~ :: Onward to Salvation :: ~ The United Kanda Insurrection
The scent of burning pine and cloves weaved throughout the campsite. It lingered in the air, rising upward to the gray sky. Small flickers of light glistened above, glimmering down onto the crowd below. Tens of thousands of men and women spread across the grounds. It was their final evening of rest before the battle at dawn. Their final evening before the day of salvation.
Orion Lycoris sat on a fallen log before the campfire. Tearing a piece of dried bread between his hands, he ate quietly, not bothering to remove the strains of debris from his fingers. Around him, he heard the nervous tapping of a teen’s foot. Another beside him breathed sharply, straining to hide his discomfort. To his left, a woman sat still, as colorless as the pallid moon.
He had told them to be strong, to remember their training. Stay courageous. Keep the morale high. Their confidence alone would provide them with tremendous strength.
One hand rubbed against his bearded chin, and Orion turned to his followers. Eyes sharp, the amber flakes moving quickly through his irises, he decided then that a reminder of their purpose would harden their resolve.
“Kyran,” Orion turned sideways and called aloud to the short-haired citizen. “Tell us all… Why are you here?”
Firelight danced in the cold, intense eyes of the man who had just been called by name as he stared into the fire, searching...always searching, always watching. What would he say, what should he say. He knew well the reasons why he had been called upon; his story would serve to be a reminder of the hardship they had all suffered. To remind them of their collective cause and forge their resolution into a iron blade to be used against the shinigami.
"I am here," he said slowly, quietly, "I am here for vengeance. For retribution against the shinigami, those "gods" as they call themselves, who forced my family to live in squalor, to sell our bodies and innocence to simply survive."
He sat straighter on his log, the knuckles on the hand that gripped the rough bark turned white as emotion mounted in the young man.
"I am here to do to them what they did to my sisters, what they did to us."
“That’s right,” Orion nodded at Kyran’s response. “We have all been wronged by those Seireitei bastards. They have killed our families, our livestock, our home lives. We could be enjoying prosperous, healthy lives. But they took them from us. They shamed us.”
The man’s voice grew in fervor. The sorrow his people had faced was too great a burden to leave unloaded. Tomorrow they would take their happiness and pride back. It was there, just across those white, pretentious walls. The people of Kanda only needed to remember why they were fighting.
Strands of black hair whipped across his face as Orion turned forward. He looked across the flames to the individual across from him. “Why are you here? Tell us your story.”
[123/340]
note
That question is open to whomever wants to answer.
All eyes turned to Samuel Walker, who was absentmindedly picking at the strings of his guitar. It almost seemed like that he had not the esteemed leader for a second. All he did was make a few disjointed notes. Finally, after a moments of simply sitting there, strumming his guitar, the Southerner put the instrument away and grabbed a small glass bottle, the Insurrection’s symbol stamped on the side.
”Now,” he said, taking a small swig of the last of his home-brewed liquid, “The Seireitei has done nothing against me specifically. In truth of fact, I believe that my life in Kanda, though it twas a bit harsh, was as much as I needed to sustain myself. I’ve lived on less, if my memory holds true.”
”However, I also believe that you people have been treated as unfairly as it is possible to be treated. They not only destroyed your land, but they also decided that it would be okay for your crops and your bodies to wither into the fine dust. They gave you no relief in your darkest hour, and would not hear any of your pleas and cries for help. Back when I was alive, I rebelled against my government for the exact same reasons.” Samuel paused for a second to take a another mouthful of liquor. “So why should this situation be any different? My people only bore this injustice for a few decades. You folks have been suffering in this manner for hundreds of years. At this point, it’s more of my duty to stand up against injustice than it is to bow to the yoke of oppression.”
Having used up all of his fancy, motivational words for the day, the former Confederate finished his drink and, setting the bottle down for later use, picked his guitar back up and started strumming a merry tune about rebellion and the homeland.
Rayon had remained at the edge of the circle of light projected by the flames of the campfire. The red light that shone on his sunken cheeks wasn’t enough to dissipate the shadows over his features or hidden deeper into his soul. His eyes were hollow wells of desperation, shielded by an armour of cynicism so thick, people had never truly understood the scarred spirit of the gaunt figure. As the reverberations of the fire caught his face, similar flames issued forth from those heavy-dark ringed eyes. The time for drawing back was finished; it’s the time to strike back with as much as he had got, with as much as the people had got!
Standing straight, for as much as he was thin he was tall, like a straw, Rayon drew closer to the flames, attracting the attention of the various revolutionaries around the fire. Even if it hadn’t been his intention, many saw the appearance of his skeletal figure draped in long ragged clothes from the shadows as an ominous presage. Nonetheless, his deep low steady voice reassured the whole lot that he was not a scion of death came to take their life, but a fellow comrade, ready to give body and soul for that single purpose that they all aimed to: take down Seireitei.
“I’ve been persecuted, even harassed or hounded, for the majority of my life,” Rayon started in his baritone voice, “but was that for the greater good of my people? I can say no for my fellow dwellers had lived similar experiences gaining nothing, whether for them or for their loved ones.” There was a pause, a very effective and dramatic pause, in which the revolted slowly licked his thin lips. “Was there a reason for the death of our families? Was there a reason for the refusal of the deserved aid? Was there a reason for the scorn and contempt with which we have been treated?”
His eyes were aflame and his voice had grown in volume over the course of the last few questions. In a theatrical gesture, Rayon opened his kimonos, showing his bare chest and arms, crisscrossed with scars of various length and dimension.
“Was there a reason for these?” the revolutionary enquired again, opening his arms wide, so that everyone around the campfire could witness the wounds he had sustained.
“I am here,” a soft and gentle voice said after the men had had their sayings, “because you’ve brought me here.” There was, however, no smile visible on her gentle face, instead one eyebrow had been raised and Scarlett, to the innocent bystanders, would’ve looked like someone who would go on a rampage with a single finger snap.
If Orion had wished for her to do just that, she would’ve, no doubt, but the fact that he, even to her, had been so distant... it had hurt her, disgruntled her, confused her, enraged her. “Why?” was all she could come up with every time she had asked herself about the way Orion did his things. She didn’t particularly care for this whole ‘revenge’ thing of his, it had always been him, him, him. She obeyed, oh yes... because that’s how a proper lady behaved herself in front of the single guy she loved.
She was a particularly good fighter, so it wasn’t that she was scared either just... indifferent.
Turning her internal volume-button up a few notches, she walked past Orion, hands turned into fists and said, “Tonight we march for hell, let that be clear! Orion’s objective, our objective...” She paused for a moment in hesitation before continuing, “my objective is to bring down those swines leading Soul Society, leading our pitiful lives to the depths of doom.
While the celebration in the background was all well and good, a beautiful woman looked at the scarred man who left questions in the air. They were the same ones that the dark-haired woman wondered for many years, and there was no reliable answer even to this day. She mourned the loss of her husband and three children yearly with no peaceful rest in sight unless the Gotei gave answers for their selfishness.
"To answer your question,” a woman who stood behind the shadows began in a sweet, but sorrowful voice, "those blasted Shinigami never gave a straight answer. For years – if not centuries – the people of this district wanted a straight answer from the people in living in the White City, but they either shrugged and walked or laughed it off. While those idiots lived in the lap of luxury, I’ve lost everything that was precious to me.
"Family.”
Silence fell in the area as some of the people that knew Shiokawa Ritsuko understood her sorrow and pain. The so-called saviors haven’t stepped foot to the Fifty-Sixth District because the people believed that the area was a curse. "My family will never rest in peace until the Chuuou Yonjuuroku and the Gotei Juusantai are out of the damn picture.”
“I can drink to that.” Breaking the silence that followed Shiokawa’s words, Samuel reached behind the log that served as his seat, and pulled out a smaller replica of his own bottle. Flipping it so that he was holding the neck, the Southerner offered it to the widow. For someone from anywhere else in the world, it would probably simply be a display of camaraderie, and that was probably what the simple man meant it to be. For the poor and starving folk of Kanda, though, freely offering one’s only source of money and means of living to a person who they had not even known until that day could be seen as something more.
What exactly that something was, Samuel was not sure, but he was also not sure if he cared or not. It was supposed to be a gift to a woman who looked like she needed a drink, and no one need read into lines or psycho-analyze for something that was easy and straight-forward as that.
Ryu had just stayed silent and listen. His ideals were far more noble than those he had heard from others, but there was one thing in common with the rest. Hatred for Seireitei and the thirteen protection squads. Even if Ryu wore a sleeveless outfit of the shinigami, he still held no honour for them, wretched shinigamis who destroyed his life.
"I'm here for one thing and one thing only, revenge," all the reason within his speech focused on the last word, his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword stashed in its sheath on the left side.
"You are here because you find yourself scared and impotent, little more than nothing in the face of those who claim to represent you. Fueled by this, you have abandoned any true hope of being heard yourself to take up the cause and cries of the masses."
A grizzled and haggard looking man walked slowly out of the woods, hard-pressed to care whom he was speaking to in particular or how much noise he was making traipsing through the dried leaves and twigs underfoot. "An animal is never truly contented with what it owns, be it given or taken. Instinct that pumps through the veins will always drive it to want more, be that want for food, mates, or restitution." Vell's low and lucid words continued to wind through the assembly of citizens like a meandering stream, a voice that saw little need to rise in pitch or fervor.
"You assemble as those who came before you did, and so too will others tread the same safe and well-worn path that the herd before them trampled flat." Taking a seat on the barren dirt, he looked unfazed towards the man who had assembled the rabble. "The wheel of ignominy will be kept in turn, and just as scared and outraged citizens will hide behind what they believe enigmatic those on the other side of the wall hide behind their pragmatical practice. The cycle is woven into our lives, just as it is theirs."
Ritsuko quietly took the bottle from the Southern man, and took a small swig of that hard alcohol. It was much harder than she thought. Ever since the loss of her family, she went into drinking liquor to quell the sorrow. While she appreciated the kind gesture, words from another man that she heard reignited her anger. The cycle of contentment surely had a stranglehold on the people of fifty-eighth district for a very long time – truly believed that Shinigami won't show their faces for the damage that they caused.
"Then it is very fitting that we're fighting in an endless cycle. Once everything dies down, people will just go back to their lives and expect nothing. It's truly now the survival of the fittest," Ritsuko said to the masses.
"We are here to break any stupid cycle we might have stumbled upon,” the hoarse voice of Rayon called out to two particular speakers before him, "we are here because their pragmatic practice is not a shield anymore, whereas the fear we have been bound by for so long is no more...”
The whole remark wasn’t meant to be so direct, not in the gaunt man’s mind, anyway. Nonetheless, as much as he understood the others’ point of view, it was time to stop the sulking, and begin the fighting. When the idea of such a revolution had firstly been relayed to him, Rayon was a sceptic. Experience had taught him to trust only himself and, possible, not even him. When all is said and done, there were only a few people you could trust, even within your circle of friends. On the other hand, if you gave people a common, powerful reason to gather together, they would follow the banner to Hell and back.
Rayon had been rapidly converted to the cause. As it happened in those cases, he was one of the most fervent promoters by then. Glancing at the various faces and twice at that of their leader, Rayon continued from where he had stopped a moment before.
"Now it is the time of our advent, it is the time when we broke the cycle, it is the time when we take our revenge,” he said with growing excitement, "and if you are here, gathered around this campfire, you have the same feeling. Revenge is ours!”
Orion smiled appreciatively at Rayon’s fervor. The man was impassioned -- a commanding tool in preparation for war. Nodding in agreement, he added, “It is indeed. Tomorrow… We will take back our pride by crushing Seireitei.”
To his left, Orion noted that the pot of rabbit stew had come his way. He ladled a serving into his own bowl and then passed it on to Ryu. Dipping his bread into the broth, the Roman looked up at the rugged form of Severecellis Santoleiusum. In response to his crude analysis, Orion answered, “You’ve taken our ambitions and peeled them down to puerile matters of instinct and animal cravings.” He met the weathered man’s bland gaze with a calculating stare of his own. “Is that enough for you to join our ranks? The others among us see the justice in our purpose. But you -- knowingly stepping into this cycle -- seem to amble along without the animus that empowers the rest of us. Why are you here, Vell? Why join the Insurrection?”
Noticing Scarlett appear beside him, Orion reached upward and with his hand, led the indigo-haired beauty to sit next to him on the log. He placed his hand on her lap but kept his attention focused on Vell, searching for the reasoning behind his unorthodox ideologies.
Firelight danced in Kyran's cold, black eyes as he listened to the words of Vell and to the words of Orion. The young man was growing frustrated. He had had enough of the "why are you here" talk. They were to move out in the morning and still nobody had addressed the critical problem, the fundamental one that arose when fighting shinigami.
How the hell do you fight them when you have no power beyond that of a trained body and explosives?
"His ideology is clear," said Kyran to Orion, "he is right in saying that we are all here because we are impotent in the grand scheme of things. With the Shinigami debased by a commotion elsewhere, we have seen an opportunity to attack, to finally have our revenge."
He looked about him, from one eager and angry face to another; each bearing the tell tale signs of a long, hard existence. How long have some of them lived in this purgatory? He wondered. No wonder they were eager, no wonder he was eager. Yet he was able to set that aside, to look at something beyond revenge: to living beyond their strike.
"Orion," he continued, "it is all very well to have cause and drive. Anger and hate are powerful emotions that can guide one to amazing feats and provide unparalleled tenacity but; how are we to fight Shinigami? They have power of which we could never dream. How do we counter that. How do we live on to see the new world that we plan to make?"
“Do we need anything else?” Samuel said, answering before their leader could, “Back down home -while I was alive- before the war that killed me, there was another one. It, too, was a fight for freedom, and all they had was passion and grit, and, you know what, that was all they needed. They fought and they won their freedom with nothing but the clothes on their back and the weapons in their hands.” The Southerner strummed a few more notes on his guitar, and then opened his mouth to say more, but stopped, figuring that the words that he had spoken were enough.
"They have those flashy Zakpakutou that makes them look dangerous," Ritsuko started while she looked at Kyran, "but they cannot go ahead and slaughter the people of Rukongai. It would create a massive controversy and the Gotei will be viewed as inhumane killers should they decide to raise their blades against us." The widow took another swig of that hard stuff that the Southern man gave earlier.
"I'm sure that should be enough of an advantage to topple a corrupted army."
Orion nodded at Ritsuko and agreed, “She’s right.” He looked over the rest of the crowd and continued, “Shinigami are not allowed to kill Rukongai citizens. The upkeep of our safety is their primary goal – a goal which they failed dreadfully when they allowed Melion to release her attack on our lands.” The Roman closed his eyes and let the image of Melion’s destructive assault plat in his head. Opening his eyes upon Ritsuko, he stated, “Unless they want the rest of Rukongai in uproar over their caustic form of government, I can assure all of you that they will cause no lethal harm.
“And you.” Orion then turned to the questioner, a slightly bewildered expression crossed his face. “Have you already forgotten your training, Kyran?” He placed his bowl and bread on the ground. Lifting his hand off of Scarlett’s lap, Orion clasped his palms together and looked up to face the young citizen. “We have spent centuries toiling to make our bodies and minds strong. You and the rest of the United Kanda Insurrection spent endless nights training one-on-one with knife and other forms of close-quarters combat. Have faith in our hard work. You are ready.
“But since you brought it up…” Orion stood up and walked toward one of the carriages pulled by horses. Removing the thick, burlap fabric, he revealed that the trunk was filled to the brim with explosives. A sinister glint reflected the moonlight off the metal casings. “We have more than three dozen carriages full of these bombs.” The Roman eyed Kyran and let his gaze drift across the crowds to the other men and women. “We’ve discussed this before, but these explosives are capable of breaking through Seireitei’s walls, and if necessary, they can also kill shinigami.”
In a swift motion, he covered the carriage again and glared back onto his crowd of fighters. “We can use these explosives freely with as much power as we so desire. There is no holding back!” Stepping forward, the soles of Orion’s boots dug heavily into the dirt. “Those shinigami may have zanpakutou, kidou, and other inhuman powers, but they must be apprehensive in all their actions. We have the freedom to devastate them with all the strength we can muster. Do not forget that. Use that fully to your advantage.
“Remember your numbers.” With one arm outstretched, he moved it in a horizontal motion, gesturing to all of the listeners. “ There are tens of thousands of us and much less of them. One of our scouts have told us that the vast majority of shinigami are preparing to leave to pursue war on earth. Only a few will remain in Seireitei. They will be weak. They will be lacking in numbers. We can and will overthrow them!
“Now…” He paused as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I want you all to think about whether you prefer distance or close combat fighting. In a few minutes, I will separate you into two major groups. Consider this long and hard. This will determine where you will be located upon our attack and the initiation toward our salvation.
“The majority of the Gotei divisions will have evacuated by tomorrow morning. That is when we attack!”
[540/1091]
Job Opportunities for EXTRA POINTS!
I need a scout(s). Check the > Google Doc < for more info.
For Samuel, it was an easy decision. Firing from afar and trying to see the results was not fun. It was boring. Always, he had been among the first in the charges against the enemy. It simply felt better than standing back and hoping your one shot a minute would kill someone. Fists were much faster and more consistent. Besides, this way, they would know it when he shouted and screamed his delight at the top of his lungs. From his perspective, it was less than a choice for him. It was simply just a way of showing what kind of a person he was.
Josephine sat tucked away in the background, shrouded by a ragged hood and flicking around a crude butterfly knife. As the blade clinked about her nimble, ink-stained fingers, the quiet girl slumped over, listening to the crowd rant on about their reasons for being there.
Shit, she thought, these bastards think this really matters. Who gives a damn why we’re all here? We need to stop wasting our damn time and get our asses into gear.
A small group of men shoved forward, fumbling into the girl’s sloped shoulder blade. She winced in pain and grabbed at the freshly tattooed area. Although she couldn’t see it, she could feel the blood starting to soak through the cloth again.
“God damn it,” she mumbled, gritting her teeth.
The raven-haired girl stood to her feet, thick combat boots kicking against the dirt. She pulled her hood forward again, shading her face and shoved the knife into the high-top of her boots. She had grown tired of this inane rambling and had started to grow anxious again.
This is never going to go anywhere! It won’t matter anyways…there’s nothing we can do…
Tears welled up in her dark brown eyes.
What do we have? Some fucking inbred country-folk, their pitchforks and torches?! So what if we have special equipment given to us? None of these oafs probably have enough common sense to use them…they’ll probably just kill each other trying to use them. We’re just going to rot here, forgotten by everyone inside those damned walls.
She turned and started to shove her way through the crowd. The flicker of the central campfire cast a man’s shadow over her shoulder and on to the ground. Immediately Josephine was thrown into a terrifying flashback of a gruesome night. She lied, screaming and crawling on the splintering wooden floor, while a man’s looming shadow grew from behind. She sobbed uncontrollably, pleading for help but she was grabbed by the leg and wrenched away from the open door. She tried burying her fingers into the solid floor, scratching against the grain as she was dragged away, until one nail painfully snapped back before she was immersed in darkness after the door was slammed shut.
Josephine came to, gasping through hushed sobbing, gripping her hand and looking down at the nail that had never grown back. Her eyes fixed on the shadow again and the girl spun around, grabbing the nearby man.
“Get away from me!” she cried out, shoving him furiously.
The stunned man looked on as the short girl started to hurriedly shove through the growing crowd.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed, “I can’t do this...”
[442]
request
Would someone mind grabbing my hormonal friend and keep her from leaving? ^^
A gentle hand reached out and securely fastened on the girl's shoulder. She jumped momentarily, but when she looked up into his eyes she saw nothing but peace, and she seemed to calm slightly. The man, after calming her, walked into the middle of the encampment and poured himself a bowl of stew, unperturbed that every eye in the camp now followed him. As he sat down to eat, he pulled a paper out from in his ragged clothes. He passed it to the big man who seemed to be in charge.
""These are the locations of the most viable entrances to seireitei. They are the gates with the weakest guard force, or the place where a security breach would take the longest to plug."
He sipped a few moments more, not allowing teh smile he felt at the dumbfounded looks on their faces creep up onto his features.
