Chapter 3: Whispers of Insanity
Byakuya moved beyond the edges of the small, devastated town, trying not to see the little of bodies that the recent attack had left behind. At his side, Tetsuya blinked away the moisture that touched his blue eyes as he witnessed the signs of a cruelty as horrendous, if not worse than any he could remember.
"Byakuya..." he breathed, wondering at how the very air he took in felt like splinters as he passed the bodies of a mother who had died shielding her doomed child, the remains of the dog that had tried and failed to defend them both and the shattered and burning home that still smoked and crackled behind them.
"They had no warning," Byakuya surmised, "This enemy watched before striking and struck cleanly...with purpose."
Tetsuya gazed at him in surprise.
"But...the quincies did not have ambitions of destroying the normal souls, just the shinigamis of the Seireitei. Watashi no itoko, something is very wrong with this!"
"Agreed. Tetsuya, stay on your guard and come with me."
The two followed the path of destruction, forcing themselves to carefully study everything, from the evidence on the broken buildings to the bearing of the enemy's path, from the clusters of collapsed and ruined bodies to the very scars on the earth. Lines of frustration marked their faces as they worked and they paused as they passed the last destroyed tenement.
"Something is out there...in that direction, ahead of us," Tetsuya reported.
"I sense it too," Byakuya agreed, "We should separate slightly to make it harder to attack both of us and we'll use your shikai."
"Hai," Tetsuya agreed, swiftly invoking his power.
Their coloring faded and their bodies seemed to become translucent. They moved away from each other and onto the edges of the trail leading out of town. Carefully avoiding direct rays of the sun that would expose them, they remained in the shadows and skirted the edges of the woods, searching for any sign of the town's attackers. Tetsuya felt a shift in the reiatsu around them and scanned the area carefully. He let out a frustrated breath at feeling the sensation of being watched and carefully stalked and looked across the trail, where he sensed his cousin.
Tetsuya flinched and made a sound of surprise and pain as he felt a small, sharp sting on his ankle. He looked down and his frown deepened as he felt the continuation of the pain, but could not see any cause. But the spreading numbness that began to assault his body was warning enough.
"Shussui!" he gasped, drawing his sword and sensing Byakuya's direction.
Cool liquid seeped into his veins, flooding them with relieving reiatsu and buying him time to warn his cousin of the danger.
"Byakuya-sama!" he cried, "your senkei!"
He limped in the direction he sensed Byakuya in, arriving in time to find the clan leader, staggering back and seeming to struggle with something unseen.
"Byakuya!"
Tetsuya flash stepped to his side, ignoring the sting of additional unseen enemies as he touched Byakuya and offered him the same relieving infusion.
"Raise your senkei, cousin!" he called out again, "We'll be able to hit them even if we cannot see them!"
"Bankai," Byakuya panted, trying not to notice as more enemies attacked and their bites not only infused the two with more venom, but began to draw blood, "S-senbon..."
"Byakuya!" Tetsuya cried again, invoking his own shikai and sweeping the area around them with water to try to drive the invisible creatures away.
To his dismay, whatever the creatures were, the water did not faze them as they continued their assault.
Byakuya's shikai roared to life and swept the area around them with bladed petals. The two sighed in relief as the petals seemed to destroy whatever was attacking, but reacted swiftly as a barrage of bright blades of lights exploded all around them.
"This isn't quincy power!" Byakuya exclaimed.
He started to say more, but went suddenly silent as a sharp, unforgiving pain rose up in his midsection. He looked down in surprise and found a sword tip protruding from his abdomen. He heard Tetsuya scream in pain and watched him fall as the sword impaling him began to glow with malevolent light. Pain exploded everywhere at once and he crashed to the ground, his shocked mind unable to comprehend how quickly they had been undone. As he lost consciousness, he had the strange feeling of something wrapping around his insides and squeezing until he could barely breathe. Numbing terror flooded his body from end to end as whatever had invaded him crept up his spine and seeped into his brain, stealing away his senses and leaving him immobilized and completely senseless. The last thing that reached him was Tetsuya's howl of terror and an explosion of something icy sweeping over them.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Hey, it's all right. Calm down, okay?" Ichigo pleaded softly, slipping his hand into Byakuya's sweating one and trying to muffle the moans and incomprehensible utterances that he emitted, "We don't want to give them any more reason to think you've lost it."
"Th-they are biting!" Byakuya panted, earning worried glances from Ichigo and Renji, "I c-can't see th..."
Ichigo reacted swiftly as a swirl of petals began to form around them. His reiatsu surrounded the petals, destroying them before they could cause any damage. He didn't dare look at Renji as he adjusted the limiter on Byakuya's wrist to reset it at his strongest level.
"He's getting really dangerous, Ichigo," Renji whispered, "and you know we're being watched. It won't be long before they'll be able to convince the healers to send them away. What are we going to do?"
He looked down at Tetsuya, whose eyes had opened and were watching the redhead with no sign of recognition and a large measure of fear.
"We can't do this on our own anymore," the Shiba heir concluded, "But just so you know, I was able to speak to Kisuke earlier. He said that if we can get Byakuya and Tetsuya to him, that he will help us escape to a safe house, where he can try to help them."
The two turned their attention to Tetsuya as the younger noble seemed to suddenly realize he was restrained and began to struggle.
"Wh-what is this? What are you doing?" he cried, writhing under his bonds, "Let me go! I haven't done anything. Let me go! Let me go!"
"Hey, take it easy," Renji said soothingly, brushing several strands of wavy hair away from Tetsuya's sweating face, "The healers restrained you for your healing. You were very badly injured and struggling could hurt you."
"Let me go! Let me go!" Tetsuya sobbed senselessly, "You can't keep me here!"
Ichigo and Renji leaned over their respective charges, but their objections continued until the door to the room opened and Kotetsu Isane entered with a second healer.
"I am sorry. I must sedate them," she told their two friends, "Their reiatsu is breaking through even the stronger limiters we've put on them."
"No, please! Stop!" Tetsuya screamed, struggling wildly as the second healer approached, "Don't let them...don't! S-stop, please!"
His objections faded into softer, agonized sobs as the healer immobilized him and quickly applied the sedative to his IV. Renji watched with tormented eye as his lover's lips continued to move and tears ran down from his closed eyes.
Across the room, Kotetsu Isane waited as Ichigo held Byakuya still, then moved forward and injected the sedative into his IV.
"I c-can't see them!" Byakuya gasped, his eyes opening wide and fixing on Ichigo.
Ichigo stared into the deep, wide centers, his insides chilled at the emptiness there.
"They are...invisible! They...this...it..."
Take it easy. It's okay now," Ichigo said, squeezing the Kuchiki heir's hand, "You're at home and safe now. You have to rest and get better."
"B-but they are not...they...are invisible!" Byakuya moaned, earning sympathetic looks from the healers as he began to lose consciousness again, "Th-they are not...quin..."
His words faded and his body went limp.
"Renji-san, Ichigo-san," Isane said sadly, "They are not improving. They are, in fact, deteriorating mentally. And a few minutes ago, I received an order from the Kuchiki family for the two to be moved to a long-term care facility some distance from here. You won't be allowed to see them. The Kuchiki family has also issued a privacy order."
"Whoa, they can't do that, can they?" Ichigo objected, "Renji is engaged to Tetsuya! They were going to be married. They can't disallow him visiting Tetsuya, can they?"
"Actually, as the engagement wasn't official and the two had yet to take any vows, the clan has complete control over Tetsuya-san's fate."
"And I have no real claim on Byakuya, even though I'm the only one he really responds to at all," Ichigo sighed, "Isane, what can we do? Look, we can't let them be taken away. We can't!"
"Ichigo's right," Renji insisted, "You saw. You know that cousin of theirs just wants to make sure they'll never come back. That's why he's sending them away and not letting us see them."
"My hands are tied," the healer confessed, "I have no power anymore to keep them, because the Kuchiki family had their own healers examine the records and they concluded that the two were stable enough to be transferred."
"I smell a rat on that one," Renji huffed disgustedly.
"Yeah, me too," agreed Ichigo, "Please, Isane, you have to..."
"I told you I can't do anything," the young woman said sadly.
She paused for a moment, her expression growing even more sad.
"But..." she went on, earning curious glances from Ichigo and Renji, "I know if Unohana taicho was still here, she would think of something to do. And...I think what she would do is to order a final examination in one hour and give the two of you time to say your farewells to these two patients."
Giving the two a determined wink, the healer exited the room.
"You know that they will have the exits watched," Ichigo said softly, quickly releasing the unconscious Kuchiki heir's restraints.
"Yeah," Renji agreed, frowning.
"So, how do we get out?"
Renji started to shake his head, but paused as he lifted Tetsuya's unconscious form and gazed down at his lover's troubled sleeping face. Slowly, a look of triumph rose on his handsome tattooed features.
"What?" Ichigo inquired, "You have an idea?"
"Yeah, maybe."
"Okay, shoot, but shoot fast!"
"All right. You know that Tetsuya and Arashi use the same powers."
"But Arashi disappeared when Tetsuya was injured," Ichigo objected, "He can't help us."
"No," Renji agreed, "But because of the strength of the resonance between us, Tetsuya told me that it might be possible for us to borrow each other's powers."
"But you've never done that, have you?"
"No. But it's worth a try, right? Just give me a sec."
He leaned over Tetsuya and touched his lower abdomen, sending some of his own reiatsu into the injured shinigami's body.
"What are you doing?" asked Ichigo.
"I'm drawing in a little of his reiatsu and mingling it with mine."
"I hope you know what you're doing," the Shiba heir sighed impatiently, "If not, we're not going to get out of here with them. Hurry up, will you?"
"Okay, okay, let me give this a try now."
Renji lowered his head and focused intently on Tetsuya's midsection, willing his power to come to life. At first, nothing happened, but after several more minutes, a flicker of blue coalesced around Renji's hands and the redhead's hands disappeared.
"W-well, that's pretty impressive," Ichigo admitted, "But I think more than our hands have to disappear, buddy."
"Shut the hell up! I know that!" Renji exclaimed irritably.
He focused harder and slowly made himself and Tetsuya disappear into waterforms, then focused on Byakuya and Ichigo as well.
"Now, we just have to stay out of direct sunlight and don't get hit more than once if we are attacked. The waterform won't be very strong, but it can hide us a little."
The two froze as angry voices sounded outside the door.
"You have received a direct order from the highest ranking noble family, you stinking peasant!" Orochi's voice hissed scathingly, "Now, get out of the way so that we can move our cousins to the new facility!"
Ichigo and Renji clutched their respective charges and retreated to a shaded corner of the room, holding their breath as the door crashed open and several members of the Kuchiki clan entered the room. Orochi spotted the empty beds and turned on the reeling healers.
"You fools! You've let those two abduct our cousins. Do you realize what you've done?"
"I am sorry sir," Isane said with surprising poise, "But your own guards have been watching the whole time. We have a lot of patients, as the war has only just ended. You cannot blame us if your own security failed."
"I swear," Orochi snarled furiously, "If I see that blasted red haired beast or that poor excuse for a noble, Shiba Ichigo, I will destroy them!"
"Be that as it may," Isane snapped back, "You no longer need to be destroying the calm in this hospital. I suggest you go before I have our security forces eject you forcibly!"
"Don't worry. I don't want to spend another second in this dirty, vermin infested place," Orochi seethed.
He turned to his accomplices.
"They were just here. They can't have gone far. Find them!"
"Hai!" the others shouted, flash stepping away.
Ichigo and Renji waited until the men were gone, then breathed a sigh of relief.
"Come on," Ichigo urged the redhead, "Let's get out of here. We have to get to Kisuke."
"But they're running ahead of us, and I'll bet that's one of the first places they'll look."
"I have an idea about that," Ichigo offered.
"Oh, what? You wanna tell me how the hell we're supposed to...?"
He paused as a sly smile rose on Ichigo's face.
"What is that look? What are you thinking, pal?"
"I was just thinking that if the senkaimon isn't available and they're going to be watching for us in Karakura Town, "I might know a place they won't be looking."
"Why does that give me a bad feeling?" Renji groaned, "What are you going to do?"
His face was overwritten with surprise and dismay as Ichigo extended a hand and calmly opened a garganta.
"Hey! What the hell? When did youlearn to do that?" Renji demanded.
"Shh, don't tell," Ichigo said, smirking, "A little blue haired bird that likes to fight offered to take me on anytime and gave me a free pass to meet him in Hueco Mundo."
Renji's eyes widened.
Shut the hell up! You don't mean him, do you? You've got to be out of your fucking mind! That guy almost killed you!"
"Yeah, well that was a while ago. We're on better terms now. I think I can get him to help us. But we'd better hurry. Opening a garganta's going to draw attention to us."
He nodded in the direction of the door as footsteps sounded in the corridor.
"Come on!"
The two dashed into the opened cavern, carrying the two Kuchiki nobles, then Ichigo closed the path behind them, just as the door began to open.
"Whew! That's a relief," Ichigo sighed.
"It's no relief," Renji complained, "You are out of your goddamned mind Ichigo! Grimmjow's going to fuck us over. I know he will!"
"Don't worry about it," Ichigo said, turning to lead the way, "I've got this."
He set out ahead of Renji, his eyes betraying the slightest doubt.
"At least, I think I've got this..." he muttered, not loud enough for Renji to hear.