note: Spoilers for Chapter 459

(prompt: day03, lines of flight)

The first time she tries, it is on a whim, a desire born from a series of uncharacteristically rainy nights. There is the soft glow of power, of pulsing light and then the red tendrils of souls flickering into existence around her. The reiraku—soul ribbons—of the guards and nii-sama rippling red strands for her to follow. But.

She blinks, breathes deep and holds her reiatsu in place, squinting into the dark; there is something missing.

Rukia looks at the red ribbons of light, counts them to the beat of the rain drumming down above her head, and pretends she does not know what she is looking for.

Eventually, enough long moments pass that the rain subsides, and she lets the threads die away.

She ventures back to Karakura, sometimes. Renji always covers for her and if Captain Ukitake suspects, he never says anything. There is an unspoken but tacit agreement—go, if she must. But never speak, never touch, never let anyone see. Afu—Kurumadani-san would always loudly complain that kids these days don't know what they're doing, but then he'd grudgingly let her take over his patrols for the day or two that she stays anyways.

Looking at Karakura spread below her from a rooftop, she watches as the glimmer of reiraku spider-webs out around her in a hoarding mass of white. Rukia tells herself that it is good practice, that the technique is useful for keeping a constant watch for wayward souls, just in case, just in case, but somehow even she herself finds the argument hard to believe.

She finds his ribbon in the first pause between one breath and the next.

It becomes a habit that she never acknowledges.

One day, seventeen months later, there is a soft tap on her shoulder. Rukia looks up, startled awake from her doze, fingers still stained with ink from reports to see her captain looking down at her, smile soft.

"You have a mission in the human world," he tells her, and Rukia forgets how to breathe.

She stands next to Urahara and Isshin under the awning of the shoten; above them, the rain bears down hard.

"Find my wayward son, Rukia-chan," Isshin says, and his words may be light, but his voice is not, and neither is the sword she hefts in her arms, glow throwing strange shadows against darkened walls.

Rukia nods, and there is the strong flaring light, and the ribbons, Urahara's and Isshin's red and thick behind her. She finds Ichigo's quickly enough, his reiraku faint but familiar, only little shaking tendrils at first but strengthening, strengthening.

She takes a deep breath and follows the lines home.

note: Dipping my toes into the Bleach fandom! This will just be a short of catch-all for any more drabbles I do for 31_days off on LJ. I hoped you guys liked this, and any feedback is always loved.