Where There is No Sun (2)
There is wreckage. There are clouds of dust that obscure the sun. There are hungry shinigami hiding in the shadows, and shell-shocked Rukongai residents wandering like undead.
There are only a handful of shinigami who participated in the Winter War still around.
Crouched, curled up and bent so his long body will fit beneath this particular piece of the great wall, Renji holds the halves of his sword together.
He knows that nothing will come of it, but it's habit—the mentality of 'one sword'. If it breaks, fix it, but there will only be one sword.
It's hard to get used to these feeble, lifeless things.
With something like a sigh, like a growl, he throws the pieces away from him and glares at them, lying in the half-light of early morning.
Hisagi watches silently, his eyes hooded and cloudy with exhaustion.
"How much longer," Renji grunts to him. His legs are falling asleep, but he can't move them to restore the circulation.
Hisagi blinks, slowly.
"At least two hours," he eventually says, the words almost inaudible.
Renji's teeth bare in a snarl, gleaming.
"Then we move." He finishes hoarsely, curling around his own weapon.
xx
Rukia hears her captures speak above her.
She doesn't move, only to breath. She focuses on keeping her face clear of expression, so they don't realize she's awake.
What are they talking about? She whispers to that corner of herself, and then swallows down a pained cry when Shirayuki's warm light isn't there.
Something cracks against the stone of the floor, and the bound woman starts.
"…o for it to…row."
"Too so…"
"…ure it's d…there?"
"…sitive."
There are heavy footfalls, and Rukia has only just managed to relax her muscles when hands lift her up by the coils of rope around her.
The man's voice is directly over her head now. His voice rings with frightening clarity when he speaks.
"In the meantime, what do we do with this one?"
xx
She stops pretending when her body makes contact with cold stone. The two men, haloed by the light of the torch one carries, speak quietly to each other as they move away from her.
She closes her eyes for just a moment, a quick second to collect herself, get her mind in gear. When she opens them again, she sees one of the men look back, not to her, but past her.
His reiatsu—she feels it clearly in that moment, even with her bruised senses—is thrumming with suppressed fear, and a shot of thoughtful, clear thinking that sparks a flutter of panic in Rukia's breast.
The light from the flaming torch disappears before the sound of their footsteps, and soon, she is alone in the dark.
xx
Dark shapes move soundlessly down the rough avenues that snake through the ruins. Residents flinch from their path, many turn their eyes away.
The shapes, shadows, specters—an occasional glimpse can be seen through the blur of shunpo. The gleam of an inch of bared steel (the cloth wrapping it must have slipped), or a long ponytail (risky these days). Their dark clothing and the speed at which they fly over the dust marks them as members of the remains of the resistance…Because men of the New Faction have no need to hurry, or to hide.
xx
A strange and ominous energy comes from somewhere in the bowls of the structure Rukia has come to recognize as Fuchi, the underground prison that…for a long time, she'd half considered a myth. Its existence wasn't exactly a secret—its name was often employed to scare small children—but with the Detention Unit around and not especially crowded, what need did they have for a second prison?
Following that thought, it takes Rukia only a moment to realize that Fuchi is more of a graveyard than a prison. Fuchi is where they put people to forget about them, isn't it?
The thought makes her shiver.
But that reiatsu—the one that is like an elusive odor more than anything—are there still prisoners down here?
Rukia draws her knees close to her chest, and begins to study the foreign pulse.
There isn't much for her to glean. It feels cold and alien, a thread of heat underneath that makes her think, anger, but…beyond that…
Some how, it sparks sympathy. Or empathy. What poor bastard has been abandoned down here?
Peering glumly into a darkness so thick it might be solid, Rukia thinks she can relate with them.
xx
The New Faction's defenses are nothing to sneeze at, Renji admits it, but Yoruichi has told him not to worry about it. You go for the little Kuchiki, leave the big walls for me, through that catty smirk.
She flashes a grin in his group's direction before disappearing over the garrison wall after her partner, some nameless woman who can bend in interesting ways. Renji rolls his eyes at the display, and signals his companions to move—all two of them. They're going around the wall.
It had taken six of them three hours to find her, but eventually they had found her reiatsu, alive and to all appearances healthy beneath a few tons of earth and rubble.
In Fuchi. Yoruichi had sounded surprised even as she said it. She must be in Fuchi.
The rest of them were just as stunned, though for notably different reasons. That place exists? Hisagi had said.
Apparently, it does. And apparently that's where the New Fuckers have stashed Rukia.
So that's where Renji's going.
xx
Yoruichi enlightened them of a disguised entrance that, as far as she new, had survived the struggle till now. She'd described it as a cellar door, in the back of a Rukongai bar on the other side of the garrison. Hokusu had claimed he knew how to find it, and now he takes the front as they shunpo around the wall, hugging its base.
The bar, when they reach it, is half standing. The back corner of the roof has fallen in, and the entire structure groans as it slowly follows along, but the entrance is safe, and that's what matters.
Tsumai hisses through her teeth, causing Yoruichi to give her a look. Making unnecessary noise, here? Inside the New Faction's fortress? What she wouldn't give for a little professionalism, geez.
Not that the dark-skinned woman doesn't understand the other's frustration. They've turned at least half of the garrison on its head, looking, and still they've found no sign of the captured zanpakutou. They have no way of knowing if the swords are even still…alive.
They could have been melted down, and just that thought is a pain in Yoruichi's midsection.
She makes the hand sign to continue. Tsumai nods, and leads the way down the quiet stone hall.
There is no choice but to continue looking. The resistance won't last another decade with the soul-cutters, and that is the truth of it.
xx
Rukia is woken by a huge racket from above.
She is forced to spy through tiny slits because the brightness of the men's torches burn, and it is difficult to see through her lashes, but she makes out a crude, two-wheeled cart. The man pushing it is struggling to guide it around a rough spot that has the potential to take a wheel. He is cursing, and as she watches he rears back one leg to deliver it a hard kick—but his companion makes an urgent sound and awkwardly catches the man's calf has it moves.
"You idiot!" He snaps.
The cart carries a hundred different kinds of explosives.