[He watches the dream with interest. The timeframe for shinigami like Renji really is very different if he can live fourty years and hardly age at all, but it's not such an unfamiliar concept. All that fighting... it makes sense, and it suits Renji as he knows him incredibly well. Having seen and felt this, it's starting to become difficult imagining him any other way.
There's a sardonic note in Mello's voice when he speaks up, just barely covering that this whole event shook him to the marrow.]
[Audio] SO SORRY FOR THE DELAYhangingdogstrayDecember 22 2010, 02:46:40 UTC
[He remembers this voice. It's that man, the one he sparred with before but who doesn't have his memories of Kannagara.]
S'all right, I didn't exactly go out with a bang, y'know?
[There's a tired note in his voice, though he does his best to sound neutral. Renji really isn't bothered that Mello didn't know about his death. In fact, it's better that way. He already knows he'll have to deal with the fallout with Byakuya and Rukia, and...the less people that had to deal with it while he was gone, the better.]
[ reaction ] 1/3sakurabitoDecember 10 2010, 03:23:34 UTC
[ Battle, the thing that Renji knows best. Fighting, where Renji is most at home. These things come from his place of birth, the way he had to live and those who nurtured it--those like him in the division of combat. Byakuya knew this already. Renji has fought against him, with him and while, perhaps, they had not been together for very long before the War, he has watched him here. These are the things that are communicated through a clash of swords. Resolve and power, the feelings inside and Renji's blade, unlike his own, is never devoid of the emotions that he feels so strongly. Perhaps Byakuya doesn't care for it, but he does not wrong him for wielding his blade as he wishes to, as Kuchiki Byakuya is unable to
( ... )
[ reaction ] 2/3sakurabitoDecember 10 2010, 03:24:57 UTC
[ Even near the end, when Byakuya's blade could no longer scatter, when kidou no longer made even a faint buzz beneath his skin, Byakuya had not stopped and he had not died. He, too, had someone to protect, someone to live for and he made sure that when the battle was over that he went to her, no matter how he was feeling, no matter what cuts or bruises had marred his skin, and assured her that all would be well. He had returned, banged up, but alive. He hadn't fought a battle he knew he could not win. He rested as much as his body would allow. He retreated when he was sure it was useless
( ... )
[There is no video. It's an audio response because Byakuya doesn't want to see Renji and he doesn't want Renji to see him. He's still tired, still worn, but not from battle and not from Renji. Byakuya has other things to worry about, too and it's not the world's business if he's allowed his hair down once, in the privacy of the shelter they were allowed on arrival.]
What are you doing, Renji? [It is cool, distant. No feeling. He doesn't care about Renji. He doesn't care that he's alive. This is what he will tell himself, this is what he will make himself believe.]
[He's...both relieved and filled with dread at the same time as that voice comes to him over the Hitomi. Relieved, because it means that he's still here, that he wasn't sent home in the days he was gone (how long had it been, anyway? Time never made sense and it was all but impossible to keep track of the hours in that horrible place where he'd found himself after dying
( ... )
[video | private]mightstealyrcarDecember 10 2010, 04:03:55 UTC
[It's all so foreign to Matt, it might as well be a different language, though he understands pieces of it through the dream, the joy of finding your limits and pushing past them. The exultation of knowing you're more than you thought.
He... doesn't think he'd find that, even if he did push.
Matt sees the tree, then Renji's words confirm his suspicion about what it means that he's there.]
You missed someone hitting a big ol' reset button, apparently.
[He's really tired, and he's toying with his pipe instead of smoking it.]
[video | private]hangingdogstrayDecember 22 2010, 03:14:10 UTC
Yeah, I figured as much. Himorogi's lookin' a lot less dead itself. If it was anything like last time, I guess I didn't miss too much, though. A half-dead wasteland goin' back to the way it was has gotta be the same the second time as the first.
[He doesn't miss that last bit, though, and despite his own exhaustion, frowns at it.]
Shit, you too? Guess this whole deal still has got a high death count.
[Reaction]tenpa_tantrumDecember 11 2010, 20:49:59 UTC
[So much fighting. And Gau finds himself both feeling blessed and not; his mother kept him from a life like that as a child, but then when she died and he was cast into it... he wasn't strong enough.
But Renji, Renji is strong. And Gau remembers how earlier he'd wanted to get to know the man better, how it had somehow not wound up happening. He still wants it, he decides, he does.
Someday, he wants to see just how strong Renji is.
And then to learn that this man was along those who died last week... well. He feels almost guilty for not knowing, for not having kept up with things. But he'd been fighting his own battles, and he'd lost one of his own, as well.
[Video|Private]tenpa_tantrumDecember 11 2010, 20:53:36 UTC
[Here's Gau, and he's smiling a little sadly, and it's because of Renji, and not because of Renji. It's because of everything, really, everyone.
He pushes a hand through his messy hair, straightens the borrow yukata that he's wearing a little, though the video is already rolling.]
So you died too...? So many died last week... my friend Yoite too, he's gone. But it seems some people are coming back already, so that's good.
[His voice lowers just a little.]
Dying here is certainly interesting. Are you all right now? Is there anything I can do for you, Renji-san?
[He's back to -san now... really perhaps that's strange, but it's hard not to when it's been so long since they've spoken. A blush comes to his cheeks.]
I'm doing my best to help everyone get things cleaned up; here in Mizusato, Raikou and I are working hard to take care of everyone.
[Video | Private]hangingdogstrayDecember 22 2010, 03:23:11 UTC
Yeah. Now I'm kinda glad that goddess didn't listen when I was sayin' before that the resurrection thing doesn't exactly encourage people to be careful about this shit.
[Not that Renji is ever particularly so. Recklessness is one of his trademarks.]
Nah, 'm all right. [Said with kind of a tired wave of the hand in dismissal.]
[That next bit, that makes him grin a little. It's been a long while since he's spoken to him, but he remembers Gau well. He's a sweet kid, really, and that sounds very much like him. Again, he can't help thinking of Hanatarou, and how the fourth division would be handling the clean-up if something like this had happened in Soul Society.]
Re: [Video | Private]tenpa_tantrumJanuary 1 2011, 19:16:40 UTC
[Gau laughs a little, because he's pretty sure that he doesn't want the gods listening to everything he thinks on the matter either, at times.]
I guess it's a good thing She didn't listen. It might not be much of a deterrent but... it's the only way some of us could stick around long enough to learn, I suppose?
And for Yoite... he can't help but die... he's been...
[That takes a lot out of him to think about, really. The kira.]
He's been dying all along.
[But there are more cheerful topics, and it's his job to have faith that all will be well. Isn't it?]
It's important to me, to help others. So that's what I'm doing. It's a little more difficult now with some of the townspeople starting to think that we're... the enemy somehow... but here in Mizusato, there are many who know us and were protected by us, so they have continued to be kind.
[The dream conveys so many mixed feelings. It tells of hardship and of struggle, but also of elation. Of joy. It doesn't seem like a bad dream, even when it ends on that note.
And then he speaks, and Rin realizes how much she missed, how much she never knew about the week they all have behind them.
That Renji died, that's terrible. And how many more, she wonders.
Still, he himself seems to brush it off, just like that. In that moment, Rin admires him.
There's just a very low tremble in her voice when she speaks.]
[Rin. It's almost funny, how the tables turn. He remembers talking to her last time this happened, after she had watched Rukia die and come back. And there's an irony in the fact that the both of them, two trained shinigami were killed in this mess, and she, a human girl survived both times. But that's how she is--she may not be that strong, but he remembers sparring and training with her, before. It resonates strongly with the dream he just had. She has the will of a fighter, of a survivor. And that's all she needs, really. The rest of it is all finesse, anyway.]
[Ah, so he does address it. Rin wonders how they can all talk about it so casually -- Marco, too. When he does talk about it. She'd think it's because she's just weak, but she can sense that it bothers Marco. He just tries his best not to let on. That's something she was never able to do -- hide her feelings. Not for very long.
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There's a sardonic note in Mello's voice when he speaks up, just barely covering that this whole event shook him to the marrow.]
Heh, I didn't even know you died.
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S'all right, I didn't exactly go out with a bang, y'know?
[There's a tired note in his voice, though he does his best to sound neutral. Renji really isn't bothered that Mello didn't know about his death. In fact, it's better that way. He already knows he'll have to deal with the fallout with Byakuya and Rukia, and...the less people that had to deal with it while he was gone, the better.]
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What are you doing, Renji? [It is cool, distant. No feeling. He doesn't care about Renji. He doesn't care that he's alive. This is what he will tell himself, this is what he will make himself believe.]
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He... doesn't think he'd find that, even if he did push.
Matt sees the tree, then Renji's words confirm his suspicion about what it means that he's there.]
You missed someone hitting a big ol' reset button, apparently.
[He's really tired, and he's toying with his pipe instead of smoking it.]
I missed it, too.
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[He doesn't miss that last bit, though, and despite his own exhaustion, frowns at it.]
Shit, you too? Guess this whole deal still has got a high death count.
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[He rubs at the back of his neck.]
Did people, um. Have dreams when they were s'posed to be dead last time, too?
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Yeah.
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But Renji, Renji is strong. And Gau remembers how earlier he'd wanted to get to know the man better, how it had somehow not wound up happening. He still wants it, he decides, he does.
Someday, he wants to see just how strong Renji is.
And then to learn that this man was along those who died last week... well. He feels almost guilty for not knowing, for not having kept up with things. But he'd been fighting his own battles, and he'd lost one of his own, as well.
Now is perhaps the time to make that up.]
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He pushes a hand through his messy hair, straightens the borrow yukata that he's wearing a little, though the video is already rolling.]
So you died too...? So many died last week... my friend Yoite too, he's gone. But it seems some people are coming back already, so that's good.
[His voice lowers just a little.]
Dying here is certainly interesting. Are you all right now? Is there anything I can do for you, Renji-san?
[He's back to -san now... really perhaps that's strange, but it's hard not to when it's been so long since they've spoken. A blush comes to his cheeks.]
I'm doing my best to help everyone get things cleaned up; here in Mizusato, Raikou and I are working hard to take care of everyone.
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[Not that Renji is ever particularly so. Recklessness is one of his trademarks.]
Nah, 'm all right. [Said with kind of a tired wave of the hand in dismissal.]
[That next bit, that makes him grin a little. It's been a long while since he's spoken to him, but he remembers Gau well. He's a sweet kid, really, and that sounds very much like him. Again, he can't help thinking of Hanatarou, and how the fourth division would be handling the clean-up if something like this had happened in Soul Society.]
Are you, now. Good for you, kid.
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I guess it's a good thing She didn't listen. It might not be much of a deterrent but... it's the only way some of us could stick around long enough to learn, I suppose?
And for Yoite... he can't help but die... he's been...
[That takes a lot out of him to think about, really. The kira.]
He's been dying all along.
[But there are more cheerful topics, and it's his job to have faith that all will be well. Isn't it?]
It's important to me, to help others. So that's what I'm doing. It's a little more difficult now with some of the townspeople starting to think that we're... the enemy somehow... but here in Mizusato, there are many who know us and were protected by us, so they have continued to be kind.
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And then he speaks, and Rin realizes how much she missed, how much she never knew about the week they all have behind them.
That Renji died, that's terrible. And how many more, she wonders.
Still, he himself seems to brush it off, just like that. In that moment, Rin admires him.
There's just a very low tremble in her voice when she speaks.]
So you...
... welcome back.
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Yeah. Raisato too. Go figure, huh?
Thanks. You doing all right, Rin?
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Renji, he seems almost tranquil, even now.]
Mh, I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking.
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Guess shit's on its way to goin' back to normal here, eh? Or, at least as normal as it can get in Kannagara.
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