A/N: For all three of you still reading this - I'm alive! And yes, I meant it when I said the story would be finished... with the NEXT chapter. Of course.

Bonds of Honor 35

Chapter 35: Before The Dawn

In an instant, the waves of welcoming joy in Ichigo's reiatsu turned to crushing grief.

"What the -" On instinct alone, Kaien brought his own reiatsu up, both a buffer and a shield around his father's - brother's? - energies. His head throbbed, still; the aftereffects of the battle, of wielding Nejibana in a way he had not done in decades, combined with the sensation of having ten thousand too many memories suddenly crammed within his mind, feeling like every last one of them was taking up physical space.

"What the fuck, Kurosaki?!" Grimmjow, his own reiatsu spiking defensively, had dropped his cup, spilling tea across both his lifeless body and his Shinigami form.

Worryingly, Ichigo didn't respond to either one of them. His face had abruptly gone pale and blank with shock, and his eyes looked glassy.

"Oh."

Really, Nejibana, oh? That's the best you can come up with?

A flash of sensation from the blade-spirit, then, of a gaping sense of emptiness where there should have been a bright chill. "Sode no Shirayuki..."

The thought of 'Rukia' came with a jumbled mess of subordinate-friend-mother-warrior tangled through Kaien's mind, only to be eclipsed a moment later by Nejibana's fear. "Cannot find her... cannot feel her..."

"Fuck," Kaien said aloud, scrambling to his feet. The eyes of everyone in the room were on him, the weight of their gazes oppressive. "It's Rukia - no," he added, the last word a near shout, as a flurry of motion began around him. "All of you, stay here. I'll go with -" father-brother-Prince-leader - "Ichigo. The rest of you, stay here."

"But -" Sado began, the voice of his little brother overlaid with the determined strength of a seasoned warrior, Ichigo's one-time right hand. Kaien cut him off with a wave of his hand before his headache could get any worse - or before Tatsuki lost her temper and took drastic measures to keep Sado - Chad - from running off.

"But nothing. There are two dead bodies -" although Gin's was nowhere in evidence, and he hadn't seen where Yoruichi had put it when she returned, which he would have to worry about later - "and a torture victim in here, and anyone that's in any condition to stand -" his glance swept over the human members of the Karakura Crew, the still-human former Espada, Ichiro, Chad, and Isshin - "either have really good reasons to stay or aren't gonna be any help to me or Seireitei."

Kensei and Shinji both opened their mouths to object, and Kaien jabbed a finger at them before they could. "Open the Senkaimon and get us through, then get everyone here organized. If you want to come through after that to help Seireitei, I'm sure they'll be grateful."

"Che, and what kinda help are you planning on being?" broke in a rough voice from behind him. Grimmjow. "You're two seconds from falling on your own ass after that reiatsu dump, " the Espada-turned-Shinigami pointed out, rolling to his feet in one smooth motion before turning a defiant glare on Shinji and Kensei. "I'm goin', too. Somebody's gotta grab his sorry ass when he pitches over."

The number of eyebrows in the room that raised at that comment was beyond his throbbing brain's ability to actually count. Knowing Grimmjow - which he felt like he did, far better than a few hours worth of blood-spattered acquaintance would suggest - he'd phrased it that way on purpose.

"Right now, I'm just planning on helping to find Rukia," Kaien said quietly, pushing to his feet as well. "I - " remember the feeling of her Zanpakutou through my body, her shaking in my arms as I drowned in rain and blood. Remember ice and dances I never knew in the shadows of a place I never should have existed. Remember her as my subordinate who hero-worshipped me. Remember her as my mother, the woman who raised me and loved me for twenty years. Remember her swearing to keep my heart and upholding that promise.

"I owe it to her," he managed, the words little more than a choked whisper, and found himself suddenly on the end of understanding, sympathetic glances from Sado - and the Espada.

Sympathy sat oddly on Grimmjow's face.

"Come on," Kaien sighed, bumping his knee against Ichigo's shoulder to rouse the other man from his meditation. "Let's go find Rukia."

The Onmitsukidou member standing guard as the Senkaimon opened barely had time to gasp at the sight of them - Ichigo, burning with determination, his replaced reiatsu snaking visibly around his body; Grimmjow, his grin manic and fairly vibrating with energy, and Kaien, very much alive, and, he realized, feeling his shihakusho sticking uncomfortably to his shoulders, still half-coated in Grimmjow's dried blood - before Ichigo turned his head slightly and vanished with a burst of speed Yoruichi would have been hard-pressed to match.

"Dammit, Kurosaki!" Grimmjow snarled, and shot after him - Kaien wasn't sure if it was Shunpo or Sonido, but it was fucking fast, whatever it was.

"Dammit the pair of you!" he bellowed at the clouds of dust they'd left behind, and leapt to follow.

Hitsugaya's warning hadn't come close to preparing them for what the battle had done. Even moving so fast the landscape around them was a blur, the damage done was clear. Burned and blackened stumps smoldered where towering trees had stood, and sites where settlements had once stood were now marked by scattered piles of shattered, bloodstained wood.

There was no one gathering the bodies in Rukongai. Not with the Seireitei still burning behind them.

His jaw tightening, Kaien drove enough power into his strides that if the landscape blurred a little more, there was nothing to say whether it was the speed or the tears causing it.

Even before they came upon the battle, Kaien could smell the burnt-ozone scent of the Hollow's cero and the winter-sharpness of Sode no Shirayuki's ice, with an underlying scent he hadn't expected to find in this lifetime.

Ahead of him, he saw Ichigo's head lift sharply, frowning as he caught the scent of stone-dust on the air.

Forcing an extra burst of power into his steps to draw level with his - with Ichigo - and drawing Nejibana in the same movement, Kaien gave a single word of explanation. "Ginrei."

In the same moment that Ichigo nodded his response, they burst through the trees and into the battle. In the midst of the clearing, surrounded by glittering pillars of ice and a mountain's worth of crumbled stone, Kuchiki Ginrei danced among the Hollows, his Zanpakutou slicing effortlessly through limb and mask. Every strike he inflicted was a fatal one; even when he only struck a limb, a wave of silver-white spread outward across the Hollow's body from the wound, turning the beast into stone. The instant the last inch of the Hollow's body was transformed, it crumbled, leaving behind little more than dust.

His Zanpakutou was a powerful weapon, but there were also far more Hollow ringing the clearing than Ginrei could have hoped to take on alone. One glance exchanged between the former Kuchiki patriarch and Ichigo had Ginrei taking one last slash at a Hollow bearing down on him before leaping free, and Ichigo drew Zangetsu and his Hollow mask in the same moment.

"Shatter the moon, Zangetsu. Getsuga Tenshou!"

The artificial sunlight within the training cavern was almost painfully bright after the smoke-clogged air of the city, and the reflection of the rippling water of the healing pool was dazzling.

Hiro's head ached.

It always did when he was stressed, and witnessing last night's battle - even from within the relative safety of the Fourth Division - had been more stress than he'd seen in years.

It had been a long time, it seemed, since a madman had torn through the Rukongai ward-house where he had once lived, slaughtering their ward-matron, Rei, and nearly killing him and all of the other children. Most of them still carried scars, in skin and mind. It had been the worst night of most of their lives, but perhaps their greatest blessing, as well.

With Rei gone, the children would have had few options to survive. Ward-houses that were not also workhouses or child brothels were rare, and few, if any, could have taken on all of the children. But Unohana-taichou, without a single word or an apparent second thought, had taken all of them into her Division's care.

The children helped - they were trained to do nothing else - and Unohana and her medics accepted gratefully. Young minds learned quickly, and even small hands could roll bandages and carry supplies. The older ones, with Hiro at their head, were taught to act as auxiliary medics - perhaps in preparation for a situation like this.

Teeth sunk into the flesh of his cheek, Hiro shifted his weight uneasily, water lapping around his chest as he tried not to jar the tiny figure lying motionless in his arms. When Unohana had thrust the girl into his grasp, ordering him to hold her in the pool and ensure she didn't drown, he'd thought perhaps she was a student from the Academy, or a junior Shinigami.

Without her white haori, Soifon-taichou looked as young as Hiro himself.

"How is she, Hiro-san?"

Biting his cheek again, Hiro glanced across the pool, meeting Ukitake's concerned eyes. If you could ignore the greyish pallor of the man's skin and the traces of blood still clinging to the corners of his mouth, the Captain looked more like he was at an onsen than a healing spring - he'd even fastened his long hair up with two ornamental pins, which had glittering red pinwheels at their tips, both chipped and cracked. They flashed in the light when Ukitake turned his head to glance at Kyouraku, slumped against his shoulder, and Hiro winced when the light caught his eyes.

On Ukitake's other side, a figure wrapped in bandages - so enshrouded he couldn't even guess at gender, let alone identity - was being held carefully, almost delicately, by Abarai, who himself was barely conscious, breathing so shallowly the water around his chest hardly rippled. It was Abarai's hand, never leaving the gauze-covered chest and the heartbeat under his palm, that told Hiro the bandages were probably hiding Kuchiki Byakuya.

"She's alive, Ukitake-san."

Barely, he didn't add. Unohana-taichou had taught him how to feel a Shinigami's energy, judge their strength, and even with her back pressed close enough against his chest that he could feel her heartbeat in his ribs, he couldn't feel Soifon's energy at all.

Ukitake hummed absently in response, then winced as a fit of coughing overtook him, blood spilling between his fingers as he covered his mouth with his hand. Kyouraku murmured restlessly, shifting away from Ukitake's heaving shoulders, but didn't regain consciousness.

Renji opened one bruised eye just enough for a gleam of red to show between the lids, the white of his eye nearly as crimson as the iris with burst blood vessels, slanting a concerned glance towards Ukitake.

Neither Soifon nor Byakuya reacted at all.

Frowning, Ukitake twisted away to spit a mouthful of blood onto the sand outside the lip of the pool. He'd had enough coughing fits within the hour he'd been here that there was already a shallow puddle of blood lingering on top of the hard-packed dust.

A swirl of green and white beside the rock wall announced their visitor, the sound of geta against stone having been hidden behind Ukitake's coughing. Urahara, his Captain's haori thrown on over his old shopkeeper's garb, crouched beside the pool to gaze at its inhabitants, a worried frown etching deep lines into his face. "Ukitake-taichou, you're not well?"

Wiping the back of his hand over his bloodied mouth, Ukitake tipped his head back to meet Urahara's gaze. "Ah, Kisuke. No, I'm afraid not. One of the larger Hollow decided that I made a convenient punching bag while I was distracted -" Ukitake broke off with a grunt as Kyouraku slumped back down onto his shoulder, either faking sleep more ably than he ever had or aware even in his unconscious state that Ukitake's coughing fit had ended - "by Shunsui."

Urahara glanced towards the senior Captain, surprise flickering over his features for a split-second, as though he hadn't registered Kyouraku's presence before it was pointed out. A blink, and an expression of horror, almost too quick to see, gone within a heartbeat. "He used his Bankai?"

"We were left with very little choice in the matter," Ukitake answered grimly, turning his head away from Urahara to spit more blood into the sand.

The sudden explosion of reiatsu from the entrance to the cavern made him choke on it instead.

Hiro stumbled sharply, the waters of the spring splashing around his shoulders and across Soifon-taichou's neck, and Urahara, still crouched at the pool edge, seized sharply at the rocks to stop himself from tumbling in. Kyouraku shifted his head slightly, one eye slitting blearily open to reveal a sliver of glowing crimson iris, and Renji's whole form snapped to alertness, tension coiling across his shoulders as he shifted his hold on Kuchiki-taichou. Ukitake coughed again, sharp and deliberate, and spat the blood he hadn't swallowed onto the sand, his eyes narrowed as he assessed the energy rapidly approaching them.

Neither Kuchiki-taichou nor Soifon-taichou reacted in the slightest.

From somewhere off to the left, Hiro could make out the familiar energy of Captain Unohana, her seething serenity not quite enough to push back the frantic storm of power burning towards them. She moved to meet the storm of power with steps so quick they were nearly a run, something Hiro could never even have imagined seeing.

Then that storm stepped into view, and the gasps that rose from the Captains around him were easily loud enough to cover Hiro's own.

Of the four men striding towards them, all still bearing the dust and blood of a battle more recent than the one fought in the Seireitei, Hiro recognized only Kurosaki Ichigo, moving at the lead of the group.

What the Captains were so shocked by, though, seemed to be the three men flanking Kurosaki - one, a younger, dark-haired version of Ichigo himself, dark-haired and green eyed, who Ukitake was staring at in a sort of disbelieving wonder. The second was tall and powerfully built, with brilliant blue hair and dangerous eyes, and the third, a man with the eyes of the Kuchiki Clan and of great enough age that his hair had gone the grey of snowclouds.

And in their arms, each of them was carrying at least one other Shinigami, pale and motionless, and every one of them with a coating of ice on their clothes.

The other three men stopped to unburden themselves, laying the five Shinigami they carried gently on the ground for Unohana-taichou's assessment, but Ichigo continued to march forward in grim silence, ignoring Urahara's questions. It wasn't until he stepped into the pool that Hiro could finally see who the tiny, motionless figure in his arms was.

Renji's quiet, broken moan carried over the lapping of the water as Ichigo stepped further in to the spring. Kuchiki Rukia was deathly pale in Ichigo's hold, except for the blue tint that darkened her lips and fingertips.

A quiet shuffle from the rim of the pool caught Hiro's attention; the dark-haired Shinigami that had Ukitake so entranced sighed deeply as he dropped gracelessly to sit on one of the rocks at the spring's edge. "Her team must have been on top of a pile of Hollow bait when it detonated," he said quietly, staring down at the rippling surface of the water as though he could read the answers in the light reflecting off the surface. "I can't count the number of Hollow she must have held off to defend her team."

He took a deep breath, and let it out again on a shuddering exhale. "Ginrei went back as soon as he knew her team hadn't come in, and he held off at least a hundred before we got there. She and those five were the only ones who survived the attacks, and she's so cold..."

Ukitake reached out one hand to lay reassuringly on the Shinigami's knee, neither of them heeding the water that soaked from his hand into the other's hakama. "You know her strength better than most of us, Kaien."

Kaien lifted his head long enough to meet Ukitake's gaze. "I'm just hoping she hasn't overestimated herself," he answered quietly, and pushed himself to his feet again to return to where Unohana and Urahara were treating the five new arrivals.

Renji's cough of his name halted him.

Despite the steady calm that Renji had shown so far, there was a deep, stark fear on his face as he looked up at Kaien.

"It was hard to see, from th' Wall," Renji began, his voice a breathless rasp and the way he began to shake might have gone unnoticed if it hadn't been causing ripples in the water, "but the Compound... I saw flames... can y' check it? Please?"

Kaien's eyes narrowed, but he nodded quietly in understanding. "I can. What about your Squads?" he asked, nodding between Renji and Byakuya's silent, enshrouded form.

Renji gave an abortive movement that was likely intended to be a shake of his head, stopping with a wince before he'd done more than shift. "Minori's got 'em. Check on her, though, if y' can."

"And if you could check in on Nanao, it would be most appreciated," Ukitake added quietly, as Kyouraku exhaled a quiet sigh and slumped against his shoulder again. "Undoubtedly she has both the Eighth and Thirteenth as well in hand as possible, given the circumstances, but... well, given the circumstances," he finished, gazing sadly at his Lieutenant, still and silent in the grimly quiet Kurosaki's arms.

Kaien's grin was lopsided and weary, but understanding. "Sure thing, Taichou. I'll do the Kuchiki Compound first," he said, for Renji's benefit if his glance in the redhead's direction was any indication, "then check in on your Divisions, and report back. You guys just..." his eyes sideslipped for a moment, grief darkening them as they reached Byakuya's silent form, "...just focus on healing, okay? I'll be back."

He courteously took a few steps away from the spring, so that the cloud of dust that rose from his Flashstep departure didn't reach those soaking in the healing waters.

Shifting Soifon-taichou carefully in his arms, Hiro moved a little deeper into the springs, opening his senses a bit more to the energy of the Shinigami around him to compensate for the deafening roar of Ichigo's power, and settled in to wait.

"You IDIOT!"

Kotetsu Isane winced as the bellow - shortly followed by a resounding clang that she suspected was a thrown bedpan - echoed down the hallway of the Fourth Division. Several Shinigami among the dozens relegated to the hallway on a series of cots and futons raised their heads or muttered irritably at the disturbance.

The most critically injured of the Seireitei's defenders had been taken to Urahara's closest training grounds, where the healing springs could help the Fourth Division healers treat their injuries.

Five of the Captains - Kuchiki, Abarai, Kyouraku, Ukitake, and Soifon - were among those numbers.

Another bellow, this one fury-garbled into incomprehensibility, echoed out of the room, and one of the unlucky wounded bleeding onto a cot opposite the room threw a wad of bloody gauze through the open door in protest.

There was a moment of silence before the bloody gauze hurtled back out of the room and struck its original owner full in the face.

"Still Eleventh Division at the core, isn't he?"

The amused voice came from only inches in front of her, and nearly sent her jumping out of her skin - despite the fact that she'd known perfectly well Hisagi was there, given that she'd been treating his injuries.

"I suppose," she squeaked in reply, flinching again as another crash and shout, followed by several yelps, raised the muttering in the hallway to grumbling.

Hisagi, too battered to stand, the right side of his face purpled with bruises and his artificial eye destroyed, was chuckling none the less as he tipped his head slightly to glare towards the open doorway down the hall.

"Ayasegawa!" he shouted, and there was a momentary pause before the door slammed open the rest of the way, revealing Yumichika's glowering face. "If you feel the need to berate Ikkaku, take it elsewhere. You're disturbing the other patients."

"My apologies, Captain," came the stiff answer, accompanied by an equally stiff and very shallow bow. "But that - that - that IMBECILE - !" Apparently at a loss for further words, Yumichika flailed one hand into the room, where a bedridden Ikkaku was recovering from the battle.

"Yumichika," Hisagi said simply, his voice dropping into a sharply lower and more level tone.

Yumichika paled a few shades, saluted sharply, and retreated back into the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Thank you," Isane murmured, carefully lifting a bowl of thick poultice from the repurposed tea-cart she was using as a mobile supply rack, and dipping a bit of it out on her fingertips to begin applying to his bruised face.

"You don't need to thank me for doing what I'm supposed to," Hisagi countered, his intact eye watching her as she dabbed poultice gently over his fractured cheekbone. "How did Ikkaku get so injured, anyway? He was fighting near Kenpachi, so I was in the wrong place entirely to see."

"He used his Bankai to intercept an attack bound for Unohana-taichou," Isane replied, the bewilderment over the fact plain in her voice. "The Hollows were extremely powerful, and succeeded in injuring them both, but Ikkaku-sanseki took the worst of the damage and prevented Unohana-taichou from being severely harmed before she could retaliate."

"Ikkaku used his -" Blinking, Hisagi shook his head, winced, then held up his own hand in front of his face with three fingers raised and squinted at the fingers with apparent concern.

Isane looked on, perplexed. "Is something wrong, Hisagi-taichou?"

"I'm making sure I don't have a concussion. Ikkaku used his bankai? To save Unohana?"

"You do have a concussion," Isane countered, wiping the last of the poultice off her hands on a rag tucked into the strings of her hakama and reaching for a gauze pad and a bandage. "But yes, he did."

Hisagi mulled over that for a few minutes while she covered and wrapped the injured side of his face, and had begun chuckling again by the time she was halfway through. When he hadn't stopped laughing by the time she was tying off the bandage, she tilted her head at him, questioning, as she packed her supplies back on the cart.

"Ikkaku was fighting in between Unohana and Zaraki, right?"

"He was, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Hisagi just kept snickering. "Ikkaku's a romantic at heart, didn't you know?" he shot back, and refused to elaborate further.

Isane made a mental note to check Hisagi's chart for adverse reactions to painkillers, forced the rest of the situation out of her mind for the moment, and moved on.

"It didn't go well for them, did it?"

Isshin frowned, absently continuing to stir the pot of soup on the stove in front of him even as his eyes wandered blankly towards the ceiling. "No, I suppose it didn't. I haven't spoken to Kisuke or Yoruichi, but Kaien came back for a little while yesterday. The death toll is in the hundreds, and it was miracles that kept them from losing five of their Captains." A too-aggressive turn of the ladle spilled soup over the lip of the pot, and the sharp hiss of liquid on hot metal recalled his attention to the task at hand. "Renji attempted a suicide strike, Rukia's powers nearly froze her to death, and Byakuya took a dozen Cero head-on."

Isshin paused, the sound of the ladle scraping the bottom of the pot the only sound in the echoing sterility of Ryuuken's kitchen. "Word is he'll never fully recover."

"He's fortunate to have survived at all."

The irony in the Quincy's tone did not escape him. Three days after his rescue, Ryuuken was barely regaining the ability to sit upright against the unyielding back of his kitchen chairs. He suffered the indignity of having Isshin carry him throughout his own house and assist him with every aspect of living only because he utterly lacked the strength to object.

Isshin's frown deepened, and another splash-hiss of spilled soup finally jerked his attention back where it belonged. "Miracles, like I said," he muttered, turning the heat off under the pot and rummaging in the cupboard for a bowl. "And my poor children! Kaien is taking it all with his usual aplomb, but Karin is quite broken up over Gin's death, Yuzu is inconsolable over her sister's pain, and Ichigo is blaming himself for a number of things completely out of his control."

"Another flaw passed down to your children, Isshin?"

"Speaking of children," Isshin countered, less an avoidance of the question and more of a reinforced concrete roadblock of it, "how are yours?"

The faintest of sighs answered him. "Coping. Witnessing even the aftermath of the battle did Orihime's mental health no favors, but I believe the excessive demand on her healing abilities is causing her to rise to the occasion rather than falter. Uryuu tells me as little as he ever does, but if nothing else, he's a competent triage surgeon. I imagine he's assisting them quite ably."

Isshin's hand trembled briefly on the handle of the ladle, sloshing the hot broth over the edge of the bowl and onto his thumb. Swearing to himself, he set the bowl down and jammed the injured digit into his mouth.

"You look like a dog with a bone. I'm beginning to think I'm in better shape to prepare my lunch than you are."

Glaring, Isshin picked up the bowl with his uninjured hand, and very deliberately moved it to the table in front of Ryuuken without spilling another drop.

Renji sighed wholeheartedly, glaring down at the sheaf of papers spread across the top of his desk, and resisted the urge to rub at his chest. The battle had been a full week ago now, and the persistent ache behind his breastbone hadn't ebbed much. He'd been reassured five different times by as many different medics - one of them being Unohana herself - that it was only a side-effect of his suicidal, monumentally stupid, asinine, idiotic, really kinda dumb, Renji-san - all-in strike during the battle.

Mind you, the aftermath wasn't helping it any, either. Turning the brush in his hand over, he jabbed the handle of it against the papers and glared at them some more, half-wishing he could just set the damn things on fire and be done with them.

"Taichou?"

Renji jumped, dropped his brush, and swore when it rolled off his desk and clattered to the floor. His Lieutenant, standing just inside the doorway of the office, surprise clearly evident between the yellowing bruises on her face, arched an eyebrow at him as Renji swore again and rubbed his aching chest.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here," Minori offered quietly, as Renji stood up and limped around his desk to retrieve his brush. The left sleeve of Minori's kosode was still hanging loose and empty at her side, and there was a bundle of papers in her right hand.

"No kidding," Renji shot back, but there was no annoyance in his voice, only weariness. Brush retrieved, he dropped it back in the cup on his desk and settled himself back in his chair, careful not to jar his still-aching body. Her surprise was understandable; tonight was the first time since the battle that Renji had been at the Fifth Division for longer than an hour. Virtually every waking moment since Unohana had cleared him for duty had been spent at the Sixth Division - they had lost fourteen seated officers in the fighting, the most of any squad. Renji had been working from before dawn to well past midnight each day, struggling to put the Division back on its feet, and the short periods of rest he took were on a hospital cot next to Byakuya's, waiting for his partner to regain consciousness.

The dark circles under his eyes had been as black as his Zanpakutou marks three days ago. He hadn't looked in a mirror since.

"Anything I can help with?" Minori asked, breaking Renji from his fragmented train of thought, nodding towards the papers on the desk.

"What, in your spare time?" Renji snorted. With all of his energy dedicated to the Sixth Division, the Fifth had been left entirely in Minori's remaining hand. Last night he'd found her passed out on the floor beside her desk, brush still curled in her fingers.

"Taichou, if you need me to make the time -"

"Get your damn arm put back on, and we'll talk," Renji interrupted. "Seein' my people walkin' around missing limbs ain't helping."

Both of Minori's eyebrows arched at that. "Orihime-san is seeing me tomorrow. I volunteered to take a later date for my appointment because my injuries weren't as severe as some. If you'd said something sooner -"

Renji waved her words off, shaking his head slightly. "No, s' the same choice I would'a made. Part of being a leader." Irritated, he dropped his head to glare at the paperwork again, and Minori tilted her head slightly, reading the title of the paper upside-down.

Court Martial: AWOL During Battle

"Oh," she said simply, the weight of understanding resting heavily in the word. "Rikichi."

"Yeah, Rikichi. Fucking little... I told him," Renji muttered, lacing his hands into his hair and tightening them into fists, trying to ground himself with the sharp pain in his scalp. "I told him. He did th' right thing, and now I've gotta throw him outta the ranks for it."

"He did what his Captains have showed him was right," Minori sighed, hooking one foot around the leg of a chair and pulling it over to the desk before sitting down and fixing Renji with a level gaze. "He defended those he loved because he valued them more than adherence to the law."

Renji snorted. "Yeah, fucking fantastic job we've been doin' of that, too.

Across the desk from Renji, Minori shifted, pinning Renji with a gaze that was unsettlingly reminiscent of her half-sister. "You did a better job of keeping everyone safe than you realize, Taichou. Your family survived. The enemies are dead. We're as safe as we ever are, for the moment. That's all any of us can ask for."

Blinking a few times, Renji brought a hand up to rub the skin between his eyebrows, feeling the deep creases that had etched themselves there over the past days. Or possibly years, it was hard to tell sometimes. "Y'know, some days, I can't tell if you're optimistic, or fatalistic."

"The happy medium would be realistic, sir."

"Since when do you care about happy?"

Straight-faced, she volleyed back a deadpan "Always, sir," and held up the paperwork she'd been carrying. "Speaking of happy, I have something from Unohana that should cheer you up."

Bewildered, Renji accepted the papers, glancing at the top sheet and blinking twice, re-reading it, and then re-reading it again.

'I, Unohana Retsu, in my position as a Senior Captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, do hereby nominate Twentieth Seat and Squad Healer Rikichi of the Fifth Division for a Meritorious Commendation, owing to his discovery of the hideout of Kuchiki Masa and his agent and his witness and testimonial of their deaths...'

By the fourth reading, the words finally sank in. With a burst of laughter, Renji swept his hand across his desk, knocking the Court-Martial forms aside to flutter uselessly across the floor. A Meritorious Commendation nomination, especially from Unohana, carried enough weight with it to completely eliminate the need for a court-martial. Rikichi would walk out of this fiasco as an honored hero.

Still laughing, Renji let his head fall forward into his crossed arms, ignoring the tears of relief sliding down his cheeks. It was just one thing, one small, stupid thing, but in the aftermath of the battle, even that tiny relief was overwhelming.

He heard the scrape of Minori's chair as she stood up again, then felt the gentle weight of her hand on his shoulder. "See, Captain? You're doing just fine," she said, and he could hear the laughter in her voice, even with his shoulders half-blocking his ears.

"Oh, shut up," he muttered, discreetly wiping his cheeks with the sleeves of his kosode before he raised his head. "Dismissed, Lieutenant. Go get some rest, you look like hell."

She did, too. Aside from the empty sleeve and the exhausted circles under her eyes that were at least as dark as his own, she still had a half-healed, spectacularly bruised gash angling across her face that had bisected her nose, follow-through from the same blow that had taken off her arm. Clearly, the Hollow had had one heck of a swing.

"As do you, sir," she answered, cocking her head slightly. At the back of his mind, Renji felt a familiar brush of energy, the earthy leaf-litter scent of her power as her Zanpakutou spirit greeted Zabimaru, and the nue's sharp, immediate approval of... something.

"Kurotora says that if you do not get at least ten hours of restful sleep within the next day, I have Zabimaru's permission to knock you unconscious and throw you on the mercy of the Fourth Division."

Privately, Renji addressed a few choice words to the nue, and was rewarded with both the snake and the baboon laughing uproariously at his expense. "I could say the same to you, you realize," he grumbled. "Or worse - I could throw you on the mercy of your sister."

"In which case, I will go to bed directly," she answered, managing to keep the amusement almost entirely out of her voice, although the twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her. "Certainly Kyouraku is giving her enough to deal with."

She offered him a quick salute and turned to leave, only to take an awkward half-jump back at the doorway when one of the unseated officers almost ran into her.

"Sorry, Fukutaichou! Taichou, can I talk to you?"

Renji glanced up again, registering the petite, blue-eyed girl as one of his newest officers, one of a dozen recent Academy graduates that had joined the Fifth - none of whom, thankfully, had been involved in last week's battle. The black woolen hat yanked down over her ears gave him enough of a clue for his exhaustion-fogged brain to recall her identity. "Yukimura, right?"

The girl nodded sharply, her hands clenching and unclenching restlessly at her sides. "Yes. Taichou, I heard that you were cou -"

Still standing beside the door of the office, Minori cleared her throat sharply and leveled her unmistakably Ise-family glare at the side of Yukimura's head.

"...uh, c-aaancelling the fustal team, is that true?"

Renji raised an eyebrow over the girl's head at Minori, who returned the gesture, looking utterly unrepentant.

The indoor football team that Renji had started while he was still serving at the Sixth had largely followed him to the Fifth, and Rikichi - one of the star players - had assumed Captaincy of the Fifth's team. Renji still joined the occasional game during quieter times, but it had been many long months since he'd had the opportunity to do so.

"Absolutely not," Renji answered, flipping to the back of Unohana's commendation papers and signing off on them. "Practice is delayed a month or two 'til we get everythin' sorted out and Rikichi's leg heals, an' then you're going up against th' Eleventh's team as scheduled. Yachiru's ban got overturned, so try not t' get bitten this time."

Yukimura blinked at him. "No... changes in the roster?"

Blowing on his signature to dry the ink faster, Renji shook his head. "Nope, why?"

Yukimura snuck a sideways glance at Minori, who gave her a deadpan stare in response. "Uh... no reason, Taichou, thanks!" the girl answered, grinning, and scrambled out of the office.

"And practice your dribbling, Junko!" Minori called after her, and there was the muffled but distinct sound of a blown raspberry from the hall.

Renji, unable to help himself, buried his head in his arms again and laughed until he had no tears left.

~O~

*END NOTES*

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER CHAPTER. Due to length (this was already pushing 8k words with several sequences incomplete, and is still over 6k at posting), this chapter has been split in two, and Bonds of Honor will officially wrap with 36 chapters, rather than 35.

Both Hisagi's artificial eye and his screwball reaction to pain meds are callbacks to Friendly Interest, one of the one-shot stories set early in the series.