Well, I'm back, charming southerness (Is that a word? Meh, it is now) and all :-) This story is dedicated to my awesome, amazing, fabulous (Was that enough adjectives? No? One more, then), terrifical (why yes, I did just make that up right now) reader, 0Sam0. Your review on my story Turbulent was sooooooo sweet and nice! This one's for you. I hope you like it :-) Once again, I'm using the internet game I used in Turbulent.
Disclaimer: Well, we all know I don't own this. If I did, there wouldn't be so much goddamned PTSD and tragedy and STRESS. I swear to God, half the time that I was watching this, I was more stressed out than the characters. I mean, Ichigo's fighting Aizen, and he's like, "Meh, let me just use this as an opportunity to show off my badass new skills and sexiness." And I'm just like, "OH SHIT. MOVE. GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. YOU WILL DIE, YOU STUPID IDIOT. MOVE OUT OF THE F***ING WAY."
Time: 29 minutes
Pairing: Slight Shunsui x Nanao
Theme: Terror
Source: Believe me, I know what a panic attack is like. It's one of the worst feelings ever. You can't breathe, and no matter what you do, it feels like you're helpless, like there's a huge monster towering over you and there's not one single thing you can do about it. It's awful.
Nanao ran like the demons of Hell were chasing her. The mud and blood and death-smell of the battlefield faded away, becoming colorless and unimportant. It had been a long time, but her reiatsu was still holding strong. She used that extra strength now, pushing the limits of her shunpou, only saving enough power for one extremely explosive kidou spell.
It still wasn't fast enough, though. She watched, horrified, as her taichou fell. The Vasto Lordes had snuck up on him, stabbing him through the stomach. In one more massive shunpou leap, she was at his side.
It was bad. That much, she could tell. His breathing was slow - too slow, too slow - and he looked half-dead already and there was blood everywhere and ohmygod why was there so much blood, there should not be that much blood, it was too much, too much -
She did not know how long she sat there before Unohana-taichou's hand came down on her shoulder. It took a moment for it to register that she was saying something, and Nanao tried her best to listen. "Ise-san, he's going to be fine. You need to let go of his hand now, please. We need to get the both of you to the Fourth. I promise, he'll be okay. You can let go now."
She hadn't realized that she was holding his hand, and as she dropped it, she idly reflected that he would have been glowing with happiness if she'd done that while he was conscious. She allowed Unohana-taichou to lead her away, away from her taichou, too bloody and with too many healers swarming around him. If he was going to be okay, why did they need so many healers?
Before she had really registered what was going on, she was at the Fourth. Her blood-soaked robes had been replaced with the clean white hospital variety. It was almost like the battle hadn't happened. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't feeling much of anything. Shock, she supposed.
Around midday, the bumbling seventh seat Hanataro stopped by to give Nanao a pill, and to deliver the update on her taichou's health.
"It's not looking too good, Ise-san. He'll probably survive, but there's a chance that he could be paralyzed. The Vasto Lordes that stabbed him also injected him with poison. If the surgery doesn't go well, he might end up without the use of his legs."
Nanao took the pill, and Hanataro tripped his way out of the room. About five minutes after he left, reality kicked in, and the full weight of what he'd said penetrated the shock that was resting over her like a blanket.
She felt the all-too familiar panic take hold of her, squeezing the air from her lungs and hitting her like a brick to the head. She felt sick and dizzy and exhausted all at once. All of a sudden, there wasn't enough oxygen in the room, and she felt the almost overwhelming need to get away, to be somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was far away from here.
No! She would not give in this easily! She had fought these panic attacks when she was a child, and she'd fight them now. She forced herself to take deep breaths, closing her eyes and relaxing her tensed muscles. She stayed perfectly still. When she opened her eyes, the dizziness had subsided. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was still there, but it was less intense.
She forced herself to think about it logically. Hanataro had said that he would almost definitely survive. There was a chance that he could be paralyzed, but Nanao didn't think that it was very likely, as Unohana-taichou was a master surgeon. As she reassured herself, the sick feeling gradually subsided until she felt perfectly fine, if not a bit tired and worried. He'd be fine, she was sure of it.
After all, he'd promised that he'd never leave his Nanao-chan alone.
And there you have it, folks! :-) Hope y'all enjoed it, although personally, I think the ending was a bit weak. Please rate and review, it'll make my day!
