implied. More victims. Someone else. Someone besides her brother and her.
Her brain goes to Ichigo. To his odd behavior since his last birthday. To going months without visiting Soul Society. To being almost uneasy in his own skin. To the odd way Ichigo looks at anyone outside his closest friends and those he trusts implicitly.
She isn’t quite certain what happens next. Rukia just knows that she’s losing her very small lunch in her brother’s waste basket and that he’s kneeling down next to her. He holds her hair back from her face the entire time it takes her to stop retching and even gives her a handkerchief afterwards. She wipes her mouth but doesn’t look at him. She’s too afraid of what she might find. Afraid that he’s just as broken as she feels.
“I have failed you,” he murmurs then, and pain flutters briefly across his entire being before it's carefully shuttered away. “I’ve failed you yet again. Yet another failure on top of all the others. If I had only stopped it myself, this would’ve never happened to you.”
Her fingers fist in the cloth of her hakama as her head snaps up. Disbelief makes her rock forward until their knees touch.
“No, nii-sama. I don't blame you at all. I didn't...” Rukia sucks in a breath. “Why would I? How could I? He almost killed you! This man… this rap--” She shook her head. “You almost died!”
She can see when her brother bites back his retort. His shoulders are squared, back stiff. But his eyes say it all as they always do. Rage, sorrow, guilt, regret. Rukia’s nearly frozen in place as she watches them skim across the surface, but she finds that she can finally breathe when she sees a new emotion emerge. The worst possible one.
Self-loathing.
“It isn’t your fault, nii-sama,” she states, and her tone is absolutely final. A voice she’s never dared use on him before. “It isn’t your fault. And it… it isn’t mine either. It happened. Now, it’s over.” Her fingers reach for his sleeve. “I want it to be over.”
He stares at her in silence for what feels like an eternity. He wants to believe her. Rukia wants to believe it, too. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s all they need.
They don’t hug. She’s his sister, and he’s her brother. But it’s always been a line that isn’t crossed. An awkwardness of their interactions. A wall that hasn’t fallen.
But somehow, her arms wind around his waist then and her head finds its way to his shoulder and she just breathes in his scent. And somehow, even better, he pulls her closer.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Next chapter gives us a LARGE clue that spells the perpetrator for the observant. Stay tuned!
