I do not own Bleach, RWBY, or anything else.

Where…

The sound of rending flesh slowly dragged Byakuya into the waking world, as his body moved freely and without his will.

What…?

He could barely feel anything, as though the world had been dipped in a thick layer of leaden cotton. He tried to focus, to zone in on the sensations around him. The landscape around him was blurry and fogged over, and every sound and sensation came with a punchy, woozy, wobbly feeling in his head.

Hisana!

The last thing he remembered… what had happened?

He'd sacrificed himself, buying Kurosaki the time he'd needed to confront Yhwach, and then… he'd met her again. Hisana.

"I'm sorry, love, but your time hasn't come yet," She had said. "You're still needed elsewhere. There's more out there than just the Soul King."

He wanted to scream, to cry, to rage at the unfairness of it all. Yet the same fog which blocked his senses also seemed to seal his movements. He needed to cry, but he could not even blink his eyes, which moved on their own. He needed to scream, but he couldn't even open his mouth, which stayed resolutely shut, as if it was closed by the will of another. He wanted to rage, but his limbs were clapped securely within metaphorical irons.

Finally, his body moved again, entirely without his volition. Focusing in on the alien sensation which was his new body, he could feel his hands clamped around some kind of pole weapon which was swinging about, and he could hear a repetitive snicker-snack as the weapon continued to meet resistance, before cleaving through the opposition.

The disconnect between him and his body… he'd felt it before, when he once tried to wear somebody else's Gigai. The notion that this… off-fitting Gigai could move on it's own was troublesome. Was it another blasted Mod-Soul?

I need to get out… to figure out what's happened! I need to get back to Hisana!

He wasted no time, and he tried propelling himself upwards and outwards of his current body. Nothing happened, and he was still stuck in the same predicament. Even worse, his Shinigami powers… were flagging. He couldn't even call up the spirit of his Zanpakuto.

A morbid thought occurred to him, a reminder of his time in the Royal Realm. Nimaya said that Asauchi were made from deceased spirits! Did he turn me into a Zanpakuto!?

By the Soul King, if this was what the afterlife looked like for him, he was going to find a way to come back and destroy the irreverent Shinigami. Especially for building weapons out of people's souls, which was a lot less justifiable when you were on the other side of the issue.

No! I won't be some sort of passenger in this!

He could feel his spiritual pressure failing slowly, but he wasn't going down any time soon. He surged his power, and the fog over his senses and his body faded immediately.

Immediately, he took stock of his surroundings, and noted that he was in a corporeal, human-shaped body. He wasn't a Zanpakuto (quite a relief!) or some kind of spirit projection. But on a more pressing note, he was surrounded by wolf-like monsters, eerily like Hollows save for the lack of the requisite Hollow-holes in their chests.

He reached out his senses, trying to pick up on their Reiatsu, but nothing came back. Nothing.

They leapt forward before he could even consider their eerie existence, and Byakuya burst into action. He dropped the unfamiliar weapon in his hands, a strange mechanical scythe which felt so wrong. It wasn't Senbonzakura (One Thousand Cherry Blossoms), the sword which complemented and channeled his soul.

There was a reason why Shinigami rarely used weapons aside from their Zanpakuto. There was nothing like the exquisite thrill of holding an avatar of your soul in your hands, and fighting with it as an extension of the self.

"Hado-"

He began the incantation for a Kido (Spirit Way) spell, before stopping in shock. His voice wasn't the rich, monotone male sound which he was accustomed to, but instead it was the shallow voice of a young girl.

What in the world!?

Before he could ruminate on the latest bizarre development, he felt the jaws of one of the wolves close around his torso, and he screamed out. He tried to cut the yell short, but as if his mouth wasn't controlled by his own will, he continued to cry out in pain.

"H-Hado #4: Byakurai (Way of Destruction #4:Pale Lightning)!" He managed to roar in his new, strangely feminine voice. A lance of lightning emerged from his finger, piercing the monster which was trying to eat him through it's skull and killing it at once. It faded into black smog without a fuss.

Half a dozen more of the beasts continued to advance upon him, and he leapt upwards with his air-walking, taking stock of his new body. To his horror, it was indeed the body of a young girl, clad in red and black skirt and blouse, with a long red cloak. But he couldn't linger on that.

"Hado #33: Sokatsui (Blue Fire Crash Down)!"

An enormous orb of blue fire emerged from his palm, leaping downwards to incinerate the monsters in scorching flames. And so he continued, blasting outwards with Hado spells to burn his foes down to their bones, reducing them to ashes.

Finally, no more of the twisted wolves pursued him, and he allowed himself to drop to the ground. Killing these rank-and-file monsters should have been easy, but he could feel something draining on him. He collapsed to the ground bonelessly, falling to his hands and knees.

"What…"

The world spun around him, and he felt darkness embrace him.

Weiss Schnee winced in pain as her older sister swabbed her eyelid. Together, the two of them made for quite the pair as Winter attended to Weiss' injuries in the washroom.

"OW! Owowowow! Winter, that hurts!"

Winter Schnee's lips pursed up, a parody of the thin red line which slashed downward through Weiss' left eye.

"I'm sorry, Weiss, but I have to make sure this doesn't get infected. You could lose your eye if we don't keep this clean, 'kay?"

Weiss gritted her teeth. She was well used to swallowing her complaints, but she hated having to do it with her older sister.

"I'm sorry, sister. It'll just be a little bit more, alright?"

Winter bundled up a fold of gauze, holding it firmly against Weiss' eye and tapeing it firmly in position.

"You did really well, you know. I don't think father was actually expecting you to defeat that… thing."

"Of course." Weiss spat bitterly. She should have felt surprised, that her 'dear father' would have sent her against the Possession Grimm for a losing battle. But it wasn't a tremendous shock. "Thank you, Winter."

Her father hadn't bothered to compliment her performance, of course.

"Don't even mention it, Weiss. Hold on for a moment, I'll be right back."

Weiss nodded, her gaze turning to the mirror on the wall. The cross of tape over her eye, almost looked… surprisingly normal, all things considered. She knew, intellectually, that the cross should have seemed strange, but in her gut she just thought it felt familiar.

"Well… that's unusual."

Byakuya awoke to the sound of frenzied, confused sobs. It was a noise he hadn't heard in years, not since the days when a younger Rukia would fall to homesickness for her time in the Rukon district.

Back then, he had been so distant. The thought of letting something like that happen again felt like lead in his gut, so despite all of his reservations, he cast his gaze about, searching for the source of the cries.

He stood alone in what looked like a field of roses, shaded by autumn-red trees overhead. Turning his head around, he could make out the source of the sobs in the difference.

"Can I help you?"

The tears cut short as he approached the source. It was a girl in red and black skirt and blouse, wearing a red cloak.

Wait, isn't that my new body? Am I… in her Inner World?

"You…" She hiccuped. "Who are you?"

Well, this was… problematic.

Oh Hisana, I wish I was as good with words as you were.