07.

TITLE: Win, or Die Trying to

WORD COUNT: 788

SUMMARY: Renji realises for the first time that there's more to fighting for its own sake.

RATING: PG (save for a few semi?-graphic descriptions of injuries - but hey, it's BLEACH we're talking about, where an episode can't go without someone getting injured in some way or another, be it through zanpakutos, kidou, or Hiyori's Super Walker.)

NOTE: And again something from the archives. 2/3 of this was originally written way back in whenever (and now I can't remember when I started this, god so disappointing, with the remaining 1/3 (the ending, mostly) written when I came out of hiatus in 2017. Why I didn't post it back then remains a mystery - but unlike some of the other pieces, like "rakujitsu", this one was one I couldn't really see an ending to, and would've probably meandered on for a lot longer if I hadn't truncated it. Not quite sure what I was trying to do with this one, but anyway.

Perhaps it was because of his stint with the Eleventh Division, but Renji thought that there was nothing much to fighting. If anything, it was like what the division – or maybe more precisely, Kenpachi – had taught him.

That when you fight, you fight for yourself and only yourself, not for nothing else, no one else. If you're alive and standing at the end of a battle when the dust clears and settles, then you've won. You don't need a damned reason to fight – forget your ideals, your convictions, your friends, your whatever; just the determination that you'll live to see through another day, another opponent to kill, just the instinct that makes you seek out battle after battle, victory after victory.

Renji had believed in the mantra, had built his life upon it, even after he had transferred to the Sixth Division and worked under Byakuya, his interpretation of fighting and violence at odds with what Renji had lived by.

So when he saw the black-clad figure of Ichigo on the ground, staring helplessly up at the night sky after Grimmjow had left with Tousen – but not before thrashing the younger shinigami soundly without even drawing his sword – Renji was at a complete loss for words.

It was the first time he had seen the usually loud-mouthed, brash boy so silent, looking so forlorn, defenseless and lost, as he struggled to come to terms with the fact that he couldn't have won against Grimmjow, that he had lost to the Espada, that he wasn't strong enough to protect Inoue, Rukia, Sado, those around him whom he held dearly.

Even as the sound of the soles of Renji's sandals against the pavement became increasingly louder as he approached Ichigo, the latter just remained crumpled in a heap on the road, completely crushed by his defeat and the blue-haired being's revelations; and when he finally spoke up, it was in a voice nothing more than a trembling whisper.

"I lost."

"Dumbass." Renji snorted uncertainly, not quite sure of what to say. "Ya won, didn't ya? I mean, ya ain't dead, alive and all."

Ichigo just stared ahead, his right hand continuously unwrapping and clenching itself around the handle of Tensa Zangetsu the only betrayal of his anger and frustration as he gripped it so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Don't lie to me, Renji. If you were me, you wouldn't be able to say that." This time, it was Renji's turn to be silent, face downcast as Ichigo continued through clenched teeth. "I couldn't protect anyone. And I couldn't even defeat those bastards who injured us."

"I lost." And with those two words, Renji's beliefs, already cracked by his narrow victory over Yylfordt Granz, were shattered soundly.

Sure, he had won – but without the determination that the Eleventh Squad had preached; he had thought for a moment, when the Arrancar effortlessly ripped through Hihiou Zabimaru and slashed him, that he wasgoing to die, there and then, even as Jinta, cradling a barely conscious Ururu, watched helplessly from the roof of Urahara's shop.

At that moment, what drifted through his mind as blood dripped from the gashing wound across his chest were not thoughts of winning; they were of his comrades, who were still out there fighting for their lives, desperately trying to protect Karakura and its inhabitants, almost all of them unaware of what was happening even as they slept; of the people he cared about and whose lives were being threatened by Aizen and his band of Arrancars who had suddenly decided to invade the human realm.

It was then, he realised, that his views on fighting had changed.

Looking down at the crestfallen Ichigo, still kneeling on the road, he realised he was starting to understand what the younger substitute shinigami was saying. There was no doubt he was fighting to stay alive – but he was no longer just fighting for himself, for the sheer jolt of adrenaline it sent running through him as he charged recklessly towards the enemy while swinging Zabimaru. More importantly, he was fighting to protect those people around him he felt close to, the people he loved, the people he would cast aside his life for in the blink of an eye.

Like Rukia, Byakuya, the Eleventh Division family, Hisagi, Kira, Hinamori, Ichigo.

It was that day that Renji swore, in his heart, that he would no longer fight for the utter joy of it.

To him, fighting was no longer the be-all and end-all; it ceased to be the reason for his existence. Rather, he now fought because he had a reason to, because he knew that he had something to stand up for and defend with all of his might.