Originally posted by: anphorus
Rukia wasn't planning on staying on earth long term she was just out on a hollow hunting mission planning to go back again soon.
Where in the anime did it state that? And the way Renji made it sound, a Shinigami gets a certain area to patrol for an extended period of time, so that kind of doesn't make sense. That, and the fact that it takes forever to get to Earth from SS (relatively, compared to how fast hollows can appear/disappear) and hollows appear randomly. It just doesn't make sense to have a patrol area without someone patroling it.