Last Will
By Spunky0ne
XXXXXXXXXX
Prologue: Fading Blossom
The shinigami came awake into a familiar nightmare. He tried to move, but found his arms and legs had been heavily bound and his powers sealed away. He wasn't sure how many days or weeks or months he had remained that way, tightly bound, blindfolded and at the mercy of the one who had done this to him, but he was aware that the spirit centers through which his power used to flow had begun to flicker ominously beneath the seal. There was little left in his body that wasn't trying desperately to keep him alive. But that evil, relentless being kept returning, night after night, to drain his life away, little by little...slowly and horridly painfully.
There had been a time when he had held out hope of escaping...when that familiar voice had spoken to him often in his dreams, promising that he would come. He couldn't remember the man's name anymore, or his face, but he remembered that gruff, warm voice.
Tears came to his eyes, remembering. He hadn't the will anymore to stop them, and surrendered easily.
"Shh, sleep one last time," a smooth, wicked, male voice whispered in the heavily restrained shinigami's ear, as cold fingers brushed his tears away, "When I wake to feed upon you again, it will be the end. You have endured a long time, shinigami. But then, you were a captain once, weren't you? Until the day you crossed my path. How proud you were, how beautiful. You are little more than a shell now. I shall have to find another. But, be proud. You have truly shown your strength. I shall miss you."
The voice paused for a moment, and the shinigami knew he must be sensing the air around them. He tried to extend his own limited senses and caught a breath of something that felt like red fire.
"What is that?" the low, hissing voice snarled angrily.
The warm, strong presence intensified, and its closeness seeped into the nearly dead shinigami's body, strengthening him. He panted harshly, straining against his bonds and sucking in a hard breath. He released it again in a hard, desperate scream, remembering the man's name only as he released it.
"RENJI!"
The room shook ominously and a deafening screech approached. The shinigami's tormentor left him then, without a word or a hint of where he meant to go. In the next moment, the wall near the restrained man exploded inward, littering small bits all over the bed where he laid and making him both laugh and cry at the same time.
"Renji!" he repeated more weakly.
A relieved sob escaped him as warm, rough hands touched him, and the bonds on his body shattered. He was pulled close to that other and held on tightly, with clenched hands.
"H-how did you...find me?" he managed in a broken, hoarse whisper.
"C'mon," that longed for voice said softly, "You know how I found you. You're in my heart...right in here. I promised you every day and every night your were gone, that I was gonna find you. You never had to doubt. I'm just sorry it took so long. But, we'll talk about all that when we get home, okay?"
"I can't walk, Renji. I can barely breathe."
"Then, you relax and keep on breathing, okay? I'm gonna get you out of here. We'll be home in no time, and we can fix everything. Just stay with me. Stay with me, Byakuya."
"I am with you," the shinigami whispered, something of his senses returning as he heard the man call him that name, "I am with you, Renji."
The other man's hands removed the blindfold, and Byakuya squinted, trying to see the man's face. He could see that Renji was smiling, and that there were tears on his face. And he kept talking as he lifted the noble out of the bed and carried him towards an opened doorway into a dark, cool corridor.
They were nearly there when icy laughter rose up behind them.
"Ah, you are the one I sensed, trying to break into this place before," hissed a thin, white clad man with violet eyes and a cruel, sinister smirk, "You missed him, did you? You were almost too late. I almost emptied him. He was sweet, very sweet. Marvelously fulfilling."
"Shut up, you quincy bastard!" Renji cried, backing towards the open doorway.
"Thank you for opening the way," the quincy went on, "Now, I have a world full of shinigamis to suck dry!"
"It's not gonna happen!" Renji shouted, suddenly shoving Byakuya through the doorway.
Pain exploded through the noble's shocked body as he landed on the hard ground and rolled to a stop. He caught a flash image of Renji, hastily sealing the entrance, and screamed the redhead's name, trying desperately to crawl back to him as the doorway slammed shut between them, leaving him alone in the cold passage.
"Renji!" he screamed, clawing at the place where the opening had been, "RENJI!"
XXXXXXXXXX
Chapter 1: Return Out of the Abyss
"Are you sure that this is the right direction?" Ichigo asked in an unnerved tone, as he looked around the dark, empty corridor, "I don't see anything at all here."
"I know what I sensed before," Tetsuya assured the Shiba heir, "My cousin's reiatsu registered as being somewhere near here, in the precipice world. I would know the feel of it anywhere, and at any distance."
"But, Byakuya," Ichigo said, shaking his head and frowning, "He's been missing without a trace for over a month. And no one even knows where he was when it happened. His reiatsu just...disappeared."
"And Renji hasn't checked in since he went looking for him again last night," said Rukia, "I'm really worried!"
"Yeah," agreed Ichigo, "Me too."
"Well, I know what I sensed," Tetsuya insisted, sliding down off of his black stallion's back and looking more closely at the pathway, "Byakuya was in this area. There is no doubt about it."
"But," added Rukia, from where she still sat on the horse's back, "the precipice world is a strange place. If my brother and Renji disappeared in here, who knows what could have happened to them."
"Yes," Tetsuya agreed, "The passage of time in here is sometimes disrupted, and if they became trapped in a pocket dimension, then it is possible that time was altered around them. But, we will find them."
"We won't stop looking until we do," Rukia said firmly.
"Right," Ichigo said, nodding, and moving slightly away from the other two to examine the ground.
They moved slowly along the corridor, checking every inch and listening to the echoing of their footsteps, and sometimes the deep, distant throb of the cleaner. Cold air teased their skin and the darkness of the place encouraged the uncomfortable chill inside them to make them shiver. They had just turned a sharp corner, when they heard the heavy whine of the cleaner moving closer, then stopped walking as they all at once spotted a dark, collapsed form on the ground, ahead of them.
Rukia gasped, catching sight of the familiar pale face of her brother and jumping down off of Arashi's back to flash step to the fallen noble's side.
"Byakuya!" she cried, barely cognizant of the other two young men moving to join her, and the rising sound of the cleaner as it came closer.
Tetsuya leaned over his cousin, as Ichigo stood behind the younger noble's shoulder, looking back, behind them.
"We're going to have to get out of here," Ichigo warned him, "That thing is coming in our direction.
"Note the coordinates quickly!" Tetsuya told Rukia, placing his palms on Byakuya's chest and face and quickly giving him a short, steadying infusion of reiatsu.
"Is he...?" Rukia began.
"He is alive!" Tetsuya exclaimed, "But he is in some kind of shock. I feel almost no reiatsu emanating from him. We need to get him to Urahara's shop immediately! Ichigo, please help me."
The two young men lifted Byakuya's limp body and carefully delivered him to Rukia, who had climbed back onto Arashi's strong back. Rukia positioned her brother in front of her, leaning back against her as she held on and nudged the stallion with her heels. Arashi saw the cleaner appear in the distance, and quickened his step as the two young men fell in with him, and they all turned in the direction of Urahara's shop.
"When we get back, I'll go and get Orihime," Ichigo told them, "He looks pretty bad. Did either of you see any sign of Renji?"
"I did not," Tetsuya said worriedly, "But it was hard to attend to looking, because the cleaner was coming towards us."
"Don't worry," said Rukia, "I noted where we were."
Tetsuya bit his lip, stopping short of reminding her of the difficulty of what they would have to do, even knowing the proper coordinates. All of them knew of the difficulty in anticipating any entry into that dark, dangerous place that separated the two worlds. But, they pressed on, focusing on the sudden reappearance of the missing clan leader, and feeling a sense of relief that, at least one of their missing nakama had been found alive.
They flash stepped down into the training area in Urahara's shop, and found the shopkeeper waiting for them.
"Kisuke!" Rukia called out, "We found my brother, but he's hurt badly."
"I'm going for Orihime," Ichigo said, turning to leave.
"She's already here," Kisuke said, stopping him, "Tessai and I felt the swell in your guys' reiatsu and we knew something was up. We didn't feel Byakuya's reiatsu or Renji's, so we knew that if you had found someone, he might need a healer."
"Good thinking," Ichigo said, nodding gratefully as Kisuke and Tessai lifted the unconscious captain down from the stallion's back.
"Don't worry," Kisuke said, noting Tetsuya and Rukia's troubled expressions, "We'll get him inside and take good care of him.
He gave Ichigo a more guarded look.
"You didn't find any sign of Renji?"
"No," Ichigo said, his eyes taking on a sad look, "But, we're going to go back and look some more. We just couldn't stay, because of Byakuya's condition and because the cleaner was passing through the corridor."
"Let's hope that it doesn't destroy what we might need to help us find Renji."
If Renji is still alive for us to be found, he noted inwardly, The fact that Byakuya was alone and unconscious does not bode well.
XXXXXXXXXX
"He's hurt badly, isn't he?" Rukia said worriedly, as she watched Orihime's power gently pulse over Byakuya's resting body.
"I'm afraid so," the human girl confirmed sadly.
"Can you sense what was done to him?" Tetsuya asked, gazing down at his cousin's pained expression.
"I'm not sure," Orihime said, furrowing her brow and focusing, "His reiatsu was drained, but there is more to it than that."
"Yeah, I sensed that when he arrived here," Kisuke added, "It looks to me like he was drained to the brink, not once, but repeatedly, over an extended period of time. Whoever did this was a deranged, maniacal freak. He did it in the most painful way he could, making sure that Byakuya didn't die quickly, but remained alive and in considerable pain."
"Damn!" Ichigo hissed angrily, his brown eyes flaring.
"He also showed signs of repeated physical assaults. There were wounds on his wrists and ankles, meaning that he was tied down. And Tessai found other sores on his body, indicating that he spent the bulk of the time tied up."
"That anyone would treat a soul with such blatant disrespect!" seethed Tetsuya, his hand curling reflexively around the hilt of his blue steel zanpakuto.
"Especially him," Ichigo added, scowling in disgust, "If he was going to kill Byakuya, he should have just done it quickly. To torture him like that..."
"I don't know if it was just torture," Kisuke said, looking at the noble more closely as Orihime's power flowed through him, "There's something strange about the draining process. I'm looking at a number of references...hollows, humans, shinigamis. This kind of power that was used to drain him could have been any of those."
Orihime's focused frown deepened suddenly, and she motioned for Kisuke to move closer.
"What is it?" the shopkeeper asked, following her gaze.
"His spirit centers. There is something not right about them."
She paused in her healing, allowing Kisuke to lean forward and place his hands on the noble's bared chest and abdomen.
"Every shinigami and hollow that wields power, does so through the use of these centers within the body that control the flow of reiatsu. These centers expand and constrict. As a shinigami or hollow becomes more powerful, they are able to open wider to suit the flow of power. Byakuya's spirit centers are well developed. Him being a noble and captain level, his have to expand widely to accommodate the large amount of reiatsu he wields. But, it looks like this enemy's power forced the spirit centers to the breaking point. It would have felt like fire in Captain Kuchiki's veins, and repeatedly done over time, it eroded the centers, themselves, causing them to begin to deteriorate and shut down. To protect his body from the rampant flow of power, his mind would have tried to shut them down...increasing pressure on them until the very cells began to break down. If it had been any longer, I would have called his case 'hopeless.' But, there is still some little bit of elasticity in the cells in that area. If I put him in suspension, so that no reiatsu touches his centers for a time, then I can save his ability to flow reiatsu. He will have to brought along slowly, but I believe he can be healed."
"Can't Orihime just reject the damage?" Rukia asked.
"Normally, the answer would be 'yes.'" Kisuke replied, pulling away from the noble and standing, "However, even Orihime's power is reiatsu based. We had to use some to keep him from dying. But now, I will have to put him in a special chamber, where he will be completely without reiatsu and fully suspended to allow his spirit centers to fully heal themselves."
"But, Kisuke," Ichigo said in a low, worried tone," If you suspend him, how are we going to know what happened to him? And where Renji is now?"
Kisuke let out his breath in a resigned sigh.
"I am sorry. We can't get anything out of him until his spirit centers are healed. Every moment he spends with reiatsu touching him furthers the deterioration process. I'm going to start the process to put him under, now."
"But Renji!" Rukia objected, fighting tears.
"It's okay, Rukia," Ichigo assured her, "We have the coordinates in the precipice world where we found Byakuya."
"But we don't know if he crawled there from somewhere else, or which doorway he used!"
"That is true," Tetsuya said solemnly, "But that just means that we have a lot of places to look for him. We will find him. I promise we will! We will not stop looking until we do."
Rukia sniffed softly, gazing down at her unconscious brother and all too aware of what could be happening to her lifelong friend.
"Y-you're right," she said, clenching her hands and forcing herself to stand, "Kisuke, please take good care of my brother. I know that you will do your best to restore him."
Kisuke nodded, then motioned to Tessai, who approached Byakuya and lifted the noble off of the bed.
"Put him in the chamber and lower the reiatsu gradually. He's been healed, but he is still too weak for a sudden evacuation of reiatsu."
"I understand," Tessai said, turning, and flash stepping away.
"Now," said Kisuke, meeting the eyes of Byakuya's nakama, "You are going to have to be very careful. In addition to the dangers of the precipice world, and the dangers of the things that inhabit the pocket dimensions, remember that you are dealing with a creature of some kind that was able to overcome and capably restrain a powerful captain. And its powers are frightening. I don't like what I see happening with Captain Kuchiki. You want to find Renji and steer clear of whatever attacked his captain. This may be something that Central 46 ordered locked away. You know that when a beast is too dangerous to keep in the regular prisons, they lock them away in the pocket dimensions of the precipice world. The doorways will let you in, but you may have trouble getting out again. And you have to make very, very sure...that whatever was locked inside, doesn't come out with you!"
"We will," Ichigo resolved, his brown eyes glittering, "We're going to find Renji and we're going to bring him home alive!"