Chapter 9: Lessons in Resisting

I think it was a pretty big mistake for Aizen to let me know that he was interested in observing me for a while. Knowing that he's interested in the effect of the drug, and knowing that my captain is somewhere nearby, plotting my escape gives me a feeling of having the upper hand, even when I'm so deep in shit that I can't dig my way out. I mean, let's just check the tally sheet.

First off, I'm powerless. I'm not under the kido field anymore, but they put this damned band on my wrist, and it makes me feel like I have about as much energy as an old man. And I don't know what's doing it…and those bastards won't tell me, of course, but I'm sick at least once every day. I feel nauseous at other times too, so I haven't been eating much. You'd think that would mean that I would lose weight, but instead, I've gained a few pounds. I can tell because my clothes feel tighter. They take me to their training room to walk around a little, but what I need to be doing is sparring. At home, Captain Kuchiki has me busting my ass out in the training grounds every day. I might complain like hell sometimes about how hard he works me, but I am usually in great shape. Now, I'm thickening around the middle, which, even though I'm not really all that vain…it kinda makes me feel bad. I am going to have to work extra hard when I get home to drop the extra pounds.

For now, I'm in a holding pattern. They aren't hurting me or asking any questions about military secrets. The one I see the most is Gin. He's kinda creepy, and I get the sense that if Aizen wasn't so interested in whatever that drug did, he would be doing things that would really scare the shit out of me. In the back of my mind, I'm aware that at some point they will decide they've studied me enough and all bets will be off, but for now, we're kind of at an impasse.

So every day, I wake up, throw up, exercise a little, piss of Gin by not really answering his questions, get threatened a bit, and spend time staring out the window in the direction where I feel my captain's reiatsu. I only saw his silhouette that once, but I still know he's there.

And I can't be totally sure, but I think he knows I'm in this tower now…

Sometimes I think I can even hear his thoughts in my head. I don't know, I guess, if it's real or wishful thinking, but I feel it just the same as if we were in the same room. It's kind of a relief not to be completely alone in my head since Zabimaru still hasn't spoken to me since that day. He hasn't re-formed either. It's scary as hell to think about, so I just focus on my captain's voice and figure I'll know Zabimaru's fate when I get outta this place.

"Abarai, will you please hold still?" asks Gin impatiently, "Your fidgeting is wreaking havoc on my readings!"

"Well, it's not my fault," I complain, "I tried to tell you I gotta take a piss."

He gives me a look that says he'd rather relieve me of the parts that require it, than to let me relieve myself at the moment, but he sees Aizen coming in the door and lets me up. As I stand up, the room sorta spins and I feel that pitching in my stomach. Gin is too busy greeting Aizen to notice what's about to happen, so he just about jumps out of his skin as I unload all over him and simultaneously lose control of my bladder. That part is a little uncomfortable. I just wonder how I got so fucked up. Like maybe they slipped in and did some freaky surgery or something. It's too scary a thought and I'm too busy trying to avoid being torn up by Gin, who apparently doesn't like me throwing up all over him and leaving urine on the floor. I feel worse than a dog that is both sick and not potty trained as Aizen shakes his head and takes Gin by the not-thrown-up-on arm, and gestures for me to go clean myself up.

Damn, that was embarrassing…

I take my time in the bathroom, cleaning up in the shower and finding a clean, white yukata. When I get back, Gin is gone (thank kami). Unfortunately, he'll be back. And even more unfortunately, it seems that Aizen wants to talk to me.

"How are you feeling, Renji?" he asks, as if he was, once again, the gentle looking captain of the fifth division, talking to a subordinate he actually cared about.

"Fine, except for being locked up here, getting sick all of the time, having Gin badger me with questions, gaining weight from lack of exercise and having you ask so many damned stupid questions."

"Moody today, ne?" he says, giving me a cryptic smile that makes me feel sick all over again, "Are you always so pleasant, or is this just for me?"

"Actually," I tell him, sitting down on the edge of my bed, "This is just how I am when someone kidnaps me and locks me up for weeks on end. It's going on three months and neither one of you bastards has given me a clue of what you want from me. Just tell me, so I can tell you to fuck off and you can send me back home. How does that sound?"

Aizen shakes his head and gives me a look that tells me that if I didn't have something he wanted, he would be making me hurt very badly right now. I'm on the borderline of making him mad enough to hurt me now, so I shut up.

"You never do change, do you, Renji?" he goes on, giving me another spine chilling smile.

He looks down at a file that Gin has been keeping on me and reads through it, ignoring me for a bit while I pull my legs up onto the bed and sit more comfortably.

"Hmmm," he says finally, "It says here that you have not spoken to Zabimaru since the day of your capture and that none of our instruments has sensed the zanpakutou's re-formation."

My stomach clenches. Not a good thing, considering how easily I throw up these days.

"You have this damned seal on my powers," I remind him, "So you know that Zabimaru can't form again until you take it off and I call to him."

He reaches into a pocket and withdraws a test tube that has a piece of jagged metal in it. I realize what it is and lose whatever's left in my stomach into the trashcan.

"Give that to me!" I yell at him, "It's a piece of my zanpakutou!"

"I have all of the pieces of your zanpakutou, Renji," he tells me in that same, falsely gentle tone, "I had them carefully gathered after our battle. The reason your zanpakutou has not returned...and incidentally, the reason that you have lost your markings, is because I have not allowed him to heal yet. I have purposely locked him into his current state...in pieces. And if you do not become a lot more cooperative, I am going to destroy each of them. If I do that, then your zanpakutou is going to die, Renji."

He focuses on the piece he has, and it becomes a puff of smoke. I know then that he's not shitting me. The son of a bitch isn't joking. I can feel Zabimaru's pain, even though I can't hear his voice.

Damn, we're in really big trouble!

"Now," Aizen goes on, "I want you to answer a very simple set of questions, Renji. And each time you defy me, I will destroy a little bit more of your zanpakutou. First question, How do you feel?"

"Sick to my stomach," I tell him, figuring he knew it already anyway.

"I see that you have been suffering from vomiting, nausea, sleep disturbances, night sweats, weight gain, moodiness and a frequent need to urinate."

"Yeah, so what?" I ask, not liking the look of approval it earns.

"Do you have any other odd symptoms?"

"Like what?" I ask, frowning, "Like that's not enough discomfort for you?"

"Do you have any…strange hallucinations? Any voices in your mind?"

Immediately, Byakuya's voice comes to mind, and I can almost feel how close he is to the fortress. But I'm not giving Aizen that!

"I might've had some weird dreams…about monsters and being knocked around in a battle or two, but nothing like visions or voices in my head."

"You are a horrible liar, Renji," he says coldly, another bit of Zabimaru appearing in his hand.

He incinerates it before I can answer him.

"Now, why don't you tell me? Do you hear someone's voice in your head?"

"Why? Did you have that crackpot, Gin, open up my head and put some kinda implant in me? Is that why I'm so fucking sick all of the time? It doesn't work, you bastard! So take it out and let me go home!"

He sighs and shakes his head like a disappointed parent. Another shard of my zanpakutou appears in his hand.

"Look, I told you the truth!" I gasp, aching all over, feeling Zabimaru's pain all through me, "I don't have any voices in my head!"

The piece of Zabimaru flashes and turns to ash.

Now, I hear Zabimaru's voice.

Don't tell the son of a bitch anything!

"What's there to tell?" I think back, "I don't know what he's talking about!"

Good. Then shut up and stay shut up!

"But he'll…"

I know. But we don't help the enemy…ever.

"Renji…"

As Aizen opens his hand to summon another bit of my zanpakutou, the fortress begins to shake all around us as a series of explosions go off in a sort of domino effect. One sets off another, which touches off another. Alarms start blaring and Aizen's on his feet and out the door in a second. I know it's locked, but I check anyway, then go to the window and look out and down at the chaos taking place below me.

I see charge after charge explode and then waves of kido strikes begin to come in from all around. At first, it looks like a really well coordinated sabotage mission. But then I feel my captain's thoughts in my head and I sense his reiatsu coming closer. Hollows are scattering everywhere outside, searching around in a vain attempt to find an enemy who has completely fooled them.

Because that strike wasn't just sabotage.

Byakuya is coming after me. And the reason those bastards didn't find anything is because there's no attack force to find. He set it all up…placed the munitions around the edges of the fortress, set kido blasters to fire from the desert. And then, he had every bit of the evidence destroy itself as Aizen's hollow forces moved in to investigate.

And he did all of that to get inside…

He's inside the fortress now, and headed in my direction, crazy bastard! If I didn't love him before, I sure as hell do now, as I feel his reiatsu move in my direction. I almost start crying when the door is blown open and he flash steps in and takes me off my feet.

He doesn't say a word, but flash steps like hell, running crazy-fast to get us out of there. He doesn't bother putting me down. There's no time to spare as we blaze past confused guards, into the kitchen area and out onto the shipping dock. I hear Gin's voice somewhere behind and what he says, chills me to the bone.

"Say goodbye to Zabimaru!"

"Oh…oh kami, Captain!" I yell, "Captain, he has…"

"It will be all right," he manages as he escapes the grasp of a group of hollows that try to grab us, "Relax, Renji."

But I can hold back a scream of pain when Aizen appears near the place where they were holding me, with something in his hands. I scream at Byakuya and he slides to a stop, glancing back at the traitor. Whatever he's holding bursts into flame and disappears, and pain shoots through me so badly that I scream and everything goes black for a good, long time.

When I wake up again, I'm flat on my back in the fourth division, and Captain is right beside me, holding one of my hands in his.

"Quiet," he says, when I try to speak, "Rest now. You are back in the Seireitei. Everything will be all right."

"But…Zabimaru!"

He gives me a shit-eating smile and opens his other hand. In his palm rests one of the teeth from my zanpakutou.

"C-captain!" I say, embarrassed as hell because tears start running from my eyes and I can't stop them, "Captain, how?"

He squeezes my hand lightly.

"When your zanpakutou exploded and forced me back, this piece lodged itself in my leg. That is how, Abarai. And how very like you and your ridiculous zanpakutou!"

His words might be as sarcastic as usual, but if I ever felt anything resembling affection from this guy, I feel it now. He's really good at maintaining an air of calm and hiding his emotions, but it's like I'm in his head and I can feel the near-giddiness in both of us now. All of a sudden, things aren't so funny. Because all of a sudden, I remember Aizen's questions. And I'm scared shitless all over again.

"Abarai, are you all right?" Byakuya asks, looking unnerved.

"I'm okay," I assure him, "But you need to know, there's something up with Aizen."

"Did he tell you something of importance?"

"Yeah, yeah he did."

"Well, do not keep it to yourself, Abarai. Tell me."

"That drug you were given," I tell him, "It did something."

I'm about to spill everything, when the door opens and Captain Unohana comes in, carrying my chart and smiling to see I am awake.

"How very good to see you have regained consciousness," she says, smiling, "Now, I need to go over your scan results. There are a few things we need to discuss."

"Can Captain stay?" I ask.

I'm relieved beyond measure when she tells me he can. Byakuya looks relieved also.

"In general," she tells us, "You are in perfect health. Apparently, your captors took care of you while you were in Las Noches. You will need to provide us with information later about what, exactly, they did do while you were there."

"Well," I tell her, "They couldn't do a lot to me, because Aizen was watching me for some reason. And he asked a lot of weird questions…like how I was feeling, what symptoms I was having. He kept talking about that drug that Captain got hit with."

"I have examined Captain Kuchiki several times since then," she tries to assure me, "and all of his tests have come back normal. Do you think he injected you with that drug? Because I will tell you, there were no signs of any drugs in your system. All I found were indications of proper nutrition, vitamins and minerals. As I said, your captors took excellent care of you, for some reason. And I think I know what that reason is."

She gives me a look like she doesn't want to go on, and I know that whatever's coming can't be good. Sickness rises up in my throat and I have to throw up in the wastebasket next to the bed before she goes on.

"We usually do a deeper scan," she tells me, "one that picks up every little detail of body and reiatsu. However, we were unable to perform a deep scan on you."

"What?" Byakuya and I say together.

"This will not be easy for you to hear," she says, making me feel sick again, "but when we performed your initial sweep examination, we found something disturbing."

Byakuya's face pales even more than usual and I have to swallow real hard a few times before I find my voice again.

"What is it?" I manage to whisper, finally.

She lowers her eyes and stares at the chart.

"We could not complete a deep scan, because you are pregnant."

I'm not even sure that I heard that, but she's going on.

"We suspect that while you were unconscious, Sousuke Aizen or his associates impregnated you."

For a second, I'm ready to freak out…then I remember my night with Byakuya that he doesn't remember and I freak out all over again. I can't say anything and I feel like I'm about to faint.

"Vice Captain Abarai," she goes on, "You are aware that you cannot be allowed to have the child of an enemy."

Sweet kami!

"It's not the child of an enemy," Byakuya and I say together.

I stop and stare at my captain, wondering if he somehow remembered.

"I…see," says Captain Unohana, "So I gather that Vice Captain Abarai became pregnant before his capture? We are conducting tests to confirm the approximate date of conception…"

I'm scared so badly now and for so many different reasons, I can't move. The room starts to spin, and as everything goes dark, I hear something incredible.

"The baby is mine," Byakuya says calmly.

Holy shit!

He must have remembered!

Now, even if I wake up again, I am going to be a dead man.

But at least I'll die happy, ne?