Disclaimer: Bleach and its characters belong to Kubo Tite. This is a fanwork, written for no profit. So don't sue me.

Chie: This is a drabble-series, updated once a week. Each chapter will include three drabbles I have written that week.

001 - Letter

Prompt: Pride and Prejudice

Word count: 187 Words

Dear brother,

I have tried, for as long as I can, to uphold the good name of our family, and to be a good daughter and sister, to behave well-mannered and ladylike as has always been expected of me.

But it has been suffocating.

Little by little, I feelI have lost more and more pieces of myself along the way, trying to shape myself into the kind of a person you want me to be.

I am a living being, brother. I have my own will, my own dreams, my own life. And I can no longer stand this life of a puppet, dancing happily whenever you will pull the string.

It is painful.

My pride won't let me stay here any longer, soon enough I will come to lose myself completely.

I refuse to be your pretty little doll.

I refuse this marriage meeting you have tried to shove down my throat.

I refuse this life.

Brother, I love you, but I cannot do this anymore.

I am leaving. Please do not look for me.

I hope that you will come to forgive me someday.

002 – Escape

Prompt: Fire

Word count: 450

She hesitated for a moment, the tip of her pen stopping just above the paper.

With this single gesture she would make it all come true: she would burn all the bridges with her family and her current life, and be forced to turn over a new leaf.

Rukia sighed softly and brought the pen to the paper, signing the letter.

She left it on her desk to be found.

Now that it was done, a new kind of determination welled in her. She was really doing this. It felt frightening and horrifying, and yet liberating and exhilarating at the same time. That feeling caught on, and with a sudden, decisive whim, she picked up her scissors.

Standing in front of the mirror, staring into her own violet-blue eyes, she took in her reflection for a short moment. Then, she brought the scissors up, and cut off a lock of her hair.

She smiled.

Soon, the black strands coiled at her feet, on the carpet where they had fallen. She dropped the scissors, and then ran her hand through her shorn hair in fascination. Where it had once reached to her waist, now the black locks barely touched her shoulders.

It was the beginning.

A new life.

A new her.

Her resolve renewed, she glanced around her room. There was really nothing there she wanted to take with her. She had already packed her bag, with a change of clothes and some money – enough to get her far away from here.

She was ready. It was now or never.

She grabbed the backpack and stepped out of her room.

Rukia tiptoed carefully along the silent corridors. Her heart was thumping loudly in her chest and her senses were strained, trying to catch the smallest of sounds.

But there was none, the big house stayed quiet.

It made her feel both relieved and nervous.

Eventually, she reached the side door. She entered a pin code to kill the alarm, before she opened the door and slipped out to the garden. She didn't pay any attention for the flower beds or the koi pond. The gravel crunched dryly beneath her feet. She made it to the back of the garden, where two metre high stonewall stood, separating her from the world. An old, gnarled tree stood leaning to the wall, and Rukia climbed the tree with some difficulty – tree-climbing was not something she had much experience with – but managed to reach the branches that jutted out over the wall. As she stepped off the branch to stand on the top of the wall, she glanced back at her home. The insistent determination still burned in her chest.

Rukia turned away and jumped.

003 - Uncertainty

Prompt: Doubt

Word count: 457

It was still dark, the sunrise was an hour away. The streets were as good as empty, as she walked with determined steps.

She knew that her brother would be furious when he found the letter. She knew that he would disregard her plea and start to look for her.

The first thing was to get away from Osaka. Rukia had briefly considered travelling to their villa in Okinawa, but had discarded that idea very quickly; her brother would search the villa without a doubt.

An hour later, she was sitting in a bullet train, on her way to Tokyo. The ticket had cost more than she had thought, and now she wondered if she had enough money. It felt weird; money had always been something she did not need to worry about.

Now, sitting on the train, watching the scenery flying by behind the window, she couldn't help but to second guess herself. Even though she knew she could not have stayed any longer, there was a small, insistent voice at the back of her mind, telling her that she was insane.

She had to agree with that voice, in part. She was not very well prepared. She had no plan to follow. She had been in such a haste to escape, that she had not really planned what she would do after she would get out of the house. But there had not been much time; it had been only two days ago when her brother had presented to her the sleek, brown folder, containing a picture and information of the man who had expressed his interest in her. The marriage meeting itself had been scheduled for Saturday, the day after tomorrow.

She would not be dolled up in a kimono and smile sweetly at the man who would in turn control her for the rest of her life.

She was fed up with being someone's puppet, so she had taken it upon herself to cut all the strings.

It was not a decision she regretted, but as she slowly started to realise that there would be no going back, she did start to feel a little helpless. A nagging 'now what?' plagued her mind, a question she did not know how to answer.

Her only thought now was to get as far away from home as possible. Tokyo would not be far enough, she knew that for certain.

Rukia bit her lip nervously.

She needed to calm down, and think. Panicking would get her nowhere. That same resolve that had compelled her to leave, returned at last, and she came to a decision.

She would go to Tokyo, and decide there what would be the next step.

Feeling reassured, she relaxed against her seat.