They had never seen anything like that before.
There was no rule that shinigami had to work at night, and so they did not. There was no time to work at night, even if they wanted to wait for the cover of darkness.
Abarai Renji regretted taking on this mission.
He sorely, sorely regretted taking it on.
Oh, when Kuchiki-taicho had requested for his help, he had been shocked, to say the least, and had immediately jumped at the opportunity. After all, this was the second time after he had gotten promoted to the position of lieutenant that he would be able to work with the captain.
And it had to be something huge; it was not often that two divisions were sent out to one spot, and even rarer for three divisions to be deployed at once. He did not quite fathom why even the captain had paled slightly when reading the mission briefing; not many could tell when paling occurred on the captain, but these were just little signs he learnt to pick up.
He fully understood it now. Fully, completely, utterly understood it now.
Around him, the shinigami representative, one each, of the Third, Fifth and Sixth Divisions stood rooted to the spot, stunned.
Even Kira, the co-leader of the scouting expedition, was silent and unmoving, the only one who had ventured out into the battlefield being Kuchiki-taicho.
It was the noise of the battlefield, the crackling, the screams, the cries, the thumps, the rattling of those machines, the crunch of what it was that no one wanted to think about beneath those boots, beneath the wheels, beneath the tracks, the machinery and the people, all the sounds which blended together into a cacophony of distress and anguish that tore directly at their hearts.
It was the sights of the battlefield, the flashes, the flames, the people, the bodies… and oh god, the bodies. They twisted and squirmed, mouths opening and closing, twitching and turning as they were overcome by spasms of pain. It was clear in their eyes, the eyes of the dying as they met the eyes of the dead, the regret, the sorrow, and the disbelief. The rejection of their fate and that small, small glint of hope that was visible in their eyes as they tried to reach out but just crumpled back to the ground.
It was the smells of the battlefield, that pervasive stench of blood and sweat and dirt that hung in the air, the whiff of that oh god, no. The screams rose together with the smell of petrol in the air as flames burst from the wooden pile… He could almost see the people… No. How could they laugh? How could they just stand there and…. No.
No. Renji clenched his teeth as he restrained the urge to burst in there, restrained the urge to just charge in and to hell with anything, to wipe those stupid smirks off their faces and to crush their windpipes so they could no longer laugh. He so dearly wanted to rush in, the snap their soul chains with his hands and send them off to hell.
But he just watched on as the guns fired, as men laughed and men died, as men screamed and men ran, and he turned his head and he walked and he rounded the corner and stood there, almost transfixed with horror as he crumpled to his knees.
The shinigami behind him came to a sudden halt, a second sudden halt after he had followed the lieutenant around the corner, the corner which the captain had swept through earlier and had now vacated.
They were twitching, Renji noted dully, tears collecting in the sides of his eyes as he slowly rocked back and forth on the spot. Oh god, they were twitching. And they were crying, crying, crying those tears which ran down those cheeks, and they were screaming and they were crying and they were screaming. Oh god. They were crying for their mamas. He could see them, he could hear them, he was among them, and he knew no longer what it was that he was doing. He could see nothing else but what was in front of him. Nothing else… And he had to stop it. He had to. Somehow.
Somehow, he had to stop it. Who was it who was sobbing, who was clawing at the ground and who had tears leaking from his eyes and splashing in front of him, and who was it who was crying with them, for them, because of them? He had to stop it. He had to stop it; it was hurting him like it was hurting them, and why? Why was it so painful? Why did it hurt so much? He had to stop it, and he had to do it now…
"It will not work, Abarai-fukutaicho." The calm voice interrupted him from the side as a figure stepped between him and the shinigami, shielding him from view. The voice continued, though no longer speaking to him but to the others. "We will set up camp a kilometer away from here, and we will set up a perimeter with that as our center point. We will return when night falls."
A set of hands hoisted him up from where he had been slumped on the ground, and when had he been slumped on the ground? A different set of hands guided him back to the camp, seated him down on a tree stump away from the others, pressing a mug of tea into his hands. Renji came face to face with a concerned blue eye and quite a bit of yellow hair as he shook himself out of that state, glancing around him.
The children were no longer there, and for the moment, as he glanced into the crackling fire, he did his best to not think of them. To not think of them… To not think of the way they were… Oh god. This was not working. He had to do something. He needed time. He needed time to calm himself down and he needed time away from those… He needed time away from the children, their faces and their hands clawing out to him, begging him with those bloodshot eyes and their desperate voices, oh god, he needed time… He really needed time.
"Abarai-san. Are you alright?"
Renji's head shot up from looking at his feet, he had not even been aware that he had been doing that. Thankful for the interruption, he met Kira's concerned gaze. Gulping down the tea, he chuckled wryly, "Just when I thought I could impress the captain with my leadership abilities, I go and screw it up eh, Kira?"
A wane smile met him from the other side of the small clearing as the other lieutenant finished his drink in one shot.
They said nothing after that, and Renji did not want to say nothing. He wanted someone to just say something, to just clear those thoughts out of his head, because by the gods, it was painful, and it hurt so bad. It had never hurt like that before. Never. And he could not think. He could not think of anything else, he could not quite see much else except for a small shivering face, scarred badly and frightened, so frightened it seemed that the child had been looking at him but not seeing him.
Renji found himself stumbling through the forest, was it towards the scene of massacre? He did not know. He just walked and tripped and fell and got up and walked again. As long as he was walking, there was no pain. There were no screams and there were no faces and there was nothing. There was nothing but the walking.
So he kept walking. He just kept walking. Perhaps, a small corner of his brain mused, perhaps he was being drawn back to that place, to where the children were waiting, to where they were all waiting. Waiting for him? Or waiting for others? Waiting for others, his brain reasoned. They do not know you, Renji. They had never seen you before. Why would they be waiting for you?
He just walked, and walked and walked, every step introducing air to his parched lungs, and he had no idea why he had been breathless, every swing of the arms drying the tears he had never remembered shedding, and every tree clearing the strangling fog that surrounded and swamped his mind. He just kept walking, and slowly, slowly, began to calm down.
He found himself back at the camp, having had no idea how that had happened, though now slightly calmer. The other shinigami nodded and bowed slightly as he walked past, and somehow, somehow that made him more collected. It was his duty after all, as a lieutenant to show strength in times of adversity, and it was these people that he had to be strong for.
Kira was still sitting at that same spot, now holding out a mug of stiffer drink, same as the one that the blond had just downed. Upon seeing the redhead's much clearer and calmer expression, a slight twitch went to the right corner of his mouth, and Renji caught himself sharply at the twitch. He did not want to think of… Shoving the thought from his mind, and glad that he could, he raised his drink up in a toast.
"Cheers." A snort came from the two of them simultaneously, together with light chuckles as both men, now perfectly lucid, downed their drinks. Already Renji could feel the liquid courage warming up his insides.
And it was dusk.
They stood up together, gathering the men and women of the three divisions to them, sorting them and assigning them to small groups of ten to twelve soldiers, each with a leader whom both lieutenants were sure would be able to keep their control and not lose it just like Renji had previously.
There was no time for mistakes now, the captain had been keeping the perimeter guarded by himself, stating that before night fell, it was perfectly possible to do a simple job by himself, and it was night that would draw all the hollows in.
And night had just fallen.
The shinigami gathered around the area, light sandaled feet pattering on the dirt road as they wound their way up the mountain, passing scores of laughing men on machines rumbling down the mountain. The glare Renji sent at them did not go unmissed by the shinigami, and perhaps even those men could feel it too, for both groups fell silent and picked up their pace. Abarai-fukutaicho was not easily truly angered, and if he had a reason to want them to reach the grounds quickly, then they would trust him at that.
Most of the shinigami came to an immediate halt upon seeing the scene of utter carnage and total destruction in front of them, where hundreds upon hundreds of plus spirits were lingering lost and confused.
Renji could see the shinigami beginning to be affected by the smells and the sounds of the place, and he could also see the leaders of the groups kicking into action and comforting their group mates. They were all stunned, some were just less stunned than others.
Kira had brought the Third and half of the Fifth over to the other side, to the side they had first encountered, the one with the men, and it was his turn to lead the Sixth and the remainder of Fifth over to that side. Why he was being forced to face his demons, Renji had no idea, but, somehow, he just felt that he owed it to those dead children.
Perhaps it was because he felt a connection to them, perhaps it was something that they did, something that they whimpered, something that they longed for and yearned for that he felt was something that he could identify with. Rukongai children were tougher than most, had seen more than most adult nobles would ever see in their lifetimes, and perhaps that was why he felt the pain of the children. He knew that pain. He knew their pain, and he knew what it felt like to be alone, abandoned, and completely, utterly lost.
He knew it, and still, he stood there stunned for a moment as the smells and the sounds started to set in. But he was stronger for it now. He would not crack and collapse. He had done that once already, and he would not do it again. For the men and women of the Fifth and Sixth, he would show a good strong example. They needed it, so many of them were looking so lost, so tired, and so desperate to get out of this godforsaken, and it truly was godforsaken, place.
Renji stepped forward and began performing konso on the souls, he could only think of them as souls, and the way the textbook shinigami was supposed to, they were souls, and nothing more than that. Souls did not have feelings and souls did not speak and souls were not hurting and souls did not call for their parents. Renji was on the verge of breakdown, but not yet. Not now, not yet. He had a duty to carry out, and example to provide.
Seeing their duty being carried out in front of them, the shinigami bit back those thoughts of despair and swept forward into the field. Over at the other end of the Sixth division sector, Renji caught sight of Kuchiki-taicho disappearing around the corner, heading towards the third and last area, the one which he had said he would handle himself, and had forbidden anyone to help out in.
He could not take it after the first twelve. It was just something, something that he saw in each and every one of their eyes, a part of hope, and resignation, of joy and of sorrow. He recognized that look. He knew why it hurt so much, why it resonated so strongly within him, why he had had the urge to save them all, even though he could not touch their physical bodies.
He saw himself in them. He had been like that once. And it had not been very long ago at all. Rukongai, those days back then when life was a constant battle against death, a constant battle for survival, where children, young children like them, had to scramble as quickly up the ladder of life as they could, or they risked falling off it altogether and dying.
He saw himself in them, and when the thoughts were beginning to come back, it was when he decided that enough was enough. A quick signal to the Third Seat and he turned away to the forest.
The forest was calming. The forest was soothing. The forest had stood there and seen everything, and it was still there. Leaning against a tree trunk, Renji took in several deep breaths as he looked up at the sky. The stars were so lucky, no? They were so far away that whatever happened, there was nothing that they could see clearly, and even if they were to see what was going on, it was all just small, minute and insignificant.
Renji stood there for what seemed like forever, just staring up at the stars. It was a calming experience, somehow. A splash interrupted his thoughts, and he jerked his head around, meeting the eyes of the last person he would expect to see in the forest.
Somehow, it had never struck him that the Captain of the Sixth Division was a person behind all those layers of mask.
Renji bowed his head slightly before turning and going back to the site.
Somehow, knowing that everyone felt the same, and that they were all going through this together and helping each other cope with it all made him feel a little reassured.
After all, all the members of the division supported each other.
What made this any different?