Sweet little side-story. Shows us just how resilient Renji truly is. From a Hanging Dog to academy, to fifth squad, to eleventh squad, to lieutenant of the sixth squad. Renji’s character has evolved so much, probably why he’s such a fan favorite.

Excellent prologue, I liked the bit about the poor unseated who pissed off the 11th officers. I really like this one you could write so many offshoots on it. Nice ending too

Wow...that was really cool actually. Little snippets as he grew up. Its interesting to see the way the start of the pack developed over time. You shared with us both his adversity and some of his strengths in this one and while it was short and sweet it was very well done.

Now I should probably double back and actually review Healing the Moon...Terribly sorry about that...Spunky could tell you how inconsistent I am...I hop in and review like crazy and then disappear for months (sometimes years) at a time. I'll try not to do that for HtM...but no promises.

Renji struggling and prospering through his challenges living in the poorest districts made him resilient. Anyone who couldn’t notice and respect him for that is purposely being fools.

Aww Renji, he is an alpha thru and thru! Thanks for letting us see into how the pack started and grew into the loud and rowdy bunch we know and love!

And I love the idea of Kira, Shuu, and Renji being the beginning of the pack. Knowing how it all started makes it easy to see how they all came together. Everywhere Renji goes he finds someone.

I loved his 1st meeting with Bya too! Especially knowing the rest of how their story goesAwesome job, I love it!

Nice backstory! I liked the pacing and how it overlaps so well with canon. You captured the harshness of Rukon really well. It can't have been easy for Renji losing his pack like that and then to lose Rukia too... glad he found comfort with Kira though. Nice piece it fits well with rest of HtM. And I did catch the moment when he saw Byakuya the first time that was a nice touch.

A wonderful depiction of Renji's background, very much IC and also perfect for the HtM-verse. I love it from start to finish!

I... I don't even know what to say. Thank you so much for this! I have no words to explain how happy this makes me, this story is everything I've dreamed of and more. It makes it even more perfect that you published this on the exact same day I was feeling at my worst. After almost a month of being away for reasons you now know, you revived my love for this site, the fandom and obviously your stories. Thank you.

Now on to the story, I loved it with all my heart! My poor baby Renji needs so much love! I love how everything started, this should be canon, woman. It's exactly how I've always imagined Renji's backstory, and that little ByaRen moment when Renji saw him for the first time? That lovely brushing of reiatsu? Don't think I didn't get that! Awww, Bya was almost adorable there! And Kira and Shuu and Ken? Awww. Melts my heart, girl! Kira was especially a sweetheart there. I wanna pounce on Renji as well... Hmmm... such a lovely image! *shivers*

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this story. Perfection 3 a million thanks to you!