Journal 14 - Entry 3
This past week has been hell, plain and simple.
It started off straight forward. I was sent out on my first assignment in the World of the Living, but, in a nerve-wracking twist, I was being sent to Karakura Town of all places! It's not like it's my place to question Captain Ukitake, but still…
At least I had Shino-san with me. She may be a bit… abrasive, but we graduated from the academy together, so at least I had someone I knew watching my back.
I wasn't exactly the most popular at the academy, and I have a hard time talking to people, especially people I don't know, and a couple guys decided to take the opportunity to make my academy life miserable. I met Shino-san shortly after. I'm not sure why she decided to help me. Maybe it was something as simple as pity. If it was, that's definitely a blow to my pride.
The day I graduated was the happiest day of my life.
It was also a sigh of relief getting into the Division I wanted, the 13th. They have a reputation for being the friendliest and most welcoming division in the entire Gotei 13. Shino-san decided to join the 13th with me, saying that I would be hopeless without her. I really want to get stronger so she'll stop looking at me that way.
But back on topic, barely an hour after we arrived in Karakura, we got attacked by hollows. We had split up right after we got there, much to my dismay.
That wasn't supposed to happen, we were told this town was an easy assignment! Neither of us have Shikai yet so I just had to run for it. Once again, my pride is in tatters. I managed to follow Shino-sans reiatsu to the roof of a building, but when I got there, to my horror she'd already been grabbed. She was bleeding badly, and I really had no idea what to do. We had been given basic first aid training at the academy, but I could already tell those wounds would need Kaidō treatment.
I could barely draw my zanpakutō, there was so much hollow reiatsu in the air that it was suffocating. I didn't even notice the attack that came in from behind. I was so sure I was going to die then and there, I'd never felt more terrified.
Then all of a sudden, a brilliant crescent of golden light cleaved the hollow straight in half! It was like nothing I had seen before! Then a golden bubble formed around me and the pain from my wounds dulled. I looked up and saw four people in front of me, a beautiful girl with orange hair, a guy with glasses wearing white, a giant of a man with strange, different colored arms, and a shinigami with spiked orange hair.
Right away I knew that shinigami! …at least I had heard of him, I didn't know his name. The Ryoka that almost single handedly took on the entire Gotei 13, the man who saved the world from the traitor Sōsuke Aizen in the Winter War. Turns out his name is Ichigo Kurosaki, and he and his friends are amazing! They took down a small army of hollows without a scratch!
I'm going to skip ahead a bit though, after me and Shino-san heard about the death of Lieutenant Sasakibe, we were ordered to return to Soul Society and assigned to join a Company from the 13th that was deployed to guard the North Gate alongside a Platoon from the 8th.
Everything seemed normal, I was just talking with Shino-san, then out of nowhere a massive pillar of blue fire exploded from the ground! INSIDE THE GATE! That shouldn't be possible!
We expected a large group of enemy soldiers, but it was just one man. Somehow this was even more unnerving. 6th Seat Kajōmaru was our commanding officer, and he charged forward to attack , but it was over in the blink of an eye. I didn't see the man move, the Major just split in half. It was horrifying. A few others tried to attack him together but it was futile, he was just slowly walking forward, cutting down anyone who got near him.
The Corporal from the 8th Division (I think her name was Corporal Gotou) immediately ordered a retreat when it became clear that at least a Lieutenant would be needed to fight him. We pulled back to the west and folded into the Battalion guarding the gate that leads into the 13th Division grounds.
The reports we were receiving got more and more worrying. In the first minutes of the attack Lieutenant Kira had already been killed, and the 7th Division had lost an entire Battalion. Every minute seemed to last an hour as we were told to simply stand by. I could tell Shino-san was worried despite trying to make herself appear nonchalant, she cares alot for her brother.
A few endless hours of standby crawled by, but it was interrupted suddenly by the feeling of the Head Captain's reiatsu. We could see the explosion from here as he flew (He literally flew!) across the Seireitei. Just a few minutes later… Heat. It was all encompassing, the temperate air turned into a desert in the blink of an eye. It felt like I was going to have a heat stroke just standing there.
We'd heard the stories, the rumors, the tall tales about the Bankais of the senior Captains. Looking around, not a single one of us doubted what we were feeling. Then the explosions began, rocking the very ground, like nothing I'd felt before, but despite the seeming disastrous conditions, we kind of breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Head Captain was going all-out, there's no way we could lose now, right?
Then just as quickly as the heat came, it went, followed by a heavy rain. We had no idea what it meant, did the Head Captain win?
We received our answer just a few minutes later, when the screaming started.
They flooded into the courtyard, people clothed in all white with eerie masks covering their entire faces. First came the wave of arrows, before the front line could even get close they were cut down by arrows, the soldiers in white followed the arrows in and were inside our quickly crumbling formation in the blink of an eye. Most of us had barely seen live combat against hollows! It was less of a fight and more of a massacre.
If we stayed a second longer, me and Shino-san would be joining them, so I grabbed her arm and yanked her to follow me. She was in shock, I'm not sure what came over me at that moment, but I slapped her, and that seemed to break her out of her trance. We managed to find a small storehouse and we hid inside, while the time ticked by.
Yeah, we hid. I was always a coward, but what else could we do, we'd die for sure if we went out there.
I'm not sure how long it was, minutes, hours, but we heard footsteps approaching the shed, so me and Shino-san were able to snap out of it and positioned ourselves. I hid behind a box in the back of the room, facing the door, while Shino-san stood against the wall to the left of the doorway.
We were right to get ready, because it was two of those soldiers in white. As soon as they passed through the doorway, Shino-san was able to stab her zanpakutō through the gut of the first one, who doubled over. The second one turned to try and get Shino-san so I was able to jump up and slash his neck, before he realized I was there. We made sure they were both dead before sitting back down.
It was oddly easy. Sure, we'd both done well in our zanjutsu classes at the academy, so we knew how to handle a blade, but that was the first time I'd been able to use it in a real fight without my hands getting shaky. I'm not sure why, maybe it was just the situation?
Shino-san had gotten a lot of blood on her from when I slashed the man's throat, and we just looked at each other for a moment and it really sunk in that we had just killed two people. I did the only thing I could think of at that moment and just walked over and hugged Shino-san. In my time knowing her I had never seen her look scared, not even a bit, but in that moment I knew she just needed someone there for her.
Not too much later we received notice via my denreishinki that the enemy had retreated. I don't know any details on that, and I'm not even going to try and guess.
Shino-san was able to find her brother in the aftermath, thank the Soul King, but there was so much death, so much destruction. It felt so surreal.
It's only been a couple days since the attack, and the Divisions are still trying to get reorganized for the second attack that is all but guaranteed to come.
I'm not sure why I'm even writing this to be honest, considering I'll likely be dead by the end of next week, but I guess all we can do is take it one day at a time, and hope things get better, but I have a horrible feeling in my gut that says it's more likely that things are going to get worse before they get better.
PVT Ryūnosuke Yuki
13th Division
June 15, 2003
Author's Notes:
The first look at the war from the perspective of the average shinigami, and I feel it really drives home how hopelessly outmatched the Gotei was in this battle.
Anywho, since there will be views from shinigami of various different ranks. Canon Bleach's ranks are serviceable for what they do but this fic will require a much more organized system. These ranks are based on the IRL Japanese military ranks.
Unit - Size - Rank Required to Command Them
Gotei 13 at start of war - Approximately 225,000 Shinigami - Head Captain (Sōtaichō)
Division - 15,000 - 20,000 Shinigami - Captain (Taichō)
Brigade - 5,000 Shinigami - Lieutenant (Fukutaichō)
Battalion - 1,000 Shinigami - Senior Officers - Major (Shōsa) 3rd seat to 10th seat
Company - 200 Shinigami - Junior Officers - Sergeant (Gunsō) - 11th seat to 20th seat
Platoon - 40 Shinigami - Corporal (Gochō)
Team - 10 Shinigami - Specialist (Jōtōhei)
Since this site does not allow image embedding unlike AO3, here is a link to the world maps that would have made up Chapter 3.
Dusty Old Maps
Turns out that among all of the journals and notes, there were also a few old maps!
Map of the Realms
i . postimg . cc/ 43spxZt9 /Realms-DBZimran .png
Map of Soul Society
i . postimg . cc/XYc2VnqR/SSMap-Xirus-XI.png
Map of the Seireitei
i . postimg . cc/Dwgc95YF/Seireitei-map-boomerangmouth.jpg
These are here to help provide context for everything, and should make it easier to visualize certain events, because of how fractured the story is and how much jumping around will be done, I figured it might be helpful.
Image Credits:
Soul Society Map: Xirus XI
Seireitei Map: boomerangmouth
Realms Map: DBZimran
