Warning, there's a slight point of view shift in this chapter. When I had originally written it I'd just finished a book written in third person and I wasn't paying attention to my POV as I was writing, and so it wound up being written in third person instead of first. I thought about going back and changing it, but when I went to go do so, I realized that with the material I wrote there were things that Renji might not be directly aware of that I wanted to keep in there, so I kept it in third person. This is probably the only chapter that's going to be like this. Well, anyway, enjoy!
He pulled out his futon, stripped down to his underrobe and flopped on it with a sigh. He felt tired, but it was a weariness of spirit rather than mere physical exhaustion. At the same time he felt sleepy, he also felt restless and irritated. Of course, he knew what the conflict was. The exhaution came from the fact that even though he'd finally attained every goal he'd set for himself in order to get to a place where he could be by Rukia's side with his head held up, the prize he had really wanted had slipped right through his fingers and was now further from his reach than ever. The defeat wasn't even tangible, and that was part of what was so frustrating about it. This wasn't a foe he could swing his sword at and hound into submission; how did you change a person's heart? You couldn't, and that was a fact. Regardless of anything else, the heart does as the hearts does.
:I won every battle and lost the war....: he thought despairingly.
And that just irritated the hell out of him. After all, he had always been there for her, all she ever had to do was call, or reach out her hand, and regardless of propriety or what anyone else thought... he would have went to her. The annoying thing was that Renji knew deep down that the reverse was also true; he could have just as easily found a way to keep in touch with her through little things, and he hadn't.
Everyone was a coward when it came to love, even a guy willing to fight for it.
:I guess I just hoped, foolishly it seems, that she might have noticed how hard i was working, that she might have figured out that everything i was doing, how quickly I was climbing up the ranks, was for her. I guess i hoped she'd realize that my actions stemmed from something greater than friendship.:
After all, women are supposed to be subtle like that, always atributing motives, even when there are none. Not Rukia apparently. Renji was angry at himself for not doing more to make sure she knew how he felt about her. He was also, deep down, irritated at the two of them; after all, what did Ichigo have that Renji did not? Why did he win her heart and Renji, who had worked himself half to death for years, get left behind in the Seireitei as a mere friend? He was irritated at his helplessness. He knew that if he tried to come between the two of them, not only would he look pathetic, He'd make Rukia unhappy... and that was the one thing he could never do.
So there he was, crushed on the inside, cast adrift of purpose and helpless to keep the one he loved desperately from falling in love with another.
:I need something to distract me or I'm going to go insane,: Renji thought with detached calm.
There was always the never-ending, grinding, boring paperwork that came with his new, sought after-position. It drove him crazy most days but no-one could say that it didn't make a good distraction. He rolled off his futon and paced into the outer room of his new lieutenants quarters. He was still new to the place, with everything that had been going on since he'd gotten his position he actually didn't spend much time in his new quarters, so he hadn't really moved in. There was his futon in one room with his few real possessions piled up in one corner, a low table with a few cushions (that had already been there) in another room, a small kitchenette with a few dishes (that had been a present from Momo) and a small office room with a low desk that was already stacked high with paperwork. Renji didn't own much, so despite the grand spaciousness of the place (officers got nicer quarters and the upper-level officers got the really really nice quarters) it looked pretty spartan.
He'd never been much in the habit of accreting possessions anyway; in the Rukon district, ownership of things was something a person fought over tooth and nail with everybody else around them. One either collected things obsessively, like a Rukon bag-lady, and then spent their time brawling like cats with everyone else over bits and ends that "might someday be useful" or one simply did not project any importance on objects that were not absolutely necessary to survival and discarded anything that might slow them down. As a young child he'd been a responsible young gang-leader, and had spent more time than he'd liked smoothing over disputes between his friends over this or that trinket; he'd quickly decided that if he were going to have to fight over something, it was going to have to be something worth fighting over; like how many blankets his group got and who slept closer to the door. He'd quickly gotten out of the habit of ownership over trifles, and even though he was now in a position to be able to pay for whatever he wanted, he still didn't own very much besides clothes and hair-ties, a guitar, art supplies, and some really nice sun-glasses were the extent of his luxuries.
Renji settled himself in seiza at his low desk and flicked on the light with a low flare of his reiatsu, pulling the nearest forms directly in front of him and scanning over them to see what his third seat had dropped off in his absence. He smiled a little wryly at the sticky note that Rikichi had put on the top to remind him to eat right. That kid.
The Captains of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads were, without a doubt, the most impressive fighters, infomation gatherers, tacticians, strategists and mad scientists in the whole Seireitei, perhaps in all of existence. The strength of their reiastu alone could fell a lower-level hollow from twenty paces. By strength of arms, charisma and main force alone they led great teams of fighters who might have other wise decided they'd rather squabble amongst themselves for power and status. All of the Seireitei warriors could have been no better than a bunch of unruly thugs, but the structure of the Seireitei and the sheer force of personality of its leaders brought order where there would have been chaos, discipline where there would have been negligence and courage where there would have been cowardice. Strange and eccentric as they were, no-one could argue that the Captains of the Court Guard Squads didn't deserve the loyalty of their subordinates. You didn't have to like them, but the captains were as much a symbol to most Reapers as they were an actual person.
With all of that said, anyone who had been around for any amount of time quickly realized something about the captains of the Court Guard Squads... the Captains might be the leaders and commanders in the Court of Pure Souls, but they didn't run the Seireitei... the Lieutenants did.
If a Soul Reaper had a wife and kid outside of the Seireitei (and there were a number who did despite the rule that said Soul Reapers were not to officially marry) they did not ask their Captain for a stipend to keep them, they filed out the necessary paperwork and turned it into the lieutenant. If the Head Quarters needed work done on it, the lieutenant made the arrangements. When it was time for a fresh crop of newbies to be tested and assigned to their duties the lieutenant tested their strengths and weaknesses individually, assigned them to the proper Seated Officer for extra training in their weak areas and left the Seated Officers in charge of them.
Lieutenants also handled what was referred to as the "Soul Roll" or "the roster" it was the list Reapers that were switched out with regularity between assignments in ther Mortal Realm, guarding the Seireitei, and periodic breaks to see their families or just have a needed releif from duty. It was a headache because he had to remember all the Reapers and assign to territories and duties them according to thier strengths and weaknesses, not only that but he had to remember who had recently done what and for how long to avoid repetition. Being assigned the same beat or duties for too long was one good way to earn an abrupt downturn in morale.
The lieutenants also requisitioned supplies for the Reapers under their command; clothing, articles in the toilet kit, shoes, sword oil, wax for the scabbards, hair combs and brushes... the list went on and on to include all the various minutae and articles necessary for the upkeep of a few hundred men and women. Lieutenants also reviewed and approved the menus for the kitchens and requisitioned the food supplies for that week so the cooks could prepare them. It was the Lieutenants job to read over every report that the Reapers were required to fill out and send in, and not only to look for any discrepancies in the reports, but to write up his own summary about how the Reapers were doing for the Captain to peruse. This summary was necessary because Captains did not have much day to day interaction with thier subordinates, so it was a leiutenants job to keep an eye on things. It was part of a Vice-Captain's duty to know the details about the skills, abilities, weakenesses and possible potentials of every Reaper under his command. Renji got to wade through forests of reports and paperwork that landed on his desk and distil it down to a weekly summary for his captain with short, concise notes about the individual Reapers, Seated Officers, their performance, the recent activities in the feild, any anomalies from the norm, recent Hollow activity and anything else that might be worth noting.
And then there was the payroll... Renji hated it with a passion. But it was his job to see that it was done and done well so that the Captain could sign off on it. The job of a Lieutenant was to keep their squad running smoothly so that the Captains could keep an eye on the larger picture. So all of the day to day minutae, supplies and requisitions, the roster, payroll, Reaper evaluations... all of it ended up as an enormous stack of paperwork on his desk.
He'd already finished most of the niggling day to day stuff (stupid stuff like 'how many shower sandals would Barack Five need for the month?') earlier that morning. There were really only two things left for him to do but he'd been putting it off because he disliked them. That was not a good idea, seeing as they were two the most important tasks assigned a lieutenant; the Soul Roll and the payroll. Of the two of them, he liked the Soul Roll better; he knew each of his subordinates by name and face, and all of their individual strengths and weaknesses. Usually he dreaded having a new batch of greenies come in, because it meant that he had to fight them all individually, assert his status and rank with some of the more fractious kids (usually, they were the prize brats of the noble families who had done well in the academy and thought that they could run the squad better than their Vice Captain) and then determine what they would do well in. However, right then, they were massively undermanned due to the recent fighting, and Renji would have welcomed a batch of noobs just to bring all the Reaper teams back up to full fighting strength.
:Eighth Seat's element is particularly lacking,: Renji thought with a sympathetic wince.
Poor Sati had only herself, her second, and maybe one or two Reapers under her. If they were called on to fight off a powerful enemy, they'd be slaughtered if they didn't have another squad backing them up. Renji would have just expediently combined that element with sixth (who was also down more than a few men) except that Sati was a good officer, a strong fighter and a leader with good common sense, the Reapers under her were good too, not lacking in courage (maybe a little too gung-ho, but Renji couldn't hold that against them) and he was reluctant also, to assign them elsewhere.
:I guess I'll just have to assign them grunt work around the Headquarters until we can get a fresh batch of Reapers in from the academy,: Renji decided with a shrug as he noted down some assignments for them for the Captain to sign off on.
They were down a few Seated Officers from the lower numbers. Tenth Seat Naru Moritama had been taken in the recent fighting in Hueco Mundo and not replaced yet. Seventeenth Seat Mizune Horiki, Renji remembred her as being a small woman with a viscious right hook and the temperment of a chihuahua (once she got her teeth on something, you could swing her around as much as you wanted she wasn't letting go). Also Twentieth Seat Hidoki Seikawa, a young man who had shown tremendous potential; he had a powerful attack and speed and strength to take advantage of it, he had been killed too young. Renji knew that he shouldn't put it off, but he was strangely reluctant to assign new officers to fill the missing spots, he had a few names picked out as people who had real potential, they displayed leadership skills and the possible ability to protect the subordinates who would be placed under their direct command. Despite the fact that they were understaffed and it was certainly the duty of the Lieutenant to make sure that the officers corps at least was at full strength. Renji knew he was reluctant to replace them was because he felt that he had somehow failed them, he knew in his mind that it was illogical, that they were soldiers too and that it was not his job to protect them, but to give them the best chance possible of surviving using their own strengths. Nevertheless, he felt responsible for them, and so, responsible for their deaths.
:No sense in putting it off any longer,: he thought.
He pulled out the sheet of paper on which he had marked a short list of names, the names of those new or fairly new Reapers he felt had the right strength, experience, leadership skills and potential to be promoted into an Officers Seat. He'd only come up with seven of them. In the morning, he'd call those seven Reapers to a practice field and test their strength. It didn't so much matter to him whether or not they managed to score a victory against him, his interests lay in testing their spirit by the blade. There was often a moment in combat when the two combatants could truly know one another. Renji held the somewhat old-fashioned belief that there were things you could only know about a person when you met in battle. Field reports sure as hell didn't tell you everything, one might even say that they barely told you anything but there was something about the clash of one zanpaktou against another that allowed a greater connection.
He pulled out the weekly summary log-book and glanced again over his summary. It wasn't due for a few days yet and he was current on all of the most recent reports in from the field. First element had had fewer Hollow encounters than usual lately, but they'd been assigned to a site that seemed to be going cold anyway. A few years before it had been an industrial boom-town but it's prosperity had waned in recent years because of the economy and most of the living had abandoned it; with fewer souls about there was less material for Hollows to either feed on or be made out of. Renji had already decided to rotate in the fifteenth seat element; there were fewer Reapers assigned to that element and a lot of the fighters were weaker when it came to physical attacks but had higher agility and kido-attacks. The Reapers assigned to that element would be more than adequate to handle the workload.
Renji frowned down at the summary log for a moment, wondering if he should make a note of his observations in the Rukon District. It was not, officially, part of the duties of the Soul Reapers, their concern lay with keeping the balance between the souls in the mortal realm and the realm of the dead. They didn't bother with the ones that shuffled off the mortal coil and went where they were supposed to go on their own but rather they handled the souls that were special cases, ghosts and those who refused to pass on. The souls in the Rukon district were already passed on so unless they provoked the Seireitei directly, the Soul Reapers had no more interest in them. There was nothing really concrete for him to note on the surface; a decrease in nocturnal activity in the District thugs would probably only be seen as a good thing in the eyes of most people who lived in the Seireitei (who had all come from noble houses). Renji himself wasn't quite sure what exactly it was about it (other than the fact that it was unusual) it was that bothered him. He was bothered though, his instincts told him that something wasn't right. He couldn't put his finger on it, maybe it was nothing more than a gut feeling, but his instincts hadn't led him wrong yet so he was inclined to listen to them.
:How the hell am i supposed to write a summary about it that doesn't make me sound crazy or paranoid or both,: Renji wondered to himself.
Captain Kuchiki liked his world nice and orderly, he was just that kind of guy, anything that smacked of the words "it's just a feeling" was dismissed as unreasonable and would probably get respect points deducted. Besides, as far as Renji knew, Captain Kuchiki was one of those who fell into the "the Rukon Districts have nothing to do with us, so unless they're storming the gates or rioting or lighting themselves on fire leave them be" camp. There were a lot of those types here in the Seireitei and Renji disliked every last one of them. After a few minutes thought he just made a small note about it on the bottom of the page and decided that Kuchiki could make of it what he would.
:I'll look into it later when I get some time,: he promised himself.
He spent the rest of the night, until he was finally too tired to keep his eyes open, wrestling with the payroll. When he finally did crawl over to his futon he fell into a dreamless, restful sleep that did not allow for nightmares... or disappointments.
Next up, Renji tests out the officers candidates, so we get to enjoy some fun fight scenes. You can look for it on thursday. I usually update on tuesdays and thursdays since those are the days I have off from classes and work. Thanks ever so much to the kind people who have written me reveiws and I hope you enjoyed this imagined look into the glorious life of a Vice Captain.