The night over Rukongai cracked. Not with thunder. Not with wind. But with a silent pressure, a tidal force that swept through all the alleys and rooftops at once, crushing the breath inside the lungs and freezing the words in the throats.
Then it appeared.
A column of black-blue spiritual power emerged from the ground like a sword pointing towards the heavens. It opened through the street of District 68 and shot into the sky, rising past the rooftops, past the clouds, straight into the blank sky.
The world shook beneath it.
The column was not solid ice. It was spiritual power condensed into an impossible form: light, frost, moon, emptiness, all in layers so tight that they seemed carved in the absence between the stars.
The ground at its base fractured, spiraling outward in perfect circles, like rings around a fallen stone. Where each circle extended, frost followed. When the frost spread, people froze in mid-step.
The first Frozen Eclipse Beacon had awakened.
The soul reaper patrol closest to the impact zone was already running towards the district. Panting soul reapers ran across the street, shouting reports as they passed:
"It's knocking people unconscious-!"
"Evacuate, hurry-!"
"The ice is moving-moving-!"
When the squads crossed the first ring of frost, they stopped dead.
Every soldier. Every mind. Every heartbeat.
Because the pillar whispered.
One word - not out loud, not in the air, but inside their bones:
"Rukia."
The whisper traveled outward in waves, each pulse circulating with the spiritual power born of moonlight.
The soul reapers trembled. Some fell to their knees. Others, with weaker souls, began to walk towards the pillar in silent trances, drawn like moths to the flames.
Families from nearby houses opened doors and left for no reason. Merchants wandered the streets holding lanterns. The children looked up at the sky with blank eyes.
A mother passed out in the snow. Her husband did not react. He simply crawled towards the pillar.
The beacon wasn't just freezing bodies... it was summoning souls.
Attracted not by fear. Not by choice. But for recognition.
Something in the center of the pillar called to every human instinct:
"Return to the moon. Return to silence. Go back to her."
Seireitei. 1st Division Central Tower.
Hell Butterflies emerged from the barracks in black swarms, carrying urgent orders across the Seireitei. The Soul Reapers took quick steps, running towards the outer walls, towards the Rukongai.
Head Captain Yamamoto, still wrapped in bandages, stood in front of the Central Tower, leaning heavily on his staff.
Beside him, Captain Kyoraku whispered:
"That reiatsu... is hers. Isn't it?"
Yamamoto's eyes narrowed. There was no fire burning there. Just frost.
Yamamoto responded in a hoarse voice:
"Prepare the captains, before the next pillar is raised.
The implication was clear, this was not a single event. It was the first heartbeat of something that was spreading.
Rukongai. District 68.
The pillar continued to rise, stretching miles into the sky. The clouds parted around them, drawn and reshaped by spiritual gravity.
At its peak, distortions formed - like a heat mist made of moonlight.
Twisted shapes within the glitter. A shoulder. A sleeve. A face.
The silhouette was small - thin - familiar.
The Soul Reapers on the ground gasped in unison:
"R-Rukia Kuchiki...?"
Her silhouette remained motionless at the top of the pillar, with her arms hanging freely at her sides. Her hair floated upward as if underwater, the strands rising and curling around her head.
But she didn't move. She didn't breathe. She didn't blink.
A statue made of corrupted soul.
It wasn't really her body... it was an echo of her form, projected upward by the Beacon. A visual command. A claim.
The world saw the shape and they knelt before the image.
The Stillborn Captain had marked her domain.
Ukitake walked the streets of Rukongai, coughing blood into his sleeve, driven by instinct and fear.
He reached the perimeter just as another pulse roared outward.
The wave made him fall to his knees.
He looked up, with wide eyes and laboured breathing:
"...Rukia..."
But the silhouette did not respond. She didn't look down. She didn't react.
It existed like a moon does... indifferent, untouchable, inevitable.
Ukitake pressed a trembling hand to the ground.
His voice broke:
"She is not in control. This is the infection speaking through her reiatsu..."
His words were swallowed by the wind.
The rings of frost multiplied. The outer walls of the Seireitei glistened with the first signs of ice. The air temperature dropped 10 degrees in a matter of minutes.
And the souls - thousands of them - continued walking towards the pillar.
Hand extended.
Voice whispering the same name, the same longing:
"Rukia..."