earthseveringwind:
None of this is to say he doesn’t trust Shuuhei. He trusts Shuuhei — not with everything, not with anything to do with his past — but he at least entrusts his life to him, which is more than he can say for most people. Shuuhei is capable, strong, a leader, someone who needs to be here in the coming years. He’s the rock of the Ninth Division, far more than Kensei can be. Not now, not for a century.
That said, he does not want Shuuhei on this mission, any more than he wants Mashiro on this mission.
What he wants is a small group of capable officers, subordinates he can rely upon but not entirely. Warriors whose expendability is as implicit to them as it is to him, who understand that he’ll protect them as much as he can but he can’t be everywhere, even if he wanted to be. What he wants is his Muguruma Squad, but they’re ashes just as much as the 18th and 19th Districts.
He watches Shuuhei eat the apple, thinking. Shuuhei is even more vulnerable to the fire than he is, mainly because his Captain’s haori is supposedly fire-resistant. Not that he trusts it against a full-on onslaught, but anything is better than nothing. Once they get out to around 16th District, he’ll make sure they take the time to actually put on that lotion. Hopefully that officer knew what he was talking about; hopefully it won’t be like lotion on a sunburn (just cooking them from the inside out).
He is hesitating, putting off the inevitable. The longer they wait, the longer it will take, and the more likely Mashiro will come looking for them. He tugs the bag with equipment even further onto his shoulder and says, “Let’s go.”
And they go. There are perks to being a Captain, but this is not one of them.
They complete their journey somewhere outside of District 18, and the fallout of the fires is immediately obvious. His mind first, ridiculously, recognizes the off-white spilled across the ground as snow. The ash rises in small, powdery clouds as he moves across it. It has the same effect as snow, though, and between the ash and the thick smoke the world feels muffled and quiet. The smoke has his eyes and throat stinging, and he stifles a cough.
The forest feels otherworldly, now that it’s been reduced to sparse, blackened sticks, some still faintly smoking. There’s no animals or underbrush-- just ash. Creepy. “That way.” He says, if only to break the overwhelming silence. He points towards the glow in the distance that marks one of the fires. While in any normal circumstance he would be one to avoid a fire, it seems as though the only way to actually find this creature would be to head to the source. He steps on something hard and brittle, and it snaps. Any sticks probably would have burned by now. He glances down and regrets it immediately, taking a respectful step backwards from the charred bones before fixing his eyes back on the glowing horizon.
At the very least, everyone got cremated. It seems like a small mercy in light of how horribly they probably died. Shuuhei takes a moment to reflect on how agonizing it would be to burn to death, and regrets it immediately. “Do you have that lotion?” He asks, once again hyper-aware of how exposed his bare arms are. He wishes he had a coat, or gloves, or... something. Another layer between him and fire. Really, the choice to send the two of them out here is pretty stupid. Yes, send two shinigami with wind elemental zanpaktous. That’s a great idea. Because combining wind with fire has never been known to make more fire. Not to mention how Kensei’s zanpaktou is essentially built for close-combat, which in combination with what’s probably some kind of fire hollow--
Okay. Probably time to stop that line of thinking. Shuuhei’s hand drifts to rest on Kazeshini’s hilt, reaching out to him in anticipation of battle.
