"Reconnoitering is needful when the enemy is entrenched." Renji and Byakuya, the latter toting his copy of Sun-Tzu, try Las Noches on for size. In this fic Renji is in Hueco Mundo before canon sends him there.
Please be aware that this story contains sexual torture and non-consensual male-male anal sex.
Tite Kubo's, not mine, not for profit, just for fun.
Ow dammit ow dammit ow dammit ow.
Renji Abarai hopped across the floor of his quarters, holding one large foot in an equally large hand, trying to clip an ingrown toenail.
Damned thing hurt.
Renji Abarai, a hero from any direction you chose to look at him, was not patient with ... hurting. At least when it was not connected with battle, tattoos, or recuperation.
His toe hurt in a way not connected with battle, tattoos, or recuperation. He could not blame a Hollow for an ingrown toenail that hurt. All the freakin' time. Waking, sleeping, walking, pushing papers, training: didn't matter, it hurt. Barefoot, it hurt.
And he couldn't clip the nail without leaving bloody footprints all across his tatami.
Maybe it was time to go to Fourth Division?
He stopped and put his foot down, glowering at the offending digit. (Kenpachi Zaraki would have been proud.)
It was not. He was a freakin' hero, and freakin' heroes did not go to freakin' Fourth Division with a freakin' ingrown toenail.
This was a decision Renji Abarai would shortly come to regret.
The General was having tea with toast, and sharing this feast with Jyuushiro Ukitake. The General was particularly fond of both of toast, and of the Captain of Thirteenth Division.
Jyuushiro Ukitake did not share his enthusiasm for toast, but he did approve of anything that could be used as a platform for clover honey or strawberry jam. He took a polite bite of his second slice, a platform for honey, while the General worked on his fourth.
Ukitake savored, and swallowed. "I don't see," he said carefully to sempai, "how we can simply abandon Orihime Inoue. She's been of spectacular help to us in the past, and Ichigo Kurosaki is very loyal to her."
The General poured him another cup of tea. "Yes," he said calmly. "I am having second thoughts on that. I wish to send a recon party into Las Noches, to see what we can, and determine if perhaps she can be rescued."
"Whom had you in mind?" Jyuushiro said.
"I have been thinking that in terms of the size of the team, smaller is better, and I think the best combination might be Byakuya and his lieutenant, that red-headed kid."
"Renji Abarai," Jyuushiro said politely. He remembered names far better than did the General.
"Yes. Those two offer a unique combination of tactical and brute strength, and they are the only Captain-Lieutenant pair who have both achieved bankai. I had thought of sending Kenpachi Zaraki and his first two seats."
"If you mean Kenpachi, Ikkaku, and Yumichika, you mean the third and fifth seats. The Lieutenant there is a small girl, and the Eleventh has not had a fourth seat since Kenpachi took over."
"I had forgotten that. Do we know why?"
Jyuushiro carefully explained to his superior Yumichika Ayasegawa's aversion to the character used for the number four, his liking for that used as the number three, his greater liking for Ikkaku Madarame, who was third seat, and his assumption of the fifth seat, since the character for five resembled that for the number three closely enough to please the fifth seat.
They chewed in silence for a moment. Then the General looked at Jyuushiro and said calmly, "If Zaraki's all right with it, they can number themselves in Babylonian for all I care. –It is always possible to lose a recon team to subordination in Las Noches, of course. If Zaraki or his - fifth? - seat were suborned, we would have a huge problem on our hands."
"And you do not believe that to be the case with Byakuya, nor with Renji?"
"I believe Byakuya to be particularly difficult to suborn, because his pride will not allow him to be called a traitor, and Renji, while a powerful shinigami, is still someone who can be defeated. You, Shunsui, Soi Fon, Hitsugaya, can all beat Renji rather easily. So can I, of course. I might be able to beat Kenpachi, but I believe the issue to be in doubt. That fifth seat and his bankai would be a nightmare for us if suborned. And Yoruichi, Soi Fon, and I can all counteract Senbonzakura. So –"
Jyuushiro actually interrupted. "You can counteract Senbonzakura? How, sempai?"
The General smiled at him. "Allow an old man to keep his secrets. –So in terms of least risk for greatest gain, I believe it has to be those two."
Jyuushiro was uncomfortable with sending his former lieutenant into so dangerous a situation, but he too was a soldier. "You seem to have thought this through very carefully."
"I have," the General said. "One of the things I thought was that if they are discovered, both are skilled enough to put up a good fight, and perhaps cost the enemy some resources, before they are taken or killed."
"I see," Jyuushiro said calmly. "It's unlikely to come to that, of course."
"One hopes so. More toast? Will you try the jam this time?"
"Yes, thank you. Have you heard whether it is true that Abarai is to marry Rukia Kuchiki?"
"I have heard that the young couple wish it. What I have not heard," said the General, topping up their cups, "is what Byakuya will have to say to the matter."
"Hardly a dynastic move."
"No. Therefore one should expect his disapproval. I've already been looking through the lists for suitable replacements. Abarai will have to be promoted, or at least reassigned."
Renji and Byakuya each packed for a three-day reconnaissance mission, and each packed according to his needs. Renji had his bedroll and the first-aid kit, and four pairs of extra socks. Byakuya had his bedroll, and a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
This particular Sun Tzu was a very old scroll from the human world given him by Jyuushiro Ukitake, also an admirer of the Chinese warrior.
Food was notably absent. They knew Las Noches to be sufficiently rich in ambient particles of spiritual energy that it wouldn't be needed. The two men expected to arrive back in Soul Society less hungry than ... wanting to eat.
The Garganta faded behind them, and the pair looked around them.
The desert of Las Noches stretched out to Aizen's digs in the distance, white, purified of life.
The wind blew constantly, chill and biting: it carried with it sharp grains of sand, and occasionally, when one or the other raised a hand to his face and turned away from it momentarily, it bit deep.
Waraji were not particularly efficient in sand. They would have done better to wear geta for the traction.
"How far d'you think it is?" Renji said, at Byakuya's elbow.
"It's difficult to estimate distances over featureless terrain," Byakuya said. "A day's walk if we're lucky, two if we're not. The mission is only three days. I suggest we flash-step."
Flash-stepping through sand in waraji proved to be only slightly less taxing than walking through it but it was, after all, faster. The next morning, after wrapping their heads in their cloaks to keep the blowing sand out of their eyes to sleep, the two men did not see, hear, or feel any sign of interest in their presence.
They were not quite underneath the walls of Las Noches.
Renji shook the sand out of his blanket, and something else fell out of it as well. "'s that?" the redhead said.
"It seems to be a lizard," Byakuya observed.
The small creature was white, to match the sands of its home, but its skin looked as if it had been beaded, it was so corrugated and textured. Cold in the early morning, the lizard moved slowly to face Renji as he knelt down before it, and cautiously reached a hand out.
The lizard lunged forward and sank its tiny teeth into the flesh on the outside of the ingrown toenail, to chew enthusiastically.
"Hey!" The creature's teeth were too small and short to do much damage, but it hurt like blazes. Renji, shaking his foot, discovered a tiny bead of blood. He glared at the creature.
It returned the favor from under its mask, a curl of bone around the outer edges of its eyes, and scuttled off into the sand.
Byakuya had neatly and carefully returned Sun Tzu to his pack, and now sat on his haunches, shaking his head. "Only you, Renji," he said.
Renji gave him a reluctant grin. "Yeah, well, it was kinda cute," he said. He wiped the blood from his foot, and donned tabi and waraji. "Damn, that hurts."
"The area seems quite inflamed. Are you able to walk?"
"Yeah. I'll get the ingrown toenail looked at when I get home."
"Yes. It would have been wisest to do so before we left." Byakuya stood.
The incessant winds of Hueco Mundo would erase any marks of their passage almost immediately, so that there was no need to do anything in the way of "breaking camp" other than walk away.
"This morning," taichou said calmly, "I propose we separate, and each of us reconnoiter one-half of the circumference of the walls. We'll meet somewhere on the other side of the castle. Should either of us fail to rendezvous within a day of arriving there, the other will make his way back alone."
"Sounds good, taichou." Renji finished dressing his wound, and paused in the act of putting the medical supplies back into his pack. "Do you want to split the first-aid kit between us?"
"No. I have sense enough not to tease the local wildlife."
An ingrown toenail is a site of infection. A localized infection causes the body's immune system to send more blood to the area, inflaming it, with the purpose of carrying away the detritus of injury and bringing new white blood cells to the area to defeat the infection.
Renji's little friend had been a Gila monster in its previous life. They're venomous.
With envenomation of any kind, keeping the site of the bite or sting immobile is crucial to inhibiting the spread of the venom. Prior infection at the site is not helpful, as the presence of a larger-than-usual volume of blood will help to spread the venom.
Renji, flash-stepping through the sands of Hueco Mundo, was not keeping the site of the bite still. He was circumnavigating Las Noches at speed, stopping only to make quick drawings of any feature of the walls.
Less than a quarter-hour had passed, and he had gone about one-third of the way around the enclosure, before he began to feel thoroughly ill.
As in: feverish, weak, shaky. Couldn't concentrate. Hard to stand. Like the worst case of flu imaginable.
Renji knelt to steady his notebook, made a drawing of the battlements of Las Noches that would have embarrassed Rukia, and tried to rise from his kneeling position. He staggered, lost his balance, and landed on his hands and knees in the sand.
The notebook fell into the sands. The pen went in another direction.
Renji saw the notebook at the edges of the black ring now closing down his vision. Damn. He was in trouble.
He never felt the impact as he went to his face.
Byakuya, on the other hand, had made good time. His drawings of the battlements of Las Noches would also have embarrassed Rukia, but he did not have the excuse of having been bitten by an ex-Gila monster.
He carefully gave what looked like the entrance a very wide berth and four separate crappy drawings of its very own. He hung out beyond the nearest dunes, to see if he could observe a change of guard or how entrance was gained; but the place was unhelpful, and no one passed in or out during the time he felt he could give to surveilling it.
About the time Renji lost his notebook, Byakuya folded his own and went on.
Hearing is the last of the senses to fade at death. Renji could neither see nor move, except for small uncontrollable muscular spasms, and it was getting hard to breathe. His limbs twitched, and every joint ached like someone had set it on fire.
He heard voices above him.
"Hey, looka that!"
Soft thumps. Somebody's foot turned him over, not gently. "What is it? Ain't one of us."
"No. It looks pretty sick. Wonder if it'll die?"
"Better take it in."
"Who to?"
"Szayel, I guess. Fucker's got a use for anythin'."
Byakuya, arriving too late, watched from cover as Renji was dragged by his arms into Las Noches by two Exequias.
The grey eyes carefully the lines in the sand Renji's feet had drawn.
It took only two of them to put Renji Abarai down? What were those things?
Gin Ichimaru turned from that cool observation with acid roiling his gut. The one man he hated beyond any other in Sereitei was here - but if there was anyone who loathed Byakuya Kuchiki more than he did, it was Sosuke Aizen.
What a gift, and it had thrust itself right into his hands.
"Get a buncha Exequias out there, at least four squads, and get that guy in the black in here," he said to an Espada. "I don't care what it costs."
Ulquiorra Schiffer, stoic as ever, was escorting Orihime Inoue to the baths.
Orihime was used to the Espada's brooding silences, and said nothing: it was better than trying to have a conversation with him. She followed him meekly, hands in her sleeves, while in her heart she took a knife from her bodice and plunged it into his back between spine and shoulder blade.
Twisted it, pulled it out, plunged it in again. He'd made it clear he was her enemy, and that of everyone she held dear.
They turned a corner, and Renji's captors dragged the shinigami into Orihime's view.
Orihime stifled her reaction, knowing that any show of emotion on her own part would be dangerous to Renji. As the trio passed her, though, she whispered, "I reject."
And Renji's body began its backward march from inevitable death.
Ulquiorra Schiffer whirled on her. "What did you just do?"
She looked him straight in those beautiful green eyes, and lied like a flatfish. "I wished him a quick death."
Schiffer disliked this evidence of spunk; Aizen had made it clear that his job was to break the woman without touching her physically, and he'd already been punished in ways he didn't like to remember for her lack of cravenness. If she cared for this man, he could be a tool in her downfall. "He must be a friend of yours?"
"No. I've just seen him around. Soul Society is a small place. The red hair is memorable."
He surveyed her for long seconds, but her head was down, eyes meekly on the floor. "Very well," he said, and turned, knowing whom he must overpower to have access to that other prisoner if it proved necessary. It probably wouldn't.
Turning, he missed the flash of defiance in Orihime's eyes.
"Gin, what a nice surprise." The ruler of Hueco Mundo strolled into his lieutenant's view. "You were perfectly correct about those surveillance cameras. This alone was worth their cost."
Byakuya Kuchiki, naked, unconscious, and beaten the crap out of, drooped spread-eagled from chains in the center of a small windowless room. Around one wrist, a reiatsu cage twinkled in half-light.
The price of his presence had been high for the Exequias; only three of the sixteen sent to intercept the Captain of the Sixth Division had survived the encounter. That cost was not too high for either Gin Ichimaru or Sosuke Aizen.
In this room a table and a pair of chairs sat to one side, with a small computer on the table; one wall was composed entirely of bars giving onto a stone corridor. Another was filled with white metal cabinets.
Gin, moving between the cabinets and the table, had a tray of instruments assembled before him. He turned to unlock the bars, so that Aizen could enter, but the man waved a hand before himself, and the bars swung open.
"That's handy, " Gin said. "Can I have one?"
"Let me perfect it first," Aizen said smoothly. Gin, who knew that this meant, "Not until I can disable it for my personal quarters," merely grunted.
Aizen walked all the way around the prisoner. "He took some damage," he said. "Couldn't you have instructed the Exequias not to injure him?"
"He cost us thirteen of them as it was."
"Hmm. And knowing Kuchiki, I guess not. The wounds don't look too serious, anyway."
"They ain't nothin' much, really," Gin said calmly. "Dressed the worst of 'em, sewed a couple shut. They'll hurt when he wakes up."
"Good," Aizen said. "Can you wake him up now?"
"I was about ta establish a IV, so we can keep 'im where we want 'im, awake, asleep, whatever. Take me ten minutes, I think."
"Mmm. Why don't you go ahead and do that, then, and I'll be back in about an hour. Wake him up then."
Gin cocked his head, surveying the prisoner dispassionately. His tone, when he spoke, was not argumentative but thoughtful. "I think it might be better ta wake 'im up now, while he's still hurtin', and just leave 'im alone until ya get back. Darkness, pain, solitude - they'll do our work fer us. He'll be a little more pliant when ya come back, that way."
Aizen gave his subordinate a nearly genuine smile. "Whatever you think best, Gin. I know it will be difficult to break this one. I'm very content to leave it in your capable hands. And your suggestion gives me a little leeway, in terms of time."
"That mean I get to play with 'im too?"
The smile broadened. "I get first dibs. After that, help yourself."
Gin smiled a smile of his own.
Renji Abarai groaned his way back to consciousness. To say that he felt like shit was an horrific understatement. On its best days, shit felt way better than he did at this moment in time.
He was in a cell. Bars over the window, bars over the smaller hole in what was obviously a door. Stone, cold. Uninhabited except for himself.
On the other hand, he wasn't chained.
He rolled from back to belly, put his hands under his shoulders, and shoved himself into sitting position. One leg seemed sore.
On inspection, it proved to be swollen and tight-hot to the touch as far up as the ankle. The great toe on that foot sported an ingrown nail and a bite mark - Renji remembered the lizard. Damned thing.
But didn't he remember being really sick from the bite? He did. What was the transition to this place?
Come on, Abarai. You got bitten outside of Las Noches. You lost consciousness. You're now in a cell. Two and two don't ever make five, buddy.
He poked at his swollen toe once, and the resulting pain was such that he didn't repeat the experiment. He got to his feet and limped the perimeter of his cell, finding nothing in the dim light to impede progress.
Nothing. Stone walls, barred window, bars across one wall, door there locked (because it would be just too damn' stupid not to try it), and nothing else.
Okay, Abarai. You are deep in the doo-doo here. What now?
Remembering a lecture of Unohana's, he lay with his butt against the wall, and stretched his bitten leg up. Drain the poison, she'd said. He'd see if that would help. There wasn't much else he could do at the moment, but that, and think on what to do next.
Another cell had no window, and the door set into the barred wall to that one was likewise kept locked. In it, Gin Ichimaru pushed an IV drug into Byakuya Kuchiki's system, and watched the shinigami wake up.
True to his word, Gin was prepared to let darkness, pain, and solitude do the work of breaking a notoriously principled shinigami, a proud and stubborn soul.
But Gin Ichimaru knew better than most that pride and stubbornness made one brittle. When Kuchiki broke, it would be all the way, and Gin would be there to make him shatter.
Unless, Gin thought, watching the bound man test the limits of movement, Sosuke got there first? Well, if that happened, Gin could push Kuchiki down a little further. No, a lot further; Gin deserved his fun, as well. And there were no limits to the depths of abasement.
Byakuya Kuchiki's taut chains ran from wrist and ankle cuffs to heavy iron rings in floor and ceiling. His body was extended as far as it would go, and he didn't have a lot of wiggle room. Still, no binding which extends the body can totally restrict movement, and the shinigami flexed his limbs, or tried to.
Byakuya's chains were more for the convenience of his torturers than for his own humiliation. Gin and Aizen knew very well that isolation, sensory deprivation, unmedicated pain, the eventual cramping of muscles held in one position for too long, and nudity in the presence of clothed captors would do more to break their captive than simply being chained. On the other hand, they also knew that if Byakuya were allowed freedom in his cell, every time they wanted to work on him they'd face a fight, and a dangerous one: Byakuya was an accredited master in hand-to-hand combatant. That made the inevitable fight time-wasting, and unacceptably risk-filled.
It had been Gin's dispassionate opinion that positional captivity would be most humiliating. "'Sides," he'd said to Sosuke, as the two of them decided their captive's fate, "there's always th' chance he could get himself killed, if we haveta catch 'im each time."
"Oh, we don't want that at all, do we? No, Gin, we'll take your admirable suggestion. See to it."
Now, Gin watched, seated at the small table, as Byakuya struggled with the situation imposed on him.
The tray of instruments Gin had assembled was empty. Byakuya wore a blindfold and earplugs. Gin had been careful to put them into place gently, so that they caused no pressure, and were imperceptible. He grinned at the thought that Kuchiki could not tell whether he were blind or blindfolded, deaf or deafened.
The ball gag was such a simple and humiliating device that Gin admired the fucker who had invented it. Use one of those plastic balls with holes in it and your captive drooled all over himself helplessly.
There were other, more personal invasions ...
And of course, the line into Byakuya's bloodstream, the plastic of which was threaded into Byakuya's chains. If, reiatsu cage notwithstanding, he managed to free himself, he'd open an artery by pulling out the line when he freed himself from the chains, and bleed to death.
The best part about all of this, in Gin Ichimaru's opinion, was that Gin could leave, and the work of breaking Byakuya Kuchiki went inexorably on without further effort on his part. He set a timer, and carefully locked the cell behind him.
Renji Abarai, along with Ikkaku Madarame and Kenpachi Zaraki, was widely believed to be one of the dumbest souls in Sereitei. All three were consistently underestimated by their peers; none was stupid, especially when it came to matters strategic.
What Renji could not do to save his own life was express himself in words. He had tried writing love poetry to Rukia. She eventually forgave him, for which, after he considered his efforts in the cold light of day, he thought himself to be the luckiest man alive.
Given that, he wasn't a bad actor.
When they came for him, he'd decided how to handle himself if they knew him ... and if they didn't. The ones who came for him didn't.
He cowered. He curled into the farthest corner of the cell, and shrieked and blubbered, waving stiff arms out in front of him. "No! Don't hurt me! No!"
Byakuya Kuchiki, on the other hand, wasn't considered stupid by anyone who had ever met him. With reason.
Shortly after being wakened by something that trailed fire through the inside of his left arm from elbow to shoulder he had determined how tight his chains were. His reiatsu was also bound, and he could not free himself of his other bindings because of it.
He remembered where he had been when the fight outside the walls of Las Noches began. Although he could not remember much of the fight itself, his whereabouts just beforehand meant that he was in serious trouble.
The result of an upperclass upbringing is that you think, even to yourself, "serious trouble," not "deep shit."
But there was a little hope. Byakuya was gifted, or so some thought of it, with long eyelashes. They brushed the blindfold Gin had so carefully applied. That at least told him that he had not been blinded, which was a relief.
There was no such reassurance to be gained regarding his hearing, but he was fairly certain that he could not have been deafened by a sword fight with the - things in white coats, whatever they were. He had no pain in his ears, so his current deafness was likely the result of earplugs.
The gag was ... annoying. Byakuya was not motivated to see it as more than that. It meant he drooled on himself and could not shout, but given his situation shouting would summon no help. And he had other things of greater concern to him than drooling on his own chest.
Had Aizen and Gin been privy to his logic, they would have been slightly dismayed. Being compelled to cast aside his identity as a person who did not drool on himself was intended to cause Byakuya emotional pain and self-doubt, not kick in the soldier's mentality.
Byakuya Kuchiki congratulated himself on maintaining his composure.
That lasted until the timer that Gin Ichimaru set went off, and the vibrator inserted into his anus began its work. Shortly after that the cock ring kicked in.
Composure after that was much more difficult, which would have gladdened Aizen and Gin.
Renji's own strategy of self-abasement worked, and as a result he had had the crap beaten out of him.
Pain? Sure it hurt while it was happening. Sure it hurt now. It wasn't any big deal, though. There wasn't a lot of damage, outside of the bruises. Bruises fade. He'd tested his muscles, tensing and releasing. They hadn't been damaged badly. He was good to go.
He didn't, at the moment, have a place to go ... but you never knew when that might change.
The redhead lay on his side, curled into a fetal position, on the stone floor of his cell. He'd been pounded on through his clothes, and you couldn't easily see the resulting body bruises; the ones on his face were badges of his deception, though.
He could easily have straightened himself. He was not in that much pain. He was doing his best to remember how an early Academy classmate of his had reacted to beatings over his differences, which were many: among them being too smart.
He was mimicking Akon as best he could. Akon had learned to be as small as possible, but not to obviously hide himself, which would have drawn the bullies back.
All six-two of Renji curled into himself on the stone floor, being small. Not conspicuously small, just averagely small.
The guards passed by from time to time. One or two them gave out a contemptuous snort. Fine by Renji. Pride was dispensable; survival was not.
Renji's was an easier stance to take in the Rukongai than the Kuchiki manor. Sosuke Aizen took Byakuya Kuchiki's blindfold off, the earplugs out.
"Hello, taichou," he said cordially. "Welcome to Las Noches."
The blue eyes regarded him without emotion.
Sosuke smiled. He could read the strain behind that calm.
"It's a little difficult, isn't it?" he said gently. "Things being as they are."
His hand brushed Byakuya's rock-hard erection. Gently; but for all that Byakuya's head went back and he sucked the breath in through his nose.
Things being as they were.
The vibrator and cock ring had been doing their jobs for a couple of hours now. Blindfolded, deafened, Byakuya had felt the footsteps of Gin Ichimaru and Sosuke Aizen when they neared his cell, felt the door open and shut behind them. He knew how long they'd been there, watching and waiting.
Waiting for him to scream, to sob, to break.
Sosuke Aizen stood at his ease in front of Byakuya Kuchiki. "It's going to take a while, taichou," he said. Apparently, all of his attention was on Gin, over at the computer station along one wall of Byakuya's torture chamber. "But we'll get there in the end." He stroked Byakuya's face.
Byakuya was not fooled. This wasn't foreplay. If he played this right, it was the beginning of the end of his own life.
Torture eventually becomes a race. Death is the goal for the victim. Unbearable amounts of pain, sufficient to overcome the most principled of reticence, is the goal for the torturer.
Byakuya's experience so far was remarkably unpleasant. He wondered if he had been crippled for life; he was so engorged that every beat of his heart was painful. And when Aizen touched him, he came close to crying out through the gag.
Aizen moved around behind him, and observed that Byakuya's shoulderblades drew closer together. Trying to protect his vulnerable spine ... but it wasn't his spine that was at risk.
"You know," he said into the shorter man's ear, "all those years in Soul Society, I admired you so much. So principled. So upright. And now look at you, Byakuya. Helpless. Hurting. Just another soul. Your rank, your wealth ... all gone now. Now you are in my hands. I say what you are, and I say you are mine." He ran a hand down Byakuya's back, watching the hard muscles tense and shift, trying without success to move out from under that caress. The other went to the cock ring, and unfastened it. "Time him, Gin," Sosuke Aizen said, and began the gentlest of caresses to Byakuya's abused penis.
The shinigami thrashed, attempting to evade the stimulation; Aizen leaned into Byakuya's hips, and pinned him between his own pelvis and his hand. The other hand unfastened his own hakama, and then pulled out the vibrator inserted into Byakuya's anus.
Byakuya threw back his head, making a very good attempt to brain Aizen, but the traitor fisted his hair, and held him.
When Byakuya succumbed to orgasm, Aizen entered him, rough and ready, and kept the shinigami in the throes until he himself was satisfied.
Gin, watching, felt jealousy blossom in his heart. "Four minutes and thirty-two seconds to orgasm," he said, "and orgasm duration, another three minutes."
Aizen, mopping himself, laughed. "Well, there's your mark," he said. "Exceed it, match it - do as you will, Gin."
Gin smiled. "Why, thank you." Another route, perhaps shorter, perhaps longer, but the same destination.
Byakuya hung panting in his chains, and wished he were dead.
Captivity got easier for one of the shinigami, over time.
They came for him twice a day, Renji thought. Time in Las Noches was difficult to track as there was no cycle of light and dark, just the unending half-light. But twice a day seemed about right. This was the first of this day's visits.
One Arrancar opened the cell door, and a second stayed out of Renji's reach.
"No, gods no! Just leave me alone!" He folded both arms over his head, and did his best imitation of a craven coward.
He didn't fight when they laid rough hands on him. He curled up tighter, and endured the beatings.
Some part of himself was very glad to note that it was still, to his innermost self, an imitation.
Captivity remained difficult for the other.
Byakuya Kuchiki came out of a semi-conscious daze to feel hands again roaming his private parts. He bucked and struggled in his chains. He realized he was free of the gag when he shouted, "No!"
"Take it easy, taichou," Gin Ichimaru's voice said in his ear. "Th' King wasn't as gentle as he coulda been with ya. Don't want ya ta have any problems, here." He used the same strategy Aizen had, trapping the prisoner between the chains of his bonds and Ichimaru's own body, to finish the caregiving.
In its own way this was as awful for Byakuya as being Aizen's ... slave. No, dammit, Kuchiki, you're a soldier. Call it what it is. Aizen's rape victim.
If they were taking care of him, they wanted him to survive. That was bad news. But it was soothing to be, however briefly, free of pain.
Gin's attentions had not been ungentle. Now the former taichou moved away from him.
There was a creaking of machinery, and the chains loosened. Byakuya staggered as his weight came on legs and feet numbed by long inaction, and he went to his hands and knees. His arms almost buckled, and that dragged a yelp from his lips as the cutdown site in his arm was flexed.
The shackles stayed in place.
He looked up at Gin Ichimaru, standing over him with a remote in one hand and a tray of instruments in another, balanced against his hip. The white-haired traitor wore his usual grin, the slitted eyes glittering downward at his one-time peer.
"Ya need a rest period," the taller man said to his captive. "I'd sleep, if I was you. Be careful not ta yank that IV outta yer arm, or you'll bleed ta death." He jerked his head to the left. "Pad and blanket over there."
He put the items he'd used away, and locked the cabinet doors behind himself. Then, without glancing again at Byakuya, he went out of the cell, and the door clicked to behind him.
He hadn't stopped to lock it, Byakuya thought.
The chains were not long enough to get to the door. Byakuya might have shrugged, if he'd had the energy, but the reiatsu cage was still sapping him.
The IV did indeed look like the serious biscuit, cut down by layers into a large artery, padded with gauze that stuck to the wound. It hurt when tentatively probed, and oozed more blood than it should have when he pulled the gauze free.
Well, Byakuya thought, there was always that way out, if he needed it.
When one is held prisoner, one's world narrows remarkably to the here-and-now. The pad and the rough thick cotton blanket were wonderful, better by far than the silk comforter and sheets of his soft thick futon at the Kuchiki manor.
Oblivion, though – oblivion was even better than that.
Renji was taken from and returned to his cell six times in total for beatings and interrogation. He realized that if his time calculations were correct, he was about one day late for rendevous and retrieval. He wondered what Byakuya had done when he didn't show up. Search for Renji? If he had time. If not, he went ahead and made rendezvous, having important intelligence.
As Renji himself would have had to do were their situations reversed.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and voices trailed into Renji's cell.
"... get laid tonight. I got my eye on that pretty prisoner, but they sure keep a tight restriction on 'im."
"Yeah, door's locked all the time. He is awful pretty, though."
Pretty? He?
"Yeah, he is, but it's creepy the way those two call 'im 'taichou.' Almost makes ya feel sorry for the poor bastard."
Taichou?
"There's this one in here." Two Arrancar, walking past the intersection of the corridor in front of Renji's cell, one jerking a thumb in his direction. The other peered at him briefly. Renji took care to cower.
"Nah. No fun if they don't fight back."
The voices and footsteps faded.
Taichou. They had Byakuya Kuchiki. From the conversation, Aizen and Gin had Kuchiki.
It firmed up Renji's timetable considerably. It did mean he'd have to behave in a fashion even more cowardly than he had been.
He was kinda surprised at how hard it was to wince and cower, and not believe it yourself.
Gin had left the administration of an anaesthetic to Byakuya on timer. Between the chains and the IV, it was not all that hard to manage him, but he wanted solitude and surprise to have their say in sabotaging his prisoner's mind, too.
When Byakuya next recovered consciousness, he was again held spread-eagle by the chains, all of the previous conditions had been restored, and he had no memory of that.
He was again blind, deaf, immobile, gagged, wearing a cock ring and anal vibrator. Hard as stone, and hurting.
When the hands touched him, he flinched away.
Gin smirked.
He continued to touch his prisoner gently, and ramped up the amplitude of the vibrator's buzz. Kuchiki's back arched.
Gin Ichimaru's smirk widened to a smile, and he freed himself of hakama and fundoshi. Then he removed Byakuya's cock ring - taichou rocketed himself backward to get out of Gin's hands; the man's belly muscles were astonishingly strong - and carefully brought his prisoner to the edge of orgasm.
Then, and only then, did he remove the vibrator, and thrust himself inside as Byakuya, vulnerable in that moment as no other, orgasmed helplessly.
A ball gag keeps the wearer from forming coherent words. It really doesn't muffle the screams.
When it was over, and Kuchiki hung slack and trembling with Gin still inside him, one ear stop was removed. "Thanks, taichou," Gin whispered. "Ye're really incredible, ya know that? And now that you've had yer fun, it's my turn."
Gently and patiently, he began moving inside his prisoner, and with equal patience, stroked the other man's length. He chuckled for Kuchiki to hear. "O' course, yer gonna have some fun of yer own, too." He deafened Kuchiki again, and used the free hand to stroke his belly and tweak his nipples, while his lips and tongue trailed the other's ear and throat.
The prisoner put up the best fight of which he was capable, but it really did not change the course of events, or even cause Gin to deviate from his schedule.
The futility of that resistance, put up by a man he knew to be both proud and powerful, made it a lot more fun, though. Gin hadn't really expected to enjoy this so much.
Renji curled up on himself more tightly. He wished he could sacrifice his pride enough to urinate on himself, but he couldn't, proof positive of terror though it would have been. He folded his arms over his head.
"Aw, geez," said the Arrancar petulantly. "Willya lookit that? Ain't even worth chainin' ta transport." It shoved the fetters through its belt. "Come on, buddy," it said, and dragged Renji up by one arm. "Time ta see th' doctor." It snickered.
Renji fought with careful ineffectiveness to get free of its grasp, but allowed himself to be pulled from his cell.
Once the other Arrancar was in reach, he exploded into potency. Unlike Byakuya, Renji had not spent much energy or time on becoming expert at hand-to-hand fighting. He had, however, a formidable strength, a Runkongai gutter-rat history, and ruthlessness. Those, along with the element of surprise, were enough.
He delivered the coup de grâce to one Arrancar within seconds, to the other moments later. The bodies vanished into drifted sand, leaving their clothes behind.
His own clothes Renji rolled into a tight bundle, and shoved into the shoulder and one arm of the larger Arrancar's jacket. He did the same with the smaller Arrancar's clothes - he hoped they'd fit Kuchiki taichou - and then dressed in the uniform of other. The clothing stuffed into the jacket made him look hunchbacked. And the damned rise of the pants wasn't long enough.
The uniform hat covered his red hair, but both pairs of shoes were too small for him. He had to keep his waraji.
He'd have to be careful of the cameras he saw mounted on the walls at intervals. Seeing his reflection in the lens of a camera on his way down the corridors, he didn't recognize himself.
Good. He might yet get out of here alive. –Now, where was taichou kept?
Tea perfumed the interior of the shoten; it was midafternoon, and Kisuke Urahara poured for his guests, and for Jinta, Tessai, and Ururu.
Ichigo Kurosaki looked angry, but he always seemed to be angry about something. Urahara did not know the girl as well, but she too seemed to have a chip consistently on her shoulder.
Therefore, he was inclined to discount whatever it was that had their hakamas currently in a twist. "You said you had news," he said politely, hiding this bias.
The boy put down his cup. "Renji and Byakuya are in Hueco Mundo," he said.
Urahara had some tea. "Reconnaissance, I would imagine," he said calmly.
"They left five days ago on a three-day mission," Rukia Kuchiki said flatly. "Genryuusai is not willing to send a recovery team for them." She paused, as if to gather her courage, and then said, "I want you to go get them."
Kisuke Urahara maintained silence. Ichigo said, his tone challenging, "Well? Will you?"
Ururu Tsumugiya, Jinta Hanakari, and Tessai Tsukabishi all paused with their cups suspended halfway between mouth and table, eyes darting among the three.
Urahara sighed, putting his cup down to flirt his fan, and Tessai gave him a sharp glance. "I'll see what I can do, Miss Kuchiki. I know very little about Hueco Mundo, so I'll be starting from scratch. And you know I can't put this on the basis of a favor. You will have to cover my costs."
"That's all right. I can put it into my expense account, because I'm coming too, when you go."
Ichigo nodded. "Better plan for three, then."
The shopkeeper shook his head, his habitual half-smile gone for once. "No. If I get in there and get jammed up, it's unlikely I'll survive. I can't risk that happening to you two, and neither can Soul Society."
"Then I'll be coming along." Tessai was not asking.
The young shinigami and the human boy looked at him, along with Urahara. Then the two young people looked at each other. "All right. What can we do to help?" Ichigo asked, without his usual belligerence.
Urahara finished his tea, got up. "If you're serious about that you can come after school and help Tessai with the shop while I work in the lab."
"I'll take the day off from school," Ichigo said.
"I'll be here too," Rukia said. "What time in the morning?"
Sosuke Aizen and freakin' Gin Ichimaru! Right there in front of him! Kami, if he could only draw his zanupakuto! But they were accompanied by four creatures that wore the same garb he did. Six to one, two of the six captain-level and the one a mere lieutenant, were not good odds.
Renji Abarai, not trusting his disguise, stood around a corner from the ruler of Hueco Mundo and pretended to be sorting through the massive keychain one of his late jailers had carried. Blades, small, some straight and some variously serrated ... a bunch of screwdrivers ... bottle opener ... small saw? ... small file? ... a freakin' fork? This guy had had a Swiss Army key ring?
Gin was saying, "He's just waitin' now. I tell ya, it ground on me ta be nice ta him that one time, but it sure paid off."
Aizen chuckled. "I told you, he's so vulnerable right now that any kindness can potentially break him. –How long can he stay suspended without damage?"
"For real safety not more'n fifteen minutes. But we don't care if it cripples him, do we? It's on timer, anyway, and he'll be put out an' given a rest period in about an hour."
"I wouldn't be displeased if he were impaired, but I'd like him to keep some use of his hands, yes. He'll be more effective as a servant that way. Keep him up for a couple of hours at a time, not longer than that? Will that be safe?"
"I'll have ta research it. I thought you was gonna Hollowfy him."
"No. Too powerful, too risky. It was hard enough to break Hallibel. He'd be a nightmare. –Don't you have to go to his cell to do as I asked?" Renji heard the threat in that mild question as clearly as Gin did.
The silver-haired traitor said hastily, "No. Jus' reprogram the timer." There was a fading beep, beep, beepity beep as their steps took them beyond Renji's hearing.
Renji had planned to get out at a relaxed pace, not running, just walking as if he had someplace to go, after noting everything he could about the place. Didn't seem like that would be an option now. He'd haveta collect Kuchiki-taichou and get the hell out of here.
Yeah, and it sounded so simple when he thought about it like that.
He would rather not have to open a Garganta, Urahara thought: in the background the shuffles and bumps of Ichigo throwing freight, and Rukia unpacking it, resounded. (Of course she had raided the new Soul Candy shipment for any and all Chappies, but she paid for them; Urahara was content to call it "opportunism" and let it go at that.)
As for Gargantas, though: too noticeable. Kami only knew what Kuchiki was undergoing at the hands of Aizen; it would be best to get him out, and Renji too if he had survived, as quickly and quietly as possible. A Garganta was a freakin' billboard.
He didn't even want to think about what Gin Ichimaru might be responsible for doing to the principled Kuchiki. That kid had liked to pull the wings off Hell butterflies when he was still in the Academy.
Yes, Gin Ichimaru would exercise great diligence in finding ways to break a man who acted from his ideals; Gin would see it as a personal victory, since he himself had none.
Urahara paced in his lab, six steps up, six back. Processes he had earlier set in motion, some chemical, some biological, went on around him.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.
He had tapped into the Sereitei's surveillance over Hueco Mundo, and sat now at the monitor which showed him its results. Las Noches gleamed in the distance. Urahara took control of a little-used camera, and maximized its zoom.
His careful eye was caught by movement. A camera mounted on the walls of Las Noches shifted slightly in its housing, scanning the area.
Where there are electronic systems, there are ways into them. Urahara grinned for the first time that day, and got to work.
Renji found a broom closet, and promptly appropriated part of its contents. Who looks at a janitor?
When he finally found Kuchiki's cell, he thought for a moment that he might faint. Kuchiki, naked, bruised, blindfolded, hung from chains.
He wanted to pull the bars apart, and get him down. But the surveillance camera was pointed straight at him.
It wasn't until Renji was carefully sweeping the spaces in between the bars that he saw the cock ring, and the string from the vibrator.
At that point the redhead's temper snapped.
If Ichimaru or Aizen had suddenly zapped into being in front of him, Renji would have torn him limb from limb, and let Zabimaru feast on the bloody remains. And if both of them had materialized, he would cheerfully have done so twice.
Renji felt the heat rush into his face, but he had enough control not to betray his rage. He carefully swept, with equal care seeming to take no real interest in taichou beyond ascertaining that he still breathed, and when he got to the lock, he put in a little more time to get the sand out from around the bars.
One of the jailer's keys did in fact open the door. He relocked it and went on sweeping until voices sounded in the corridor, arriving.
Renji faded into the cross-corridor, and waited.
Sosuke Aizen and Gin Ichimaru weren't allowing Byakuya Kuchiki much time in a conscious state. Usually, they woke him, one or the other fucked the living hell out of him, they left and let him hurt for a while, and then he was knocked out again.
This time, they must have miscalculated. He still hung in his chains, but he wasn't asleep.
He wondered what he could do to get them to stop.
He wondered if Renji had made rendezvous with information.
But that thought of his fukutaichou kicked him into soldier's mindset. Byakuya knew he had nothing to offer in return for a cessation of torture. They'd asked him no questions. It was obvious that the point of his confinement was the torture, that the point of the torture was to break him. And the fact that they knocked him out again very soon after provided him with no processing time. He couldn't come to terms with what they'd done to him if he wasn't conscious long enough to think.
He did what he could to stretch his muscles, which wasn't much in the pull of the chains. Still, it was something.
The damned anal vibrator started working again. He was almost used to it, by now, but it didn't mean it wasn't effective, and it didn't make it any more pleasant. He braced himself for the pain to come, and endured.
Some hours later, two Arrancar, in uniforms slightly different than Renji Abarai's own, arrived and unlocked the Las Noches cell in which Byakuya Kuchiki hung in chains.
Careless bastards, Renji thought, not locking the door after themselves. He carefully stayed just out of sight, beyond one of the intersections with another tunnel.
One Arrancar said to the other, who had put his burden down on the desk and approached the prisoner, "Better not. Aizen's awful particular about that'n."
"'S just a prisoner," the adventurous one shrugged, running a hand over Kuchiki's ribs.
Taichou, by this time again drugged unconscious, made no response.
Renji did: he erupted into the cell, and the adventurous one fell instantaneously under his hands. The other one didn't have time to escape, or even to move toward Kuchiki's cell door with his mouth agape, before Renji laid him out.
He dragged the bodies out of sight behind the desk. Took their keys, went through the desk. Found a drawerful of clips. Applied one to the cutdown in taichou's arm very close to the wound, another just a little further up the line. Cut the plastic between them. Stripped taichou of those ... things … that had been used against him.
Whatever drugs they were feeding taichou, he'd have a chance to recover now. Renji found the remote for the chains and ran it the wrong way first, almost pulling his taichou apart, before he hastily reversed the switch positions, and Byakuya flopped boneless into the dirt.
The shackles were locked, and it took Renji precious minutes to get them free. He grabbed a random guard, stripped off the hat. Hair too short. The other one? Closer. Stripped him, did to him what had been done to taichou, put him in the chains, ran 'em up to where they had been. With the gag and the blindfold, it was hard to see at first glance that this wasn't taichou. It might gain him a precious few extra seconds.
Time, time, time, not his friend, more time than he could safely spend needed to get Byakuya, limp, into the clothes he'd brought with him, take out the kenseikan and shovel Byakuya's abundant hair under the covering that was part of the uniform. Cut the other end of the IV line near the wall, pull the plastic tubing free, tie the other guy up with it.
Renji made a last desperate rummage through the desk, and found what he was hoping for: a wide elastic self-adhesive bandage. No time now, but later ... he stuffed it into a pocket.
His damn' leg was getting hot and swollen again. No time now for that, either. Pull taichou up over his shoulder, collect all the sets of keys, and go.
Out the door, lock it behind him, down the corridor, keeping an eye out for those surveillance cameras. Renji paused at the intersection of danger and his broom closet, watched the surveillance camera complete its slow circuit, and judged to a nicety the time he'd need to get into safe, if crowded, haven.
The door closed behind the pair unseen by any security camera, and Renji locked it from inside.
Urahara sent a Hell butterfly to Yoruichi Shihoin, who showed up, cat-like, in her own good time.
"I sent you the butterfly hours ago," Urahara said, frowning.
"So you did," the nin said carelessly. "I am sometimes in a situation I cannot leave at the drop of a hat, Kisuke."
He nodded, poured tea. "Nonetheless, what I have in hand is somewhat ... urgent."
She raised a brow, took her cup.
"Byakuya Kuchiki is a prisoner within Las Noches."
"Really." Yoruichi's cup clacked down upon the table. "How long ago did this happen?"
"They were sent there ... I think it's a week ago now ... on a three-day reconnaissance mission. I've no idea when they were taken, but they've been there long enough now ..." to have been suborned, or tortured into submission, or turned into Hollows ...
"'They'? He's not alone?"
"Byakuya was accompanied by his fukutaichou, who has also failed of rendezvous."
Yoruichi said nothing. Urahara, who knew that she might not care about Renji, also knew that the former second-division taichou had known Byakuya Kuchiki from his childhood, and held his peace.
Finally, she sighed, and took another sip of tea. "Very well, Kisuke. What is it you want of me?"
"A simple in-and-out."
"Not a rescue mission?"
"Not yet. I need more data to do that; after all, we may have to carry them both. You'll be gathering information for me."
The damned broom closet was too small.
Renji had cleared it as much as he could, transferring the mop bucket and some other bulky items to another closet nearby, pretending to be a janitor with his heart in his mouth. So much could go wrong while he was gone: another janitor, taichou waking up, those bastards somehow tracing taichou ...
There still was not enough room for Byakuya to stretch out.
And he hadn't woken yet. It must have been a couple of hours since they left his cell; shouldn't that be enough time to get the drugs out of his system, and rouse him?
One other thing worried Renji. He'd removed the cock strap, but Byakuya was still rock-hard. It made the fukutaichou ache just to consider it.
He'd gathered this information by accidentally brushing his hand against the source of it. Byakuya had grunted and doubled over into himself.
Still, taichou's hard-on didn't show beneath the uniforms. He knelt over taichou, wrapping the arm with the invasion in the tape he'd stolen, insuring that it wouldn't be bumped accidentally, or torn out. Because the damned thing looked scary, and it made Renji more than a little sick to his stomach.
So cover it up, and get on with things.
The resultant white stretch over Byakuya's arm was visible under the edge of his purloined white uniform. Just for grins, Renji bandaged one of Kuchiki's ankles as well. It did two things: made it seem as if the arm wound might be one of several, and gave him a reason to carry taichou.
And now, perhaps, a little rest? Renji ensured that the door lock was thoroughly jammed on the inside, and lay down beside taichou.
He pillowed his head on his arm, ignored the throb in his big toe, and went to sleep.
Around his wrist, the reiatsu cage continued its work of weakening Byakuya Kuchiki.
"That's not Kuchiki," Sosuke Aizen said.
Gin Ichimaru took a long second look, gave a shout of laughter, and dropped the body to the floor of the cell.
"So Byakuya-kun din't come alone! Wonder if he's here with Abarai?" Gin smiled. Kuchiki was exciting, but he'd always had a thing for redheads.
"He hasn't been gone long," Aizen said, looking at the computer screen. He hit a few keys and the display changed. "No one's gone in or out of the entrance."
"Simple ta find 'em, then, if they're here."
Sosuke Aizen, for his part, was a great deal less than pleased. He'd been looking forward to his recreation. "It'll take hours to review all the security tapes," he said.
"Start with th' ones in here," Gin said cheerfully. "I'll do th' ones from th' corridors."
Aizen smiled. Kuchiki was beyond reach, momentarily, but although he neither looked nor reacted like Byakuya Kuchiki, Gin himself was here. "Gin. My rooms."
The silver-haired man turned, surprise and dismay on his face.
Yoruichi Shihoin went lightly through the entrance to Hueco Mundo, and dropped into the sand of the half-lit world.
Ahead, Las Noches gleamed in the distance.
They didn't call her the Queen of Flash for nothing. In ten minutes, she was inside Las Noches. In another ten, although none of them knew it, she was within twenty feet of Renji and Byakuya.
She had six devices. Kisuke's tap into Las Noches' monitoring system had located Byakua's cell, although Yoruichi had no plans to approach it, much as her heart had ached over what he'd been subjected to. Damn Kisuke and his "tapes," whatever those were.
The technologies used by nin tend to be very, very simple, and mostly put you into the personal distance of the person they are used against. These things Kisuke gave her, they didn't give you that satisfaction. You wouldn't feel your enemy die at your hands.
Still, they would divert any video shot of the halls around the Sixth Division taichou's prison, and replace it with something Kisuke called a "two-hour tape loop."
Two hours of empty halls, nothing more. And if she, Yoruichi Shihoin, couldn't get an unconscious man from Hueco Mundo to Soul Society in two hours, she'd ... she'd start being a dog, instead of a cat.
She carefully placed the tiny object on the camera that would otherwise have watched Renji and Byakuya escape their hiding place, and went on to the corridors outside Kuchiki's cell.
Renji, on his knees and using the Swiss Army key ring to file through the reiatsu cage on Byakuya's wrist, was not displeased with his progress.
He knew it for what it was after he touched it. Every Academy graduate had the experience of wearing one for a short period. It had been unpleasant for Renji, who realistically rated himself as average, if that, at the practice of kidou. What it was like for Byakuya, who had much more power available to himself than Renji could summon, the redhead could not imagine.
Gin had kept costs to a minimum by making the cages out of soft metal. The filings were accumulating quickly in a growing pile beneath taichou's wrist.
On the other hand, taichou still hadn't wakened. Byakuya's face displayed only his usual serene severity, and he hadn't dreamed, either. Renji was beginning to be frightened for him.
The file broke through. The circlet was severed.
Renji took both ends in his hand, and twisted, but even the soft metal was too hard to deform. He began filing at a point about halfway around the circle, and ignored the increasing pain of his ingrown toenail.
Kisuke Urahara, Yoruichi in cat-body on his lap, watched the video diverted from Las Noches.
Six cameras, in and around the cell they had last seen Byakuya Kuchiki in. Sosuke Aizen had them set to take a picture every six seconds, which made for a jerky movie.
Yoruichi in his lap purred, and stretched her cat-self out. Urahara didn't grudge her the ease; she'd accomplished what he asked in a very short period of time. If she needed to sleep she'd earned it.
He watched Aizen and Ichimaru approach the cell. Watched them cut down the prisoner.
Well, that was a surprise. They left the cell almost immediately, not bothering to lock it behind them. The inference was that it wasn't Byakuya who had been in it.
He channeled the tape-loops into the cameras surrounding Byakuya's cell. Then he returned to his jerky movie, one exposure every six seconds.
Urahara watched as the naked Arrancar found and roused his equally naked peer, and they, too, exited the cell.
He rewound the tape to a new starting point about an hour earlier, and began to watch again, putting the replay on fast-forward.
Renji Abarai had been filing for too long. He shifted his weight, to sit rather than kneel, so that he could get his aching foot off the toenail that, yes, he should have had seen to before he left. Dammit, anyway. He hated when taichou was right. Well, not that so much: he hated it when he was stupid. And he'd been deliberately stupid about the toenail.
That was something he could take care would never happen again.
Byakuya's limp arm rested across his knees. Renji didn't know how long he had been filing, or how long he had slept, but surely, surely, Byakuya should have wakened by now.
He resumed filing.
Some time later, the bracelet fell off taichou's arm. Done. Thank kami, that was off taichou. Now he could begin to recover. Renji put Byakuya's arm down, laying it across the other shinigami's chest.
Unless they'd done something with that invasive surgery into his arm? If that was so, taichou would have to stay asleep until he, Renji, got him back to Soul Society. It would be a lot of work to flash-step with taichou in his arms across the sands of Hueco Mundo, but Renji had done other, equally difficult things before.
It was just that he'd never before cared so damn much. Even if he got caught, all they could do was kill him; take for granted that the route would be horrendous, death was still the destination. But as for his taichou ... they didn't seem to have any limits to what they were willing to do to taichou. If it looked like they were going to be recaptured, Renji knew he'd kill Byakuya, just to keep him out of Aizen's and Ichimaru's hands.
And then it would be wisest to kill himself.
"No, Ichigo. I said you weren't coming. I meant it. They take you, and it's all over but the shouting. You'd be a fucking nightmare as an Espada. Are you going to debate me on that?"
The kid got red in the face. Didn't want to believe that he wasn't invincible. Urahara sighed.\
He didn't know it until much later, but it was the sigh that took the wind out of Ichigo's sails. That, and the loss of Urahara's smile.
"All right," the strawberry said slowly. "I guess I have to trust your judgment on this one."
Urahara, who had some idea of what that cost the kid, said simply, "Thank you."
Tessai Tsukabishi glowered from across the tea table. "Kisuke, I'm coming with you."
"Tessai, I need to know the shoten is in good hands while I'm gone." In case I don't come back.
Tessai crossed his arms. "Look, Kisuke, one of us is coming with you. Could be me, could be the kid, could be the shinigami." His eyes swept the group, and Rukia glowered right back at him from across the table. "So who's it gonna be?"
"Why can't it be me?" Jinta said.
"In five years, maybe," Urahara said, no possibility of argument in his tone. "Let me think." He got up from the table.
Renji Abarai slapped Byakuya Kuchiki in the face.
Not hard. A light blow was all that was necessary. He wanted, needed, taichou to wake up.
"Come on, taichou," he said, and reapplied hand to cheek. "Wake up. Wakey, wakey. Time to rise and shine."
The older shinigami's head rocked with the blow, but he didn't react.
Crap. No point in further abuse.
Renji sat with his back to the door of the broom closet, and sighed heavily. Just a little more time. He could afford to give Byakuya a little more time, but not much.
And the poor guy was still hard. Must have the worst case of blue balls in the history of the world.
He lay down beside taichou, and set himself to sleep again. When he woke ... they'd get out of there.
Kisuke worked with his Garganta. Worked with the energy until he could flip it on and off like a light switch. On, big black hole in the sky; off, no big black hole in the sky.
"Four seconds," Tessai said, clicking off the stop watch. "Down from twelve."
Kisuke sighed. "That's going to have to be close enough. I can't spend any more time on it."
Ichigo got up from his recumbent position on the lawn in a large park. "Four seconds isn't so long," he said. "And I don't see why we can't go now."
"They've been watching Kisuke flick that thing on and off like a light bulb for half an hour," Tessai rumbled. "Give 'em a little time to calm down. We've also got to reset for another portal on their side; use that one, they'll be all over you like white on rice."
Urahara said, flirting his fan, "Yes. We don't want to step through into a nest of Espada. So let's get you home in time for dinner, Ichigo. We'll leave when we've finished eating, and give you a little time for homework and a nap. Pick you up at nine."
Gin Ichimaru picked himself up slowly, slowly, off the bed.
Sosuke had been ... inventive.
He dressed, limped his way to his office. He had to find Kuchiki. He wanted to find the redhead.
At his desk, he put his head into his hands. He couldn't think.
It never occurred to Gin Ichimaru that he had just suffered that which he inflicted on Byakuya Kuchiki. Never occurred to him to think like that.
Substantial time passed before before the idea came to him. He kept records of which reiatsu cage went to which prisoner. He could trace it.
It took him some hours to create the contraption, and even then it was short-range. That meant walking the halls of Las Noches with the thing in his hand.
Then he remembered to watch the surveillance tapes, but they showed him nothing.
How had Abarai gotten Kuchiki out of his cell unseen?
Gin, subtle person though he was, was new to the world of industrial espionage. He was not yet aware that tapes, like individuals, could be suborned to the enemy's purpose. He wasted more precious time trying to figure that one out.
You've gotta wake up. We've gotta get going. Renji tapped taichou's cheek one more time. "Come on, taichou. Won't be long now."
"What ... won't be long? Please stop slapping me, fukutaichou."
Renji Abarai's hand dropped from the task of slapping his superior officer, and his eyes and mouth assumed an "O." "Taichou! You're awake. I'm glad." He helped Kuchiki to sit up and slide to put his back against the wall.
The soldier rubbed his eyes and his temples. "That makes one of us. Where are we, Renji?"
"It's a broom closet in Las Noches, taichou."
"Ah." Taichou lay back against the wall, his back not ramrod-straight for a change, and closed his eyes. "You got me out of that ... situation. Thank you."
Renji was not sure what the appropriate reaction to this speech was. He settled for saying, "Those sons of bitches."
"I'm inclined to agree with you." Byakuya opened his eyes, hitched himself. "I don't think I can walk, Renji, and my arms are also weakened. I'm not sure I can defend myself effectively. You should go on without me."
"Er." Renji shifted in his seat. "I know why that is, taichou. I watched what they did to you."
Taichou closed his eyes again, and sighed.
Renji went on, because he had to go on, "Taichou, there's a cure for it."
"Fukutaichou, if you touch me, I'll kill you."
Byakuya Kuchiki was battered, bruised, and closer to broken than anyone should be, and Renji still believed him. Absolutely. "Can't say's I'd blame you, sir, but that's the only way I know of to ... solve the problem."
"I've never been attracted to another man in my life."
"That makes it more difficult." He had been going to say harder. But something about taichou right now kept Renji's mouth from making jokes on automatic, the way he usually did; this was painful for both of them.
"You'd better tell me what you have in mind, fukutaichou."
"Flash-stepping away from this place once we get outside the walls, for one thing, taichou. If we can do that we might have half a chance of getting out of here. I'm pretty sure we've missed rendevous, though."
Byakuya yawned widely, focused a little better. "I see. That would seem the safest course. And to do that effectively, I have to be able at least to walk."
"I could carry you, but it'll slow me down. We'll be easier targets."
"Well, then. I'm reconciled, fukutaichou, to what must be done. Have you any suggestions?"
Renji admired the soldier as much as he loved the man. He made two, and sat in silence after, leaving taichou that space in which to choose, refuse, or think of something else.
Kisuke Urahara was nervous and letting it build. He'd also had coffee, not tea, this afternoon.
Tessai, whom Kisuke knew well enough to say with certainty that he only looked calm, said, "You're getting edgy." He started the van.
"Yes. It'll add a bit to my speed."
"Caffeine? I've got better things in the pharmacy, you know."
"I don't doubt you, but I know how caffeine works, and I know how to manage the dose."
"I wish you'd take Yoruichi with you too."
Urahara wrinkled up his nose. "She isn't finished being a cat yet, you know she uses it to recharge herself, and I won't take her with me until she's had a chance to shower and brush her teeth. She likes to tongue-kiss on the way back, and you know what cats use their tongues for."
"Chief," Tessai said very slowly, "that was 'way too much information." He pulled up in front of Ichigo Kurosaki's house, tapped the horn once. The kid came out immediately, and climbed into the back seat.
Tessai drove them carefully through evening traffic. Urahara half-turned in his seat, to face Ichigo. "Are you clear on your role, Ichigo? I need to have you tell me what you do here."
The kid scowled at him (so what, nothing changed there). "I committed it to memory, since you seemed so hot on it. We go in, I watch your back, our brief is to avoid not confront, we find them, we pick them up, you carry Renji, I carry Byakuya, we get the hell out."
"Good." Urahara turned around in his seat, and dropped into meditation.
Negotiations continued between two men in a closet.
"If that's what you want, I'll do it," Renji said.
"I have some ... questions first." Byakuya, hands on knees, could not look at his fukutaichou.
Renji was having a lot of trouble meeting Byakuya's eyes, too. Funny, when he and Shuuhei got it on, it was just a meeting between two friends for some ... unusual fun. Too bad taichou couldn't see it that way, but then ... he and Shuuhei ... nobody'd been beaten. Nobody'd been sexually invaded. It had been on the basis of friendship, and involved "please" and "thank you."
This wasn't going to be. This was complex just on taichou's part, and Renji was not going to go into his own feelings right now. Those were further muddied by having seen taichou ... as he was in that cell. Because Renji, who would have unhesitatingly defined himself as "not into that kinky stuff," had rarely seen anything hotter in his life.
Maybe Rukia in her favorite lingerie?
Yeah, you keep that thought.
He took a deep breath, and said quite carefully, "Go ahead, taichou. Please think over carefully what it is you wish to know. I will not lie to you, and I will answer any question you put to me."
Byakuya put his head back and sighed, closing his eyes. "Very well. Bottom, or top?"
Renji gulped. "How do you even know those terms, taichou?"
"Renji. I may maintain a calm exterior, but underneath it I am only ... I was only ... human. I need to have sex once in a while, and I cannot risk my partner's pregnancy. Put two and two together."
"Five," Renji's sense of humor said promptly. It quirked up the corner of taichou's mouth. "I thought that as things are right now, taichou, I would bottom. It will be ... easier for you that way."
"I am not up to much physical exertion."
"Yes. I'll bottom from the, er, top."
Taichou's mouth quirked again. "I see. It sounds a reasonable accommodation to ... the way things are right now." He eased himself a bit, sat more comfortably against the wall. "Is one time safer than another?"
"Not that I have observed, taichou."
"Renji. I think you can use my first name, and from now on when we are alone together, please do so."
"Thank you, Byakuya-sama."
"You're welcome, Renji-kun. No time like the present, do you think?"
"No, tai- Byakuya-sama. May I?" He reached for the strings of Byakuya's hakama.
And that is how Renji Abarai got the privilege of sitting on Byakuya Kuchiki's three-day-long erection.
It wasn't the fun it sounded like. The closet was small and one of them quite large; one of them was injured, if not badly; the other had more than his share of sore bruises, and an ingrown toenail that hurt like hell which he could not avoid kneeling on. If they made rhythmic rattles against the door to their hideaway, they might be discovered and would certainly be killed if they were. The freakin' floor was freakin' hard.
No, the circumstances were the very opposite of romantic. But neither of them wished to repeat the experience in more conducive surroundings. Renji was going to marry Rukia, and how the hell he would explain this to her, which he was going to sometime, was beyond him; Byakuya had ... other issues ...
They didn't quite come at the same time, which was just as well; one of them was always in control of himself sufficiently to put a hand over the other's mouth. Renji needed to do so twice, once at the very beginning when Byakuya said, "Ah gods Renjieeee..." and once at the end, when taichou was beyond language but not beyond yodeling.
The redhead didn't know about taichou, but it wasn't the hottest sex he had ever had with another man. Byakuya was beautiful, no doubt there. Renji enjoyed that part of it, having been only human once himself.
But the circumstances ...
Byakuya, bruised psychically as well as physically by the last week, was never really able to put the experience in context of "better than, worse than." It was for him help he desperately needed, offered freely when getting it meant survival, and not getting it ... didn't bear thinking about.
Offered freely, from a subordinate. It would complicate the command structure for a while, Byakuya thought some days later: but there he greatly wronged Renji Abarai, who never referred to it again, and never ever made capital of it.
It made a lot more sense if you viewed it as a gift from your future brother-in-law, but Byakuya was still fighting a rearguard action over that one, and didn't want to admit the possibility.
When they were done, and had cleaned up to the extent possible ... Renji and Byakuya came out of the closet together.
Ichigo's waraji hit the sands of Hueco Mundo, and he swung Zangetsu over one shoulder. Kisuke Urahara was a few steps ahead of him.
"Let's go, Ichigo," the former taichou said to him. "I don't want to be here longer than
necessary."
They flash-stepped. Urahara got out his Hollow-in-a-ball, which Ichigo was not happy to see; the thing made him sick. It roiled and burbled in its crystal, once fixing him with a mournful eye.
"This way," Urahara said. They set off over the sands of the dead world.
They didn't see anyone or anything. Renji's Gila monster saw them pass but offered no greeting.
Outside the walls of Las Noches, Kisuke Urahara chanted, "Singing sand/And beam of light/Take this wall/Down in flight!" A small and very localized sandstorm made him and Ichigo both cover their eyes with their sleeves, and then there was a hole in the walls of Las Noches, just about Urahara-sized. They stepped through.
The shopkeeper did not look at the substitute shinigami, instead putting his energy into following the bouncing ball. It looked around itself, then focused on -
A totally blank wall.
"Not helpful," Ichigo said under his breath.
"Shut up," Urahara said. He went down a corridor at ninety degrees to the direction the ball was looking at, then took the first left turn available. The thing's eye began to point straight ahead.
Four cross-corridors later, the eye abruptly took another left turn. Urahara followed it.
An empty corridor greeted them. Urahara said very quietly, "Byakuya? Renji? It's Kisuke Urahara. Ichigo's with me. Time to go home."
Two white-framed faces appeared cautiously around a corner. Ichigo drew Zangetsu, but one of them said, "Put it down, baka. It's us," and pulled the white cowl from his scarlet hair. Byakuyua did the same, and his unbound tresses spilled out.
Kisuke jerked his head the way they'd come. "Let's get out of here," he said.
They were within sight of the hole they'd made when four white-clad Arrancar arrived to see what the problem was.
Ichigo growled. Urahara said, "Go get 'em, kid," and watched him do just that.
So everyone was happy. Except the four Arrancar, but they didn't get a vote.
There is a time, when you are almost out of the grasp of a lethal enemy, to stop and celebrate your escape.
Then there is a time to say that "almost" is not "certainly," and shunpo the fuck as fast as you can in any direction away. Byakuya knew that this was that time, but he was still weak, and annoyingly slow.
The others were halfway to the horizon. "Dammit," he said, under his breath. He'd learned to hide it well in the intervening years, but the short temper he'd had as a child had never really left him. It is very possible to curse and shunpo simultaneously, without shortening your breath, and he was doing so.
Halfway to the horizon, the other three stopped. "What's the matter with him?" Ichigo said. "I guess I'll have to carry him." He turned to go back.
Renji laid a hand on his arm, shook his head. "No. I'll go back for him." Such was his tone of voice that Urahara caught Ichigo's eye and shook his own head.
The kid stepped down. Renji flashed back, said cheerfully, "Like a lift, taichou?"
Byakuya growled. Kami damn it, I hate this. Then he said, almost unwillingly, "Yes, please. It looks like it'll take me forever, otherwise."
Renji pulled taichou's arm across his own shoulder, and they left Las Noches together.
From his hospital bed, Byakuya could overlook the Fourth Division training grounds.
They sucked at sword practice. The lot of 'em.
Unohana-taichou's knock sounded at his door. "Come in, Retsu," he said.
She smiled at him, sitting up very straight in his bed. "How are you today, Byakuya?"
"Better." He smiled, to take the sting out of his duosyllable.
Unohana smiled back at him, and opened his file. Like most of her patients, he would never know that she had assessed skin tone, general air of well-being or otherwise, and several other indices of health by this point in her "chat."
She locked his door behind her, which raised his eyebrows, and came to sit in his bedside chair. "I wanted to tell you that the surgery was a complete success. You shouldn't have any lasting reminders of your visit to Las Noches." She snapped the file shut.
The spare soldier shifted in his hospital bed. He looked out the window at the Fourth, massacring a sword kata he had memorized by the time he was ten; he hoped she couldn't see the shine of tears in his eyes. "Thank you for your concern, Retsu, and for your help. –May I give you a piece of information, taichou?"
"Certainly."
"Your people need a lot of help on sword drills."
Two days later, Sosuke Aizen realized that the copy of Sun Tzu found in Byakuya Kuchiki's pack had somehow vanished from his quarters. This distressed him greatly, but not so much as did a second discovery.
"How the hell did a cat get in here to shit on my bed?"
Yoruichi had been pleased to return Sun Tzu to Byakuya-sama. She went off to shower and brush her teeth, and then, not taking no for any freakin' answer, kissed the hell out of one Kisuke Urahara.
"Taichou!" Renji said, jumping up from his desk and catching his balance with a hand on its edge.
It was a week after their return from Las Noches, and six days after fukutaichou's ingrown toenail had been addressed by Isane Kotetsu. "I cannot believe," she'd said frostily, "that you let it get into this shape." She dosed the area with a topical anaesthetic, whereupon it stopped hurting for the first time in more than a week, and reached for a very scary-looking scalpel.
Renji shrugged, careful not to move the foot. "I didn't plan on getting bitten by some kind of lizard."
She'd shaken her head. "Only you, Abarai-fukutaichou, could find and annoy into biting you a lizard in Hueco Mundo."
She'd been as gentle as she could be with it, what she did had him singing a capella with pain even after the anaesthetic, and Renji was still forbidden to soak the bandages. He spent some time in the baths every day with one foot hanging out over the edge. It still hurt like hell, and he couldn't put his weight on it.
Byakuya gave him a genuine smile, and sat rather gingerly behind his own desk. "Renji. I thought we'd established a first-name basis?"
"Sorry, Byakuya. Old habits die hard."
"They do indeed. –Will you and Rukia come to dinner with me tonight? If you are to marry, there are things to be discussed."
Author's note: If you were enamored of the long-form "Incursion" please be aware that this document represents several hours of rescue work. I will salvage what I can of the long form, and post those chunks as "Incursion - Outtakes." But that 's several more hours of work in the future.