67.

Title: Increased in Number
Prompt: None
Pairing/Character(s): Renji, Rukia, mentions of a couple others
Word Count: 467
A/N: I felt a spring of inspiration in the wee hours of the morning, so I acted on it. Sorry if this is terribly edited, I'm exhausted.

They clung to each other once again, choosing to mesh their paths in a new direction.

The last time this happened, they decided to go to the Shino Academy and become shinigami.

Now, they had nowhere to go but to train. After the Vandenreich left Soul Society, that's what most people had done anyway. No one had taken their training sessions for what they truly were: an escape from Byakuya's death. The Fourth had gotten to them both in time-barely, but in time-but they had been a little too late for Byakuya.

The Kuchiki elders had placed many expectations on Rukia's shoulders, expectations that she'd have to get to and meet very soon. But for now, they trained.

They trained to grow stronger. Both times, they had lost them because they weren't strong enough to save them. The Shino Academy was a ploy to get stronger. Bankai was a ploy to get stronger, though only Renji had succeeded to date. Ambition and rising in the ranks was a ploy for extra opportunities to gain strength.

Somehow, that strength was never enough. Murphy always seemed to laugh in their faces.

Rukia and Renji trained because a collective need to get stronger was there, and the familiarity, the inevitability of their togetherness, was just there. It had always been there, after Rukia had saved Renji and the others when they had stolen water.

They knew each other like the grip of their zanpakutous. It was even more of a dance than any of Sode no Shirayuki's shikai abilities.

They'd get a new family at one point, or people close enough to count. Of that they weren't certain, but willpower definitely played a role. And willpower they had. And the cold, callous, heartless shits that were the Kuchiki Elders, though Renji kept that thought in his own mind. That one would earn him a few kicks to the shins at the very least.

Renji wondered one thing as they sat under a tree, enjoying a short break in their training regime. Why is it, he'd thought at the time, that every time Rukia and I have a family, they go out and die on us? Why can't we ever be strong enough to save them?

But that's what this training session was for, he steeled himself firmly. We need to make sure that third time's the charm. We will survive. Inuzuri kids were nearly as hard to kill as their mutual friend, Kurosaki.

And the Strawberry agreed heartily that protecting one's family was paramount. That it was something worth training for. Something worth dying for. Then again, the kid would die for a stranger. Altruistic kid with not enough self-preservation.

Because no matter how hard you try, none of your family can ever truly be replaced. Only increased in number.