Silence followed Byakuya Kuchiki.
Not the ordinary tranquility of the Seireitei at night - ordered, disciplined, expected - but a deeper absence, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
He stood alone on the outer wall of the 6th Division, his white haori motionless, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon where the Frozen Pillar pierced the sky beyond the walls of the Seireitei.
He waited.
Nothing arrived.
No pressure spikes. No echo. No whisper hidden in the seams of reiatsu.
Only the pillar, distant and motionless, radiates its cold certainty into the fabric of the Soul Society.
Byakuya's hand rested at his side.
Senbonzakura was sealed.
And yet-
It trembled.
The vibration was subtle. So weak that it would have gone unnoticed by anyone else.
A barely perceptible hum ran through the hilt, up through Byakuya's fingers and onto his wrist, like the memory of the sound rather than the sound itself.
Byakuya's eyes narrowed.
Byakuya, murmuring:
"...Enough."
The sword did not stop.
The shaking persisted, rhythmic and uneven, responding not to a command but to proximity, as if something far away was pulling him through layers of ice and distance.
Byakuya exhaled slowly.
This was not a pressure release. It is not an unbidden shikai.
This was recognition.
His sword was reacting to something it remembered.
Byakuya turned away from the wall and walked towards the inner garden, the cherry trees standing naked against the night.
The petals floated lazily through the air.
They didn't freeze.
They didn't respond.
Everything was normal.
That was the problem.
Byakuya stopped beneath the largest tree, the moonlight tracing the clean lines of his face.
He had expected something.
Not because he wanted to, but because the pillar had already shown that it could distort perception, memory, and identity itself.
A whisper would have been explainable. An echo could be classified.
Even silence after a voice would have meant continuity.
But this-
This was an absence without transition.
Byakuya closed his eyes.
His reiatsu spread outward in a controlled wave, brushing against the boundaries of the 6th Division's grounds.
Nothing answered.
The Frozen Pillar did not react.
And yet, Senbonzakura trembled again.
Byakuya drew the sword partially from its sheath.
Not enough to release it.
Just enough.
The vibration immediately intensified.
Petals formed in the air, not visible, mot manifest, but implicit, as if the sword preparing to remember how to exist in another state.
Byakuya stood still.
Byakuya, softly:
"...You feel it."
The sword did not respond.
But the tremor aligned.
In his mind, spontaneously, an understanding took shape - cold, precise, and deeply disturbing.
It is not reacting to her will.
Rukia wasn't calling. Not resisting. Not reaching.
The sword remembered her reiatsu signature, etched into its spiritual lattice after years of proximity, shared battles, shared space.
Senbonzakura did not respond to any person.
It was responding to an absence that matched a known pattern.
Byakuya's grip tightened.
Byakuya, whispering:
"...Even if she doesn't, you remember her."
The shaking increased sharply and then stabilised.
Agreement.
Or something dangerously close to that.
Byakuya sheathed the sword with controlled force.
The vibration did not stop.
That shouldn't have been possible.
A sealed zanpakutō was an extension of its wielder's will.
It obeyed.
It didn't argue.
Byakuya felt something move inside his chest, not pain, not panic, but pressure, precise and internal, like a fault line recognising tension.
He had trained for centuries to master emotions.
Bury the pain under the law. Subordinate blood to duty. Accept the loss without deviating.
But this was different.
This was not pain.
This was the realisation that something tied to his soul remembered what his mind had been forced to accept as gone.
Byakuya opened his eyes.
For the first time since the Frozen Pillar rose, his gaze wavered.
Byakuya spoke softly, to the sword, to the night, to the absence beyond the walls:
"...If you remember, then what does that make me?"
The garden did not respond.
The sword continued to shake.
Rukongai. District 68.
Beyond the Seireitei, the Frozen Pillar pulsed.
Not in response.
Not in recognition.
Simply as part of its continuing function.
The pressure it exerted on the entire Soul Society remained constant, neither increasing nor decreasing, maintaining something vast and incomplete in a state that could only be called existence out of courtesy.
Within its depths, reiatsu patterns changed.
Not conscious.
Not directed.
But adaptive.
A structure that adapts to internal tensions.
Somewhere within that frozen mass, a familiar spiritual frequency resonated faintly - not active, not conscious - simply present.
Seireitei. 6th Division Outer Walls.
Byakuya turned to face the wall.
His posture straightened.
The shaking in Senbonzakura subsided, but it did not disappear, but was contained.
Byakuya, without threatening or pleading:
"I won't ask again. I will not wait to receive echoes."
He placed a hand on the hilt, gripping it with intent rather than force.
Byakuya, continuing:
"If this is something that needs to be addressed, then I will address it."
The sword finally stopped.
Not obedience.
Acceptance.
Byakuya looked once more towards the distant pillar.
No voice greeted him.
No sign recognised him.
And he realised that that was much worse than any whisper could have been.
Because it meant that Frozen Eclipse didn't need Rukia Kuchiki to speak.
It was already using what was left of her to exist.
And existence, once stabilised, demanded consequences.