Rukia feels a rush of ice in her veins just as cold as her powers when she hears those words. "Arisawa..." she mutters.

    "Hm?" Orihime looks at her questioningly because of the fear in Rukia's voice.

    "She's... that's..."

    "That's her, isn't it?" Uryuu asks.

    Rukia speaks up. "She's a vice-captain as well, isn't she?"

    "Yeah, but, how do you know that?" Orihime asks, worry in her eyes for Rukia. "Is something wrong?"

    "Well..." Rukia renembers the night Ichigo left, and the pain Tatsuki caused her. "She was the one assigned... along with one of your captains, to get Ichigo from the human world."

    "Tatsuki-chan did?"

    "She didn't tell you?"

    "Well, no." Orihime admits. "In fact... we've been distant for a while..."

    "Inoue, if she runs in to me, she'll do everything she can to kill me." Rukia warns.

    "Don't worry!" Orihime encourages. "I'll definitely help you in your battle!"

    "Well, thing is..." Rukia looks to the floor and finds a grin covering her face. "I kinda wanted the rematch to just be us, so I can beat her at her own game."

    "You're insane," Uryuu sighs and pushes up his glasses.

    "Even though Tatsuki-chan and I have been friends for longer than I can remember..." Orihime begins, a bit more serious in her tone. "I'll side with you, Rukia-san. I'm afraid that Soul Society is the one in the wrong this time. Ichigo-san is not a criminal."

    Rukia smiles softly. "Thank you, Inoue."

    "Hm!" she salutes, back to the silliness.

    "Let's just try to find Kurosaki for the time being." Uryuu says.

    ~

    After a long time of navigating the tunnels, Orihime finally finds the spot closest to the tower where Ichigo is being held. "This is it right here! I'll go out posing as myself just being on duty and I'll give a signal if the coast is clear!"

    Uryuu and Rukia nod. "Got it!"

    Orihime climbs up the latter and removes the vent at the top to climb up onto the ground outside. She scouts the area and smirks before giving out the signal. "Meow!"

    Uryuu frowns. "Did she just say something?"

    "I don't know." Rukia shrugs.

    "Ribbit ribbit!"

    "What the heck is she doing!?"

    "Talking to animals, maybe?"

    "AhemCOMEOUTSIDEahem!" Orihime loudly coughs. Soon the rest of the trio is above ground, now vulnerable to attacks from other shinigami. "We have to hurry before we get spotted by anyone patroling this area."

    "Lead the way," Rukia says.

    "Actually," Orihime spins on her heal and points to what was behind her. "That's the tower you're looking for. The Shrine of Penitence."

    They gaze up upon a huge mountain of other buildings, in the center a narrow tower taller than anything around it. "We're close, yet so far away..." Uryuu comments.

    "So it's a bit of a climb, we can deal with that." Rukia shrugs. The hike up there is what's gonna kill me on this mission~!! She cries inwardly. "But this fog needs to clear up first."

    "It's not as bad as it looks." Orihime informs. "There's stairs up to the area a few hundred yards ahead."

    As they start walking, a gust of wind helps clear up the area. After a few minutes of walking, the stairs Orihime mentioned are in view. But when everything is almost clear... something feels off. Orihime and Uryuu noticed too, since they all stop at the same time. "This reiatsu..." Uryuu begins. "This person's strong. Stronger than the bald guy you fought."

    "I know..." Rukia begins. "It makes sense that she'd guard this place..."

    Laying back with her arms behind her head, resting on her hands, is a girl with short, dark purple hair. She stands up and has a noticable smirk on her face. "Yo. It's been a while, hasn't it? Do you even remember me?"

    "I wish I didn't." Rukia replies. "But unfortunately for you, there's something we have to settle. Miss Arisawa Tatsuki."

    "Oh?" Tatsuki leaps forward and lands with a thud on the bottom of the steps, slowly walking over to the group. "That's a surprise, I didn't expect you to remember my name. And also..." At that moment, the fog was completely clear. "I didn't think you'd be stubborn enough to get your Shinigami powers back." She scowls, her eyes roaming over to the left. "Orihime. And I thought we were drifting apart. You went as far as to bring the ryouka scum to me?"

    Orihime steps foward, a mutual glare on her face as well. "Tatsuki-chan... I'm your best friend, you'd hear me out, right?" Her eyes soften. "Believe me when I say Ichigo-san isn't a criminal!"

    Tastuki sneers. "Hah, he even infected you... Orihime, why? Out of all people, he's poisoning you with the idea that humans are special!?"

    "Hey!" Rukia snarls. Tatsuki turns her attention back to her. "Don't talk so lowly of us, after all I am one of them."

    "Psh, am I supposed to be intimidated by that?" Rukia begins to walk forwards as well. "Well... you somehow survived the captain's attack. I'll at least say I'm impressed by that."

    "Thanks so much."

    "Hey, Kuchiki!" Uryuu calls out. "She has a reiatsu unlike the ones we've seen so far!"

    "Let her fight, Ishida-kun." Orihime says. "I understand... how she's feeling right now."

    Tatsuki begins to tread a little quicker, causing Rukia to copy her. The lieutenant moves her hand to unsheath her zanpakuto, and starts to run. Rukia sees this and begins to dash ahead as well. "I promised myself to kill the girl who took Ichigo's powers! The girl that got him executed!!" She completely unsheaths her sword and leaps up into the air. "As long as you're alive, he won't get his powers back!"

    Rukia stops and prepares her zanpakuto for a block the moment their blades clash. It's a fight over who's tougher now; Tatsuki has gathered hee footing and they are now trying to cut to the tip of the other's blade to land a slash on them. "What are you talking about!? You brought him back here so he can get killed!!" She grits her teeth and realizes that any second now, Tatsuki will win this battke of strength. She quickly steps back and dogdes the lieutenant's sword, then they stare at eachother for a second, trying to come up with the next move.

    "What did she get herself in to, fighting a vice-captain?" Uryuu comments.

    "No... look closely at her." Orihime says. A few moments after that, the two leap again and clash blades just like before. The only difference is that Rukia, now more determined, completly dominates in the battle over strength, pushing Tatsuki back to the stairs, pinning her against the wall. "She's completely overwhelming Tatsuki-chan! That's amazing... even I'm not able to fight her like that..." A few sparks shoot out from the zanpakuto sliding against eachother. "Rukia-san... What is she!?"

    "That's what I'd like to know." Uryuu looks away for a moment. "She's probably stronger than me at this point..."

    Tatsuki grits her teeth and pushes back Rukia's zanpakuto, but not enough for the swords to separate. "Hey, Kuchiki Rukia." she spits out her name like it was rotting in her mouth. "Just how did you plan to save Ichigo, anyways?"

    "How?" Rukia asks, glaring down at her opponent.

    "Even if you were to beat me," Tatsuki grins. "There's still eleven more vice-captains you'd have to hack through. Above that, there's thirteen Captains above them. Other than defeating all of them, you still wouldn't have a chance at saving Ichigo. Are you implying that you'll do all of that?"

    They struggle with trying to get out of the clash for a moment, then Rukia speaks up. "Sure, I don't see why not. How many were there again? Captains and vice-captains? I don't care how many appear, I'll just have to defeat them all!!" she screams.

    "What the hell!? Where's that arrogance stemming from? How can you be so full of yourself?" Tatsuki's voice slowly rises. "So you can control the power in your zanpakuto... are you freakin telling me that you're overconfident because you think crap like that is making you stronger!?" She gets a surge of strength and practically shoots Rukia off of her. Stunned for a moment, Rukia tries to gather her footing before she lands. What the hell did she just do!? "Rain death upon her, Kisode!"

    Here comes the fun part. Rukia thinks as she watches the blade glow bright white and then dissolve into dust. The particles cling around Tatsuki's right hand and up her arm, flash for a moment, and there is the special sleeve that left her baffled the last time they battled. Tatsuki lets out a battle cry before charging to Rukia. At that moment, Rukia feels a strange sensation, some kind of pain, in her eyes. It's that feeling again... she looks far away enough for me to-! The moment she makes a move to try and dodge, there's a sharp pain in her left side. As if everything was in slow motion, she looks down to see Tatsuki looking up at her, an evil grin on her face. Rukia winces before she's sent flying back into the wall behind her. As she lies in the rubble from whatever building she was knocked into, she evaluates what just happened.

    Aah... she just grazed my stomach with a cut, but landed a dull blow as well... She breathes hard for a moment, feeling a slight spike in her own reiatsu cover some of the pain. So when I felt pain in my eyes... she was still running to me... but then she hit me and I saw she was right in front of me... Is she an illusionist? How can I avoid that? How many times can she use that trick?

    "So just because we fought one time, you think you know my real power, huh?" Tatsuki yells from the outside. Rukia struggles to stand up. "Allow me to educate you. When shinigami of vice-captain rank or higher go into the living world, we get our power extremely limited in order not to cause unnecessary influence there. The only exception is Kurosaki Ichigo," Rukia's eyes widen and hearing his name is what gets her to completly balance herself on her feet. "The special case. He's not a vice-captain nor a captain, but his strength can exceed both combined. He had to get it downgraded drastically to one of a shinigami that can't even get a rank in his squad.

    "While he was deployed, his father and the sotaichou were discussing what to do with him. That is until you came along. Anyways, my power is five times it was then. No matter how much stronger you've gotten, your chances of beating me are one in a million."

    "Hold on a moment." Rukia says as she slowly emerges from the rubble. "That last attack back there was your real power? That's a relief! If there's eleven more like you... I think I can beat them all." With a red stain on her side, Rukia smiles arrogantly back at Tatsuki, who returns the look.

    "You bitch..." she chuckles.

    Rukia points her blade at Tatsuki as a rush of wind dances with their hair and robes. "I guess I shouldn't hold back either."

    The air around them dropped significantly in temperature. Why... is it suddenly so cold? Tatsuki thinks as her eyebrows knit together.

    "Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!"

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

    Yo... uh... hey... sorry for ending it there... that's kinda where the episode ended and I was too lazy to continue ;-;

    Well like I said, this book is for fun... though I did put serious effort into this chapter. Idk when I'll do the next, but if a ton of people end up asking for it then I might roll right on to it. And as for the picture above, I did not draw Tatsuki!!

    © to all original artists whenever I use their stuff