Chapter 10: Markings on the Heart
(Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're off! On to a weekend of nothing but write and eat and sleep...no chores, no distractions, no nothing to stop endless writing! Thanks to Cerruci (Hmmm, now who is preggers? lol, you'll know soon!), Nyma (No long wait this time!), karenaangel1986 (Help is on the way!), Blooming-Sunshine (No waiting necessary! Here you go!), Purple Light Snow (Nope, things are about to get very exciting!), kyuumihaira (You bet he is!), phAnt0mgh0st7018 (I'll love writing that!), alabirdie (One heaping helping of Renji in distress...oh, and Tetsuya's location is revealed!) and MilkPowah (Okay! Here's more!) Love you all, but must write! Spunky)
"Will you tell me something, Madoka?" Renji asked, keeping his eyes carefully distant so that the other man would not realize he could see his surroundings, "Why do you hate that guy so much? Why do you hate nobles so much? You've never explained. And it's pretty clear this guy, Byakuya, did something to you in the past. Will you tell me what happened?"
Madoka's fingers paused, where they had been working to erase the bold, black lines that had begun to return to the redhead's skin.
So, that's why he traces them! Renji realized, When they start to reappear, he uses his reiatsu to make them disappear again. It's a seal. I know it is. It must be holding back my shinigami power. The bastard told me that it was the noble who damaged me that caused me to be powerless, but that was bullshit! This guy's been holding back my powers all along! But what can I do? I don't have anything to fight him with!
"Why do I hate Kuchiki Byakuya?" Madoka repeated, shifting very slightly atop the redhead's naked body so that he could feel that they were still connected, "Why should that matter to you, Aki? You seem to have a fascination with him. And you see where that unhealthy obsession has endangered everything that matters to you. One would have thought that erasing your memory would have erased your ridiculous idolization of him."
"Erasing my memory?" Renji mused, holding himself carefully still and feeling his breath catch at the way the other man was observing him, "Madoka...?"
"Oh, don't worry," the black-eyed man went on, sliding a hand down the redhead's damp torso and caressing a soft, inner thigh, "I know you have begun to remember again. It has happened more than a few times over the years you have belonged to me. And perhaps it is time for you to remember fully. When the end comes, I want you to stand witness and watch Kuchiki Byakuya receive what he deserves."
"I don't understand," Renji insisted, "What did he do to you?"
Madoka breathed in and held his breath for a moment, then exhaled slowly.
"He lived."
"He...lived?"
Madoka's black eyes widened and darkened malevolently and his hands roamed Renji's body searchingly.
"Some years ago, I met Kuchiki Byakuya on the battlefield," Madoka explained, letting his fingertips play over Renji's face and sending flickers of reiatsu through the redhead's beleaguered mind, "You...remember this?"
Renji's eyes closed and the tickle of reiatsu seeped deep into his mind, snapping the lock on his memory. He couldn't help but stiffen as he suddenly remembered.
"TAICHOU!" he screamed, watching as the quincy's hands moved and Byakuya disappeared into a storm of pink bladed petals.
Renji's heart pounded and sweat broke out on his forehead as Madoka continued.
"You do remember," he said approvingly, "Good. I want you to remember now. Remember how I humiliated him in front of you, how I took him apart, using his own power, then I left him to die. He should have died, Aki! He should have died and his bankai should have been mine!"
He paused, his eyes glaring as he observed Renji, who continued to keep his own lowered and fixed.
"Senbonzakura Kageyoshi was the heart of Kuchiki Byakuya's power, and I won that power by defeating him. If he had died, then not even Urahara Kisuke's invention could have taken it back!"
Madoka brought his lips close to the redhead's ear, his lips curling with rage as he continued.
"But, Byakuya didn't die. He was taken to death's doorway, but something wouldn't let him pass through. Do you know what it was that stood in the way, Aki?"
Renji went breathless, shivering as he suddenly began to understand.
Oh my god! No...it can't be! He can't have..."
"It was Abarai Renji, Byakuya's bumbling, peasant fukutaichou," Madoka went on mercilessly, "It was you!"
"Me?" Renji whispered numbly, his mind reeling.
"The truth is that taking Senbonzakura Kageyoshi from Byakuya wasn't enough to steal his strength, to make him suffer enough to where he wished he would die, to leave him helpless and miserable, alone and afraid...to leave him broken in pieces and only a shadow of himself."
"No," Renji gasped, quivering as he recalled the state the noble had been in when he came to the recovery center, "Don't...don't say it!"
"Think back to the battle, Renji!" the other man hissed cruelly, "Think back and remember. In that battle..."
"Stop! Just stop!"
"Byakuya didn't protect Senbonzakura at all!"
"STOP IT!" Renji screamed, struggling as Madoka held him down and glared into the redhead's widened eyes.
"So," Madoka laughed, "You see now, both with your eyes and with your heart, don't you Renji?"
"Shut up! Shut up! Stop!" Renji howled, struggling against the other man's viselike grip.
"Byakuya yielded his bankai without a fight, but there was something he protected carefully in that battle, wasn't there?"
"Y-you! You fucking bastard, STOP!" Renji sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut against the word as Madoka's body began to glow with power and several golden thorns appeared around him.
Renji screamed in mingled pain and terror as one of the thorns penetrated his shoulder, bringing back a heart-stopping moment.
"Then...let me attack him!" Renji cried, his hand tightening on Zabimaru's hilt in anticipation.
"No," Byakuya said firmly.
And there it was. A breath of hesitation so small that he had missed it before. A turning of one shadowed gray eye in his direction, and the only hint of what Byakuya feared most in that battle.
"I do not think you possess the skill to lure out his greater abilities," Byakuya said, trying to sound cold and aloof, but betraying the slightest hint of rising fear.
"You understand now, ne?" Madoka
"Stay back," Byakuya said more quietly, "Watch my battle and try to understand his power."
"He ordered you back, Renji. You know why. Because, even though Byakuya could face losing his bankai and even dying, the one thing he couldn't bear would have been losing you!"
"GET OFF OF ME, YOU QUINCY BASTARD!" Renji screamed, throwing his weight against the body on top of his, "I won't let you do this anymore! I know who I am and I remember you. You're the son of a bitch who tried to murder my taichou! You're the quincy, As Nodt! How are you even alive? We..."
"He was careless," As Nodt explained, holding Renji down and sending another golden thorn into his unprotected chest, making him loose a roar of pain and fury, "Although my vollstandig was destroyed, he did not completely destroy my body. It was able to draw in reiatsu from around it, and I regenerated. I was careful not to let anyone know I had survived. I hid beneath my robes and covered my face so that no one would see. My body was horribly scarred and my face was nearly melted away."
"I'll melt the rest of it for you!" Renji snarled struggling as the quincy's reiatsu swelled and pressed him down harder.
"Worse than anything," As Nodt went on, "was how your taichou's mocking voice stayed with me, taunting me with how love was more powerful than fear, and that, because love brings people together, it can help one overcome any obstacle. Well, it may be that love is stronger than fear, and that it can overcome anything. But that, as your beautiful taichou so tragically learned when I took you from him, is a double-edged sword! Love that warms the heart can also burn it! Love that protects the heart can be used to destroy it! And you...you, Abarai Renji, are the tool I used to bring that lesson crashing down on him!"
"You motherfucking creep! I'm gonna kill you!" the redhead seethed.
"Go ahead and try!" the quincy mocked him, his eyes glinting wickedly, "You are too weak to fight me and you know it, Renji. You have no powers at all now. The seal that I placed to erase your tattoos is holding back any whisper of your reiatsu! Rant and rage all you want! Sink down into the detestable truth. You destroyed Byakuya. And you have been with him to see how completely he was brought down. He lost everything...his arrogance, his pride, his place of honor in the Gotei 13, his very soul! And he would have stayed that way, had you not interfered. Well, now we will bring this to an end. But don't worry. I will let you be together one last time before the end. You are going to watch your son die, Renji, and then you and that weakling taichou are going to follow him into death!"
"You're not going to touch Kisho!" yelled the redhead, kicking wildly until he broke free.
He rolled to his feet and burst out of the bedroom, turning a corner just in time to avoid a wild blast of fiery reiatsu. He heard As Nodt moving to follow and charged forward, breaking down one of the doors to a bedroom, thinking to escape through a window, only to find that the window had been sealed to prevent just that.
"Damn it!" he gasped, running out into the hallway as the quincy rounded the corner and took aim on him again.
The next door was locked, but Renji took it down without hesitation, crashing to the floor, then regaining his feet as the quincy reached the doorway. The sound of his laughter sent hard chills racing down the redhead's spine. He swore, realizing that the window in that room had been sealed as well. He turned back to face As Nodt, clenching his hands. But, before he could speak, a soft sound of distress caught his attention.
"No!" Renji screamed, catching sight of a flash of raven hair and painfully bruised pale skin, "Byakuya! You fucking bastard! You said you'd let him go!"
"It's not Byakuya, it's me...Tetsuya!" the bound man on the bed in the room cried, "Renji!"
"Tetsuya?" Renji mused, taking up a protective position in front of him as the quincy closed in on them.
"I sensed him snooping around before," As Nodt explained in a calmer voice, "And when he came back, I had a trap set for him. He fell right into it."
"What're you doing to him?"
"Making him hurt!" hissed the quincy, "And, as I said before, I am gathering the ones that your taichou loves to do the same to them! I'm going to kill all of you in front of him, then he will be the last to die, as painfully as I can kill him!"
"You won't hurt any of them! I won't let you!" Renji screamed, throwing himself onto the quincy and tearing at him with his bare hands.
"Renji, don't!" cried Tetsuya, struggling in the bonds that held him, "He's too strong. Run, Renji!"
"There is nowhere for him to go!" As Nodt announced, using his reiatsu to force the redhead back, then raising a barrier around the two, "You are both trapped here. And here is where you will stay until it is too late for you to do anything!"
XXXXXXXXXX
"What the hell do you mean, I can't see Byakuya!" Ichigo fumed, "I was here before and they let me see him. Why not now?"
"I am sorry," the desk clerk said sympathetically, "Takumi-san has restricted Byakuya-san's visitors. Only Kuchiki Tetsuya has Byakuya-san's power of attorney and is allowed to visit him."
"But Tetsuya's missing!" Ichigo snapped furiously, "That's what I came to tell Byakuya! Now, let me in. I have to talk to him."
"I am sorry, Shiba-san," the man answered unhappily, "I cannot authorize you to enter."
"But why not?" Ichigo demanded, "You have to at least tell me why."
"My apologies, sir," the clerk replied firmly, "I am not allowed to give out any information. I can only speak to Kuchiki Tetsuya regarding Byakuya-san."
"Damn it! I just told you that Tetsuya's missing! How the hell is he supposed to come and talk to you if he's fucking missing!"
"I can call for Takumi-san..."
"I don't wanna talk to Takumi!" Ichigo yelled, slamming his palms down on the front counter, "I want to see Byakuya, now! It's an emergency!"
"You will have to speak to..."
"All right. Fine. Call him. I'll talk to him. Just, please, hurry. I think Tetsuya's in real trouble. I have to find him."
"Wait here, please, while I summon Takumi-san," the clerk said, frowning.
"Shit!" breathed the ginger-haired man, "I can't believe this..."
"Ichigo!" called a feminine voice from the center's front entrance.
"Rukia, thank kami!"
"I got your message and I brought Orihime with me, in case Tetsuya has been injured."
"But they won't let us in," the Shiba heir complained, "I don't want to have to break down the door and force my way in, but I think Tetsuya's in real trouble. We have to get to Byakuya to..."
"Pssst!" hissed a soft, child's voice.
Ichigo and Rukia went quiet and looked around questioningly. The two spotted a small boy peeking out from behind a sofa.
"Huh," Ichigo mused, "Aren't you that guy, Aki's ward?"
"Yes," Kisho confirmed, "Come with me, quickly! I can get you in to Kuchiki-sama's room!"
"You can? How?" asked Ichigo.
"Just hurry! Come this way!"
The boy led the two out of the center and around the back to an entrance marked 'Staff Only' and bearing a kido lock.
"The lock opens for me because I am helping with Kuchiki-sama's healing," Kisho explained.
"Hey, what happened to Byakuya, anyway?" Ichigo asked, "Why did they suddenly restrict access?"
"Kuchiki-sama was late returning to the center, so Michio-san and I went to town to find him. We found him collapsed in the brush, and when he woke, he insisted that my guardian, Aki, is his friend, Renji-san!"
"Aki is Renji?" Rukia mused, "I'll bet that went over well. I wonder what made my brother say that. We've met Aki, and he does look and sound similar to Renji, but he's not Renji. I would know. I lived with Renji in the Rukongai. I would know his reiatsu. Aki is not Renji."
"But, Kuchiki-sama seemed very sure," argued Kisho, "And he was frantic to find Aki. None of us can find Aki either! And now, you say that Tetsuya-san is missing too?"
"Yeah," said Ichigo, glancing at Rukia, "And it's looking to me like Byakuya must be right."
"But how can he be?" asked Rukia, "Ichigo, we've all seen Aki!"
"Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the first time that we were fooled by an illusion, you know?"
"Hmmm," sighed Rukia, touching her fingers to her chin and frowning, "You're right about that."
"Come on. This way!" said Kisho, "You will have to revive Kuchiki-sama. Takumi-san has rendered him unconscious."
"Man, that's kinda harsh, isn't it?" Ichigo said, shaking his head.
"He thinks that Kuchiki-sama is delusional and a danger to himself. I don't think he's right. Kuchiki-sama seemed perfectly clear-headed to me. He was frightened for Aki...erm...Renji-san."
The three came to a locked door and paused as Kisho touched the panel beside it, making the lock release and the door open in front of them.
"Hey, you three! Stop!" called a guard from down the hallway.
"Go! Get Byakuya!" Rukia shouted, setting her feet in a firm stance and raising her hands, "Get out of here!"
Ichigo and Kisho ran into the holding room and the boy shattered the bindings on the unconscious clan leader.
"We're gonna help you," Ichigo assured the noble as Byakuya stirred sluggishly while being lifted, and made a sound of distress, "We've got Arashi outside and Orihime. We're going to find whoever took Renji and Tetsuya and we're going to destroy them!"