The witch (had there been a witch) might have said: let it be, then. You will have a family, and they will give you a name. But the payment must be of equal value.
What is the thing of equal value?
The idea haunts her.
It was not always like this. The tears that dampened her friends' graves lightened her body of water and salt. She had ambition, one might say - as well ascribe force of will to a weed shooting up toward the sun. She knew what she could be. And Renji?
Unthinkable, then, that he could leave her behind. Unthinkable that she could do the same.
There is, indeed, a Rukia of the noble Kuchiki lineage. At sharp turns in the long corridors of that house her white limbs can be glimpsed in mirrors; her hair is black, her kimono as well. Her eyes are camouflaged in shadows, cast by the moon on a floor of polished dark wood.