Chapter 11: The Reiatsu Trail
Back among allies, Renji slowed and set Byakuya back on his feet. To his dismay, Byakuya simply collapsed at his feet. Renji dropped to his knees and turned the noble onto his back. When he pulled his hands away, he was chilled to see that they were covered with blood.
"Taichou!" Renji gasped, his hands tearing at the noble's clothes.
Byakuya's face had gone even more pale than usual and his eyes were fully lidded. Long strands of raven black hair lay damp and limp on his face. Renji brushed them aside, his other hand still searching for the injury.
"Hanatarou!" he yelled, "For kami's sake, get over here fast!"
The youth ran to Byakuya's side and fell to his knees, extending his hands over the fallen noble.
"Hanatarou," Renji said, more quietly, "I don't know if Unohana taichou told you, but Taichou is with child."
Hanatarou nodded.
"I was told as part of my preparation for coming with the rescue team," he said, green light flaring around his hands, "She didn't want him to come along…because she said that he hadn't been taking good care of himself and was already in poor condition. But she insisted that if he did go on the mission, that I be told about his condition so that if he was injured, I could heal him effectively."
"So…can you? Can you heal him okay?" Renji asked.
Hanatarou gazed down at the wound in the noble's abdomen.
"It didn't breach the baby's reiatsu itself, but it did compromise the protective layers around it. The protective layers will heal themselves, but there has been a fall off in the baby's reiatsu and I believe we will need to do an infusion."
"Well then, do it!" Renji urged him, "Do it now!"
Hanatarou shook his head.
"It isn't the kind of thing that can be done in the field, Abarai fukutaichou," he explained, "It must be done at the healing center. And not just any reiatsu will do. But Unohana taichou will explain all of that to you when you arrive in the Seireitei."
He turned to a waiting group of healers.
"He is ready. Take him back to Unohana taichou. Move quickly."
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Renji sat in the private waiting area alongside Rukia, watching the door behind which the healers were treating Byakuya.
"I feel so stupid," Renji said, fighting back tears, "He was only there because of me…"
"It wasn't your fault, Renji," Rukia said, wrapping an arm around him, "You didn't do anything wrong. You had no way of knowing that hollow was just going to spring itself on you like that!"
"Well…I shouldn't have been out there feeling sorry for myself! Hell, it isn't like he set out to hurt me. We just had a misunderstanding…or…maybe a few misunderstandings, but I should have stayed when he asked me to. I was an idiot…and he had to come and drag my sorry ass out of the fire. He put himself and his baby at risk to come and get me. How in the hell am I supposed to live with that?"
"Renji, everyone makes mistakes," Rukia said, kissing him on the cheek, "and sometimes our mistakes are costly. Look at what happened with Nii-sama when I was to be executed."
"I know," Renji said, letting his head fall onto her shoulder, "I just hate this. I hate waiting…and not knowing what's going in…and wondering what's going to happen…"
The examination room door opened, stopping their conversation and Unohana taichou stepped out, wearing a tired expression. She stepped into the waiting area and closed the door.
"How is Nii-sama?" Rukia asked quickly.
"I won't lie to you," the healer said quietly, "His condition is very guarded. I had to induce a coma to assist in his healing. But he was awake before and he was lucid. He gave orders that if he becomes unable to make decisions for himself or his child, he would like Abarai fukutaichou to make his decisions for him. He said that although Renji is technically not a family member, a record of their engagement was left in the blue journal in his desk. I will need one of you to go and retrieve it so that we have it on file."
"I can do that," Renji said quickly.
"Just a moment," said the healer, "I need to apprise the two of you of Kuchiki taichou's condition and the condition of his child."
Renji swallowed hard and nodded, bracing himself.
"Kuchiki taichou sustained a serious injury to his abdomen. He has lost a lot of blood and reiatsu. The bleeding has been stopped and both blood and reiatsu will replenish themselves, but it will take time. It will take more time, because his body is supporting the systems of his baby. The baby escaped direct injury, but as Hanatarou told you, the protective layers around the baby's reiatsu were damaged and there was reiatsu leakage. Now, normally, when there is significant reiatsu loss, as I said, the reiatsu will replenish itself. With a baby, the reiatsu replenishment is managed by the host body…the parent. But, as you know, Kuchiki taichou's own systems have been weakened. Because of this, we must conduct a different type of infusion, directly into the baby's protective chamber. The reiatsu used for this must be compatible, meaning that usually a parent or sibling must donate. Byakuya is not capable of doing so…and we do not know who the other parent is…if there is one. So we need to check our reiatsu database and see if we can find a shinigami with compatible enough reiatsu. While we search, we are keeping Byakuya in an induced coma to allow his body to focus harder on providing support to his critical systems and to his baby."
"Is it okay for us to see him? To sit with him?" asked Rukia, her eyes tearing.
"Of course. It will help him to know that you are with him."
"He can…hear us?" Renji asked.
"Perhaps," said Unohana taichou, "but Renji, I do need you to go and collect that engagement announcement to support the declaration of Kuchiki taichou's wishes."
"Got it," Renji said, flash stepping away.
He moved at top speed all of the way back to the sixth division, burst into the office without saying anything, barely noticing the others there. In moments, he was out the door again and flash stepping back to the healing center with the blue book and the announcement in his hands. When he arrived, Unohana taichou took both the book and the announcement, explaining that the book had been a part of Kuchiki taichou's medical treatment and could prove useful. Renji nodded, barely hearing, and flash stepped to the room where Byakuya lay, silent and comatose, his breathing regulated by a breathing machine and his vital signs closely monitored. Rukia already sat beside her brother, holding one slender, pale hand in hers and speaking to him in a low, calm voice. She looked up at Renji as he entered the room, her eyes belying the calm in her voice.
"Renji, I'm glad you're back."
Renji sat down on the other side of the bed and the two held Byakuya's hands and looked at each other, lost for words. The monitors around them beeped steadily and healers came and left as the hours dragged by. The two took turns making tea for each other and fielding questions from others who came to the healing center to ask about the noble's condition. Ukitake taichou and Kyoraku taichou joined them for a time, but as the afternoon gave way to evening, the healing center grew quiet. Still, they waited, even taking turns sleeping, so that Byakuya was never left unattended. It was late at night when Unohana taichou returned, wearing a curious expression.
"I believe that we have found a match for the baby's reiatsu," she told them, "We will need to take Byakuya in for the infusion right away, as every moment is critical in ensuring the survival of the baby."
"Who is the donor?" asked Renji.
Unohana smiled.
"You are," she announced sedately.
"M-me?" Renji said, staring, "R-really?"
"Hai," said the healer, taking him by the arm, "Yours was a very close match, the closest we could find."
"Huh…" Renji muttered, a look of confusion sweeping over his face, "That's weird. I'm not related to Taichou. I'm not even noble!"
"Well, whatever the reasons, you are the best candidate."
"Okay," Renji said, letting himself be dragged along, "But…uh…this…reiatsu infusion…It won't involve any, uh, needles, right?"
"No, of course not," Unohana, "It is not an invasive procedure for you. It is absolutely painless."
"Oh…good," Renji stammered, "That's…good…"
She led him into a small room and had him undress and put on a thin, white yukata. He laid down on an examination table and waited quietly as Byakuya was brought into the room and hooked up to the equipment for the procedure.
"You may grow a little light-headed during the infusion," Unohana taichou said, checking the monitors connected to him and then the ones connected to Baykuya.
"It's not gonna bleed me dry of anything, though, right?" he asked, only half joking.
"Not to worry," the healer said in a pleasant voice, "You and Kuchiki taichou and the baby will all be fine. Now, relax. It helps the transfer rate if you are calm."
Renji closed his eyes and tried to think calm thoughts. He hadn't had much time to think about Byakuya's marriage proposal, but it came back into his mind and dominated it, sending a feeling like hell butterflies through his stomach. He realized that that line of thinking was making him more riled and tried to calm his thoughts. He focused on what he would do once Byakuya woke up…and decided that his first order of business was to tell him how much he loved him. It might, he thought, sound overly dramatic, but it wasn't drama to love someone and to want them to be clear on that fact. He didn't want there to be any more misunderstandings about his feelings or his intentions. From now on, he thought, he wanted everything out there in the open. He wanted to marry Byakuya and help him raise the baby they were trying so hard to save. He wondered if it would be a boy or a girl and if the baby would look a lot like Byakuya. He wondered again how the noble could have ended up pregnant, but found himself convinced that if Byakuya said the he hadn't been with anyone, then there wasn't another parent. But that being said, Renji decided that he would happily step in and be that other parent.
He wondered when he had become so willing to do such a thing, but going back to his upbringing in Inuzuri, he imagined that wanting to take care of younglings was an instinct built on survival while he was young. Rukia might have been born with more of that instinct than he had, but he had a lot more of it than he had ever realized…and now, he would get the chance to indulge it.
He knew that he was getting into a pretty intricate situation. Noble life wasn't easy, he knew from Byakuya, but being a peasant among the nobles was even more difficult. Still, Renji felt that, on balance, it was entirely worth it. There was no question. The only question now, was would Baykuya and the baby both be all right?
"We are finished with the infusion, Abarai fukutaichou," Unohana's pleasant voice informed him, "It will just take a few minutes to detach all of the machinery, then we can move Kuchiki taichou back to his room."
"Is…everything all right? With them?" Renji said, his head spinning a bit as he sat up.
Unohana taichou placed a steadying hand on his arm and smiled.
"Yes, Kuchiki taichou and the baby came through the procedure just fine. And when we move him back to his room, we will be able to wake him. He will need to spend some time in the healing center, recovering from his wounds, but everything will be fine now. Arigato, Abarai fukutaichou, without your reiatsu, they would have faced much more uncertainty."
"Oh…hey, it was nothing."
"I think that Kuchiki taichou and this little one would definitely say that it was something," the healer said quietly.
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Byakuya felt the fogginess around him begin to fade and saw Rukia and Renji's faces appear over him and begin to clear. They smiled down at him as he blinked and stared, wondering as he did why his throat ached, why his stomach hurt and why he felt so awfully dizzy.
"How are you feeling, Kuchiki taichou?" asked Unohana tiachou.
Byakuya looked up at her for a moment.
"I am fine," he said softly, in actuality, feeling far from it.
"I'm sure you are not in top form, but that you feel well enough to answer me that way is a good sign. Rest easy, Kuchiki taichou, all is well."
"My…baby?" he asked, looking as though it hurt to ask the question.
"Your baby is fine, now," the healer assured him.
"Now?" Byakuya repeated.
"Yes," Unohana went on, "There was an injury close to the baby's reiatsu chamber that required us to do a reiatsu infusion, and to do this infusion, we needed help from Abarai fukutaichou. His reiatsu was a match for your baby's. In fact, it was a perfect match."
"You didn't tell me that before!" exclaimed Renji.
"Well," said Unohana, smiling, "I wanted to wait until Kuchiki taichou woke so that I could announce it to the two of you together. It appears from all of our testing that the two of you are this baby's parents."
"But…how?" Renji stammered.
Byakuya stared in stunned silence.
"I too was a bit stymied at first at how such a thing could happen. But when I read Kuchiki taichou's notations in his journal for the days that the two of you were quarantined, it appeared that during your illness, the two of you became intimate with each other while in a state of delirium. Kuchiki taichou's intense dream of being with Renji was actually reality."
"Uh…wow!" Renji mused, "So…the cabin wasn't our first time," he murmured, earning him a dark glare from Byakuya.
"Apparently not," said the healer, smiling widely.
"It certainly would have saved me time and trouble had I known about this," Byakuya said, frowning, "although it is good to know that I can still manage the Elders, even when they are determined to work against me."
"So…how did you convince them to allow you to marry me, Taichou?" Renji asked curiously.
"Simple, I told them that it was either that, or the clan would have to endure me being an unwed parent…oh, and I didn't mention your name, or the fact you are male until after securing permission to marry you."
Renji stared wide-eyed.
"How did you manage to keep all that to yourself until the end like that?"
"Simple," Byakuya said, almost smiling, "I left the information out and they assumed I was talking about a peasant woman."
"Nice," muttered Renji.
"It worked," Byakuya said primly.