[Chapter warnings: Off-sceen gang rape of a canon female character. Threatened rape of another (coded as a minor). Also discussion of rape as a weapon. Nothing explicit. Off-screen canon character death.]
Taichō was gonna to kill him. No, screw that. Byakuya was gonna kill him. And he'd deserve it. Less than five minutes it had taken for the kid to blow an alliance going back three generations sky-fucking-high, while Renji sat on his ass and let it happen.
With a snarled, "With me," Renji strode from Kyōraku's office, ignoring both Take's snapped, 'Sir,' as he went past and the guards coming down the corridor, and headed for the main doors, not waiting to see if Ichigo was following.
It wasn't the injury. Okay, that'd been nasty, but it'd heal. It might not even scar. It was the way Ichigo had done it. Eaten away at her face with his hand.
Fuck. Renji suppressed a shudder, straightened his shoulders and kept walking.
He'd seen pictures of what Quincy could do; Byakuya had made him read the books after what the kid had done at the arena; but a picture and seeing it actually happen – two totally different things.
Those hands were on his dick last night!
But they still belonged to Ichigo, and one look at the kid's face said he hadn't meant to do it. He'd been as upset as anyone else. Scared. Renji hadn't missed the horrified look he'd shot at his own hand as he'd put two and two together and realised what he'd done.
Within a couple of minutes it became obvious that they were being followed, the numbers slowly growing until there was a small mob on their tail by the time they reached the gate. Renji's fingers ached to draw Zabimaru and take out some of his tension in the simple bite of metal into flesh. But he couldn't. Not here. If taichō was gonna stand a chance of fixing this, Renji needed not to make it worse.
When several guards stepped out from under the portico to block the way, Renji swallowed back a surge of adrenaline and put on his best fukutaichō manner. "The 6th doesn't want trouble with the 8th," he said, standing firm, legs apart and strong, one hand loose on Zabimaru's hilt, the other gripping the sheath. "Let us pass and nothing has to happen."
One of the guards swaggered forwards, the wind whipping at his shihakushō. "Word says your third put his hands on our Nanao," the guy said and his words were echoed by growls and shifting of feet around them.
Renji's heart sank. This had just gone from an inter-unit pissing contest to 'your man touched our woman', and those arguments never ended well.
"Like you never wanted to," a voice came from behind him. The guard hastened into a salute as the crowd parted to let Yadomaru Lisa through. Renji had never been so happy to see the bolshie fukutaichō in his life. She arrowed a disgusted look at him. "Taichō thought you might need help getting out. I considered just letting them have you and but, hell, I'd just have to find someone to clean up the mess."
Feeling well and truly put upon, Renji bore it all with unbowed shoulders, and promised vengeance on Ichigo for the humiliation when they got home.
Yadomaru stepped closer, her voice dropping to a more personal level. "Plus he wanted you to know it looks like someone's doing a run on the 10th. Probably the third seat from the 11th, but it's all up in the air right now.
A run on the 10th. Crap. Not that it wasn't expected with the way Ōtoribashi had been playing favourites, but if there was an overspill onto the streets, they were gonna end up right in the thick of it on the way home. No wonder Yadomaru was so happy to throw them out.
"Right," she said, raising her voice. "Get that gate open, there's trash needs tossing." And with that they were unceremoniously evicted.
With night falling, lightning arcing, and potential rioters on the streets, Renji made an executive decision. "We're taking it slow," he told everyone. "Don't even try shunpo'ing, not in this. I don't wanna have to scrape you off the walls when you end up getting lost. And if we run into any trouble, keep yer head down, keep to the shadows and keep moving. We do not, I repeat, not want any trouble with the 11th. Got it?"
A chorus of, '"Sir, yes, sir,' met his words and, reassured that none of them were going to do anything really dumb, he turned his attention to Ichigo.
The kid was standing to one side, head down, scowling at his feet. Renji rested a hand on his shoulder and said in a low voice that kept things between the two of them, "I'm not gonna say anything 'cause I'm pretty damn sure you know what you've done, but you've gotta shake it off. It's gonna be dangerous out there tonight and the guys are gonna need you to watch out for them. We're all in this together."
Ichigo looked up, his eyes were still sad and tired, but he nodded. Then, as though registering where he was and who he was speaking to, he stood up straighter and dipped a quick shallow bow. "I'm there. I won't let them down."
"Never thought you would," Renji said, giving the shoulder a pat before letting go. He raised his voice. "Right, let's go."
They made it all the way to the far end of the 8th's grounds before they heard raised voices and the clash of steel coming from up ahead. Renji waved the others to a stop then leapt for a nearby roof and, keeping low, went to see what they were up against.
The road ahead was effectively blocked by a large sprawling crowd of well over a hundred shinigami and civilians, drinking and fighting and generally making a nuisance of themselves. He didn't recognise any of them, but then he had no reason to. They were probably a mixed bag of troublemakers. Every unit had them, even the 6th, and though Renji did his best to make sure none of his people joined in when a run went down, it was almost impossible to stop. For some, it was like a fever got a hold of them, and they went from being okay kind of guys you might have a drink with to thugs with no thought for anything but the fight.
Then there was the 11th, and they just started out that way.
Renji glanced back at Ichigo and their escorts, and for once really wished they were all men. It didn't often make a difference. In fact mostly he preferred a mix, the girls kept the guys from acting like idiots, and he'd rarely hit a situation where the women couldn't match the men blow for blow and even come out ahead. But the situation they were heading into was one of them, because these weren't hollows they were facing.
Hollows didn't care if the shinigami they fought were male or female. They were all just extra tasty soul snacks as far as they were concerned. Other shinigami were another matter altogether and a mob of them were different again.
Between him, Ichigo and their escorts, they were six guys and four women, and apart from Take, whose hair and build were almost indistinguishable from a man's in the gathering dusk, all the women looked like women. Caught by a mob, especially if some of the nastier elements had come out to play, they were going to be extra vulnerable.
They should turn back. That would be the safe thing to do.
But it would also drive them up against the walls of the 8th and if this crowd moved or grew, they'd be trapped. And then the only way out would be through, and even Byakuya might run out of funds for reparations if Renji had to bankai their way through a crowd of rioters.
Nope, there was nothing for it, they were going to have to take the risk.
He slid from the roof and returned back to Ichigo and the others.
"Close ranks," he said. "We're going up on the roofs. Take, you and the girls stay in the middle." He held up a hand before she could even start. "I'll fight it out with you later, just do as you're told for now. I don't wanna have to explain to taichō that you got snatched and gang-banged by the 11th." That shut her up, as he hoped it might.
No such luck for Ichigo. "Why don't we just go back?"
Irritation rising, Renji snapped, "Ya wanna risk your life on them letting us back in, 'cause I reckon they're more likely to stand on the walls and laugh when this lot catch up with us, don't you?"
Ichigo took a step back, eyes wide, and, damn it, the kid was still too tied up in knots about Ise to think clearly. Renji wished with everything he was that they hadn't come out tonight, that there hadn't been a storm, that there hadn't been a riot...
Crap, yes, of course, that was the way to do it.
Thinking fast, he plotted the route in his head. In over the back wall, cross over and past the barracks, circle round the main block and then out the other side near the main gates. No one would be taking notice of the alarms, not tonight. In fact, they probably wouldn't be the only ones doing it. The 10th's stores would be ransacked by morning if Madarame hadn't thought to stick guards on the quartermasters.
"Change of plans," he said. "Not the roofs. We're cutting through the 10th."
"Lieutenant, its illegal to- !" Ganbe, the youngest of his own escort, began, only for Take to interrupt with a well-timed, "Shut it, kiddo. Fukutaichō's right. Legal or not, it's the last place anyone's gonna be watching and so long as we're quick and quiet, it's gonna be a hell of a lot safer than trying to go through that mob."
Renji nodded his thanks at her. Ganbe was right about it being illegal. Entering another division's grounds without permission was technically trespass punishable by a steep fine. Except, because the only people who normally did it were wannabes doing a run on the captain, anyone who got caught was normally killed on principle. It made casual trespass a risky venture, so they'd need to be on their guard, and it was still safer than taking on a mob head-on.
He drew Zabimaru and quickly cleansed the two mods they had with them, pocketing the pills for reuse later. If they were going to break the law, there was no point having more witnesses around than they had to.
Inside the grounds of the 10th it was ominously dark and quiet. Renji stuck to the walls, moving fast from cover to cover, until he had no choice but to break for the first set of buildings. They too were deserted, and he was starting to get a bad feeling about what they might find at the centre.
The first sign of trouble was someone screaming. It came from a building across the big training field, close to the main offices.
The second it started, Renji grabbed a hold of Ichigo's arm and was still only just in time to stop the kid from running towards it. He turned on Renji, his face the picture of betrayal. "You're not gonna tell me we're just leaving her," he accused, because, yeah, that was a woman screaming and that was men laughing and, fuck, Renji didn't have to be a genius to work out what was happening over there.
Sadly, he was no stranger to this sort of thing. When he was a kid, the shinigami didn't always come round the camps recruiting, and most of the guards could be persuaded to turn a blind eye to girls, and the prettier boys, going missing for a decent bribe. Some of the kids even survived the experience, like Fumiko, though she'd never been the same afterwards.
The woman screamed again and he couldn't do it. He couldn't move on and let this happen.
Turning to the escorts, he said, "I'm can't make this an order, since technically it's against the law, but Ichigo and me are going in to get her out. Those who want to help, come with us. Those who don't head home. No one's gonna hold it against you."
He got three volunteers, one of whom was Take which came as no surprise at all, and leaving the others to move on without them, they set off across the dark deserted training grounds.
The building in question was a indoor training block of some kind. When they were about twenty feet away, Renji gestured for a halt and started working up a concealment bakudō. It wasn't a high level kidō, but it did take a lot of concentration and Renji's head was anything but clear and calm.
After two false starts, Take put a hand on his arm and said quietly, "Let Sou do it. He's a dab hand with kidō and that way you can worry about getting whoever that is in there out."
Renji glanced over at the grey-haired Sou, who was looked scared but determined. He had a daughter, Renji remembered, no wonder he wanted to help. "Okay, fine," he said. "Can you keep us covered while we move?"
The man nodded. "But please don't run too fast," he whispered. His reiatsu was already building and Renji had time for a moment of panic that it might be noticed before it snapped into the spell and the world around them took on the rainbow hues of a kyokkō.
The four of them crept towards the back of the building since the kidō might impede sight but it wouldn't stop anyone from hearing them if they made a noise. The screaming had stopped and Renji very much hoped it was because the guys'd finished and not because their victim was dead.
Guttering light shone from one of the windows and Renji peered through, quickly assessing the situation inside. A group of five men dressed in hakama and not much else sat towards the front of the large room in a rough circle. Several jugs of sake stood around them, one or two already empty and lying on their sides. They looked to be playing cards, and seemed pretty deeply engrossed. Of the woman, there was no sign.
A quiet choking sound came from beside him and then Ichigo said, "Are they from the 11th?"
Before Renji could answer, Heishi, the fourth member of their group, hissed, "No, the 10th. Bastards."
"They did that to their own fukutaichō?" Ichigo said, and his voice was loud enough that one of the men glanced over in their direction.
Renji slammed a hand over Ichigo's mouth, all the while thinking, 'Not Matsumoto, please not Matsumoto.' And then he spotted her. In the shadows against the far wall and almost obscured from his line of sight by the men. She was huddled into a ball and looked to be clutching what was left of her shihakushō to her chest, only... No, that wasn't her uniform it was another person. A tiny one with pink hair.
Ah, fuck.
"She's got Yachiru with her," Take murmured, and rather than upset, she sounded satisfied. "Oh, good girl."
Apparently Take was seeing something here that Renji was missing. He cocked a quizzical look at her.
"She's protecting her. If they've got both of them in there then Yachiru was up for the same thing Rangiku just got. But it looks like she fought them just hard enough to take the edge off for a while. Buy them some time."
That... sounded just like the sort of thing Matsumoto would do, and looking at the guys, Renji could see that they all had minor injuries of some kind. Black eyes, scratches, one of them had a bandage wrapped round his hand as though he'd been bitten.
Renji turned round and slid to the ground, leaning back against the building. "Right," he whispered, "here's the plan." Then he realised Ichigo was missing.
The next second a crash came from the other side of the building and a voice bellowed, "You fucking bastards!"
"Renji," Take said, voice horrified, "He hasn't got his zanpakutō."
"Give him a second," Renji said, then a familiar surge of reiatsu rippled past, followed by the sound of steel hitting steel and the dull thunk of body parts hitting the ground. "Now he has."
"We should go help," she said, a moment later.
"Possibly." It was actually pretty tempting to let Ichigo go it alone, but if anything happened to him, he'd have to carry his body home and explain to Byakuya how he ended up dead while Renji was still very much alive.
On the other hand, if Ichigo went home alive with Matsumoto Rangiku and Yachiru in tow, Renji was still going to have to explain how come he was in the 10th's grounds running off with shinigami who, by now, probably rightfully belonged to Madarame Ikkaku.
Life, he thought, was always full of difficult decisions.
"Sir?" Take said, and she was getting jumpy. Her charge was in there, laying about himself with a shikai'd zanpakutō and hacking bits off rapists, and fuck it, why should he have all the fun anyway.
Renji nodded, and then the three of them rose as one and went to help Ichigo the quick way – straight through the wall.
"Fuckers!" Matsumoto hissed, kicking the torso of what had once been one of her attackers. Renji watched her, knowing that, as much as he wanted to leave, it was important she did this. Knowing they were all dead was bound to help her sleep nights. Or at least Fumiko had always told him she wished the guys who'd raped her were, so he guessed it was the same thing.
Yachiru was unconscious. Apparently Madarame hadn't come alone, he'd brought his fourth and fifth seats with him and Ayasegawa had used that nasty reiryoku leeching shikai of his to take Yachiru out of the fight. Excellent strategy, though going by what Matsumoto had said, the whole had been pulled off brilliantly first to last.
For one thing, they'd had inside help. As Renji had suspected, Ōtoribashi had been playing favourites and several of his lower ranking seated officers had legitimate grudges. Shit, fond as Renji was of Matsumoto's assets, he wasn't convinced she was fukutaichō material and her reputation for laziness went far beyond her own unit.
When the storm broke that evening, Madarame had started his run, using the cover of lightning and rain combined with the shikai of his fourth seat, Ichinose, to keep them concealed. They'd come in over the wall close by the 8th, which must have been what set off Hanatarō and the static mods over there. With all the chaos, the interlopers were inside the main building before anyone noticed and caught Ōtoribashi with his pants down, literally.
How Matsumoto had been caught out remained a mystery, though Renji'd lay money it probably had to do with sake. Her reputation for drinking was second only to her laziness.
"I still don't get why they'd do it," Ichigo said. He was letting Heishi bandage a nasty cut on his forearm where one of the rapists had got in a lucky strike before Renji had cut his head off. "I mean she's theirs. Look at those guys at the 8th tonight and how protective they were of Ise."
"If Kyōraku-taichō was taken out, the same thing'd happen to her and Yadomaru," Take said, "or they'd try anyhow. It makes the new guys feel good when they take over, makes them feel like they're in charge. They kill the captain straight off, it's safer that way. Then torture or rape the higher ranking officers before killing them, and then have fun with everyone else who doesn't fall into line."
Ichigo was still looking confused. Well, horrified and confused. Renji clarified the situation, "The new captain hauls in each of the shinigami in the division and gives them a choice: sign up with him, discharge from the Gotei 13, or a tanto. You can guess what that's for, right?" At Ichigo's dumb nod, he continued, "Most of them'll take the first option. They don't care who they serve and with a change at the top, there's always a chance of advancement.
"Some'll take the tanto, especially those who've been using the old regime to their own benefit. Lovers, brown-nosers, all those sycophantic hangers on who didn't see the change coming and swap horses fast enough. They do it 'cause they know if they try to stay, they get caught. All those people they pissed off'll turn on them, and then they'll really wish they'd taken option three."
"But what about option two? Discharge," Ichigo asked.
"And risk the 12th getting you?" Heishi said, doing a last turn round Ichigo's arm and tying the ends of the bandage off.
"No division, no citizenship, no legal protection, remember," Renji said, standing up as Matsumoto came over to join them. She was moving stiffly and her eyes were red but her cheeks were dry and the mishmash of clothing they put together for her from their own at least covered the important parts. If you ignored the bruises, it could just be a hang over. "You ready?" he asked.
"I think so." She looked around sadly, her bottom lip protruding. "I used to like this place. Rose and me had some great times here. I'm going to miss him."
"Then try to remember the good parts," Renji said. For what she'd gone through, she seemed pretty with it. Maybe she'd fall apart later. He seemed to remember something about trauma sometimes taking time to sink in.
They had to pass the front gate on their out. It had a new decoration; the severed head of the old captain, dangling from a pole by its long blond hair. Renji did his best to keep Matsumoto distracted but he was pretty sure she noticed anyway. You'd have had to have been blind not to.