Bleach Dark Dawn CH19, Letting Go

Rida searched for Torin for hours, but he was nowhere to be found. Rida checked everywhere he could think of, but Torin had clearly gone somewhere else in his flight from squad 4.

"Where could he have gone?" Rida said out loud as he stood in the middle of a street, it was still early morning, so not many people were around yet, that ruled out asking if anyone saw him, and letting out the news that a captain was missing was probably a bad idea anyway.

"If I had just suffered through serious emotional trauma, and then nearly killed my girl in a fit of rage without even knowing it… where would I go?" Rida asked himself, still thinking out loud

"If it were me, I would probably go visit the graves of my friends" a woman said from behind Rida

Rida turned around, surprised, a man and a woman shinigami stood before him. The man had spiky red hair tied into a ponytail and had a lot of tattoos, the woman had black hair that was cut off at her shoulders and violet eyes. Both wore standard shinigami uniforms, and the man wore a pair of expensive goggles on his forehead.

"Whenever I'm upset going to see my friends' graves soothes me, it makes me feel like they're still here with me. Is there any place that might be like that for the person you're looking for?" The woman continued

Rida thought for a moment, then said "there is one place, but I don't know where it is, he's never shown it to me and I never asked, the graves of his friends is probably where he went"

The woman nodded "Well if you take us to the general area we'll help you search, won't we Renji?" she said

"We will…? Omph" Renji said as the woman punched him in the gut "I mean… yeah… of course we will."

"Thank you both, Renji, and… who are you again?" Rida asked

"Oh! We haven't introduced ourselves!" The woman said "my name is Rukia Kuchiki"

"And I'm Lieutenant Abarai, but just call me Renji" Renji added

"Rida Itazura" Rida said "a pleasure to meet you both, and I appreciate your offer to help, that knucklehead would take forever to find by myself"

Rukia smiled "I'm no stranger to tracking down and talking sense into my knucklehead friends, I'm happy to help"
"More like tracking down and beating them senseless" Renji muttered

"what was that!?" Rukia said

"n-nothing" Renji replied.

----Rukongai----

Rida explained the situation to his new friends as they traveled

"I'm not sure what state he's in right now, he might still be short tempered, or he might not, either way, try not to upset him any more than he already is" Rida finished

Rukia and Renji nodded, from what they heard this Torin person was a lot like Ichigo, they knew how to handle him.

The trio split up, each of them searching for Torin and the gravesite.

----The graves----

Torin sat in the shadow of a tree looking at the statues he had made, his sword was in its sheath at his side. "So… what should I do guys?" he asked.

Torin was silent, almost as if expecting an answer, then he sighed "I thought coming here would clear my thoughts and let me sort out my emotions, but seeing you three is just making things more confusing. I want to move on, you three are in my past, and I'm letting my memories of you hurt my future. When I achieved my bankai, I swore not to look back anymore, both to myself and to my zanpakto, but when I faced that hollow…"

Torin held his head in his hands "I don't know… maybe I'm not fit to be a captain, I talk about the future, but I still can't get over you…"

"If that's how you feel, then take off that haori you wear" Renji said as he stepped into the clearing.

"Who are you?" Torin said, instinctively grabbing his zanpakto and beginning to stand

"The better question is who are you?" Renji said "I've heard a lot about you, I've heard you're the young prodigy captain who will lead the Soul Society to a new golden age, and here I find you asking some statues of dead people for advice"

Renji walked over to the statues as he said this and tapped the side of Serena's statue, causing a crack to appear in the delicate design

Torin leapt to his feet and drew his zanpakto "I don't know who you are, but you have no right to desecrate their graves like that!"
Renji turned and drew his own zanpakto, he had told Rida he wouldn't upset Torin further, but he knew talking to Torin would accomplish little, and if he wanted to beat some sense into Torin he needed Torin to already be upset enough to lose to a Lieutenant.

"Come and stop me then, or are you too wrapped up in the past to even defend the present?" Renji taunted

Torin dashed forward and slashed at Renji, who blocked with his own zanpakto, he grunted from the force of the strike. "Tch… he's really something, even with a sloppy slash like that its taking every ounce of my strength to hold it back…" Renji thought as he pushed Torin's blade aside and jumped up

"Roar! Zabimaru!" Renji said as his zanpakto became a blade made of several segments modeled after shark teeth or some other kind of fang. The blade split apart and grew, more segments magically appearing as it lashed down at Torin like a whip

Torin grunted as he blocked the initial impact, then Renji drew the blade back, each segment grinding against Torin's guard and adding more strain until Torin had no choice but to drop his guard. Renji used shunpo to get in close to Torin and used the hilt of his blade to hit Torin under the chin and knock him skyward.

Torin looked down at Renji as he flew up, what was this guy's problem, and why was he so eager to pick a fight with him? Most people didn't pick fights with captains for no reason.

Torin's thoughts were cut short by Renji's zanpakto whipping through the air at him, Torin blocked, but the force of the heavy object whipping at him at high speeds made him crash to the ground hard, then nearly chain-sawed him as Renji withdrew it.

"Fine, you wanna pick a fight with me, you've got one!" Torin said as he got up "Grow! Kessho Satsujinsha!"

Renji braced himself against the explosion of reiatsu, then used shunpo to narrowly dodge the slash Torin threw at him from behind. His goggles came lose from the sudden movement and fell to the ground, breaking on impact.

"I barely saw him move…" Renji thought "If I drop my guard I'm dead, I need to finish this before he gets mad enough to use his bankai"

Renji spun and unleashed his shikai again, but Torin was far faster, and he was used to Reni's attacks now, Torin appeared in the air next to Renji, slashing down at him while his zanpakto was still extended.

"Now I've got you" Torin said

"Hado 31! Shakkaho!" Renji said, firing a small sphere of red energy in Torin's face, Renji was pretty bad at Kido as a rule, and sometimes his spells exploded on him if he rushed, but this time he took his time and made sure the spell worked.

Torin fell from the sky, his face smoking, and crashed to the ground, by the time Torin sat up and put out his face he was staring at the tip of Renji's blade inches from his nose.

"Pathetic, there's no way I should be able to defeat a captain this easily" Renji said "You need to put all this nonsense behind you if you want to move forward."

"Easy for you to say! You don't know what its like to lose everyone you ever cared about!" Torin shouted "how can you say to put it behind me like its so easy!" Torin began to stand when Renji spoke

"I do know what its like" he said

Torin stopped, his rage forgotten. Renji continued "I'm from the Rukongai too, I had friends the same as you did, and when I lost them it hurt more than anything I had felt before, or felt since."

Renji rested his zanpakto on his shoulder "but I used that pain and turned it into resolve, just like you did long ago, and like you I made new friends, they helped me to fill in the hole in my heart my loss made."

Torin finished standing, but was no longer looking to attack.

"The difference between me and you, is that I can see how lucky I am to have made these new friends and accomplished what I have, and that makes the pain go away, but you are so focused on the pain that you can't see what's right in front of your eyes" Renji said

"Torin!" Rida said as he appeared in the clearing, Rukia following close behind "where have you been? I've looked everywhere for you! You really know how to make a friend worry!"

Torin looked at Rida wide-eyed "you were… worried about me? After what I did?" he asked, only to be smacked upside the head

"Of course I was worried about you!" Rida said, his face glaring so hard at Torin it was kind of funny. "You may be a thick-headed, stubborn, obstinate, dumbass 99% of the time…"

Rida's expression softened "…but you're my thick-headed dumbass Torin, we're pals, even if we want to beat the crap out of each other more often than not, and Aurora feels the same way."

Torin stood still, in shock, then tears welled up in his eyes.
"Now don't go crying on me" Rida said, a little embarrassed "look, lets just go back and…" Rida stopped short when Torin embraced him in a tight hug

"thank you Rida" Torin said

"Well…uh… no problem… that's what friends are for" Rida chuckled nervously, a bit uncomfortable

Torin released Rida and turned to Renji "thank you too; I needed someone to beat a bit of sense into me, I'd be proud to call you a friend stranger, if you would tell me your name."

Renji sealed and sheathed his zanpakto, "Renji Abarai, Lieutenant of Squad 6" he said as he extended his hand

Torin shook it "Torin Inzanki, Captain of Squad 3" he said, then turned and looked at Rukia "I thank you too, for helping Rida find me, may I ask your name as well?"

"Rukia Kuchiki" Rukia said "and you can consider me as much of a friend as Renji"

Torin nodded "I shall, next time I'm free, I'll treat you both to something nice as thanks for this. Now let's go Rida"

With that Torin and Rida vanished, leaving Renji and Rukia alone at the gravesite.

Rukia looked at the statues "he put a lot of thought into these" she said "they must've been really special to him… you said the right thing Renji,"

Renji walked over "ya think so? I didn't make any of it up… I just told him how it was… I figured his friends wouldn't want him to be obsessing over them after they were gone like that… so I snapped him out of it… nothing special"

The sun rose and brought color to the statues and a wind picked up, blowing two cherry blossom flowers into the air, one landed in Rukia's hair, the other in Renji's palm

For a moment they stared at the flowers, then looked at the statue, for a brief instant, it looked like the statue of Serena's lips mouthed the words "thank you," and then the wind died and all was still.

"I think it was special to her" Rukia said

"y-yeah, I guess it was" Renji said, then they walked off into the forest.