Characters: Renji, Byakuya, mentions of Rukia.
Pairings: RenjiRuki
Warning/Spoilers: Set during Soul Society arc, so it really should be a spoiler for anyone.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
"Kuchiki Rukia is to be brought back to stand trial for her crimes. Kuchiki-taicho, Abarai-fukutaicho, you have been dispatched to arrest Rukia-dono and return her to Soul Society to stand trial."
The words cut his skin wide open, laceration upon laceration, far more keen than any zanpakuto or bladed weapon could ever hope to be.
Renji stared at the sky as the night lengthened on and the moon waxed and waned. There were stars, millions of them, but they didn't seem to have any substance. They were there, but they were flat, two-dimensional, and shallow as the surface of a muddy rain puddle in Rukongai.
There weren't really there at all.
Why Rukia? It was the only thing that occupied his being. It sang in his blood, screamed in the recesses of his mind and kept him away from anything remotely resembling a caul of sanity. His thoughts were consumed by Rukia, mind, body and soul.
He was tense and worn beyond all past reckoning. He was tired in every way, worn down by fatigue and pain and memories of her, memories slipping away like rain against the palm of his hand. Fluid, and non-sustaining. Renji couldn't stop it from falling apart.
She had fallen away from him. Renji had tried to grab her hand and failed, and now, Rukia would fall into the abyss. He would never see her again.
It was useless. Totally useless, and Renji couldn't accept it.
God Almighty…Rukia…Why did it have to be you?
The baboon who howled at the moon would soon be left without a moon to howl at.
Say goodbye to the one who became your whole life, because she is going to die. There is nothing you can do about it, no matter how you might howl, scream and fall apart inside.
It is inevitable.
.
Standing cold and still as a statue, Kuchiki Byakuya represented nothing so much as utter, remote stillness, and Renji hated it. How could he be so calm? How could he be so hard? It was Rukia, for God's sake.
Didn't Byakuya love her at all, as much as Renji did? How could he not love Rukia?
No one had the right to be so damnably calm when Rukia's life was on the line, especially not Byakuya. Rukia's older brother, who had more of a right to be terrified and distraught than Renji, was nothing but collected stoicism.
For a moment, Renji hated him, even more than he hated his calm and envied his clear-eyed sense of right and wrong. Nothing was ever really clear in Renji's eyes, but Byakuya saw pristine black and white where Renji only saw murky gray.
Renji stood and bowed when Byakuya came into view, materializing out of the smooth darkness of night. "Kuchiki-taicho…" He stopped, grasping for words. "Is this right?" His hoarse, raw voice, said it all, and he could not have been more clear than if he had screamed it until his lungs collapsed.
Byakuya briefly turned his eyes over his shoulder. To Renji's anger, his dismay and his utter horror, not the slightest amount of emotion existed in that calm, mask-like face.
"Let's go, Renji."
And Renji bowed his head to follow, rage roaring inside, despair just beyond that level, and a bowed head and defeat gracing the surface, bitter as rain fell behind the hem of his robes.
How does this not bother you?
Nothing bothers me anymore.
How do you just follow blindly?
I must obey the edicts of the law.
How can you accept this?
…
I can't.