The safe-room's hatchway opened on a very flushed and worried Arisawa-sensei, who puffed, "I got here as soon as I could, Renji-kun. Did he hurt you? Do you need help?"
"No," Renji shot back, ducking past the old man and heading straight for the door. It was embarrassing enough that he was running away without the doctor getting all fussy over him.
Of course, Arisawa wasn't gonna let him off that easily. His concerned voice followed Renji across the room, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to impugn your prowess as a warrior, but even I can tell that Byakuya has far more power than you do currently, and after last time-"
"I said, I'm fine!" Renji's fingers tightened on the door jamb. He just wanted out, that wasn't difficult, was it? But since apparently a quick brush off wasn't going to cut it, he added by way of explanation, "I punched him in the head before he could do anything too bad."
That seemed to be enough. Arisawa nodded slowly, his gaze returning to the still open hatchway. "And Byakuya?"
"In a gigai. Sleeping." In a moment of weakness, Renji had checked. Just a press of fingers to Byakuya's pulse; strong and steady; and a second to watch the regular rise and fall of his chest. "I used kidō. He'll be fine."
"Good," Arisawa said, looking reassured. "In any case, I'll wait with him. Someone should be around when he wakes up, just to be sure."
Renji frowned, not liking that scenario at all. "That's probably not a good idea, ojii-san. He might not be as strong in a gigai, but he could still take you apart in seconds."
Arisawa looked shocked for a moment. "Ah, my honour," he gasped, "and after I apologised for insulting you, as well."
"Oi, I didn't mean-" Renji scrambled, before he noticed the twinkle in the old man's eye. Then he subsided with a tsk. It was pretty unlikely that Byakuya would attack Arisawa anyway, the only person he'd shown any sign of aggression towards was Renji, but even so, "Don't blame me if he gets the drop on you then."
"I have this, if he tries," Arisawa replied, taking a small container from his pocket and waving it around. "Courtesy of my lovely but ever practical granddaughter. I'm sure it would have done nothing before, but now he's in a gigai, a face full of pepper spray will slow even Byakuya down enough for me to get away."
Ouch, yeah, that'd do it. "Just make sure if you do, you lock the door after you. I don't wanna come back here and find you a smear on the floor." It was bad enough the old man had lost his home from being involved with them, let alone his life as well. Though, with what he'd survived so far, he'd proved himself pretty resilient for a human. Maybe it was hanging around with Quincy, or the higher than average spiritual pressure that made him harder to damage and quicker to heal.
Arisawa's expression took on a more serious cast. "Are you likely to be out for long, if you don't mind me asking?"
"A few hours," Renji replied, patting his back pocket where the mobile phone rested beside the glove. "Got a couple of folks to track down." He forced a smile that was meant to be reassuring. "Now I'm all healed up, I reckon it's about time we struck out on our own, ya know. Stopped relying on you for everything."
The relief on Arisawa's face and the speed of his, "Only if you're absolutely sure," was all the confirmation Renji needed that he was doing the right thing.
"I am, ojii-san," he said, with a dip of his head. He wouldn't embarrass either of them with talk of debts owed, but he determined then and there to find some way of paying the doctor back, even if it was in the next life.
"Then I'll wait here till you return," Arisawa said, bringing the conversation to an end by ducking through the hatchway.
Renji shoved a couple of the lightweight boxes back in front of open door, on the off chance one of the maintenance staff did a spot check, and then set off up through the building, being sure to tug the hood on his black sweater down to hide his tattoos before he reached the more populated levels.
There wasn't much he could do about his height, apart from shove his hands deep into his pockets and slouch, but that combination of strategies worked well enough to get him out of the building with only a few suspicious looks and a couple of mothers yanking their kids away from him. And honestly, reactions like that made Renji feel at home. Though at least back in Seireitei, the people who ran scared of him did it with good reason, and not just because he looked different.
He'd been planning on making the call from just outside the hospital building, but one frown from the security guard was enough to keep Renji moving. He cut across the parking area, hopped over the back fence and dropped down into the railway cutting below. A quick glance left and right, since oncoming trains wouldn't pass straight through him anymore, and he shot across the tracks, scrambled up the far bank and emerged a few hundred yards from the river.
This was the place Renji came most often when he was able to get away. It was open and uncluttered, and there weren't often many humans around, at least not this time of the year, which meant he could walk and appreciate the freedom without having to worry about being seen.
Hopping over and around puddles, he made his way along the river bank to the nearest bridge, where he stopped and propped one foot on the graffiti scrawled wall as he tugged the phone out of his pocket and glared down at the little screen.
According to Ichigo, Mizuiro was the guy he needed to get onside, but Renji was no closer to working out what he was supposed to say to get that to happen than he had been before. Which meant he had a choice. He could either stand here and agonise over it all, or he could just make the call and come up with answers on the fly.
With a curl of his lip, Renji pushed off the wall, hit speed dial and raised the phone to his ear.
Rather than the cheerful, "Moshi, moshi," he'd been expecting, a flat male voice answered, saying, "Whoever this is, you have exactly ten seconds to identify yourself and tell me how you got this number before I contact the police."
Renji's brain kind of froze up, not having a clue what to say. Luckily his mouth had no such reservations. "Ichigo," he blurted. "Kurosaki Ichigo gave me the number. I'm Abarai Renji. I'm…" Friend? Lover? No, neither of those would do. Ichigo was dead for crap's sake. "Ichigo's cousin. Was his cousin," he qualified quickly.
"Ichigo's cousin?" the guy said. "Are you related to the Ishida?"
That at least was solid ground. Renji wasn't, and never would be, a Quincy. "No," Renji replied. "On his dad's side. My erm…" He cringed and improvised, "step-father and his were brothers?" Which was stretching the truth way beyond believable but it would have to do.
For a long moment nothing but silence came from the other end of the phone and then, "And you say Ichigo gave you this number?"
"Yeah." Renji took a breath. This was where he tried playing his hand. "You're Mizuiro, right? He always said you were the guy to see if I ever needed help in Tokyo. So anyway, here I am, kind of in a bit of a jam and I thought, even though Ichigo's not around anymore, maybe you could help?" And yeah, that wasn't lame in the slightest.
"I see. Where did you say you were from again?"
He hadn't, and now only one place name stuck in Renji's head. The name of the city where they'd first arrived. "Matsuyama."
"I… see." Another pause, then, "I'm surprised you didn't try Arisawa-san first. She was much closer to Ichigo than myself."
Was this some kind of test? "I did, but she's out of town at the moment," he said. And had been since the day after the run in with her friend the arrancar, according to her grandfather.
"Of course, of course! My apologies, Abarai-san!" Now bright and bubbly, the voice on the other end of the phone had changed completely. "I didn't mean to sound so paranoid, but you can't be too careful in these days of identity theft." Renji could practically hear the smile on the guy's face as he continued, "It'd be an honour to meet Ichigo's cousin from the country. Where are you? Can you get to Karakura Town yourself, or do you need help?"
"Erm… I'm actually in Karakura now," Renji replied a bit taken aback by the sudden personality shift. And what the hell was identity theft anyhow?
"You are? Excellent. Where can we meet?"
Renji racked his brain for somewhere he knew that Mizuiro might know as well and came up with only one place that wasn't actually the hospital. "There's a convenience store across the tracks from the hospital-" he began.
"I know the one," Mizuiro said immediately, and Renji could hear the sound of doors opening and closing in the background, like maybe someone grabbing a coat. "I'll see you there in about twenty minutes."
"Oh, erm… thanks," Renji said and lifted his hand to disconnect the call. As he did so, Mizuiro said suddenly, "Oh, one last thing, Abarai-san. How will I recognise you?"
That made Renji bark out a laugh. "Good catch. I'll be the guy in a black hoodie and jeans hanging around outside the store getting dirty looks from the cashier," he said.
As it turned out, he wasn't far off the mark. After finding enough change in his pocket to buy a couple of red-bean anpan and a can of green tea, Renji wandered out of the convenience store, away from the manager's suspicious gaze, to find somewhere to wait for Mizuiro. The corner of the building offered a bit of shelter from the wind and a ledge to park his ass on, and he watched the sun go down behind the trees as he ate.
It was quiet, kind of peaceful, even relaxing. He was just brushing the crumbs off his jeans when a blue car slowed to a stop a few yards down. Renji perked up immediately. Mizuiro hadn't said he was coming by car, but then again he hadn't said he wasn't either. A moment later, the car's passenger side door popped open, so Renji headed on over.
Leaning down to peer inside, it was immediately apparent that this wasn't the guy he was waiting for. Not unless Mizuiro came with big tits and wore lipstick, and Renji thought Ichigo might have mentioned if he did.
"Hey," Renji said anyway, offering a smile to the young woman behind the wheel. "You need some help?"
She squinted up at him through red-framed glasses that almost matched her hair. "Abarai Renji-san?" she asked.
"Yeah," Renji replied with a frown, because suddenly this was starting to feel off.
Something moved in his peripheral vision. Renji spun, caught a glimpse of a pale face beneath a dark baseball cap and something sparking bright blue before pain exploded in his hip, wave after wave of it that shot through his whole body making him jerk and twitch like a fish on a pole.
Electricity, he thought as his knees failed and he fell forwards, smacking his head on the side of the car.
The world kind of stuttered, shifting in jerks of pain and movement. Someone grabbed his arms, someone else his legs, and he was being shoved and pushed. Into the car? It was impossible to say. The gigai was malfunctioning, or maybe Renji was. Pain still racked through him, making it hard to do more than gasp for breath. Noise spun around him. A door slamming? People yelling. Maybe him too. His throat felt like it. Burning sore and clicking dry, even as drool spilled down his chin. Then everything swayed, back and then forward, side to side. The car pulling away?
He couldn't see to know, and couldn't tell if that was because his eyes were closed or if they were open and just not working. But he knew when something was slipped over his head, by the smell more than anything. Kind of plasticy with overtones of sweetness. He tried to move and felt a sudden pressure in the middle of his lower back. A knee? Could be. Leaden tingling hands were tugged up behind him, something wrapped around the wrists, tying them together.
Face turned to the side, he lay, coughing and twitching, willing himself to just move, damn it! until eventually some of the noise stopped, along with the juddering beneath him. The car engine being switched off, it had to be.
A metallic clunk, then the quality of the light changed very slightly, and he was being moved again, yanked backwards this time, out of the car.
His feet hit the ground and his knees buckled. Someone yelled, "Catch him!" and hands grabbed him under the arms, dragging him upright, legs like jelly as they made him walk. Gravel scuffed under his boots, then concrete steps. Sound changed, became echo-y. Inside, but a large space. And someone was breathing fast, close to him, panting like they'd run for miles. Scared? Could be. Should be.
His toe jammed against something on the floor. Renji staggered but managed to right himself with a grunt as the person beside him yelped, "Shit! He's coming round!"
A few more stumbling steps, pushed and hurried, Renji jerking against the hands holding him, trying to slow them down. Then pressure suddenly butting up against the back of knees and someone shoving on his shoulders. He fell, toppled like a tree, the seat smacking him hard in the ass and back, only to end up bent forwards again the next second, the heavy pressure on the back of his neck enough to make his spine burn as his hands were jerked up high behind him for a moment before being tugged apart.
Feeling flooded back into them, heat flushing right to the tips of his fingers. A rumbling growl built in Renji's chest, but before he could do anything useful, like smack the living shit out of someone, the thing over his head was grabbed and he was hauled upright, spine straining the other way now, his hips lifting, trying to stop the discomfort as his hands were thunked down onto what? The arms of the chair, maybe? and held in place by someone muttering a constant litany of, "Shit, shit, shit."
A stretching cloth sound was followed by sticky against his skin, and they were taping him to the fucking chair, the assholes. Round and round it went. Arms, legs, chest, and all Renji could do was sit there like a moron, muscles still twitching. Though at least the pain was beginning to fade. He could breathe deeper and his head was starting to clear. That was good, because once he had proper control back, he was going show these jerks why it was a really bad move to try and kidnap a fucking shinigami!
"That'll do," a female voice said eventually, when Renji was pretty sure he resembled a mummy with the amount of tape they'd wrapped round him. "He'd have to be super-human to get out of that."
Better be careful what you wish for, sweetheart, Renji thought with a curl of his lip, looking forward to the shock and awe when he smashed their little trap to pieces.
"Do I want to know how you know that? No, No, I really don't!"
That was scaredy-pants. Which accounted for two of the three people in the room. Was the other one Mizuiro? Because as far as Renji knew, humans didn't go around randomly grabbing each other off the street like this, which meant he was the most likely person to be behind this dumbass trick.
"Can you hear me, Abarai-san?"
Renji twitched at the sound of Mizuiro's voice coming from so close. Damn stupid reiatsu-blocking gigai. With this bag, or whatever it was, over his head, he'd not realised the guy was standing right in front of him.
"If you can, please answer me. I have no desire to hurt you, but I do need your co-operation."
Co-operation! Screw that. "Could've asked 'fore ya 'lectrocuted me," Renji slurred. His voice was croaky and his tongue sore. He must have bitten it when his muscles were spasming. Guess he should be grateful he hadn't pissed himself.
"Good, you can talk. In that case, I see no point in delaying this any further." A hand patted Renji's knee in a brisk kind of a way and for a brief surreal moment Renji had a flash of Kurotsuchi, always so business-like even when he was about to go after you with a scalpel. Was this guy another one?
Renji's shoulders were tensing before he could tell himself he was being dumb. This guy was Ichigo's friend. Ichigo hated the likes of Kurotsuchi. He'd never send Renji to someone like that.
But how well had Ichigo known Mizuiro, really? People hid their true natures when it suited them. Look at Urahara when he visited the camps, pockets full of candy to lull kids into thinking he was safe, harmless. Lured them away and the next time you saw 'em, they had hollow eyes and ripped people apart for fun.
And Ichigo had trusted Urahara. Even knowing what he was.
Fuck.
No way was Renji sitting here waiting to be taken apart.
With a growl, he tugged against the arms of the chair, expecting the wood to give way easily. It didn't. Even when he tried again, desperation starting to rise in his throat, it still held.
How? Was it some kind of reiatsu-reinforced material? Were these people in cahoots with Seireitei?
Renji yanked harder, setting the chair rocking, his growl mutating into a deep snarl. He was trapped. Held down. Blinded. He had to fight, had to escape. Around him, voices rose in tremulous concern and he heard something slam. The door? Maybe. Which meant he had a limited time to get away.
This time he used his whole body strength, shoulders straining and thighs bulging as he levered with everything he had, the skin on his arms ripping against the inside of the tape.
And still the wood held.
"Abarai-san, please stop! You know it's not possible to break the tape that way."
But it should be. He was shinigami, not human. His strength was fifty times theirs. A hundred. Even without his reiatsu. He might be weak compared to Byakuya but-
Realisation crashed over Renji. He'd forgotten about the gigai! Stuck inside this damned fake body, he was by all the measures that counted, human.
Human, and a prisoner of other humans who had him tightly secured. Which meant that right now he was powerless, and Renji knew exactly what to do when he was powerless.
He stopped fighting. The chair legs thumped back to the floor and someone nearby let out a nervous laugh, saying, "Looks like he's given up. Shit, I really thought he was going to get away for a minute then."
"Not possible," Mizuiro replied, "However stay on your guard. He's nothing like as subdued as you think."
Clever guy. He was right too. Renji had no intention of giving up, but he wasn't stupid. When you had no chance at all, there was no point in keeping fighting. Far better to step back and wait for an opportunity to attack. It'd come, sooner or later, and all he needed was a chance to get hold of the glove in his back pocket. If he could get out of this gigai, these chumps wouldn't stand a chance against him.
Zabimaru's distant grumbling confirmed for Renji that he was doing the right thing. Now the only question was, what would he have to suffer through before his chance came. Last time it had been Kurotsuchi's machines followed by a whipping. These human's would be hard-pressed to come up with anything worse than that.
Lifting his chin, Renji said, "So, what are you guys after then? 'Cause I'm telling ya, I ain't easy to break."
"Oh, you so do not want to make that a challenge!" the woman said.
"Chizuru, please!" Ah, now she had a name. Useful.
"No, not this time, Mizuiro," Chizuru shot back. "I want to know what he had to do with Hime's death, and I will do anything, anything, it takes to find out the truth."
"I don't know any Hime, but I knew a Chizuru once," Renji lied. "Good girl, died badly. A lot of screaming involved." If they were gonna treat him like he was dangerous, he might as well play up to it.
The room went quiet for a long second, then scared guy stuttered, "I-I'm just gonna go watch the door, okay?"
"Yes, go. Thanks, Keigo," Mizuiro said with an edge to his tone that suggested he might have asked the guy to leave if he hadn't volunteered.
A moment later, the string around Renji's neck was loosened and the bag yanked off his head, his hood sliding back with it. Musty air stinking of damp concrete and piss flooded his nose as sudden light blinded him. He flinched, closing his eyes against the glare of what had to be some kind of hand-held lamp, and heard Chizuru hiss, "Look at all those tattoos. You don't think he's-"
"Even if he is, it doesn't matter," Mizuiro interrupted, stepping out of the shadows. "Nothing does except getting to the truth."
Renji's gaze flicked towards him. He didn't know what he'd been expecting of his kidnapper, some kind of thug maybe, but whatever it was, Mizuiro met it, redefined it, and surpassed it, the second Renji saw him. The guy was short and about as ordinary looking as you could want with his straight dark hair and eyes, but he exuded the kind of deadly intensity that Renji had learnt over the years to recognise and avoid.
Human or not, this was not a guy to be messed with, because he would stop at nothing to mess with you back.
In a voice full of deadly calm, Mizuiro began to speak. "About four years ago, a friend of ours, Inoue Orihime was killed. They said she died of a heart attack, but she was fifteen. Fifteen, Abarai-san. Fifteen year old girls don't normally die of heart attacks, not when they're asleep in bed."
Inoue Orihime? They thought he had something to do with the arrancar's death?
"That-" Renji began, only to be spoken over as Mizuiro continued, "But Tatsuki was with her at the time, and since she didn't claim foul play, no matter what we said, the police weren't interested." As he spoke, Mizuiro began to pace.
"A couple of weeks later, another friend, Sado Yasutora, was killed in a freak accident. To be honest, at the time we were all so upset about Orihime that we didn't bother to investigate what had happened. But later," Mizuiro stopped and levelled a look at Renji, "much later, I managed to get a look at the autopsy report. Sado's body was covered in cuts and bruises, like he'd been beaten or maybe tortured before he died."
Sado was bird-boy, Renji was pretty certain about that, though he had no clue how the guy had died, if it hadn't been while rescuing his pet bird from falling beer barrels. It hadn't come up in any of the brief conversations they'd had.
"Ichigo said-" he tried, but again Mizuiro wasn't stopping. He started pacing again.
"About eighteen months ago, Ishida Uryū and his father disappeared. Their car was parked by the river, no bodies were ever found. It was as if they'd vanished into thin air."
They kind of had, since the 12th had snatched them. Renji huffed, but didn't try answering. He was pretty sure what was coming next and he wasn't disappointed.
"Then last year, Kurosaki Ichigo and his whole family were killed in a house-fire." Mizuiro stopped in front of him and bent over at the waist, like a bow but with intent to kill. Renji tried to lean back, couldn't, and ended up face to face with the guy. "Are you seeing a pattern yet, Abarai-san?"
Well, yeah, it was Ichigo and his huge reiatsu, but no way were these guys going to believe that.
Mizuiro spun away again, hands clasped behind him, strides long and deliberate. "Which brings us to last month, when Arisawa-sensei's apartment exploded and he was almost killed. The authorities are blaming a gas explosion and I almost believed them until you, Abarai-san," — he spun back around — "suddenly, out of the blue, call me on a phone I haven't used in almost a year, and tell me you're Ichigo's cousin, from Matsuyama."
Smaller, slower steps brought him towards Renji again as he continued, "Now the phone thing I can excuse if it was Ichigo who gave you the number before he died. But the cousin story is a lie. Ichigo only had one cousin, Ishida Uryū. His father was an only child and an orphan. I know that because Kurosaki-san himself told me. So, Abarai-san…"
They were toe to toe, Renji craning his neck back to keep their gazes locked, 'cause no way was he losing sight of this guy. He liked his bits on the inside, thank you. "What I want to know is…" Twin thuds, and Mizuiro's face was right in Renji's own, their noses almost touching, his hands gripping Renji's arms through the tape, "Who are you and what have got to do with the murders of my friends?"
Guilt at his role in the deaths of Ichigo and family stopped Renji denying any involvement at all, but he did his best to duck the rest of it. "I wasn't even here when most of those people died," he snapped. "For all I know, you're making all this shit up."
"He's not!" Chizuru said, the lamp in her hand waving as she stomped forwards. "All that stuff happened, and you're involved somewhere, I know it! People with tattoos like those are always criminal-."
"Chizuru, shut up!"
That wasn't Mizuiro. Renji twisted round, peering into the shadows, trying to see who'd spoken. It'd sounded a bit like the scared guy, Keigo, Mizuiro had called him, but he didn't sound scared now.
"Mizuiro, you need to take Chizuru and get out of here, right now."
"What? Why?" Mizuiro immediately shot back.
"Because this guy isn't what you think he is. He's way more dangerous than that."
No, scratch that. Keigo did sound terrified, but the kind of terrified that had been faced down and dealt with. What Mizuiro had in intent, this guy matched it in courage and then some.
He stepped into the light, and suddenly Renji understood exactly what was going on, because the guy Mizuiro called Keigo was none other than the kid Renji had terrified in the plane bathroom on the way to Tokyo. In other words, he knew what Renji was, and what he was capable of doing.
Keigo's eyes met his for a brief second and Renji didn't even try and prevent the toothy grin that stretched his lips as Mizuiro said, "More dangerous than a yakuza hitman?"
Now he had a bit of leverage on his side, Renji was quite prepared to use it. "Compared to me, yakuza hitmen are a bunch of pussies, kid," he snarled, then jerked his head at Keigo. "Why don't ya tell him what I really am?"
The kid paled and looked away, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets. Mizuiro's gaze flicked between him and Renji. "What's he talking about? Keigo, have you met him before?"
Keigo's gaze dropped to the ground and he scuffed the concrete with his toe. For a long moment Renji thought he wasn't going to answer, then he looked up and said, "On the plane. I told you about it."
A frown creased Mizuiro's brow as Chizuru said, "Well, you didn't tell me, and I still want answers, so someone had better start talking, right now!"
Without taking his eyes off Keigo, Mizuiro said, "He's a demon. A death demon, except, Keigo, you said he walked through the wall. If he can do that, why hasn't he got out of the chair?"
"I don't know!" Keigo answered, hands flying from his pockets as he gesticulated wildly. "Maybe the tape's like garlic is for vampires or something."
"Or the taser stopped him from phasing somehow." Mizuiro's eyes narrowed as they focused on Renji, and his hand tugged something from pocket. The same electrical thing he'd used on Renji before which, no, no way was that happening again. The gigai had reacted badly enough the first time. Knowing Renji's luck, it'd explode or something if he got shocked again.
"Hang on a minute!" Renji said, trying to lean back further in the chair as Mizuiro advanced, the taser held out in front of him. There had to be something he could say, something he could do… "I've got friends!" And yeah, that really sounded tough.
"All the more reason to do away with you quickly," Mizuiro shot back, raising the taser. Behind him, Keigo looked torn between stopping him and cheering him on, which considering Renji had only being trying to save the kid's life back on the plane was really unfair. It'd worked too. When they'd been waiting for Arisawa-san's luggage-
"Arisawa-sensei!" Renji yelped as the gun pressed against his jeans way too far up his thigh for comfort. "We were with him on the plane. Ask Keigo! He saw us picking up the old man's luggage."
Mizuiro froze, his gaze flicking up to Keigo, but it was Chizuru who answered. "You know Tatsuki's grandfather?"
"Yes! And Tatsuki as well." Though 'know' was pushing it more than a bit. Apart from that first night, Renji hadn't seen her before she left town.
"Tell us what happened at his apartment?" Mizuiro demanded, and Renji's heart sank, they were not going to like the answer to that.
"You don't wanna know," he said, gaze shooting to Chizuru and back.
"Tell us!" The taser pushed higher and now Renji was really starting to sweat. The electric shock had hurt enough before. If Mizuiro fired that thing now, Renji probably wasn't getting it up again for the rest of the century.
"Fine! But don't fucking shock me if you don't like the answer, okay!" The pressure let off a little. Renji took a breath and said, "It was that Orihime."
As he'd expected, Chizuru virtually exploded at him. "You bastard! You can't say things like that. She's dead!"
"Yeah, I know, I know." If he'd had his hands free, Renji would have been trying to calm her down. As it was, he just explained over the top of her. "The thing that killed her is called a hollow and it made her into one of them too."
"Hollow? Is that like a vampire?" Mizuiro asked as Keigo tried to calm Chizuru and got punched for his trouble. At least he managed to grab the lamp off her so it wasn't flicking around all over the place.
"Not really, it's…" Renji gave a frustrated huff. "It's a ghost that can't move on because it's lost a part of itself. It goes mad, I guess, and keeps on after the thing it's lost, destroying everything in its way. They're monsters. All appetite."
"But you called Orihime arrancar, not hollow," yet another voice said from the shadows, a voice Renji knew.
Everyone turned towards it. Even Mizuiro gave up his assault on Renji's balls in favour of the newcomer. Much like Keigo had before, Tatsuki stepped into the light, her arms folded across her chest. She looked terrible, like she'd not slept in weeks. Her hair was flat, her eyes darkly ringed, and her skin looked pale against the dark blue of her sweater. But her mouth was hard and flat as she said, "Explain what that means and I might tell them to let you go."
"Oi!" Renji protested. "I saved your life! Or, actually you saved mine too, but damn it, woman, you know I'm not a bad guy! Tell them to unstick me now!"
Tatsuki's eyebrows climbed. "Not a bad guy? I thought you and your boyfriend killed the Kurosaki's?"
Now all the focus that had been on Tatsuki was back on Renji, and shit, he had no clue how to answer that. Except honestly. "Like I told your grandfather, we didn't do it for fun. It was an order from Central. Ichigo's high spiritual pressure was attracting hollows." He sighed and tugged on the tape round his arms, which was just as secure as it had been before. "It was probably his fault your friend Orihime and bird-boy- eh, Sado, I mean, got killed."
"Ichigo killed Orihime and Sado-kun?" Chizuru asked, now looking more confused than mad.
"No, him having high spiritual pressure did, whatever the hell that is," Keigo said.
"You get it from hanging around people like him," Tatsuki said, pointing at Renji. "Ichigo's dad was a shinigami too."
"Shinigami!" Keigo yelped. "Quick check his pockets for notebooks!"
Tatsuki rolled her eyes at him. "Not that sort of- Oh, forget it." She turned to Chizuru. "I'm sorry, Chizuru, but he's right about it being Orihime who attacked us at Granddad's apartment. That's why I've been out of town. I have high spiritual pressure too, and she can sense where I am."
Chizuru blinked at her, wide-eyed behind her glasses. "She was trying to kill you?" she said, sounding almost awed at the idea.
"No, she was…" Tatsuki frowned and looked over at Renji. "What was she trying to do to your boyfriend anyway? Granddad said she was trying to drain his spiritual pressure away when she healed him."
"These monsters can heal people?" Keigo said, and he looked even more confused than Chizuru.
Renji gazed around at all of them; at Tatsuki and Chizuru and their need to know about Orihime, Mizuiro with his thirst for the truth about what had happened to his friends, and Keigo, who Renji probably owed, big time, for making him piss his pants in the plane bathroom; and sighed heavily. "Look, I promise, anything you ask, I'll answer, but please, can you guys unstick me first, 'cause being taped to this chair is really uncomfortable."
They ended up back at Mizuiro's family apartment which, according to Keigo, was all Mizuiro and no family and had been that way for as long as he'd known the guy. Mizuiro had rolled his eyes at that but hadn't contradicted him.
"Nice place," Renji said as they all slipped off their shoes in a large tiled genkan with a wide carpeted hallway leading off it. The comment earned him a poke to the lower back. He glared over his shoulder at Chizuru, who scowled and gave him another shove, hard enough to make him stagger up the step. His arms and legs weren't taped any longer, but the gigai still felt odd and tingly like the electricity had done something to it, and he wasn't a hundred percent steady on his feet.
"Keep moving," Chizuru said. "Along there."
Obediently, Renji followed the others deeper into the apartment, which was much bigger than Arisawa-sensei's. Still not on the scale of the captain's quarters, but going by what Renji had picked up from the television, for a modern apartment, this was huge. On their way in, they passed two closed doors set far enough apart that they had to lead into separate rooms, and a living room packed with beautiful artwork and expensive looking polished furniture. And when Tatsuki vanished into a room on the left, Renji caught a glimpse of a large bathroom with a proper-sized soaking tub before she closed the door behind her.
"Drinks?" asked Mizuiro, stepping aside into a kitchen full of shiny silver gadgets and black tile.
"Yeah, whatever," Chizuru replied, shoving Renji towards yet another door, which opened onto what felt like a entirely different world compared to the rest of the apartment.
Familiar tatami covered the floor instead of carpet, there were colourful posters of movies and musicians decorating the walls, and a desk with a computer buzzing happily on it stood against one wall, a bookcase beside it. And beneath the single curtained window was a folded-up futon.
Sure it was just as neat and tidy but, unlike the rest of the apartment, this room looked like it was actually lived in.
Chizuru stopped in the middle of the room and, levelling a poisonous glare at Renji, pointed at the far corner by the bookcase. "Sit," she ordered.
Renji resisted the urge to woof and went over and planted himself, his back to the wall, while Chizuru dragged out the futon and sat on that, her arms folded and eyes narrowed at Renji.
"Green tea for me, thanks," Tatsuki called as she appeared in the doorway looking a bit damp round the edges after her stop-off in the bathroom. She grabbed a cushion off the futon and placed it so she was sitting with her back against the same wall as Renji, within touching distance even, though she kept from making eye contact with him.
She still didn't trust him completely. Renji guessed he kind of understood. After all, as far as these guys were concerned, he was the self-confessed murderer of their friend, whatever the extenuating circumstances might have been.
"Green tea coming up," came Mizuiro's reply, followed by, "Keigo?"
"Coffee. Lots and lots of wonderful coffee," Keigo said from the hallway. He wandered in a moment later hugging a brightly coloured cushion. He paused by the door, gaze taking in Chizuru sitting opposite Renji, and Tatsuki beside him, then pointedly sat against the other wall, taking neither one side nor the other.
Undecided? Self-appointed mediator? Renji could only hope so. He could definitely see why Ichigo was friends with these guys. Their courage and fierce loyalty were just like Ichigo's own.
Renji jumped as Mizuiro suddenly called, "Heads up!" and a bright red can came flying in through the doorway. Keigo caught it one-handed and pulled the tab, murmuring an almost obscene, "Ah, come to daddy, you sweet caffeinated beverage, you. Together we will stay up all night," before taking a noisy slurp.
Chizuru cast him absolutely filthy look. "Quit trying to seduce the coffee, Asano, and get a grip," she groused, nodding her thanks as Mizuiro tossed her a can before disappearing back into the kitchen. A moment later he returned with two more drinks and gave one to Tatsuki before joining Chizuru on the futon.
Tatsuki raised her eyebrows and glanced pointedly at Renji. When Mizuiro didn't even flinch, she rolled her eyes and shoved the can of tea in Renji's direction.
"S'ok," Renji said, pushing it back. "I had one just before he electrocuted me."
A hint of colour touched Mizuiro's cheeks as he ripped back the tab on his own drink, but all he said was, "Question time. I'll start. What are you and where do you come from?"
By the time he'd finished fielding the first round of questions, Renji reckoned he'd be a shoo-in for teacher if Seireitei ever set up a school for shinigami. They'd covered the basics; Soul Society, the Gotei 13, what made a soul a shinigami - including an introduction to reiatsu - and the basics of hollows.
That had led to Tatsuki saying, "So what's an arrancar?"
"It's a hollow made up of lots of other hollows, which makes them stronger," Renji replied, then went on to explain about menos. He finished with, "Sometimes when adjuchas get really powerful, they tear off their hollow masks and that's when they become arrancar."
Tatsuki glared him, obviously wanting more. Renji shrugged, not caring. He couldn't give her what he didn't have. "That's pretty much all I know. That they're rare, especially natural ones." He paused as an unpleasant thought occurred to him. "Though, I did hear rumours that they tried making a few on purpose a while back."
"Why would anyone want to do that if they're so dangerous?" Keigo said.
Renji glanced over at him and shrugged again. "'Cause some folks haven't the sense not to mess with things they've no business messing with."
"Could someone have made Orihime into one?" Tatsuki demanded.
That deserved some serious thought because, honestly, Renji had no idea. If she'd only died four years ago, that seemed like a really short time to become an arrancar naturally given all the steps it took. On the other hand, Tatsuki said she'd been different from the get-go, so maybe it wasn't, for Orihime. How would he know, she wasn't his friend. Which meant maybe he wasn't the right person to be answering this question.
Raising his head, he looked Tatsuki in the eye and said, "You probably know better than me, since you were with her when she died."
Tatsuki flushed, her gaze leaving Renji's as she lowered her head and began turning the can around and around in her hands. For a long moment, no one spoke and then Mizuiro said quietly, "Tatsuki-san, you told the police that Inoue died in bed. Was that a lie?"
The can slowed for a second before speeding up again, and Tatsuki shook her head, a short sharp motion. Keeping her eyes fixed on her hands, she said, "No, she was in bed when she died. But only because I dragged her there."
"Tatsuki-chan?" Chizuru gasped, her voice full of betrayal.
Tatsuki lifted her head, and her eyes looked dead as she said, "I was staying at Orihime's overnight. We'd gone to bed and were sat reading, when something came through the wall at us. To start with, I couldn't see anything, just feel it, all cold and hard and angry. It came for Orihime. She pushed me out of the way and then collapsed. For a second I thought she was dead, but when I checked, she still had a pulse, she was still breathing. She just… It was like she wasn't inside her body anymore."
If it was a hollow that had taken her, she probably hadn't been. It would've knocked her out of her body as soon as it could to make her easier to devour.
Renji scrubbed a palm over his head, wondering what would be the best thing to say. The movement seemed to attract Tatsuki's attention. For the briefest second, her gaze rose to meet Renji's, and it was desolate with pain. There was nothing he could say. Words, explanatory or comforting, could do nothing to help with this.
"That was when I realised there was another Orihime in the room, and that one was being attacked by a monster," Tatsuki continued, voice tight. "It was huge, like some kind of giant slug with a hole right through its chest and this white mask where its head should be. And it was yelling at her, saying that she'd betrayed it, forgotten it, left it behind or something, I don't know. Orihime kept trying to apologise. Even when the hollow grabbed her in its teeth and started shaking her, she didn't fight back. She just kept saying sorry, that it was all her fault."
Damn, what a way for your spiritual power to get a wake up call. It was amazing really that she was still sane. Renji tipped his head back against the wall, only too able to imagine what came next. Unfortunately, he wasn't wrong.
"I hit it with a chair, trying to get it to drop her, but it didn't even notice. It took her and went through me and out the window. Straightaway, Orihime's body started seizing." There was a thud as the unopened can of tea dropped from Tatsuki's suddenly shaking hands. She curled them into fists. "I tried to help her, turned her on her side, made sure she could breath, but nothing helped. Nothing I did made any difference." Knuckles turning white, she punched her thigh. "Why? Why didn't it make any difference? It never touched her body! She should have been fine!"
"Doesn't matter about her body. She was already dead," Renji said quietly.
Tatsuki shot a look at him, "How can you say that! You can't know-"
"I can. I do," Renji said. "The part of her you saw being attacked was her soul. When the hollow shook her, it must have broken her soul chain - that's the thing that keeps body and soul together. With that gone, her body had to die." More likely the hollow tore the girl apart once it got outside, but Renji wasn't about to tell Tatsuki that. Why upset her even more.
Eyes now full of desperate furious hope, Tatsuki demanded, "So even if I'd called the ambulance right then?"
"Wouldn't have made any difference," Renji assured her.
"But why didn't you tell anyone!" Chizuru wailed, and that was one Renji could answer.
He didn't get a chance. It was Mizuiro who cut in, saying, "And say what? That Inoue had been killed by a monster?" His expression crumpled in sad understanding and he shook his head. "They'd have thought she was imagining things, or going mad."
"I did tell someone," Tatsuki said, voice softening like she might cry. "Afterwards, I tried to forget about it, pretend it never happened, but I kept seeing monsters all over the place, so eventually I told my grandfather, and he took me to see Ishida-sensei." She swallowed, her throat working around the words. "After I told him what happened to Inoue, they talked for a long time in Ishida-sensei's office and then they took me down into the basement of the hospital."
"To the safe room," Renji said. So that was how she'd known about it. He'd wondered, since Arisawa-sensei didn't seem the loose-lipped type.
Tatsuki nodded in agreement. "I thought they were going to lock me away for talking about monsters, but they showed me the door and the room and explained that if Orihime ever came back or if I saw any other monsters, I should run there, because the room would hide me."
"What's this?" Mizuiro asked.
"It's the place where Abarai and his boyfriend are staying," Tatsuki replied. Then she huffed and reached out to retrieve the dropped can of drink, visibly starting to pull herself back together. "It's under the hospital. Ishida-sensei's father built it. It hides spiritual pressure."
Mizuiro's bleak gaze shot to Renji. "So why are you living there?"
"Because we've got nowhere else to go?" Renji said.
"Because they're being hunted by the Gotei 13," Tatsuki added quickly. Damn it, was there nothing she didn't know?
"I thought you said you worked for them?" Mizuiro said, his whole posture shifting, and suddenly the sympathetic kid was gone, replaced by the predator from before.
"That was before," Tatsuki said, getting her answer in before Renji could even open his mouth. "Then Abarai helped Ichigo rescue Ishida-kun, got accused of attempted murder and ended up being whipped in punishment and sentenced to jail."
She looked at Renji, who gave her with his darkest, most evil scowl, because seriously, he took it all back. Either Arisawa-sensei couldn't keep his mouth shut at all, or Tatsuki had eavesdropping skills on a par with one of Yoruichi-sama's ninja.
Seeing his expression, Tatsuki's eyes flashed, and she continued, "Oh no, I forgot. Then Kuchiki heroically rescued Abarai by killing all of Seireitei's government officials and then they ran away together-"
"Oi!" Renji put in, just as Chizuru snapped, "I don't care if they fucked outside this Seireitei place's parliament building." Everyone looked at her, and she dismissed them with a wave of her hand. "Well, I don't," she said and turned a begging gaze on Tatsuki. "Please, I just want to know what happened with Orihime."
That, more anything Renji might have said, shut Tatsuki down. Her expression closed in on itself again and Renji had to resist the urge to reach out to comfort her. But she'd have just shrugged him off. He knew because she gave out the same prickly vibe Ichigo did when he was hurting, and Renji didn't know Tatsuki even half well enough to try his man-handling techniques on her.
"For a while, nothing," Tatsuki was saying with a single shoulder shrug. "I didn't see any other monsters either. I started to think it was all over, that maybe I'd imagined it all." Her eyes were fixed on the can in her hands and she made a sound that might have been a laugh when she first thought of it. "Then Ishida-sensei and Uryū-kun disappeared."
If they'd been the ones keeping her reiatsu in check like they'd been doing with Ichigo and his family, that could have had disastrous results.
Apparently oblivious to everyone watching her expectantly, Tatsuki went silent for a long moment. Then she suddenly ripped the tab off the can and took a long drink. When she lowered it again, Renji could see her eyes were wet. Still, there wasn't a quaver in her voice when she said, "About a week later, I saw Orihime on the roof of Ichigo's house."
A bone deep shudder ran through Tatsuki's body as she continued, "Only it wasn't her. Not her her. It was the same monster who'd killed her, but with Orihime's hair and it spoke with her voice."
An adjuchas. Going by that description, it couldn't have been anything but. The hollow that had killed Orihime must have been most of the way there already and the girl's high reiryoku levels had tipped it over the edge.
"S-she spoke to you?" Chizuru had her hands clasped in front of her. "What did she say?" The guys looked equally fascinated by the turn of events.
Tatsuki glanced up and her lips carried the same pallor as the rest of her. "Oh, just the usual. Asked about school and family. How I was, you know. Stuff."
"She never went for you?" Renji asked. Not that an adjuchas necessarily would, from what he'd been told. They tended to be cleverer than that, though not on an arrancar's level.
"Never," Tatsuki replied with a brisk shake of her head, gaze dropping to her can of drink again. "She was nice, kind. She even fixed my arm for me." There was a pause, and it felt like a pall fell over Tatsuki as she added more quietly, "But she said things, later, that made me think maybe she wanted to."
Renji could imagine. He remembered the conversation between the two of them back when Orihime had attacked Arisawa-sensei's apartment. There'd been one hell of an undercurrent back then, and given Tatsuki's reactions, he'd lay money that'd been going on for a while.
Chizuru opened her mouth to say something, but Renji cut in first. "Look," he said, "You've got to remember that wasn't your friend. Even if it looked a bit like her and spoke a bit like her, it was the same hollow that killed her."
"What about now?" Tatsuki said. "She's changed. She looks like herself again-"
Renji shook his head, speaking over her. "Still a hollow, honestly. You should've seen her when she hit our plane. She was in full on arrancar mode, and hardly looked human at all." Then he realised what Tatsuki had said. He sat forwards. "Hang on, you say she'd changed again? You mean that was the first time you'd seen her looking like that?"
"No, she's been like that for, I dunno, about six months, I guess?" Tatsuki shifted uneasily. "Why? Does it matter?"
It might do. It might do a lot.
"When, exactly, was the last time you saw her in her old form," Renji asked, nerves starting to make his stomach hurt.
Tatsuki stared at him and frowned. "The night before you guys came and killed the Kurosakis. She was on his roof like she always was. When she wasn't on his wall, or the street, or following him to school."
Protecting him. Which explained why no hollows had come for the family even after the Ishidas had been taken. But, if that was true, why hadn't she defended Ichigo when the shinigami had come.
There was only one reason. She must have been gone. And since it didn't sound she'd have left voluntarily, someone must have made her go, or taken her.
The 2nd been in charge of setting up Isshin's arrest that night. They'd had access, opportunity, and at least one member of that division had motive to grab an interesting looking hollow. Urahara.
Renji felt sick. If Orihime had been taken by that creep, if she still belonged to him, then he knew everything she did. He knew that Byakuya and Renji were in Karakura, that they were involved with Tatsuki and her grandfather. He might even know about the hospital, the room.
Shoving against the wall, Renji shot to his feet. He had to get back, warn Byakuya! They had to run, now.
Around him, the kids all scrambled up and away. Renji held out his hands, trying to be placating. "I'm not gonna do anything. I just…" How could he explain? "I need to get back. Now."
Mizuiro, brandishing the taser like he wasn't afraid to use it, said, "You agreed to answer all our questions."
"Another time. I just- I gotta get back. If that creep knows where we are-" Panic began to thicken in his throat.
"Creep?" Keigo said at the same time as Chizuru said, "Who cares! You promised!"
If they wouldn't let him go like this, they'd have no choice if he dumped the gigai. He could be back at the hospital in seconds. His reiatsu had increased enough for short bursts of shunpo.
Renji reached for the Quincy glove, only to find his back pocket empty.
"Looking for this?" Mizuiro asked, and sure enough, the white glove dangled from his hand.
Renji lunged for it, only to be met by the business end of the taser, already sparking blue. He flinched away from the thing, worried what another dose might do to the gigai, and snarled, "Give me the damned glove."
Keigo was making worried squeaking noises from the other side of the room, but Mizuiro held his ground, jaw set. "Not until I know what it does and you've answered the rest of our questions."
"I don't have time!" roared Renji, his mind churning through images of the 2nd tearing the hospital apart and finding Byakuya. Dragging him back to Seireitei. He'd be executed by sōkyoku, for sure, with all those murders, and Renji couldn't let that happen, couldn't let him be taken. Not while there was breath in his body to prevent it!
"It's been a couple of months since the fight. If someone knew where you were, wouldn't they have come for you before this?"
"What?"
"The guys you're so scared of. Wouldn't they already have come if they were going to?"
Tatsuki's dry observation poured over Renji's fraught nerves like oil on troubled waters. The frantic feeling faded back to manageable proportions, because she was right. He and Byakuya had been living in that room for weeks now, and this wasn't the only time Renji had been out alone. There was no reason to think Urahara knew where they were, and if they kept a low profile, he wouldn't be able to find out.
A low profile, which included not shunpo'ing across half a city at the first sign of trouble.
Renji puffed out a breath and stood down, taking half a step back and sinking onto the floor. Shit. That'd been close. He really did need to learn to use his head.
Still, he was pretty sure he was right about who'd taken Orihime.
He was about to warn Tatsuki that she might have more than an arrancar to worry about, when Chizuru, who was sat near the door, her knees tucked up under her chin, said quietly, "Do you think she'd talk to me if I found her?"
"Ah…," Renji said, shocked by the idea that Chizuru might still actually want to talk to Orihime after what had been said. His gaze met Tatsuki's and she frowned at him darkly. Which was supposed to mean what exactly? Renji hadn't a clue, but he knew one thing for sure. "I think she's more likely to kill you, being as how she's a hollow. And if I'm right, the guy she answers to is a first class creep. You really don't wanna end up in his hands, alive or dead."
"Is he in the Gotei too?" Mizuiro demanded. Rather than sit back down, he taken a spot leaning against the far wall, the taser still clutched in one hand.
Renji sighed and scrubbed at his forehead with his fingertips. He had ground to make up here after that outburst. But before he could say anything, Chizuru suddenly let out an odd sobbing sound, slammed her hand across her mouth and scrambled from the room.
For a second everyone stared, and then Keigo moved to go after her.
"I'll go," Tatsuki said, pushing off the wall before he got far. "She'll want to know more about Orihime anyway and I guess I do owe her some answers."
Without looking back, she left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. Renji kept his gaze on the doorway as he went in for the kill on the two left behind. "You wanna know what we're up against? I'll tell you. His name's Urahara Kisuke. He's captain of the 2nd division of the Gotei 13, and he gets his kicks out of stealing kids and maiming them."
As he finished talking, Renji turned towards Mizuiro, who met his gaze silently and unflinchingly. Keigo, on the other hand, let out a nervous laugh. "Ha ha! It sounds like the plot of a cheesy horror movie." He made a whoo-whoo noise. "Kiddies, don't talk to strangers or the monster'll get-"
His comment clipped off short when both Renji and Mizuiro turned to look at him.
"Crap," he said, paling. "You're not joking." He swallowed hard. "I thought you were joking."
"Wish I was," Renji said with a shrug. It'd save him the nightmares. Not that he had them often, the ones about Urahara anyway. Kurotsuchi was more likely to take a starring role, these days. "And Urahara ain't the only one. There's a guy called Kurotsuchi, the captain of the 12th division. He's the one who took Ishida-sensei and his son." Renji paused, unsure how much to share about that. Making these humans scared of shinigami in general but still willing to help him and Byakuya was a fine line to walk.
"Tatsuki said you helped rescue Uryū," Mizuiro said. "Is that true?"
Renji nodded. "Ichigo asked me to." And they'd only managed it thanks to help from Urahara. Best not to mention that bit, probably.
"Was it from this Kurotsuchi guy?"
"From the 12th, yeah." Memories, of waking up in a lab that stank of blood and death, strapped to a trolley surrounded by machines that oozed and beeped all around him, threatened to swallow Renji whole. He clamped his hands into fists until he could feel nails cutting into the skin on his palms. "The kid was in bad shape, but we got him out."
"What about Ishida-sensei?"
"He was…" safe, thanks to Urahara? No, he couldn't say that. "He was okay too."
"So, they're alive?" Keigo asked quietly.
Renji glanced over at him. "Not like you guys are, but they're fine. They're just dead, like me."
"None of this is ever going to stop sounding crazy," Mizuiro muttered under his breath, and that was one thing at least that Renji could fix.
"The glove," he said, with a gesture to the cloth now peeking out of Mizuiro's jacket pocket. "You wanted to know what it does. Stick it on and put your hand on my chest, like this." Renji demonstrated with his own, the palm flat over his sternum.
Mizuiro's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because that's how I get out of this fake body." It was a risk losing the reiatsu-suppressing gigai away from the protection of the safe-room, even for a few moments, but it was worth taking if it'd get Ichigo's friends on-side.
Mizuiro didn't look convinced. "Keigo said you can walk through walls. What's to stop you doing a vanishing act if I let you out of that thing?"
"The fact that I ain't got nowhere to run to." That admission hurt. He might not have had the privilege of birth back in Seireitei but he'd had rank. Now Renji was reliant on the whims of a couple of human children. "You heard what Tatsuki said; we're being hunted."
With a brief glance at Keigo, Mizuiro tugged the glove from his pocket and slipped it on. Then he trod across the room and, keeping eye contact with Renji, leaned down and pressed it to Renji's chest.
The pulse of reiatsu it released was almost painful, but Renji felt it loosen his bond with the gigai and tried to pull himself free. His arms, legs and head all slid out fine, but for some reason, his body wouldn't follow. The gigai clung to his lower torso, specifically his hip where Mizuiro had used the taser on him, which just so happened to be right over Zabimaru.
"Shit," Renji cursed, scrambling to his feet and shoving at the kishi body, trying to peel it off. It felt like it was yanking on something inside him, something deeper than skin or muscle or even bone. You okay, buddy?
Zabimaru's reply sounded more like a loud rumbling snore than a complaint, so Renji decided to take it as a good sign and kept struggling, managing to fight his shoulders free.
After a moment or two, Keigo's voice said from behind him, "That is so weird."
Renji paused and glanced up, to find both humans watching him with a kind of sick fascination. Was it that strange? Renji looked down at himself, at the lifeless head lolling from his chest, the spare arms flopping around and the extra legs dragging on the floor. And, yeah, that probably was a bit weird.
"It's stuck," he said by way of explanation. "That electric thing damaged it."
Mizuiro gave the taser in his hand a slightly guilty look and put it away. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
Renji shrugged. "Try the glove again, I guess?" Maybe it was like getting ice out of a pot in the middle of winter. Sometimes you needed to give it an extra tap.
Mizuiro leaned forward, for a moment not seeming to know where to touch Renji again. Renji pointed at the gigai's chest, the jolt of reiatsu came again, and this time the gigai came free with an odd tearing sensation. Renji immediately dropped the fake body on the floor and drew Zabimaru, vaguely registering the two human boys backing rapidly away from him. He ignored them in favour of checking his zanpakutō for damage.
Both sword and scabbard were fine, the blade as straight and sharp as it always was. But when Renji flipped it around to check the hilt, he frowned. The tsuba, which had been plain bronze when he put on the gigai, was now decorated with familiar jagged lines.
"Well, I'll be…" he murmured, tracing the lines with his finger. After his session earlier, he'd expected to have to fight for weeks to get this far, or sit for even longer hours of jinzen, but maybe all it had needed was a human wielding a taser.
So, what else had changed, along with the tsuba?
He took a breath and focused inward, to the place where his access to Zabimaru and their inner world had been blocked. The seal was still there, but it felt different. Weaker? Maybe. Brittle. Porous even.
"Is something wrong?"
Renji tore his attention away from Zabimaru, blinking as he refocused on the real world, and Keigo and Mizuiro who were both looking at him with concern. "Wrong?" he said, not making any attempt to control the wolfish grin that curled his lips. "Nope. I feel great." More powerful, like his reiryoku was leaking through the seal at a faster rate.
Like, maybe, if he called Zabimaru out, shikai would actually answer.
Ah, it was so tempting to try, but that really would be dumb. Reiatsu of his current level wouldn't be much more than a blip if anyone was looking. Shikai would amp it up to a bonfire. But when he got back, when he had the protection of those Quincy walls between him and any hunters, then -
Zabimaru roared, long, loud and joyous, and it was all Renji could do not to join them.
It was well past midnight before Renji finally got back to the hospital. Forewarned by a quick phone call, a very tired looking Arisawa-sensei met him at a side door so as to avoid the security guards.
"Was your errand successful?" the old man asked as Renji slipped past him, eager to get back to the protection of the safe-room.
Renji forced himself to slow down just inside the corridor. Arisawa had been good enough to Byakuya-sit, so the least Renji could do was be polite and walk with him.
"Maybe," he said. "I'll let you know when I have something concrete."
"That would be appreciated," Arisawa replied, as they entered the elevator.
Silence fell between them, allowing Renji to think back over the last few hours. He'd stayed and answered all Mizuiro's questions - and with a brain as sharp as that one, the kid definitely had a great career ahead of him when he made it to Seireitei - then afterwards had laid out his and Byakuya's problems; the need for documents and a place to live, jobs, money, and how Ichigo had said that they were the people to come and see.
Chizuru and Tatsuki were back in the room at that point and, after a brief con-flab, the gang's answer had been to send Renji away, saying they needed longer to think about it. Which was fair, Renji guessed. They'd had a lot of information dumped on them in a very short amount of time, and still no real reason to trust him.
It was disappointing though, knowing nothing had really changed.
By the time they reached the little anteroom, Arisawa was smothering almost continuous yawns. He obviously wanted the evening to be over as much as Renji did, but first; "How's Byakuya?" Renji asked.
Arisawa's expression twisted. "Confused. Whatever happened between the two of you, he doesn't seem to remember."
Like last time. Damn. It was almost enough to make Renji feel bad for him. Almost.
"He was sitting up by the window when I left," Arisawa continued, keying open the small door. "Still safely in his gigai."
Now there was a point. Renji pulled the Quincy glove from his pocket and offered it to Arisawa. "Can you hang on to this, ojiisan? I was hoping to find somewhere to hide it, but things didn't work out."
The old man looked at the glove blankly for a second before his face cleared and he said, "Ah yes. Not something you'd want your young man getting his hands on right now, I suppose." He took it with a grimace. "Though I can't say I feel happy taking it too far away from here. What if you need it in a hurry?"
Renji shrugged, jamming his empty hand back into the hip pocket of his jeans. "Guess that's just a risk I gotta take." And it meant he wouldn't be able to try and release his shikai tonight, or any time soon, damn it. He was trapped inside a gigai now as well as trapped inside the room.
Arisawa still looked unhappy about it, but he tucked the glove away inside his jacket anyway. "In that case, I'll be off home," he said and gestured to the open hatch. "In you go. I'll shut it properly behind you and reorganise the boxes."
A sudden thought occurred to Renji. "Do you have to?" he asked impetuously. "Shut it, I mean. If we're both in gigai, then we should be okay, right? No reiatsu to leak out or anything."
Eyes widening slightly, Arisawa's sharp gaze moved from Renji to the door and then over to the boxes they used to conceal it. "You're right," he said, "So long as we make sure the entrance is covered."
"Stack the boxes away from the wall a bit and we can always squeeze past them," Renji suggested, making a move to start shifting.
Setting things up took only a few minutes, but when they were done, the entrance was both concealed from curious eyes and accessible. Renji stood back with a satisfied huff. It wasn't perfect, since they were in the middle of a hospital and so couldn't exactly walk in and out whenever they wanted, but even having this small amount of independence would make a huge difference.
"Thanks," he said, meaning it with all his heart.
Arisawa's face crinkled up into a smile. "Starting to get a little cabin fever were we?"
"You have no idea," Renji replied with a shudder.
"I think I do," the old man said, then patted Renji on the arm. "Now, I really must go home. My bed is promising me sweet dreams and I'll deny it no longer."
"Mine too," Renji grinned, "and thanks again." With a nod goodbye, he ducked inside the safe-room and tugged the door almost closed behind him.
He half-expected Byakuya to be waiting on the other side, demanding explanations, but he wasn't.
Sitting over by the windows, Arisawa had said.
Renji cast a look in that direction, squinting past silvery blue pools of light into deep angular shadows that turned the great dojo into a surreal futuristic landscape during the nighttime hours. All seemed equally empty.
After what had happened that afternoon, Renji was almost tempted to go and hunt Byakuya down and demand an apology or something. But what was the point? If Byakuya didn't remember what he did, then any apology Renji won would be meaningless. Better to avoid a repeat than throw around accusations.
Rubbing his right eye with the heel of his hand, Renji wandered across the dojo towards their small living room, trying not to feel too bummed out about not being able to try shikai.
Maybe once they moved and got their own place, then he could come back here sometimes and practice when Byakuya wasn't around. That sounded good. He was fed up with this feeling of not being safe in his own home.
"You're back."
Renji's heart leapt to his throat. He spun, already lashing out at the sound of Byakuya's voice, and had a split second to think, 'shit, gigai!' before the blow connected and Byakuya was staggering backwards, his expression shocked, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth.
"Crap!" Renji yelped, reaching out for Byakuya, only to see him flinch away from the contact, eyes fearful behind the loose hair that fell over his face. That, and the baggy green sweater he was wearing, made him look different, hardly like Byakuya at all, and definitely not like Renji's powerful captain and lord. And when he moved his hand, Renji caught a glimpse of blood on his teeth.
For a moment, he just looked like some guy who'd been punched in the face by a thug.
Renji hesitated, worry giving way to guilt followed hotly by anger. He was the hurt party here, so how come Byakuya was the one looking like the victim? Then even that emotion fled, leaving Renji hollowed out by exhaustion, his heart so heavy he could cry. This was all his fault. If Byakuya had just left him to rot in jail, they wouldn't be stuck together in this living hell of humans and gigai and powerlessness.
"Renji?" Byakuya's voice came what felt like eons later.
Renji blinked his eyes open and realised he'd almost fallen asleep on his feet. Damn, he must be tireder than he thought.
"Are you all right?" Byakuya asked. He was standing about three feet away, his expression concerned as he peered into Renji's face.
Renji nodded, shifting to stretch and wincing as he did so. He ached from head to toe, the aftereffects of the electric shock on the gigai, he guessed, and all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and forget today had ever happened.
The loud rumble from his stomach told him that wasn't going to fly, so instead he said, "I need to eat," and set off towards the room again.
Despite not being explicitly invited, Byakuya followed, his steps silent on the dojo floor, and with the reiatsu-suppressing gigai on, there was no way to sense him either. It was almost like being sealed all over again, except unlike before, Renji still had Zabimaru's comforting presence deep inside his soul. At the thought, Renji felt the nue stretch and turn in its sleep.
It was alright for some, he thought with more than a bit of affection.
Reaching the door, Renji kicked his shoes off, went inside and headed immediately for the counter where the kettle and little microwave oven stood. Unhooking the kettle, he thrust it at Byakuya with instructions to, "Fill it," and then yanked the cupboard door open before dropping to sit cross-legged in front of it.
Inside was a shelf of the same packs of noodles Renji had turned his nose up at earlier. Now they looked like food from the gods. He picked out two miso flavoured for him, and two curry for Byakuya, then lurched to his feet on the hunt for a pot to cook them in. By the time he found one, Byakuya was back with the filled kettle.
Five minutes later they were sitting down, one each side of the little table, to eat, and still neither of them had spoken. Undeterred, Renji dug in straight away, to the loud approval of his stomach, watching surreptitiously as Byakuya poked and prodded at his own heaped plate.
After a moment or two, Byakuya put his chopsticks down, folded his hands in front of him and said quietly, "Arisawa-san informed me of what happened. Please accept my most humble apology for any injury I may have caused you."
Wow, that was an actual genuine apology, a first to Renji's knowledge.
Closing his mouth, which had dropped open in surprise, it was on the tip of Renji's tongue to brush the incident off as nothing, since Byakuya didn't remember what he'd done anyway. But then he remembered, and not just the helplessness and the feeling of being used, since honestly they weren't exactly new. It was the rest that worried him, that had made him knock Byakuya out cold and trap him in a gigai, that had made him hit out at the sound of Byakuya's voice.
Putting down his own chopsticks, Renji propped his elbows on the table and said, "How much do you remember about what happened?"
A frown skated across Byakuya's face. "I recall Ichigo leaving and then later, out in the dojo, did we exchange words?"
That was one way of putting it. Renji wasn't sure if he was pleased or disappointed that Byakuya hadn't completely forgotten their fight. Renji had said some pretty hurtful things, after all. "Yeah, we had a bit of an argument and then ended up in bed together. You tried to… " he paused, running out of words or explanation or something. "You were inside me-" he held up a hand, as Byakuya's mouth opened. "Not like that. I know you were… " It was no good. He hadn't a clue how to even start explaining. "It felt like you were after Zabimaru," he finished finally.
"I was trying to reach the asauchi?" Byakuya said, his gaze shifting to the cupboard, because of course, if he didn't remember what happened, he wouldn't know that it was safely inside Renji's gigai with him.
"No," Renji replied irritably. He clasped both hands over his head, elbows still on the table, and growled a little in frustration. "It was like you were inside me, with your reiatsu, trying hook onto him or-"
"Hook?" Byakuya said, the small amount of colour in his face draining away. "I was trying to pull him out of you?"
"Erm…" Renji said, not sure what to make of that. "I dunno. Is that even possible? I mean, Zabimaru's a part of me, so…" But he'd lost Byakuya, who'd dropped his chin, all expression gone.
Renji continued anyway. "And you did the reiatsu chains thing again, so I reckon gigai from now on, just to be safe, okay?" And why was he the one sounding unsure. Damn it all, Byakuya was the one who kept slipping out of control, and Renji was the one who ended up suffering for it.
Still no reaction. Renji waited for another couple of minutes and then gave up. Apparently they were back to ignoring each other, which was one step up from assault, Renji guessed. Right now, so long as Byakuya stayed in the gigai, whether he spoke to Renji or not was irrelevant.
