The Yhwach War was over. Rukia was still busy with postwar reconstruction and her responsibilities as vice-captain, but the two of them kept drawing closer to her.
On one side was Ichigo, whose hopes for the future grew day by day; on the other was Renji, whose confession came out of nowhere.
Rukia hadn't considered any of this before... Byakuya urged her to be cautious, lest that man do something unreasonable again.
Yes, we should all return to where we belong, back to our own worlds.
Rukia had made up her mind.
I've come to terms with it. I'm perfectly happy to let the canon pairing have its ending. I have no desire to fight it anymore.
I once wrote an alternate timeline where Rukia lost all her spiritual power and stayed in the human world. But I had already made peace with things halfway through writing it, and even after writing over a hundred thousand words, I abandoned it.
As I kept writing, I realized that given their personalities, those two really might end up parting ways in the end.
I just didn't expect Kubo to step in during the Thousand-Year Blood War and personally make things right for his daughter-in-law. Nothing more to say. May the canon couple be happy together forever.
1699, 1688.
Theme: Perhaps returning to everyday life is what they both wanted
