camppetoskey | All these wet noodles, good lord.

All these wet noodles, good lord.

[ So sometime late into Sunday, right before sunset, Cielo can be seen running through camp, soaked, and bleeding profusely from one of his arms. He's just screaming like an idiot, out of breath, making hand gestures at anyone in the cabins or the lodge. He doesn't stay long in one area, looking for help wherever he can.

He is also, incidentally, looking for Stan if he can find him. ]

Help--de clearin'--everybody real badly hurt, we need first-aid, I can only do so much, bandages...! Anythin' you got! An' pain medicine! We gwon need a lot!

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Your eyes are like the dead people's! With the slit pupil and the pattern -

[He points at one of the zombies around.]

Do you get what I'm saying?! And if you were going to the metaverse, you should have told me, you goddamn idiot!

... I thought of it, but...

I was scared if it was like Red's... that we might see the dead.

[See Kon]

Please, this was my idea... don't be too mad at the others, they were following my orders.

And?!

[Injuries be damned, he grabs Ren's shirt and drags him up to eye level.]

I'm a shinigami. I'm done with blaming myself for shit that I can't change! If I saw him, I'd goddamn deal with it!

[On one level, he understands - Ren just wanted to protect him. But on the other...it's incredibly insulting.

Now he gets when Renji told him concern was the worst thing you could have for a warrior.]

What I can't deal with is you, Mitsuru, and the others dying and us not knowing what the hell happened to you until you showed up on monday with the rest of them!

[Ren grunts, because yeah his insides are still pretty bruised up.

But he doesn't argue it, just hangs there. Because Ichigo is right. He fucked up, he almost got everyone killed. He was a hypocrite and a failure.]

I didn't give them a chance to tell anyone. This is my fault alone.

[There's a long, long moment - of Ichigo just looking at him, holding his shirt, angry and glaring...

Before it's replaced with something a lot more withering, and maybe even painful.

Disappointment.]

Yeah. It was.

[He puts Ren back gently, but it's clear he's far from happy with this - even if it was something he'd do himself, he'd have wanted to tell someone in case everything went south.

In case he died, and they had to keep going without him.]

...I just thought you'd know better than that.

[Ren is trembling]

Yeah... everyone thinks I'm better then what I am.

[He doesn't like the trembling. He knows what Ren is going through right now - he's hurt, he's reeling from getting other people hurt due to his decisions -

- but he's so upset and disappointed that he doesn't even care, and does something that's normally only reserved for his Zanpakuto:]

...Yeah.

Because that's the only thing you show them.

[Hitting where it hurts.

He's going to stalk off towards Mitsuru, now.]

[Ren just stands there and lets him go, eventually wandering away from all the yelling to go... hide out in c4]

[before he goes, before she gets yelled at too--]

Ren.

May we speak later, after you've rested?

...yeah.

[she nods; truthfully, she'd rather speak now, but she imagines Ren needs a bit of time. and truthfully, so does she, to reclaim her energy and finish out her own conversations]

Thank you. I'll come find you later.