Ban Sidhe
Disclaimer, Warnings, and Notes: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo and Viz media; not me. This fic is rather dark, so be forewarned. As always, please review; after all, how can I grow as a writer if no one tells me how I'm doing.
It was a world of screams. Hollows screamed. Hunger and hate and the unfillable void. Humans screamed. Pain and loss and rage. Ghosts screamed, although not for long. An echo of their last moments in this life. Planes screamed. Engines pushed to the max and the intake of air needed to keep them aloft. Bombs screamed. Falling from a great height against the resistance of the very wind. Shinigami screamed. Broken and shell shocked completely overwhelmed. A valley might have screamed, but if it did it was there and gone so quick as to have never been at all.
Yuimchika Ayasegawa did not scream. He was grungy, and disheveled, and bleeding from a myriad of cuts he'd received from fighting Hollows, and as sleep deprived as everyone else who was still standing, and surrounded by the sheer ugliness of the war, and quite frankly feeling not as attractive and composed as he normally was. He was a seated officer in the Eleventh so he would not break as so many others had. Plus screaming would just add a whole new layer of ugliness to him – and that, simply would not do.
Ikkaku Madarame screamed – well, it was more like he shouted a whole bunch. There were battle cries as he rushed in to engage the next Hollow in the string of his opponents, warnings as someone did something incredibly stupid and nearly skewered someone they weren't supposed to (or nearly got skewered themselves), orders to get the ones who were near breaking but hadn't moving again so that they had a shadow of a chance of seeing this travesty through, curses and other explicatives as Hollows got in the occasional lucky shot and managed to wound him. Not all of the cursing and recriminations were aimed at the seemingly never ending ocean of the dead; many of whom were Hollowing almost as soon as their chain of fate was sundered. Never before would he believe that even he could get tired of fighting. And not even Yumichika, whom he held no secrets from, would be told of this momentary cowardice.
Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya screamed to be heard over the noise and the rush. It didn't matter that many of the shinigami who had defaulted to under his command weren't from his division. He was the highest ranking officer in that section, attempting to maintain some semblance of order. And for the most part, he was being obeyed despite his youth and the fact that he wasn't their captain. He was trying to keep them alive and at least somewhat organized, and he was willing to bleed for them. That was enough.
Benihime screamed with a typhoon's force of rage while Kisuke Urahara tried to breathe through the pain of his own soul trying to rip itself to shreds for doing nothing. The world was tearing itself apart and every day that went by saw more and more Hollows forming. Hollows that he should be out their slaying rather than sitting around under one of Tessai's stronger barriers. But the large concentration of Hollows also meant a large concentration of shinigami. And while Kisuke might've been able to take out a lone Hollow here and there over the years since his exile, to do so now was too great a risk what with all the shinigami running around – even with them so preoccupied. Fifty years was barely a blink to a shinigami, and he could not afford to die now. Not with everything he knew was riding on his staying alive.
The ever sunny Akiko Takashi screamed in pain. There were too many Hollows for someone not even a decade out of the Academy to handle, everything was too bright, too loud. It was too, too, too much. And all around her humans were dying, Hollows were dying, shinigami were dying. She was dying; the poisoned barb at the end of the tail of a Hollow that looked too much like a scorpion for it not to be sticking out of her chest from where it had impaled her in the back. Mercifully, her screams did not last long.
Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi screamed in joy. She was having fun, and more importantly, Kenny was having fun. Sure the Hollows were screaming in pure terror, and running away from them (at least, the ones that could still do that. A lot of them were dying rather quickly – which was really no fun at all). But there were always more Hollows appearing to take their place.
Kaede Ito screamed. And screamed, and screamed, and screamed. A never ending wail that continued on even after his voice gave out and all that left his lips was a faint rattling rasp that continued on where the screams had left off. His sword (his soul) yelled at him to snap out of it and yet he still screamed. His comrades tried to shake him to some semblance of sanity and yet he still screamed. Ikkaku Madarame (who's fight had brought him near to Kaede) shouted at him to pull his head out of his ass, get it together, and do his goddamned fucking job and yet still he screamed. It took Lieutenant Renji Abarai whacking him in the head to knock him out and thrusting the otherwise paralyzed man into the arms of one of other guys from the Fourth to be taken back to the Seireitei for treatment for him to stop. And even then the screams remained etched on his face.
Lieutenant Renji Abarai screamed. It was the only way he could hear himself – let alone anyone else – after something had exploded (might've been a kidou, or an attack from someone else's zanpakuto, or a cero. He couldn't be sure; he might've blacked out there for a moment when whatever it was went off) a bit too close to him. The ringing in his ears was annoying, and he probably should make a note of dropping in on the Fourth just to make sure that there wasn't any lasting damage, but part of him was glad that the screaming of the world around him was muted. He couldn't afford the distraction it might've caused.
Captain Retsu Unohana did not scream. There was no reason for her to. Her squad knew their jobs and were performing them quickly and efficiently without wavering too much, and her patients needed as much quiet as could be afforded to recover. Besides, even if she did not raise her voice one bit when she spoke, even among the chaos of too few trying to patch up too many, everyone heard her loud and clear anyway. Just like they always did.
Captain Sosuke Aizen didn't scream. He remained calm and cool despite how torn up inside he must've been from all the death and destruction that the latest war in the world of the living had brought. He helped where he could, mercifully slaying Hollows and managing to squeeze a few comforting words before he preformed konso on the souls of those who'd had yet to Hollowfy. He served as a rallying beacon to those who would falter in the face of their current atrocity.
Captain Sosuke Aizen didn't scream. He wore his mask as flawlessly as any veteran Noh actor and observed what was going on with a detachment worthy of any scientist. He'd seen war before, and he'd seen the Gotei 13 rally in the face of mass devastation before. He took his notes; who broke, who thrived, who held together, who scattered… He catalogued the response to travesty for his own future reference. This would not be the last war. There would be other times when the whole of the Gotei 13 worked together with all hands. Only a fool would not take their response into account, and he was anything but a fool.
In 1945 as World War II drew to a close, Japan burned.