Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Byakuya remembered the girl in the ragged kimono, who had looked up at him in Rukongai and smiled a smile that seemed so unlike the filthy misery of the lower denizens.

That was the moment he had his heart taken by Hisana.

Hisana had been, despite the squalor of her surroundings, clean-spirited, beautiful and carried herself with a dignity that, while nothing on the scale of women of rank, set her apart from the either poor, hardened, or frankly loose women of Rukongai. She had been sweet and kind, standing out in the people who had no time for either of those things.

She had proven herself capable of rising above her raising in Rukongai and forgetting how much she had suffered there, manifesting in the pale, moon-white sickle scar on her shoulder and the noticeable crookedness of the index finger on her left hand that Hisana reluctantly admitted (much to Byakuya's shock) had resulted as a result of an older man breaking every single finger on both of her hands in a burglary—not that Hisana had had anything to give them.

But there were some things, Byakuya was beginning to realize, that lingered still.

One night when the darkness came down in long silken sheets over the Kuchiki estate, Byakuya woke up.

He rolled over on the tatami and stretched out his hand, expecting to meet the soft feel of Hisana's dense blue-black hair. Instead, Byakuya's large, long-fingered hand hit cool sheets and felt the wooden boarding beneath. The sheets were indented and empty.

Hisana wasn't there.

Byakuya propped up on his elbows, frowning slightly as his eyes swept the dark room as best he could and a sharp jolt of concern took him. "Hisana?" he called softly to the shadows and the contours of the large, mostly empty room. Naturally, the shadows did not respond.

Byakuya rose silently from the sheets, brushing his hair from his face and gently stepping down the hall to look for Hisana. The thoughts, worries and concerns plucked at his sleeves like little grabbing hands.

Finally, in a hall near the garden, Byakuya noticed a small, huddling mass against the wall beneath the large, spacious window. "Hisana?" he whispered, getting on his knees and draping a hand over his wife's shoulder, swallowing it up.

Hisana didn't even look up as her tiny hands shot out and clutched the soft, fine material of Byakuya's clothes, drawing herself to his chest as her tears drenched his clothes.

Byakuya was not sure what was the matter. He knew of Hisana's sadness, though he was unused to the sight of her tears, even cloaked by the forgiving filter of night as they were. He gently wrapped his arms around her slender, shaking back, pulling her close and wondering in bewilderment and saddened compassion what was making her weep.

"What's wrong, Hisana?"

She told him, and Byakuya listened in shock as he learned for the first time of the sister-in-law he had never met, of the baby sister Hisana had been forced to leave behind as a child in order to survive. The long and grueling years had taken more of a toll on his wife than Byakuya could ever have imagined.

As her soft weeping, similar in sound as a chime-like rain, began to die down, Byakuya thought of the girl in the ragged kimono.

Byakuya tipped his head downwards as he thought of how little he had known of his wife and how foolish and ignorant he had been. On that night, his respect for Hisana doubled even further, as did love and understanding, because the cause of her pain was finally known.

Hisana's heart and mind still, in a way, belonged to Rukongai, though Byakuya would fight tooth and nail to free her from that bondage.

Hisana had left a vital piece of herself behind in Rukongai.