Chapter Summary: When you Konsou a Soul Reaper, they get sent back to wherever they consider their “home” to be in Soul Society. But where truly is one’s home?
Author’s Note: So originally I wanted to do a comic for Renji’s birthday, but things got busy and so it didn’t pan out. Luckily, I dug through my WIP and found this silly, little drabble that I think you all will still like! So “Happy Belated Birthday” Renji Abarai and please enjoy!
Non-canon but sort of canon adjacent? It’s inspired by this post, which discusses what might happen when you konsou/soul burial a soul reaper.
Back when the Advance Team traveled to the World of the Living, or more accurately, Ichigo’s bedroom, they had a tendency towards…minor disagreements. One such minor disagreement led to a minor scuffle which was only resolved when Matsumoto slapped the hilt of her sword upon Ikkaku’s shiny bald head and, pop, he was gone. It was all very funny in Rukia’s expert opinion.
That said, it confused Ichigo an awful lot, so she had to explain to him that a shinigami could one, be Konsou’ed or soul buried, and two, when they were, they were sent back to wherever they considered their “home” to be. Due to all that occurred after that, between the Arrancar attack, the Winter War, and eventually the Fullbringer incident, she assumed Ichigo had forgotten all about it. He had not.
Something she learned the hard way, when she decided to push him just a little too far with her teasing and the next thing she knew, pop, she was back in Soul Society.
At first she was simply pissed. However that annoyance turned immediately to embarrassment when she realized where she was. She was in the Kuchiki manor, which made sense. What made less sense was what she was doing on Renji’s lap.
Turns out Renji had come to the manor to give Byakuya, who was home sick with the flu, an update on this week's reports, and she had just interrupted their meeting…by appearing on Renji’s lap. After bowing several embarrassed apologies, she left.
What was slightly more strange, was the next place she appeared. She had been arguing with Ichigo about her way too large World of the Living manga stash (she always bought more “extremely embarrassing” manga whenever she visited or was on mission, and then proceeded to accidentally leave them in his room to be found by his family later) when, pop, there she was back in Soul Society, funnily enough, with all her manga. Rukia steamed!
“Oh, there you are! I was coming to see if you had gotten back yet, but they told me you weren’t due to return till tonight,” A familiar voice above her said. Rukia looked up and saw Renji leaning over her. She was on his lap again.
“Ah! Renji?! Where?!” She looked around frantically and saw that she had arrived in the Thirteenth Division, “HUH?!”
“Yeah, looks like you got konsou’ed again," Renji responded casually as she scrambled off his lap, "Was it Ichigo? What did you do to him this time? Force him to read all your manga?”
“No, no, he was mad because he thought my stash was getting too big and that he was running out of closet space. Also, his family kept finding it and were starting to ask him embarrassing questions, so he forced me to go back with it," she looked around again after she had stood up, "Why am I at the Thirteenth though?”
Renji shrugged while picking up one of the manga, “Who knows? While I usually get sent to my living quarters, I do end up at my division from time to time. I guess in a way, our divisions are our homes.”
“Yeah, I guess…” Rukia replied slowly as she turned towards him, “Renji, have…have you been Konsou’ed recently?”
“Hmm?” Renji asked, as he flipped through the volume, “Uh no, I don’t think so. Not since my time at the Eleventh. Why?”
“Just…Just wondering…” she said as she eyed him thoughtfully.
Finally, after the Thousand Year Blood War, it happened one more time. She and Renji were having a philosophical debate on the character Ichigo played in their movie series Maid Cop, when the next thing they knew, pop pop, they were both back in Soul Society, lying in each other’s arms.
“I guess I can’t deny it now,” Rukia murmured softly as she reached up to touch Renji’s cheek, “With you, I am home.”
“Yeah,” Renji agreed fondly as he returned her soft gaze and softer touch, “Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that checks out.”
“If you two wouldn’t mind,” Byakuya stated sternly, “Could you PLEASE GET OFF MY DESK?!”
Congrats on the anniversary! I’ve been following your blog and the long tangents in the minutiae of soul society life is always delightful.
For the B3 anniversary ask: what do you think about konso/soul burial? And for that matter how do you think the whole reincarnation cycle/balance between worlds actually works?
Thank you! <3 This one is interesting, because depending on who you ask in Soul Society, konsou is *foundational* to the work of the Gotei and neither tangential nor minute. And yet we see almost no konsou actually happening. Which, okay, fair—most of what we see is Soul Society in periods of incredible duress where no one is actually doing their "regular" peacetime jobs; and we mostly see Captain/VC-class shinigami, who probably don’t have regular konsou detail because they’re busy doing konsou admin paperwork.
Nobody Expects 20th Century Industrialization
I’m curious about how the math works on konsou. We know there’s not that many shinigami, relatively speaking, and that they’re in charge of defending the Seireitei, patrolling all of Rukongai, AND at least some portion of the Living World. And that Living World stints are where most (all) of the konsou happens, even as Living World stints also seem to be where you send babies (on Academy field trips; bb Hitsugaya just wandering around in the Ice Blorbo filler; unseated Rukia; Af-san; literally any other shinigami who gets sent off to Karakura).
Were there enough shinigami a few centuries ago, with pre-industrial human population sizes? Are their staffing issues relatively recent (in the span of a shinigami lifespan, anyway)? Which lol, sux that they’d lose half their captains at the turn of the century, right as all this rapid modernization was happening in the Living World, alongside some serious imperial designs AND mere moments away from two world wars.
Do more souls need konsou during more devastating periods of human history? Or does it balance out, in the sense that life expectancy tended to increase as population increased? But given that the two don’t correspond linearly I imagine the population issue would outstrip it. (Maybe Soul Society is excited about Japan’s presently contracting population lol.)
The Topography of Human History Is Flat From Here
Do more souls need konsou to cross over when more people are dying badly? Or does it just seem like that would be the case, but that’s only because we’re thinking at the scale of a human? At the scale of a universe, maybe it evens out more readily than we’d think.
I’d actually be really interested in exploring the possibility that the same number of souls cross automatically vs. with the aid of konsou when there’s some kind of dramatic terrible thing happening in the Living World vs. when there is not. Because within the narrative of the human maybe a war changes everything. But maybe at the level of a universe you are just as likely to be in need of konsou if you die bloody than if you die in your sleep. Your soul does not hierarchize trauma/pain/the need for guidance. Sure, maybe you can say "well, this one had unfinished business" and it’s obvious what that business was, or what pain makes you susceptible to turning Hollow instead. But maybe sometimes you can’t. Maybe sometimes you can die in the most horrible mangled terrifying possible way and still go straight to Soul Society. Maybe sometimes there are ghosts that think they lived a pretty good life but end up stuck anyway, because there’s... something—
Konsou: Theory and Praxis, 3rd Edition
As far as the actual practice of konsou goes, I feel like it’s something that gets taught with a lot of theory and philosophy scaffolding the practice. Like, it’s this incredibly weight, ritualistic thing when it’s presented to Academy students.
But the thing is, what if the praxis of it is actually very simple? If it can be done with any old asauchi, maybe there is no part of the mechanism that actually requires any degree of passion or finesse. You can just do it, pop 'em off like it’s some kind of rote repetitive task, and that’s the big shinigami secret. It’s not hard at all, and you don’t need to think about it or even be paying all that much attention. You don’t even need to interact with the spirit if you don’t want to; you can just bonk 'em and be on your merry. It’s totally perfunctory, technically speaking.
Maybe it comes down to the kind of shinigami you want to be. Do you want to care about the souls you’ve been charged to protect? Do you want to honor them? Do you want to practice the ritual, believe in the higher purposes of your work, believe in the sanctity of a soul and the person that soul was, is on the brink of no longer being? Do you want all this to matter to you?
“Ah! You startled me. I... I am fine, really. I just hit my head on that pole. I was thinking about something and didn’t notice it. But I am fine,” Orihime looked up at them while waving her hands several times to dismiss the matter.
That, Szayel Aporro reflected, wiping Fornicarás’s blade off on the fallen shinigami, had not been part of the plan. In truth, he hadn’t even wanted to arrive armed as a gesture of good will, but now he’s glad he had the good sense to bring a weapon along; the shinigami are rabid dogs, they hardly notice who they’re attacking.
When reinforcements arrive, he’s still wiping at a stray fleck of blood on his glove. As soon as he sees them, he raises his hands as if in surrender. “For the record —— that was self-defense.” Bullshit.
‘ so ---- specter ain’t what you wanna go by ? ‘ there’s a raise of his brow, sharp inhale, coincided with a sort of expression that admonished any sense of dignity then. that confident, powerful exterior having become all too accustomed to those that would usher forth death & divine intervention which in truth came from the corrupted heart of intent. to listen & adapt to yet another entrapment of an after - life was tiring. more so, then, than anything were those that would consistently lay claim to such power.
SHE TENSES WHEN SHE SEES HIM, sizing him up from the corner of her eye as she moves through the dense crowd. she was too far from the others to get their attention, all having slit up to cover more ground, she’d have to face the stand user alone. she circles around once before approaching him, cherry bomb floating silently behind her as sharp diamond points formed on her knuckles, ready to fight “ another servant of dio, huh ? this must be my lucky day ”
