#Hisana

[fluffnflightillustrations]

enjoy a rare byahisa on me

[renjirukia]

chapter 179: confessions in the twilight // the mysteries of udolpho by ann radcliffe // gothic incest: gender, sexuality, and transgression by jenny diplacidi // the rise of supernatural fiction, 1762-1800 by e.j. clery

[blackrainbowblade]

I forgot I had photoshopped Hisana to be with Byakuya at this moment. Because.

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

How did Hisana managed to die at the same time and come to Soul Society at the same time as a newborn Rukia?

Sure, there might be some interesting explanations, but...

... what happens when others small babies die in the World of the Living? Do they just appear in that "arrival line" that was shown in another manga panel and retrieved by whichever Shinigami is on duty that day?

Do they usually stay or go right back to the World of the Living through automatic reincarnation?

A way that would have explained why Hisana could have abandoned Rukia like that and not have searched for her until she married Byakuya, is if Rukia was in fact her daughter and the conception had been... non-consensual...

It would also explain them going at the same time to Soul Society if Hisana had died from childbirth right after a stillborn Rukia had been born.

They die pretty much at the same time. They're mother and daughter. They appear together at the Rukongai.

Unwelcomed memories of the violent act, the trauma of having to carry an unwanted baby, the grueling process of childbirth and subsequent death would have remain with Hisana. It's a horribly deep trauma.

Rukia is the constant reminder of all of that, so Hisana abandons her.

It's only when she marries Byakuya (comfort and safety, even without love from her part. ) that her mind goes back to a child that had no guilt at all for what had been done to Hisana.

And she thinks: "Have I put her in danger of suffering what I did too because I was too hurt and scared?"

So she starts frantically searching for her, guilt plaguing her. A new understanding of her actions towards a small innocent baby and how wrong it had been...

Byakuya was kind, but Hisana has not been able to love him. She's too broken to love anyone at all. But if she finds Rukia, maybe after some time she can come clean about everything to him. Maybe he can give Rukia what Hisana wasn't able to.

But then she gets ill. She worsens day by day. She's going to have to abandon the one that offered her a home and comfort. She's going to leave him without having giving him nothing in return.

She has Byakuya promise her on her deathbed that he'll look for Rukia.

It's too late for the truth now, and maybe it's better that way... if... when Byakuya finds Rukia, she won't have to carry the of the violence that conceived her.

Maybe it's for the best if her daughter doesn't know anything... not the truth...not even the lie that she's her sister. Let her be her own person, detached from Hisana, who never felt worthy of anything and anyone. Who always pushed everyone away because she cannot stand physical proximity. Because she's too damaged...

[roni617]

Hisana = Kikyo idc idc and fuck them both

[creator-freak]

The origins of Ambassador Seaweed

[umbraria]

Kuchiki Manor

[theseventhveil1945]

kubo tite could have just written byakuya and rukia as just regular twins with a fucked up relationship and left it at that but instead he went the “wealthy man adopts you as his sister because you look like his dead wife but you’re convinced he hates you because he never looks at you and also is really adamant about you being executed for breaking one of your feudalistic military death god society laws but then the teen you befriended uses the power of stabbing to convince him it’s not cool to kill your sister but you’re not around to hear this so when he takes a sword in the chest meant for you you’re #shook then as he’s lying on the ground recovering from said impaling confesses that his dead wife is really your older sister and he’s technically your brother-in-law” route and i love it

[imaginingbleach]

Anonymous

Hihi how would byakuya act around an s/o that looked just like hisana

Byakuya Kuchiki

Depending on when he first meets you, he might very well be in shock

He is typically fairly composed, but he may believe he is hallucinating at first...

Once that settles, he begins to grow curious.

Rukia looking like Hisana made sense... But why did you?

Perhaps you were related but she hadn't known?

It drives him to want to learn more about you and your past.

Before long, that simple curiousity has turned into feelings for you.

No, you weren't Hisana and you would never replace her in his heart; but that did not mean he couldn't love you just as he did his late wife.

It's actually really cute because Rukia has found him speaking to Hisana's picture about you.

This was before you became a couple and she will keep the fact she saw him a secret she takes to the grave... But not me, I'm a bully.

Please be patient with this man. If he does something with you that he and Hisana enjoyed-- he's not trying to imply you are her or that he assumes you'll like the same things...

To him, it's sharing his past with you and opening up about himself.

Plus, you must give him credit where credit is due:

He has not once called you Hisana while you've been together.

At first he had to make a conscious effort, but eventually your name began flowing from his lips much easier than he had expected.

He does love sharing things with you about his past, and oftentimes that does include his married life with Hisana.

It's actually quite endearing since you can see it's like him building a bridge to connect his past with his present.

[muses-with-afp]

In terms of Bleachy things that I am never not thinking about given my particular sort of brainrot, it would have to be Chapter 179, Confession in the Twilight. Today, I want to overthink long and hard about assumptions fandom often makes about Hisana. Some of these assumptions are not well-supported by the canon. Other of these assumptions likely stem from material added by the anime and/or the movie Fade to Black.

Because I'm sort of "meh" on the supplementary material from the anime and pretty "blah" on the Bleach movies overall, I will stick to the manga. (I am also a simple creature with only two brain cells to rub together now-a-days so... there's that, too.) I am sure there are more assumptions one could pick apart and torture to death, but for the sake of brevity (I write cackling because when am I ever brief?) below are my top three.

1. Assumption One: Hisana had no spiritual power/pressure

This one is odd to me because we, the audience, do not have a whole lot of evidence to base this assumption off of. Byakuya never says anything of this sort to Rukia during the confession:

Although, it is possible that Hisana was spiritually weak, and what made it difficult for her to survive was taking care of a baby with significant spiritual pressure/power. This explanation is entirely possible, but, based on the English translation, it is not the only interpretation one could draw.

Honing in on the"[b]ut it was hard for her to survive there while caring for you..." bit, this could suggest that Hisana, in fact, needed more than vibes and water to survive herself. We get a sense in Bleach that siblings often have similar capacities in terms of spiritual power and pressure, and we know Rukia is spiritually gifted. Accordingly, one could make the leap that Hisana, too, had some spiritual capacity. Now, I think the case for sibling similarities in spiritual talents is probably strongest for the souls born in SS since they presumably are most "genetically" related (or whatever concept passes for "genetic" relationships in SS), one assumes. This, of course, also assumes you buy the idea that Hisana and Rukia were just ordinary souls who passed from the WOTL to SS. KT, however, has thrown a wrench into this explanation by suggesting that Rukia is a secret... eighth thing/potential hybrid. (At least, I think we are up to eight soul "ecotypes" now .... Maybe it's nine if we add in the lore from Burn the Witch.) Perhaps this secret variation/hybrid is specific to Rukia, or maybe it applies to both sisters equally.

Other evidence that could support Hisana as having some spiritual capacity (beyond being a spiritual dandelion) includes:

According to Renji, the only way to escape Inuzuri was to attend the Academy/become a shinigami. It's possible that Renji was speaking only in terms of "legality" (i.e., the only legal way to leave your assigned district/town/placement is to gain admittance to the Academy) since we know Kenpachi and crew exist. Could Hisana have gotten out of Inuzuri using the Academy loophole? Sure! Why not? Was Hisana a bloody tank like Kenpachi and fought her way out of the city? Maybe but probably not, since she felt driven to abandon her sister, which doesn't seem very warlord-like of her. Maybe Hisana never actually left Inuzuri after the abandonment. The "[a]bandoned you and ran" (emphasis mine) part of the story makes it sound like she left the city, but maybe she just ran away from Rukia and went to another part of Inuzuri or the district.

Rukia somehow managed to survive (i.e., maybe it wasn't the demands (or just the demands) of a spiritually needy baby that drove Hisana to abandon her). We don't know much/anything about the period of Rukia's life between the abandonment and meeting Renji, so it's hard to say how needy she was as a soul baby.

Hisana hung out with/lived with Byakuya, who we know (a) has a metric ton of spiritual power and pressure, and (b) lives in a city full of similarly situated souls. Canonically, weaker souls seem greatly affected by the spiritual pressure of the more spiritually capable souls in Bleach, which could suggest that she had enough to withstand living in Seireitei and being married to someone with a lot of the stuff.

Depending on whether you think Rukia is anywhere near the ballpark in terms of her age vis-à-vis Ichigo (150 years, by the way), Hisana's life span would have been about 100 years in SS, which isn't particularly short. It seems that souls with some spiritual power/pressure tend to live longer than souls without it.

As Byakuya continues with his confession to Rukia, he says that Hisana "searched for [Rukia] almost every day for the next five years." If you take this literally, it sounds like Hisana went out into the slums regularly, which is pretty far away from Kuchiki manor. Without some sort of fast travel option (the Kuchiki are rich so maybe one exists...), it seems that she would have needed to learn a pretty good flash-step to make that trek anyway feasible. Although, it is possible that Byakuya meant Hisana searched for Rukia in a more abstract sense since, as a noble, she would finally have resources (beyond her physically trekking out there) to conduct a search. It could also be both.

2. Assumption Two: Hisana was (or was not) doing XYZ before marriage

This assumption likely piggybacks off the one above. Since we are given no indication as to what Hisana was doing before marriage, if you assume she was a spiritually weak being, it makes sense for the years between abandonment and marriage to be full of scrounging and hiding from scary beings/thugs/monsters/take-your-pick. And, true, the reckless noble/prince taking an unwashed but kindly peasant girl as a wife is an oldie goldie in terms of romance tropes.

But, as noted above, Hisana could have been literally anything. Shinigami? Sure! Secret agent/informant? Why not!? In CFYOW, Yourichi gets pretty annoyed at Tokinada for speaking ill of Hisana. It's possible that she's irritated with him because he's trying to goad Byakuya into an altercation and is using Byakuya's dead wife as the ammo (which, yeah, is a pretty gross thing to do). Alternatively, there could be a personal connection between the two women (which may provide further color on Rukia being chosen as a vessel for the orb, don't mind me just out here speculating). We know the higher districts are rough, and, at least according to Renji, Inuzuri is full of criminals and bastards of all stripes. Hisana could've been a crime lord, a lackey to a crime lord, a thief, a prostitute, a hustling gambler, a bookie, basically anything. The vagueness is glorious!!!

3. Assumption Three: Hisana died of ghost consumption a respiratory illness

This assumption likely arises from the anime (although forgive me if I'm wrong about this since it has been a while since I've watched the anime) and Fade to Black, which has a scene where Hisana has a coughing fit. The manga, however, gives no indication:

All Byakuya says is he "lost his wife." To what? Who knows?! Be more specific, Byakuya!

We also don't get a whole lot of evidence to indicate what killed her during the confession scene.

Hisana isn't sweating, and her futon is white as is the bit of clothing we see, so it doesn't look like she's necessarily suffered a physical attack/assault. She's also, notably, not coughing....

For reference, below are Byakuya's bludgeoned panels because we have a lot of parallels between her deathbed request and Byakuya's confession to Rukia:

To be fair, Byakuya's blanket and pad aren't bloody either, but his captain's coat sure is, and, goodness, is he sweaty! Although, perhaps Byakuya's memory of Hisana strips away the gory and gruesome bits (e.g., blood, sweat, coughing, gasping, gurgling death rattles, anguished groaning, etc.) since... well... no one actually dies pretty.

Based on the manga retelling of Hisana's expiration, the cause of death was... literally anything. Okay, I kid. I kid.

Sort of.

Maybe her COD wasn't literally anything. She was at least in a bed ready for death and had enough time to call upon her husband. (Although, so is Byakuya here, and he was stabbed like thirty minutes ago and is giving similar sorts of vibes to poor Rukia.) My guess is that whatever Hisana had, she succumbed to it over a period of time, which rules out causes of death that come fast, but a lot of deaths aren't immediate (unfortunately). Maybe she sustained internal injuries that took her, which would parallel nicely with Byakuya in these panels. Maybe she had "beautiful wife consumption," which is an oldie goldie trope for doomed lovers. Maybe she had whatever soul flu or illness afflicted Byakuya's dad. Maybe she had some sort of soul cancer. If you're doing the math (or a version of the math since time in Bleach is wobbly), Byakuya and Hisana married a year or so after WWII. It's not a pleasant thought, but cancer (leukemia and solid) rates went up five+ years later for obvious reasons, and perhaps this is an abstract/unconscious nod to that of sorts.

But, who can say??? Not me, that's for damn sure!

From a practical story-telling perspective, I imagine that KT leaves a lot of wiggle room around this period to avoid caging himself in for whatever reveal he had/has in store regarding Rukia's backstory/heritage/why Urahara picked her to put the orb into/etc.

[cooliogirl101]

lmaooo toxic ex archetype, everything thinks something definitely went on between them behind the scenes and hisana resolutely denies this, not realizing it’s only making the rumors worse

LOL can you imagine when she actually faces him in battle:

“Oh and by the way, I donated your entire wardrobe to charity!” Momo yelled, whacking him on the chest with her zanpakuto (to add insult to injury, he wasn’t even bothering to dodge, instead telling her with a smile to, “Get it out dear, I know you want to”). “And I gave all your skin care products to Yachiru. She loved them, said they were delicious. That orange marmalade sugar scrub you love so much? It’s moisturizing the inside of her stomach right now.”

Aizen faltered the slightest bit. “You did what?”

“AND I burned your entire collection of tea leaves. Should’ve taken them with you when you left,” Momo continued savagely. “Don’t worry though, I didn’t want you to miss out so I saved some of the fun just for you.”

“Should we…intervene?” Izuru asked Hitsugaya awkwardly. Momo had begun pelting Aizen with teacups at this point.

“And just so you know, Hirako-taicho is better than you ever were!” Momo screamed off in the distance. Next to them, Shinji dropped his face in his hands with a muttered “please don’t bring me into this.” In fact, most of the shinigami on the field were determinedly avoiding eye contact.

“No,” Hitsugaya said in a deeply tired voice. “No, let’s just…let them work this out between them.”

[grimmcheems]

If I were Rukia I would not last.🥰

One of my biggest peeves from watching bleach was the whole Hisana thing lmao. Like. If I were homegirl Rukia I would’ve been fuming if I found out I had a sister all along that abandoned me as a baby and lived it up being married to a noble while I was out on the street fighting for my life😭💀 ik it’s not that serious but something about that situation had me laughing but also feeling really bad for Rukia and Byakuya lmao.

Y’all can fight me on this but Hisana was messy for not ever mentioning Rukia until her last breath like girl-💀💀💀wouldn’t that be something to clear up BEFORE you got married 🗿literally screaming rn. Ik she made a difficult choice and still felt guilty, but to do all that and STILL not return the feelings of the man that loves you and MARRIED you while also dumping that lore on him to leave him to figure it out after he inevitably grieves your death. Bffr.😭🧍🏽‍♀️. That’s all I could think about after watching that point in the series, like did you not think that Rukia would be reeling from all that info and ur husband having to deal with trying to find her and then taking her in when his whole family was against commoners to begin with. Chile- anyways…….

That’s before the very crucial point that she left him of not ever telling Rukia the truth about being her sister, like……..say what you want about her but to even think of doing that when you’re the one who decided to leave her and not find her BEFORE you got married is-💀ik it was hard for her to even find clues but you would think that she would’ve told her HUSBAND about her little sister AT SOME POINT before she even gets sick or married, like huh. It rly makes her come across as careless but Imma stop there.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Renji 💖🤲🏽😤. Rip his forehead with his sculpted widows peak, but this man had me in a chokehold when I first started getting into bleach and he continues to do so. It’s been yrs since I last watched, I left off on the climax of the Aizen battle. Hopefully I’ll have time to finish it sometime this yr.

{edit}: so yeah, apparently Hisana DID tell Byakuya about Rukia ,but like, if the soul society is that big then I think it would’ve made more sense for her to cut her losses and give up on finding her since the population is always growing. Now that would’ve made for more interesting plot for Rukia and Byakuya when they inevitably run into each other and Byakuya is left a mess seeing this girl that looks exaclty like his wife,….wait im accidentally making another au that i have to draw now😭🗿🧍🏽‍♀️🤡

[renjirukia]

no one knows what im talking about but rukia hisana blood + au would be so cool

[recurring-polynya]

Incredible characterization move on Kubo's part to make Byakuya's theme song an instrumental version of a song called "I Sing to Pass "the Time." [YouTube link, it's very pretty if you like piano music]

I suppose it's possible that Kubo chose it on the sound alone, but I doubt it. The original version, by Léo Ferré, was from an album where he set the work of Surrealist/Communist poet Louis Aragon to music. The lyrics for this one are all about beauty and wonder passing out of the world, just like the rest of Byakuya's dead tree, last-of-his-line, color-fading-into-white schtick.

I have lived marvels during the day You and I, remember it And I have broken through the wall of the years The ears full of miracles Our universe is not the same anymore I have lived marvels during the day

(full lyrics under the cut)

(Translation source) (Here is the poem in its original French, if you prefer)

I sing to pass the time short amount of it that I have left to live Like you draw on the frost Like you make your heart pleased while throwing pebbles on the pond I sing to pass the time

I have lived marvels during the day You and I, remember it And I have broken through the wall of the years The ears full of miracles Our universe is not the same anymore I have lived marvels during the day

Let's have those fingers untangled now Like the forehead from the glory Our eyes were first to see the clouds lower than us And the lark at our knees Let's have those fingers untangled now

We have made moonlights For our palaces and our statues What matters now that we are being killed The nights will fall one by one China turned itself into the Commune We have made moonlights

And I would tell and I would tell So much was this life adventure Where man has become life-size His voice above the forests The mountains, the seas and the secrets And I would tell and I would tell

Yes; I sing to pass the time The bow wears out against the violin The pebble at the game of rebounds And how my love is touching Near me in the leaning shadow Yes, I sing to pass the time

I sing to pass the time Yes to pass the time I sing

[jessfandrawer]

Kuchiki/Abarai family doodles. Enjoy this trainwreck I've created.😅

Special appearances: Ukitake, Momo, Izuru

[a-lyoshka]

just a little happy house in byakuya's head