memories in the rain2 op.2 "Longing For Sanctuary"

In the present, Jūshirō Ukitake hurries to warn Byakuya Kuchiki that Rukia's sentence has been moved up, only to learn a hell butterfly already carried the news to him. Byakuya calmly accepts the earlier date and waves the matter aside, insisting Rukia's fate is none of Ukitake's concern. When Ukitake seizes his shoulder and calls him cruel, the strain triggers a coughing fit. Byakuya remarks that losing a few more subordinates changes nothing after he already let one die, then walks off. Left alone, Ukitake wonders how his former lieutenant, Kaien Shiba, might have met such a moment.

Rukia's recollection fills the rest of the chapter. New to the squad, she is sneered at as a pampered Kuchiki who skipped the academy exams, which only deepens her loneliness. Kaien scatters the gossips, insists she address him properly, then warmly welcomes her and jokes that slipping and calling him captain is fine, since he runs the unit while the sickly Ukitake rests. She later admits to Byakuya that she earned no seated post. At a squad party, Kaien draws out her sadness, shares a drink, and vows to stay her friend, a moment broken up by a drunken Sentarō Kotsubaki and Kiyone Kotetsu. Rukia comes to admire Kaien's wife, the powerful Miyako Shiba, and hopes to become like her. That admiration curdles when Miyako's entire team is wiped out by a Hollow, driving a grief-stricken Kaien to hunt the creature at its lair.

The chapter opens the second block of Rukia's rain-soaked flashback and leads to her fateful meeting with the Hollow Metastacia, who slinks from his cave in the closing pages. It is collected in the sixteenth volume, Night of Wijnruit, and was adapted as part of episode 49, Rukia's Nightmare. Viz Media released it under the title "memories in the rain 2, op.2: Longing for Sanctuary."