A/n: I own nothing.
AN-I own nothing, either.
K, Lovlies. This may be a bit darker than you're used to from me, but it's promising to be one hell of a ride. See warnings!
This is a joint effort with timewaster123456789 whose plot bunny met my plot kitten and chaos ensued!
Warnings~for~story~ There will be character death(s)! You are hereby warned of this! Dark times ahead. It will end up ok because I need at least semi-happy endings. And of course there's eventual yaoi-ness cause I'm a Freak like that. timewaster typing the bulk of this and I'm just responsible for grammarhounding and boy citrus.
Warnings for Chapter~Battle, loss, guilt, very angsty thinky-thoughts.
Screams rang around the outskirts of the Rukongai district 62.
"Stay down!" Ukitake roared from where he and six subordinates were pinned behind a building. He fought the urge to cough in the dust rising from destroyed buildings as the vasto lordes advanced. Six more thirteenth division members were pinned like them two buildings over and he swore he could see panic in their expressions even as they looked back at him. Shit, they needed him to do something and he had no idea what to do. He was fast running out of options and if the vasto lordes made it to twelfth division's supply depot they were dead. Rukia and Sentaro and Kotetsu and everyone would die- twelve members of his squad, twelve members of his family.
Wait…the supply depot. A grim smile spread over his face.
"Rally!" he ordered. They waited for an opening and Ukitake fired off some low level hado for distraction. His subordinates broke cover and ran to join them, but a cero caught them part way and sent two flying. Ukitake flinched as he felt their reiatsu cease on impact. The remaining four formed up behind him.
"Brace yourselves, if you have bakudou shields use them," he ordered. Incantations rose around him as he fired hado 33 at the supply depot. A red and yellow fireball rose from it and rolled away from them, directed by the force of his spell. His jaw went slack in shock, what the hell had Mayuri been storing in there? It was easily three times as powerful as he'd been expecting, vaporizing all but two vastos on ignition. Cheers rose from his squad as the scorching air buffeted their shields. After that it was short work to take out the last two vastos and check the bodies of their comrades.
Ukitake didn't bother checking the pulse on the second body, 8th seat Ryogi had half his body burned away by the cero. He rubbed his remaining eye closed with a shaking hand. He and his squad, exhausted and shaken, gathered to return home. It was en route that a messenger caught up to them, kneeling before him.
"Ukitake-taichou," he greeted.
"Yes?" Ukitake asked.
"I was told to inform you that the captain commander wishes to speak with you upon your return regarding the collateral damage incurred during your most recent fight."
"Collateral damage?"
"Yes the two Rukongai residents killed in the explosion," the messenger replied. His world shattered, he'd killed two innocent people…good god. He hadn't…he'd only wanted to save his squad and complete the mission. Hell.
"I will see the captain commander when I arrive," he replied, trying to keep his voice from shaking in front of his subordinates. He walked on, going over what he could have done differently, how he could have prevented this…war crime. He came up empty but, if anything that deepened his disgust.
Xxxx
Ukitake walked into the meeting hall of 1st squad and knelt for the man he considered his father, hating that he'd done wrong by the man even more than he feared his punishment.
"Rise, Ukitake," the captain commander ordered. He stood, remaining more deferential than he normally would.
"I understand that the battle was…difficult," he said.
"Yes sir," he replied.
"Due to your ingenuity, though, you defeated the vastos force and protected the Rukongai from invasion," he said. Ukitake opened his mouth to speak but, the captain commander spoke over him, "You will be awarded a outstanding conduct medal."
"What?" he exploded before catching himself. "No sir, you do not understand! I…" the captain commander raised a hand for silence.
"You have earned this. Besides, people need to know that collateral damage is an unfortunate part of war and I won't make a scapegoat of you," he said.
Ukitake felt sick. "Do you understand?" the captain commander asked pointedly.
"Yes I do," he replied more harshly than he should have, refusing to let tears fall.
"Dismissed," the captain commander said. He bowed, turned and walked away, and when he cleared the doors of the hall he wiped angrily at his eyes and stalked toward his own barracks.
xxxx
Rukia collapsed onto her bunk in the barracks, shaking uncontrollably. She'd been horrified when she'd heard of the deaths but, for a split second she'd been relieved it wasn't her. The thought made her… she leaned over and puked again in the wastebasket she'd dragged over. She shivered under the thin blankets, for once wishing for the manor's ludicrously plush sleeping arrangements, but there was no way she was going back there until she had a handle on her thoughts.
If she was like this a servant would notice and there was no way in hell she was explaining to her brother what was wrong. She didn't want to feel that disappointment that she wasn't strong enough, cold enough to handle a Shinigami's life. She knew full well he thought it even if he never said as much. How could he not? Hell she thought that when she looked at captains like Kyoraku and Soi fon, who never let anything affect them.
Reaching a shaking hand under the cot, she drew out a small blue cloth-bound notebook that Renji had given her. It had white and silver embossing on the front, made to look like snowflake and icicles. Taking the pen clipped to the side she flipped to an empty page near the back, but went too far in her haste and flipped back, bending pages as she did. She began to write.
I'm so confused. I feel horrible for what happened but, at the same time I kind of don't. How do you grieve people you've never met? But, I should; they had families and dreams and stuff too. I'm so glad I'm alive, like 'sing from the rooftops' glad- does that make me a horrible person? God, what is wrong with me?
She wrote on, the words barely legible due to the shaking of her hand. It was helping... but not nearly as much as usual.
xxx
Kyoraku had heard through the grapevine about the fight, about the explosion his friend had set off while saving his squad and who knew how many others, and knew none of that would matter. He found Ukitake sitting stiffly on the porch where he would have tea with Kaien when the boy was still alive, the sadness rolling off him in waves.
"Hey, you doing alright?" he asked, walking up behind his friend.
"Could be worse," Jushiro said, gesturing with the arm that was in a sling. Yes it could have he thought, his own mood darkening at the thought of losing the man who'd been his best friend and lover for over a millennium.
"Here's glad it wasn't," he said, raising an imaginary toast as he came around to face his friend. Jushiro looked up at him, his expression saying that he didn't entirely agree with the sentiment. "You know full well that wasn't what I meant though," he continued. Jushiro looked away.
"You heard, I assume?" Jushiro asked rhetorically, his voice harsh.
"Yeah. You did well, saved your squad took out all the vasto lordes in one go, not a bad day," he said.
"And the two Rukongai residents who got caught in the blast?" he snarled back. He looked up at Kyoraku, damp eyes blazing with rage. "The captain commander wanted to give me a damn commendation," his voice shook.
"You deserve one, no mistake," he said. He'd been worried that central forty-six would make a PR issue out of the incident.
"NO I DON'T!" Jushiro roared, standing. Shocked by the uncharacteristic aggression, Kyoraku stepped back, hands up as his partner continued.
"I killed those people but, because we are Shinigami there will be no punishment. What is the point if we can't even protect the people we exist to protect?" he asked, breath heaving.
"Okay one point at a time," Kyoraku said calmly, though he was beginning to freak at his lover's reaction. "You were protecting your squad. Would you have done the same thing if you'd known that civilians were there?"
"I don't know," came the cracking whisper. Ah so there was a lot of the problem: he wasn't sure if given the choice he wouldn't have still saved his squad.
"The point is you didn't know. I will repeat myself: when you enter battle both sides are evil. The best you can do is hit hard, fast and make it end as quickly as possible. I know that you try to fight honorably but sometimes it simply isn't feasible, at times you have accept that premise or you'll destroy yourself,"
Jushiro sniffed, his head turned away.
Kyoraku continued speaking quietly. "As to protecting Soul Society, how many civilians do you think would have died if your squad had been wiped out and the Vasto lordes made it into the Rukongai proper?"
His partner remained silent, sniffling slightly.
"That's right it would have been waaay more than two. You did good Juu," he said with a gentle smile. His friend still wouldn't look at him, hair obscuring his face. "As to punishment heh…you have to live with this. That's what war is," he said and his voice cracked the tiniest bit with his own memories.
"I know that," Jushiro said looking up, jaw shaking obviously on the edge of tears.
"Don't make it easier, does it?" he asked. Jushiro hung his head, hair falling into his eyes and shoulders shaking. Kyoraku embraced him, at a loss for what else to do.
Xxx
It's not like I can talk to Niisama. Yeah I can picture that going well. I would breakdown and I can't do that, not in front of him and what's he going to say. 'That's a shinigami's life. Toughen up,' something like that only haughtier and with that nice razor to the heart that makes you feel like scum of the earth. I wonder if he does that intentionally or if it just comes with noble blood.
I would wonder what he'd do in this situation but, he wouldn't be affected by it in the first place. What would Renji do? What would Kaien have done?
She paused a moment in her writing to think, drying her eyes and nose on the blanket, before returning to her page with renewed vigor.
They'd kill as many hollows as they could, that's what they'd do. That's what I'll do.
Smiling grimly, she put her writing implements away and crawled out of bed to head for the training grounds. Sniffling a bit she walked out the front door seeing her captain and Kyoraku-taichou on the side-porch arguing in the moonlight. A rush of protectiveness flared in her at that but, she decided to stay out of it, it was never a good idea to get between two people who'd known each other as long as they had. After a moment's indecision she moved on toward the training grounds.
Xxx
Sweat dripped into her eyes and her shirt clung to her back, but she didn't slow down. Shooting a hado at one target dummy, she whirled and threw a leaping kick at another. She'd never been very skilled at… well much of anything but, particularly hakudo. She intended to change that. She would NOT let any more civilians die. She wouldn't be able to live with it if she did. Tears of guilt and shame burned her eyes. She spun in a sweep and tripped in her exhaustion. She struggled to get up but her fatigued limbs weren't having it, and she fell back to her knees, bruising them badly. Unable to get up and exhausted beyond all belief, she curled up on the ground, weeping pathetically.
Rukia had cried herself out some minutes later but, it was the better part of half an hour before she could make her spent body obey her will. She trudged back to the barracks covered in dirt and a little blood. The thought of returning to the manor was not only unpleasant but, given the distance, likely physically impossible, unless she felt like hiring a carriage.
Even forty years out of the Rukongai and richer than Croesus she still hated to frivolously spend.
Feeling empty and numb with fatigue, she decided to talk to her captain. He'd always been kind to her, helping her through the other issues that most Shinigami went through, the closest thing she'd had to a father. At the moment she thought she could maintain some form of bearing, too, not that it mattered to anything but her pride. He been comforting and non-judgmental when she'd broken down over Kaien.
She knocked on the door to his quarters. No answer. She knocked again, frantically. There was still no answer, she realized then that the lights weren't on, he wasn't there. Despite having felt numb to the point of never feeling anything again she sank to sore knees now tears streaming down her cheeks.