Title: Wounded
Day/Theme: December 13 / The bloody smear of success.
Series: Bleach
Character/Pairing: Soul Society
A/N: Slight...exaggeration, I suppose, of the battle. Let's just call it poetic license!
Also, what is this, the third-no, fourth one I've put in this time frame? Wow. I need to try to put other aspects of their lives than the between Aizen and New arc time period.
Summary: They return, bleeding and staggering and it will be a while before they are healed.
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They return, staggering and in stretchers, bandaged and bleeding. The better ones limp in, nursing tied-up stumps and bruised legs. The worse lie there, blankly, blind and deaf to the world. Isane starts barking orders, to stop gawking already and start healing.
It takes a few minutes, for Unohana to break away from her latest patient and come up front.
"Now," she gives a smile, one of subtle strength and a warning of future danger, "We don't want everyone to die do we?"
They shut up immediately and move.
Hitsugaya is still unseeing as they start to put together his broken body, his mind trapped in a place they can't reach. Hinamori lies close by, even further out of reach than him.
She's moved immediately to a more intensive care, miraclously still alive despite the injuries.
Ichigo isn't all that wounded, but he needs to be stabilized, and he quickly fills in the vacant spot.
There aren't any empty places anymore, each bed filled with a body, each narrow gap crowded with healers. They spend hours upon hours there, healing and binding and feverently hoping.
Because there is so much blood. It spills off the bodies like slick sweat, pooling in the beds until they are dark stain. The floor is thick with it, with the missing chunks of flesh and hair and-
They are lucky it is just the few that went to the town and to Hueco Mundo and the extras that joined them. Lucky because these wounds are difficult and time-consuming and half the squad has already had to leave because they have no energy left.
The ones that came back barely scratched aimlessly wander around occasionally, almost guilty of their lack of wounds. They sit and stare and think.
That's what nearly everyone is doing now. Thinking.
(because Aizen was so close and sly and if he could do this, if he could break their society so easyily, who knows what someone else could do?)
"Unohana-"
She interrupts before Isane can finish. "I'll be there in a moment." Gives a tired smile. Turns back to her latest body.
(at least it's not apart of the death count)
Gives it a quick check over.
Physically, he's healed. Only the mental scars are left behind and those are beyond her power.
She closes her eyes and sighs-this can't really be called a victory so much as a survival.
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