"Are you still arguing with Abarai-san?" Orihime asked curiously.

"Stupid Renji," Rukia growled. "He thinks that just because he's a big bad lieutenant with a big bad bankai that he can treat me like I'm some no-rank Reaper in his Squad! It seriously makes me mad!"

"But..." Orihime said hesitantly. "Didn't Isana-san say that he's been getting even stronger?"

Rukia's scowl deepened at the reminder. It was the last conversation they'd had together before Aizen had fetched her new older sister away for her conjugal visit. She and her sister been angry together about Renji's shenanigans with the bunny girls, although Rukia had gotten the odd feeling that Isana had found it oddly amusing rather than offensive. After they'd gotten off the link with Renji after scolding him and then being scolded by him (about thier invading his privacy) Hisana had chuckled a little ruefully, almost to herself, it had seemed.

"I didn't show you our journey together just so we could spy on Lieutenant Abarai.. though it does sort of seem that it worked out that way," Hisana had said to Rukia with a serious look on her face. "I wanted you to see for yourself the sort of man your childhood friend has become."

"A philandering jerk?" Rukia had suggested flippantly, still angry at her discovery.

"A good man, that, when faced with choices that aren't always the easiest ones to make, will always, always do his very best for the people around him," Hisana corrected gently.

Rukia had scowled mulishly, unwilling to cede the point, even though she knew the truth of her elder sisters words perfectly well for herself.

"When he was turned mortal, Renji could have gone to either your friend Urahara or his own superiors to try to fix his situation, but he knew that while he did so a potential enemy to the Seireitei he serves would be allowed to move in the shadows. Renji chose to do the harder thing, took his troubles in his own hands and tracked his quarry no matter how far it took him."

"Renji's just stubborn that way!" Rukia had argued.

"And when he was faced with me, and all my... well," Hisana had sighed a little sadly. "I suppose I'll have to fully own up to my flaws. My own behaviour in all of this has been less than exemplary in a lot of ways. I- There are just times..." she had paused then continued.

"I've been on my own for so long," she'd explained. "And I've been carrying a burden that hasn't always been easy for me, though I do not see my son as such. Even so, there are times when its hard, and I get lonely. Instead of asking for help from him, help that I see now would have been freely given, I coerced him with magic. That's... terrible of me, looking back on it. I regret that, and I hope I will have the chance to make it right in the future."

"Well, you did do a lot of things that should rightly piss him off," Rukia had replied in agreement.

And it had been a true statement to make. Despite her mature stance on other things, there had been times when her older sister's behavior towards Renji had bordered on childish. Making him carry her around, then scolding him when he did it wrong, or the time she'd tried to make him wear her favor for the tourney.

"I wonder now how he put up with me. And why," Isana had admitted.

"That's how Renji is," Rukia had informed her. "He's always been kind of a team player and he has a soft spot for those who can't quite take care of themselves all the way. I mean, ever since we were little, he's cared about the people around him. There's nothing he wouldn't do for his friends, or his squad... or me. He faced a court martial and execution to try to help me when I got into trouble, even after we hadn't spoken for decades on end. Renji, that stubborn idiot, even went up against my brother, probably knowing it was a fight he couldn't win, but he did it anyway because..."

"Because he feels that you're something worth fighting for Rukia," Hisana had said gently. "To tell you the truth I'm a little envious of you. Well, maybe not so much now that I know about... about..."

Hisana had pinkened cutely, clearly the idea of being someone's beloved had clearly been a new one for her.

"I guess there's something about you he must have decided he couldn't walk away from," Rukia said, deciding not to tease Hisana about the man who loved her. "He acts tough, but he's a softie."

"You know the boy he was, and there's a lot of that boy still in there, but sometimes I think you let your memories of him blind you to the man he is now. A man, that, strictly between you and me, I would have made a play for if I'd had even half a chance."

Rukia had stared in shock, looking at her older sister like she'd grown a second head from her neck.

"You? Renji? Why?!" she had questioned aloud in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me?" Hisana had replied, as though she were the daft one. "First off, he's... well have you looked at him?"

"Yeah, his tattoos get funnier every time I see them," Rukia scoffed.

"You're still such a child," Hisana had shaken her head, as though in mock pity. "But aside from that, he's stong, and kind, and generous. And have you seen him fight?"

"I've seen him get his face pounded in," she'd said, a bit relishingly.

"And so you've also seen him pick himself up off the ground afterward and go at it again. Probably to eventually win some sort of victory. He takes a lickin' and keeps on kickin' that man does. And besides... I've seen him excesize with his shirt off. It's been the highlight of my day for the last few weeks!"

"And you, a married woman!" Rukia had said, scandalized (and a little weirded out that someone, much less her older sister, would look at her childhood friend and think he was attractive instead of... just Renji).

"I'm not dead yet, little sister," had been her humorous response. "But more seriously now. Renji's not just good looking on the outside."

"Minus the tattoos," Rukia had interjected.

"Frosting on the cake of yum I say," Hisana had rebutted. "And he's also strong on the inside as well. Trust me when I say that this isn't always the case, especially with men from his background. You both grew up on the streets and in a rough part of town, it would have been very easy for him to have given into the violence and chaos around him and become part of it. Easier than resisting I'd imagine."

The shrewd look her sister had given her had prompted Rukia to admit the truth in all honesty.

"When we were growing up, Renji took the occasional mercenary work for the bosses that ruled the streets around us, we could get food and water and blankets easier when he fought in rumbles. He was good enough to earn himself a reputation, and on the streets, a reputation's everything. He got offers from the people he worked freelance for too, some of them even really high up in the gang. He could have made a pretty comfortable life for himself if he'd taken any of them up, but he told me that the sorts of things that those men did would be betraying some part of him that was stronger than that."

"Well the boy who had enough strength to walk away from the violence has turned into a man that even your picky older brother finds worthy of relying on. Doesn't that tell you something?"

Rukia had wondered briefly then why it felt oddly like her older sister was trying to sell her on something, almost like a shady merchant trying to extol the virtues of their wares to a reluctant buyer.

"It tells me I have another reason to get jealous of him," Rukia had growled, obstinately refusing to surrender the field on this one. "Elder Brother thinks that Renji, of all people, is worth cultivating as his adjutant and yet Brother won't even let me attend a meeting of the Noble Houses with him, not even in his shadow!"

Rukia felt that old jealous competitiveness rise up in her once more, irritating her all over again with the fact that her brother, the one bragging right she had in the now vastly uneven scales between herself and Renji, was showing preference for the enemy! Rukia's rank as a Kuchiki vastly outshone Renji's rank as a lieutenant in the Court Guard Squads, but he'd made himself. He'd clawed his way to the top using his own two hands, polishing himself and honing his and his zanpaktou's edge to such and extent that even her brother found him worthy to guard his back in battle. Rukia sniffled a little bit...

"What's the matter Rukia?" hisana had asked in concern. "Did I say something worng?"

"No," Rukia had said hoarsely.

Then everything came out in a rush, all the bottled up feelings of inadequacy and jealousy and longing she'd been carrying around inside of her all those years tumbled out of her mouth to the ears of a person that Rukia felt might just possibly be able to understand her.

"Everything you said is right, I just don't want to admit it. Renji is really powerful now, and the days when I could outdo him are long gone. The days when we used to walk side by side are... the way he is now, I'll never see those days again. I'll never catch up to him. My zanpaktou and I don't have the close relationship that Renji has with his Zabimaru, and I think part of that is because Renji just has a heart that loves more easily than mine. Either way, I'm just now on Third Dance and I've got a long way to go before I'm ready to even start thinking about bankai, or even an Officers Seat. All this time we've been separted, he's been growing stronger and making friends, and everyone likes him! He doesn't need me. He never has. In fact I'm probably just a burden to him. He probably only helped me because I'm like some kitten he took in out of the rain that he can't turn his back on when it's in trouble because that's the kind of guy Renji is. I mean, look at all he's done for you and he didn't even know you! You weren't childhood friends like we were and he still stuck his neck out for you and put up with all kinds of crap from you."

"Eh-heh-heh..." Hisana said uncomfortably. "That's true. I can't argue with that."

"So you see my point," Rukia had said. "If he'll go through all of that for a strange mortal woman he's never met before, then I guess that means that I don't mean as much to him as his actions had made me hope!"

"That's not true!" Hisana had exclaimed.

Her older sister had immediately snapped her jaw shut, looking away guiltily. Ruki had scented the proverbial blood in the water. Her older sister knew something, and she was holding out.

"How would you know?" Rukia had demanded suspiciously.

"I, uh, I don't," she'd stammered, clearly lying. "I'm not saying anything."

"Not saying something is different from not knowing something. What are you hiding?" Rukia had asked.

"no way, little sister, you're not dragging me into this. At least, not any farther than I already am. If you've got questions, you'd better take them up with him."

"Renji probably won't answer me honestly, you know," Rukia had pointed out bluntly.

"He's as honest as the day is long," Hisana had protested.

"About most things, yes," Rukia had agreed. "But he's also a typical Rukongai male, and all specimens of thier type have that tough-guy stoic, manly bluster ingrained into them at a young age. Getting him to talk about what bothering him, even if it's something minor, has always been like pulling teeth... from an octopus."

"Do octopi have teeth?"

"I duuno, but you get my point. Even if they don't the analogy still holds. Even if I tie him to the floor with bakudo and hold his zanpaktou for ransom, if Renji doesn't want to say anything, there's no force in this world that can make him."

"Sheesh, if this is how you go about it, no wonder your relationship's going no-where," Hisana had muttered, looking at her like she was hopeless. "Look, let me give you a little bit of elder-sisterly advice. With guys like him, they might not respond so well to blunt force trauma to the heart. They're straightforward about everything else in thier lives, but tend to be skittish in matters of romance."

"Romance?!" Rukia had asked, starting in surprise. "Who said anything about romance?"

"If you want him to come to you, you have to find a way to reassure him that it's safe to do so first."

"Come to me? I- I- I don't know what you're getting at. I don't want him to come to me!"

Hisana had looked at her with this flat sort of expression, reminiscent of Renji's face when Rukia was being her most childish.

"He's like a shy woodland creature," she'd went on, as though Rukia hadn't protested. "He needs to be coaxed. A better strategy would be to make the first move-"

"What move, there's no move happening here!" Rukia had exclaimed.

Orihime raised her hand, like a school girl asking her sensei a question.

"What sort of move won't scare him off, but likewise won't make him feel pressured?" she asked eagrely.

"An excellent question!" Hisana had said, now looking more than ever like a teacher. "Don't go for the usual gifts strategy, even if you don't mean it presents inevitably carry a sense of obligation. A better thing to do would be to give him your time. This way you not only show him how useful you are to have around, you also get to spend more time with him."

"What if you're not all that useful...?" Orihime had asked, deflating a bit.

"Confidence!" Hisana had said in a scolding tone. "No man worth his salt wants to be with a woman he's always having to reassure and coddle and hold her hand. If you have your doubts about yourself, don't let him see it all the time. A little vulnerability is cute because it makes a man feel strong and protective, but if you're always certain you're no good then he's not going to want to keep propping you up."

She'd turned to Rukia.

"But on the flip side of that, don't push it too hard either. You don't get confidence for yourself by making your partner feel inadequate. It's okay to tease him from time to time about his quirks, but don't rag him on all of his faults at every opportunity."

"But he has so many of them..." Rukia had muttered defensively.

Hisana, for all of her occassionally childish behaviour toward Renji was hitting uncomfortably close to the bone.

"Did he complain about me to you or something?" Rukia had demanded next. "And it's a little ironic that you're the one scolding me."

"I never claimed my behavior has been above reproach," Hisana had replied steadily. "But likewise when I am at fault, I make sure to acknowledge it and apologize properly. Look, Rukia. Renji entrusted his heartstone to you, and that shows an unbelievable amount of trust in you. I just don't want to see you both unhappy by an impulse on your part that might ruin a relationship that's managed to outlast decades of separation and still come out strong. Do you realize how rare that is?"

"Renji's renji. He always has been," rukia had scoffed a little. "A few decades here or there isn;t going to change that much. He's still the same idiot who's bad at kido that he's always been, that's why our friendship hasn't changed."

Hisana had sighed quietly, as though Rukia had missed the point entirely.

"Are you blind?" she'd asked bluntly. "Even his Zabimaru is different, or so I'm told."

"I don't need to be reminded about how much farther he's advanced in martial rank and power than me," Rukia grumbled. "I can see that for myself."

"Well if you're right and he really doesn't need you because he's so much stronger, doesn't it make more sense to say that there's a reason why your friendship is still so strong after spending so much time apart? Think about it. He's got a bankai, and a second zanpaktou form, and he's a lieutenant, and yet he chooses to spend his spare time hanging around you. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Nope," Rukia said, mystified as to what her older sister might be getting at.

Orihime's face had brightened right up.

"Ooh! Oooh! I know, pick me!" she raised her arm excitedly.

Hisana had smiled gently and said

"I think this is the kind of realization she had better make for herself, otherwise, it's hopeless."

:And now that idiot Renjiu is treating me like I'm some kind of junior member of his squad!: Rukia thought in mortal offense.

They'd gotten off the link with her older brother and her older sister and Rukia had been about to let him have it, but he'd gotten straight down to business. He'd actually gone over the mission parameters with her once again, carefully outlining what her brother most likely had in mind for her to do while Rukia's temper had simmered. When he'd asked her if she had any questions, as though it had been a perfectly normal mission breifing...

:Well, a normal mission breifing in a squad that actually has a lieutenant...: she reconsidered.

Her own squad, Thirteenth, had done without a second in command for decades after the tragedy of Lieutenant Shiba's death. It had always been a mystery why her captain had not simply appointed a strong and promising ranked officer to the position as per the usual protocol. The other squads, she knew privately laughed at Thirteenth for it, and said that it was because the squad had not produced a Reaper strong enough to even try to compete on the same level as the rest of the lieutenants. Rukia wasn't certain she believed that particular nasty rumor.

:Sure, Thirteenth is a little more laid back than all the rest of the squads...: she admitted.

Thier Captain was one of the strongest in all the squads, but his strength came and went as he was very sickly. She knew that there were some who even thought that he should be replaced by someone who was able to handle the duties of a Captain regularly, but she couldn't imagine thirteenth squad with anyone else at its head. They managed just fine without a lieutenant and with a Captain who wasn't always at his strongest. But being treated as a junior officer, and having a lieutenant breif her properly as Reaper protocol dictated had been a blast from the past certainly. She hadn't been properly beifed by an under officer since the days that Kaien-dono had been in the squad. The fact that it had been Renji doing the briefing had just made things all the more weird.

:It's almost like he's a completely different person!: she marveled, not at all sure what to make if it.

Renji Abarai, her slightly goofy childhood friend, who hated spicy foods and couldn't swim, and was forever blowing himself up with kido. Who liked to hold massive parties with all of his friends in which there was drinking and merry-making, and music, and fighting and all sorts of carrying on. Who always seemed to get his face pounded in during a bad fight, but always got back in the ring again and kept right on swinging... He seemed like an entirley different person from Lieutenant Renji Abarai of Sixth Division. That Renji Abarai was focused on his work, conscientious of his position and the example he made for all officers under him, willing to use each of his squad members and thier abilities to the fullest in order to acheive the objectives his captain had set before him. He was serious and focused and detirmined that the faith his Captain showed in him would not be misplaced. He was strong to protect his junior officers, but likewise expected of them the same that he expected of himself, that they would give thier all in the tasks they had been given. He would see that Rukia and Orihime had and could use whatever tools they needed to see thier part of the mission fulfilled, and would help them as best he could.

:I think I see now what my sister was trying to tell me before she left. The Renji I've always known is still in there, but he probably won't be joining me for a while. The person I'm expected to deal with right now is thie Lieutenant of Sixth Squad.:

Oh, Renji had been his cocky, challenging and encouraging self. He'd expressed every faith that Rukia Kuchiki would be able to escort Orihime Inoue to the place where Aizen kept his heartstone, and would do it covertly and without being detected. And if she was detected, the Lieutenant would expect that she would put up an excellent fight to protect her charge while the mortal girl did what he had to do. His words had been full of encouragement and faith in her abilities, but likewise they had been the words a superior officer would give to a bright and promising junior officer. There had been an edge of familiarity to his tone, but that had been all that he'd allowed of thier normal relationship to seep through. Rukia had been so caught off guard that the questions she'd meant to ask him had not even appeared in her thoughts until after he'd already cut off the link after promising to buy her and Orihime some time and cause a great big distraction to buy them time.

Rukia didn't want to admit how nervous and scared she was for him. Aizen was not the sort of enemy who would let his opponent live afterward unless he had some use for that person. She dreaded to even try to imagine what he might have in store for Renji. He'd faced her brother and come out of it only barely alive, it was true that he'd gotten stronger since that day, but he was no-where near Aizen's level. If renji tried to take him on, he would die without question. Rukia was suddenly terrified she might loose him for good.

:Whatcha think Zabs?: Renji asked.

Aizen had sent one of his shadelings to his new adjutant, summoning him to one of the chambers deep within the inner castle. Renji had the sneaking suspicion that Aizen had been using it as a laboratory and that whatever to sneaky Captain had in store, it was not going to be a pleasant surprise. Still, go he must. He had to buy as much time as possible, keep up the ruse of an obedient underling for as long as possible, in order for the rest of the team to get themselves into place.

:I think we're in over our heads and sinking fast,: Snakey replied bluntly.

:I concur,: Babs said in agreement.

:You think Rukia's gonna be alright?: he asked.

He hadn't allowed himself to express how very terrified he was for her safety when he'd debreifed her. As a result he was a bit worried he might have come across cold and overly-formal, but falling back on formality and protocol had been the only way he'd been able to keep himself from begging her to cut out and run, just take a mirror-way to the room with the world gate in it and get the hell out of there before Aizen used her in some insane magical experiment. She was a soldier under his command, and the captain had given them both thier orders, it fell to him to put her in the right frame of mind to carry out those orders calmly and cofidently. So he'd treated her just as he would have any other junior officer, gone over every step of the mission carefully, covered the hows and wherefores, and encouraged her, expressed his faith and confidence in her abilities and reassured her that he would be working right alongside her in his own mission in order to relieve some of the pressure she was surely feeling.

:Sode No Shiraiyuki's weilder has all the cool, icy calm the Sleeve of Snow can grant to her when she chooses to call upon it,: Babs replied judiciously.

:Though, those two aren't really in synch so much so its anyone's guess if she can grasp that calm or not. If she's a jittery wreck, she'll have to find a way to pull through somehow,: Snakey said.

:For now, we should concentrate on what lies ahead of us, and leave the others to their respective tasks in Captain Kuchiki's strategy.:

:I guess you're right,: Renji agreed reluctantly. :There's nothing I can do for her right now, I've got my own task to deal with. I just hope Aizen doesn't throw a really big wrench in our plans.:

It liiiiives! Wow, i had all but given up on coming back and trying to finish this one off, but you guys were so supportive (persistant :) ) that I dipped a toe back in after all this time. I had actually become rather intimidated by Chasing Shadows after a while. That three fourths part always gets me, where its endgame and I'm feeling the pressure and I cave like a half baked quiche and wander off to go do something else. But you all, with your kind praise made me get back in the ring and give it another swing and I guess it's not the scary monster it seems to be in my mind. This one goes out to my lovely, wonderful, supportive, persistant reveiwers... Kshadeslady, C2T2, War 90, Bloody Roses Arienya, Kuro Okami and anonymous Guest. Without you all, this chapter and the ones that will follow would seriously not exist. Thank you so much for making it not so scary. Kudos to you all.