When I talk about the period of Renji and Rukia's separation I usually say "almost 50 years" or "more than 40 years" of separation. Because there are 2 chapters where are said those 2 different statements:
-In chapter 179, Byakuya tells Rukia about her sister Hisana, and he says she died 50 years ago, and then 1 year after this he found Rukia and immediately adopted her:
-Then, in chapter 00-sideB, Ikkaku mentions that Renji's will has been strong for 40 years but that it's about time that they (Renji and Rukia) have the relationship that they used to have:
To make both stataments coincide I always think that Ikkaku's was just an estimate, and he knew they were some years more, he just rounded it (although that rounding it should have been 50 instead of 40). I think Byakuya is more reliable than Ikkaku in this case, because Byakuya must perfectly remind the exact date of his wife's death.
But, thinking about this matter, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe they are referring to different things. Byakuya is indeed saying the period of time since Rukia was adopted until the moment he tells Rukia about Hisana in chapter 179, and that time is 49 years.
But what Ikkaku is talking about is Renji's will to endure not talking to Rukia. So this would suggest that there was a period of time since Rukia was adopted, so 9 years, where Renji and Rukia still talked to each other, and then something changed/happened and both decided to stop doing it, and even avoided each other.
In the flashbacks of chapter 144 Renji had the intention to approach/talk to Rukia, but Kira warned him about it, so it looks like Renji didn't really have the intention to stay away from her since she the moment she was adopted:
And after this is when Renji tells Ikkaku and Yumichika that he has the goal to surpass Byakuya.
When I read those flashbacks of chapter 144 I thought they would take place little time after Renji graduated from the academy and started his life as a shinigami in a division. But it could be that before these scenes, and during 9 years, this include years of academy of Renji after Rukia was adopted and the first years of Renji as shinigami, Renji and Rukia had some sort of relationship where they sometimes talked to each other and tried to keep a friendship but that finally didn't work because, for example, they wanted more but that couldn't be with their current circumstances. If they interacted during some years after the adoption that would also explain that Byakuya calls Renji "Renji" because Rukia called him like that at that time where she still kept contact with Renji.
Both chapters were published with just a difference of around 6 months, chapter 179 is in volume 21 and chapter 00-side B in volume 23, so I don't think Kubo forgot he had made Byakuya say 49 years since Rukia was adopted. Or perhaps it was a typo and they wrote 40 instead of 49 in the 00-side B chapter, lol. Or Ikkaku only took into account the years that he had known Renji when he arrived at the 11th. I still think that Renji and Rukia stopped talking since Rukia was adopted. But I find interesting it might exist something we didn't know of Renji and Rukia's past during their separation.
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