User blog comment:Godisme/Death & Strawberry 2/@comment-1243139-20110804080516

Cool. Anyway first off the promotion to lieutenant, well rukia had already achieved shikai under Kaien's tutelage, proficiency in kido, natural intelligence and all around battle prowess made her a prime candidate and ever since he was killed I'm pretty sure Ukitake had her in mind (after the appropriate grieving time) but Byakuya had strings pulled so no dice, now after everything that's happened perhaps Byakuya has come fully to terms with Rukia's abilities.

As for the sword that pierced Ichigo's back, in earlier chapters Urahara had Rukia place some of her reiatsu in whatever that thing was (and since assumptions are ok here) I can assume that Urahara had planned ahead so that Ichigo would receive only his own powers back with Rukia's reiriyoko as a substitute for his now completely reiatsu devoid body so that it can merge with him and become his own. However that speculation is very far off since we don't know what happened exactly, what I want to know is what Urahara and Isshin met by robbing Ichigo of his future (honestly it seems to me that being a shinigami is time consuming and dangerous, so what would he do if he wanted to go to University and start a family).