If they were heading for Akiruno, they were taking the scenic route. They were also making stops along the way. After the first few, Renji's balls had stopped hurting enough for him to make a desultory attempt to escape. He slammed his feet against the side of the van a few times and yelled some, though not enough to actually attract any attention. After all, the last thing he wanted at this point was accidentally end up rescued, but if he didn't try at all, that might look dodgy as well. Maybe he should consider throwing a bit of low key moaning in just to shake things up?
As it turned out, he never got a chance to try. Just after the van stopped the next time, the side door slammed back and there was Mendori-san, the blue/white flicker from the taser in his hand illuminating his face like lightning. "Better shift over, Abarai," he said, smirking nastily and jabbing the taser in Renji's direction. "Got a present for ya."
As he spoke, Kutsuzawa's other bodyguard, the one Renji had dubbed No-neck during their short stint on the door together, trudged out of the darkness and heaved a body into the back of the van. Renji, who'd taken one look at what Mendori-san was holding and scrambled backwards, blinked at the lax sprawl of long dark hair, green jersey and skinny jeans face-down at his feet, his brain refusing to parse what he was seeing.
No. His hands clenched desperately into fists behind his back. "No. No, no, no." He struggled to his knees, heart starting to pound in his ears because this could not be Byakuya. It couldn't. Byakuya was safe at the apartment with Zommari, not getting picked up by fucking yakuza sidekicks with fucking tasers!
But it was him. Renji knew, despite his every attempt to deny it. "What did you bastards do to him!" he yelled, the words tearing at his throat.
The door slammed shut on raucous laughter taking with it what little light there had been. Forcing himself not to panic, Renji shuffled closer. Byakuya couldn't be dead. It was just the gigai malfunctioning because of the taser, nothing more.
More slammed doors, another moment, and the van lurched into motion with a roar of engine and crunch of gears. Teeth bared, Renji toppled forwards, twisting to avoid landing on top of Byakuya and snarled in frustration. How was he supposed to check for injuries without hands, without light. Without a fucking steady place to even kneel!
But at least he was close enough to touch Byakuya now. "Come on," he urged, pushing lank strands of hair from Byakuya's face with his nose and trying to sense if Byakuya was twitching or shaking. "Come on, I know you're alive in there." He had to be. Renji couldn't do this alone. He wasn't cut out for it. So what if they fought, or if sometimes Renji wanted to kill him, at the end of the day, Renji still loved the guy and so he just had to be alive. "Come on, say something. Speak to me."
There was no verbal answer, but breath that stank of sickness and sleep gusted across Renji's face. Renji sobbed with relief, pressing his forehead to Byakuya's shoulder to try and muffle the sound. He didn't want to hear it himself and he definitely didn't want those assholes up front listening in.
His moment of relief was cut short by the van cornering wildly. Everything in the back went skidding and Renji had to strain to get between Byakuya and the side of the van before he slammed into it. Once there, Renji grabbed an upright, hooked his legs firmly around Byakuya's waist and hung on for both of them. It wasn't easy. The metal cut into his fingers and Byakuya was no help at all, just a dead weight lolling against him. And that wasn't right. Even when Renji had got the second blast of taser, he'd still been able to move some, even if it had only been to twitch.
Now Renji started to worry, his mind conjuring serious injuries out of the darkness. The only way to know for sure was to check Byakuya over, but he couldn't do that without hands. So, when they finally hit a bit of straight road and the van stopped swaying all over, he wrestled them both into the corner and wedged Byakuya in beside him. Then, any chance he had, like when the van slowed down or stopped at an intersection, he ground his wrists frantically against the metal struts.
The cuffs were strong, resisting for way longer than Renji would have thought possible. He was on the verge of giving it up and trying to rip the gigai's hands off instead when, to a chorus of screeching brakes and sounding horns, the van bounced up a kerb. Renji lurched backwards, slamming his head into the wall behind him with a sickening thud, and then forwards, smacking his face into his upraised knees.
"Ow," he groaned as the plastic gave and his hands flopped, tingling and sore, to his sides. Beside him, Byakuya let out a guttural sound of disapproval and Renji huffed a self-deprecating laugh. "Yeah, I hear you. Can't ever get anything without getting beaten to a pulp first, can I."
He shook his hands out, trying to get the circulation going again. At least now he could hang on properly when the van started bouncing around again. Between times, he did his best to check Byakuya over. There were no obvious signs of injury. No lumps or wounds on his head. No badly broken bones. No real reason for him being unconscious. He wasn't twitching either, which made Renji wonder if they'd used the taser at all. Maybe they'd drugged him. Slipped something into his drink like they had with Renji, or maybe used that stuff you put on a cloth. Renji had seen kidnappers do that on TV, put a cloth over someone's mouth and nose and they went unconscious.
But where was Zommari while all that was going on? Had they grabbed him too?
Did it actually matter? Either way, Renji had made a promise to get the guy's wife back, so that's what he needed to do. Letting go of the strut he'd been hanging on to, he shoved his hand down the front of his pants and pulled out the glove.
Up until now, his plan had been pretty simple: sit tight until he got delivered right where he wanted to be. The stops and detours along the way had been a bit disconcerting but after what Mendori-san had said about Kutsuzawa wanting to deal with Renji personally, Renji knew that he'd be delivered in time for a front row seat, so he'd stopped worrying about that and focused instead on what he'd do once he'd located Unagiya-san. Though, that bit was pretty simple too: rip the hands off the gigai, dump it, and kick the crap out the bad guys.
Now Byakuya was here, all that had to change. Unconscious, he was vulnerable. Worse, his presence made Renji vulnerable, and Kutsuzawa and his thugs knew that. If Renji kicked off, all they had to do was grab Byakuya, and Renji was as good as subdued. That made sitting tight till the end of the trip far too dangerous.
The best option would be to dump the gigai right now, beat the snot out of the goons driving the van, then stick it back on to question them. Even with taking the time to stash Byakuya somewhere safe afterwards, Renji would probably still get to wherever Unagiya-san was being held in time to save her.
Put like that, it all sounded so easy, so why was he sitting here looking at Byakuya instead of getting on with it?
Because doing all of that would mean being out of the gigai while he was near Byakuya and, in truth, Renji was having problems getting past the memory of what had happened the last time he'd done that. Back at Zommari's place, whatever had looked out at him through Byakuya's eyes in those split seconds after he woke hadn't been shinigami. It hadn't even been sentient. If anything, it had reminded Renji of the worst kinds of hollows, the ones that were all appetite and no rationality, and the idea of facing that again terrified him. Not because he was scared of hollows, but because he had a bad feeling that the only way to stop that kind of monster would be to kill it, which would meant killing Byakuya, and he didn't want to.
It was stupid and sentimental and went against all the promises they'd made over the years to watch each other's backs and not let each other end up experiencing a fate worse than death and yet, Renji couldn't imagine raising Zabimaru against Byakuya with intent to kill. Not when he didn't know for sure that there was no way back.
And that made him the worst kind of hypocrite, because he'd hated Byakuya for making the same call when Renji had been sentenced to Shugo and Zabimaru had been sealed.
Now he understood why Byakuya had done it, and yet he still hated himself for wanting to do the same. He should be braver than this. Better than this. He was a lieutenant in the Gotei 13 for crap's sake, not some wussy human kid.
And yet…
He looked down at the man at his side. In the darkness of the van, it was impossible to see details but Renji's memory conjured them up for him anyway, from happier times. Long dark lashes lying shadowed against pale cheeks. Lips that could be thin and judgemental, would be fuller and more relaxed in sleep. Hair, so dark that at times it seemed to swallow the light, draped over a deceptively slender shoulder.
And the strength of him, inside and out. His sheer power in a fight and strategic acumen. The resilience that had got them both out of Seireitei and kept them alive against all the odds. And finally the humanity, however much he tried to deny it. Especially during the past year when Renji had finally got to see a little of the laughter and smiles that he'd known were hidden in there somewhere. There was even that sense of shared camaraderie, though Renji had to admit that much of that had come at Ichigo's instigation.
But there it all was, even so. These things were as much a part of Renji as they were Byakuya. They were so far into Renji's heart that he couldn't imagine life without them, let alone taking the life that sustained them. And if that made him a wuss, then so be it. He'd just have to embrace it.
Of course, what that meant in practical terms was that he couldn't use the glove if there was any chance at all that he was right about what might happen. What he needed was a second opinion, and there was only one person he could ask.
Slipping the glove back down his pants, Renji looped one arm around Byakuya and put the full weight of his doubts behind a silent cry for answers; Zabimaru? Could he get away with doing this? Was he just being paranoid?
For a second there was no answer, and then reality dropped away and Renji sank into his inner world.
The sun greeted him with its familiar battering heat. He squinted up at it, wondering why Zabimaru had pulled him in here when the situation outside was so potentially dangerous. It couldn't be to simply talk. Even with the remnants of the seal, they could do that well enough without Renji having to visit his inner world. So there must be something going on that Renji could only understand from experiencing it first hand.
With a sinking feeling in his belly, Renji rolled to his feet and looked around. Initially everything seemed to be what passed for normal in his inner world: white-blue sky arching over sun-blasted sand, the ripple of heat-haze in the distance, and not much else. Then, as he watched, the sky on the far horizon began bleeding slowly to bruise purple. And not because night was falling because, as Renji turned, he could see it was happening in all directions.
"That's Byakuya," he said quietly. It wasn't a question. It didn't need to be. Renji knew exactly what he was seeing.
Confirmation came in the form of a hiss from beneath Renji's feet. "He is ssearching. For weakness. For wayss in."
Renji hunkered down and peered into the pit. The baboon sat in the centre of the floor area, palms resting on knees, eyes closed, looking for all the world like it was sitting jinzen. Only the constant sway of snake-tail over its shoulder said the nue was awake at all.
"Will the gigai keep us safe?" Renji called.
The baboon stirred, lips curling back over long fangs as it roused from meditation. As it did, snake-tail sank into a tight coil, seeming to drop off to sleep. A changing of the guard, it had to be. Pupilless yellow eyes gleamed up at Renji as the baboon rumbled, "It gives us a place to hide. However should you take it off, he will come and we will be unable to stop him."
Much as Renji had been expecting that answer, it wasn't the one he wanted. Being stuck in the gigai was going to make rescuing anyone except maybe themselves, impossible, but glancing back at the horizon, at the stark evidence that something was invading his inner world, he had to concede Zabimaru's point. "Fine, I'll stay inside the gigai. You gonna be okay without me?"
"For now," the baboon replied, settling down. As yellow eyes closed, snake-tail uncoiled, tongue flickering. "But choicess will have to be made," it hissed. "Thiss instability cannot lasst." Then, as no more than a whisper in Renji's ear. "Unless he diess."
Renji swallowed. This wasn't the first time snake-tail had made that suggestion. It'd been an ongoing theme over the past few years and, in some ways, hearing it again, here, made Renji even less inclined to do it.
"You hate him that much?"
Rather than answer, snake-tail flicked its tongue and subsided, allowing the baboon to speak again. "Be wary," it said slowly. "If killing becomes the only option, the danger might become greater yet. Be sure there is someone there to-"
What the rest of the sentence might have been, Renji never found out because suddenly he was back in his body, Byakuya pressed to his side. For a second he just sat there trying to work out why he'd been thrown out and what was different about the world, because something was, and then the front door of the van slammed shut. They'd stopped moving.
This was his chance. If he could take out whoever opened the doors, he could grab Byakuya and run. Once free, he could call Nic - or Ginjō or whatever the hell he was called - and tell them everything he knew. Warn them about Iba, at least, if they'd even believe him.
With footsteps and voices sounding down the side of the van, Renji had no more time to think. He scrambled, grabbing the first thing that came to hand and a moment later, when the door crashed open, he slung the grubby sheet over the first head he saw and launched himself at the second like a kid at a rope swing. The goon went down with Renji riding his chest, fists already flying. Enough decent punches landed for the guy to go limp and Renji spun back to the first one, who'd already fought his way clear of the sheet and had come out swinging. Renji ducked the blow and pushed off with all the power he could muster. The thug hit the deck with Renji's shoulder in his gut, head smacking off the concrete. He didn't move again.
Renji staggered to his feet, breathing heavily. They were in a dimly lit parking lot, outside what seemed to be a warehouse. Or maybe a mechanic's shop, going by the stink of motor oil and heaps of tyres all over. Despite the fight, there was no sign of life from either there, or from any of the darkened buildings around it. Perhaps this was actually going to work.
Letting himself hope a little, Renji turned back to the van and began to drag Byakuya up and over his shoulder. For a smallish guy, he weighed a ton, though that might just be the gigai getting tired. It'd been hours since Renji had eaten or drunk anything, and sleep was a distant memory.
He'd almost got Byakuya balanced when another vehicle entered the street. Renji froze, torn between running and trying to avoid attracting attention. As it turned out, he should have run. The long black car swung into the parking lot, low lights sweeping across where Renji was standing, and across the two guys on the ground, before flicking to a high-beam that damn near blinded him.
Renji grabbed Byakuya and hauled, but too late. The car doors flung open before it even stopped and two figures piled out, No-neck leading the charge. Renji had trained against fourth seat Hashigami enough to brace himself. He dropped Byakuya back into the van and stepped away from it to ride out the initial hit, turning it to his advantage by using his fists on the back of No-neck's unprotected head. Elbows too. The guy grunted but hung on, and then the second one took Renji at the knees.
Renji went down like a felled tree, teeth snapping shut on his tongue as his chin slammed into No-neck's shoulder. Blood flooded his mouth and then he was on the ground, fending off No-neck who must be some kind of pro-wrestler, 'cause crap could that guy grapple. In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Renji found himself face-down, a hand the size of a dinner plate grinding his cheek into the concrete and another twisting his arm up behind him so hard it felt like it was going to break off. He bucked, grunting, baring his teeth and forcing his head up far enough to snap for real at any stray fingers, his free arm slamming back into No-neck's ribs.
And all of it was happening in deathly silence. No insults, no yelling for back-up. Nothing. Even the car's engine had been switched off.
The realisation almost cost Renji the fight. He went slack for a startled second and, if it hadn't put No-neck off balance, he'd have been dead and buried for sure. As it was, it gave Renji time to get his face free of the dinner plate hand and start yelling. He got as far as, "Help! Poli-!" before meaty biceps jammed up under his jaw turning the end of the word into a strangled squawk.
At least No-neck changing his hold let Renji get both hands free. Using one to try and keep from being throttled, and gouging some decent channels into No-neck's arm at the same time, Renji reached up with the other, grabbing for ears and, when he found one, yanked on it, hard. No-neck's head slammed into Renji's from behind, making him see stars, but he hung on, even when fingers like sausages shoved up his nose and prised his head back until his neck creaked.
At some point during the fight, they'd got turned around and now Mendori-san swam into view. He was standing by the open door of the van and, through tear-filled eyes, Renji could see the gun in his hand. The gun he held pressed to Byakuya's temple.
The smirk on his face said more than any words.
This was exactly what Renji had been worried would happen. Not that Mendori-san could really understand the implications of what he was threatening to do. It wasn't like a human-made bullet in the head could kill a captain-level shinigami, but it would incapacitate the gigai, and crap only knew what that would do to its ability to contain the monster that Byakuya was halfway to becoming. If it failed, Byakuya would get loose, and Renji couldn't let that happen. Not in the middle of an unprotected city.
With an aggrieved growl, he went limp.
Around him, people sprang into action. No-neck released his hold and Renji was dragged to his feet, arms yanked up behind him and taped, wrist to elbow this time. Then he was pushed and shoved in the general direction of the warehouse, the sound of its metal doors opening conveniently drowned out by the roar of a well-timed passing train. And wasn't that track nice and close if they needed a quick way to dispose of people.
Inside the workshop, the stink of motor oil was even stronger and the whole place was cluttered with machinery and hulks of cars. Beneath stark fluorescent lights, a gaggle of black-suited goons were dragging equipment around, in an apparent attempt to clear a bit of the floor. They took absolutely no notice of Renji being frog-marched past them towards a door in the opposite wall labelled 'Staff Only'.
As they reached it, Mendori-san stopped, gesturing with a gloved hand to a small group of people just visible behind a tall rack of shelves. "Stick the princess with them," he said.
The four men and one woman all had their hands taped and their mouths covered. As the thugs dragging Byakuya peeled off towards them, Renji dug his heels in. "Oi, what're you gonna do with him?" he demanded.
"Guess that kinda depends on you, now don't it," Mendori-san replied before knocking on the door and going straight in, leaving Renji and No-neck waiting outside. His answer did absolutely nothing for Renji's state of mind, though he supposed he should be grateful they weren't planning to include Byakuya in the fun right from the get-go.
At the sound of new voices, the woman had looked up. Renji had never actually met Unagiya-san but one look at those eyes, intense and furious even at this distance, convinced him that he'd finally found her. Their eyes met and he smiled, trying to cram all the reassurance he could find into it. He might be stuck in a gigai and a bit tied up at the moment but no way would he let her or anyone else get killed, even at the expense of his own life, and he knew that Zabimaru would feel the same.
He might have made more of an impression if the main door hadn't opened right then to let in two more thugs dragging a man between them. They were having a hard time of too, because he was a big guy who wasn't coming easily.
Zommari!
Renji forced himself not to react. Not that anyone would have noticed because suddenly Unagiya-san was scrambling across the room towards her husband, several goons in hot pursuit. Zommari shrugged off his captors and set off towards her, the pair meeting halfway in a desperate collision of bodies and bowed heads that lasted only split seconds before they were ripped apart again, Unagiya-san being hauled off back to her original place with the other prisoners.
Zommari, they forced to his knees, the man standing over him wearing a neckbrace and carrying a sword, none other than Mendori-junior, Akio-chan's husband and the guy Renji had been worried he might have killed just a couple of days ago. Now he kinda wished he had. Even more so when he yanked Zommari's head back and Renji caught a glimpse of just how battered the guy's face was. He must have fought hard.
But then Zommari, even more so in some ways than Renji, had someone he had to fight for. Just where was Kaoru?
Glancing back over at Unagiya-san, Renji could see she was in tears. Did she know, or was she just fearing the worst. Renji's belly clenched at the idea of that cute spunky kid getting picked up by these assholes.
He almost let rip right there and then; dumped the gigai, eliminated the bad guys and called it battle won; only, with Byakuya stalking his soul, there were no guarantees that he'd be able to hang around long enough to make sure everyone stayed being all right. Knowing Renji's luck, the moment Byakuya caught up with him, the Iba would arrive on the scene and then everything he'd done up to then would be pointless. No, he'd have to hang on until he knew for sure that all the players were here and then take them out all together.
Behind him, the door to the staff area opened and Mendori-san poked his head out. He nodded briefly to his son before turning his attention to No-neck. "Bring him in," he said, jerking his chin at Renji.
The room was an office containing a desk, chair and a metal filing cabinet covered in greasy fingerprints. There was also a massive black leather couch pushed back against the right-hand wall, which was where Kutsuzawa was seated. As they entered, he looked up, single hooded eye lazily alert. The hand that wasn't holding his silver pocket watch stretched along the back of the couch, long fingers tapping like they were counting off the seconds. "Abarai," he said, snapping the watch closed and sliding it into his waistcoat pocket. "I hear you've been up to your tricks again. Did you honestly think you could escape?"
Rather than answer, Renji simply levelled a look at the guy. Kutsuzawa's gaze flicked left and the next moment No-neck's fist planted into Renji's stomach. Surprise and the simple power of the blow doubled Renji over. He would never get used to how weak he was in this gigai. Kutsuzawa gave him a second to recover and then said again, "I asked if you honestly thought you could escape."
Easing himself upright, Renji darted a look over at Mendori-san, who was perched on the desk smirking at him, before returning to Kutsuzawa. He knew from the state of Zommari's face that this wasn't going to be like being held by Hanna and Akio-chan. These guys actually knew what they were doing, and that meant Renji had to be careful. Their fists might not be able to kill him any more than their guns could, but if they damaged the gigai too badly before he could get his hands free, he might end up stuck inside it and then he'd be fucked, and so would everyone else. Luckily a few decades in Seireitei had made him real good at playing along when the guy in charge was being an asshole.
Ducking his head in pretend humility, Renji said, "Reckoned I stood a chance."
"Better," Kutsuzawa replied. "Now…" Leather squeaked as he shifted in his seat. "My daughters are under the impression that you and your partner are police officers, or possibly some kind of secret agents. Is that true?"
Interesting distinction, that his daughters thought they were, not him. And why would he ask if he thought so too?
The trouble was, denying it might make things worse. It was the only cover story Renji had that gave him any value at all, and he didn't want to end up beaten to death just yet. Time was what he needed, so bluffing had to be worth a try. And anyway, a real police officer wouldn't exactly co-operate right out of the gate, would they? "I might be," he said.
This time, the blow drove him to his knees. He pressed his forehead to the floor gasping for breath and trying not to puke. Fuck, but No-neck had some power in those arms. When he died, Renji was gonna rip them off for him. But not right now. 'Cause right now the guy was an ordinary human and so off-limits for shinigami, even if he was the world's biggest asshole.
Hands grabbed Renji and dragged him to his feet again. He stood, swaying slightly, and glared at Kutsuzawa, who gave him an irritated look. "Do I have to get your partner in here?" he demanded. "Normally I wouldn't involve someone who wasn't fit to defend themselves, but I can make an exception."
He would too. It was in that hawk-like gaze. Renji bit his lip, then shook his head. If the guy was threatening Byakuya, it was time to look like he was co-operating properly.
"We're not police," he confessed.
Kutsuzawa left the answer hanging for a second before saying, "I know that. Do you know how I know?"
Renji looked around himself for a clue, and found nothing. "The tattoos?" he suggested, because he seemed to remember someone mentioning that even undercover cops looked liked salarymen.
Did Nic look that tame, he wondered, without his bed-head hair and net shirts?
"Partially," Kutsuzawa conceded, dipping his chin. Two fingers pressed into his cheek as he leaned an elbow against the couch arm. "Though it was more that they fit an overall pattern." His eye fixed on Renji again. "The thing about undercover policemen is that they always have excellent fake identities. You two do not. In fact, according to every source we can find, official and unofficial, you and your partner only started existing the day you walked into the club."
That was because, before that day, they really hadn't.
"That makes you extremely unusual," Kutsuzawa continued. His fingers moved to his moustache, stroking over it once or twice before he asked, "Have you ever met Superintendent Kojima?"
That was the name Nic had used when he was being Ginjō. Renji tried to look thoughtful and then shook his head. "Name doesn't ring any bells," he said.
This punch did make him puke. He was face down in it, sobbing for breath before he registered the blow landing, and screw these fucking gigai anyway. Without it, he'd have dodged that easily.
"I find that highly unlikely," Kutsuzawa was saying blandly like he hadn't just ordered Renji's spleen ruptured. "Since it was his son who introduced you to Akio-chan."
Mizuiro's dad was Ginjō's boss? Okay, this had just taken a definite step towards the weird.
"So, you obviously know him, and yet you aren't one of his men. What then can you be?"
Renji didn't have the breath to answer, he was too busy pressing his forehead to the floor and hoping his stomach hadn't actually burst.
Black dress shoes moved into his line of sight. Kutsuzawa must have stood up but, since no one was kicking or punching him, Renji guessed the question had been rhetorical. "I think what you are is evidence," Kutsuzawa continued after a moment, proving that Renji had at least got that much right. "That someone has finally got Kojima on their payroll."
Okay, they were being downgraded from cops to gangsters. That… could play either way. Renji had no clue.
"But who, that's the question."
No-neck grabbed Renji's collar and hauled his head up until he was nose to nose with Kutsuzawa. The edge of vertical scar was just visible beneath his eye-patch, and the hungry glint in his other eye was scarily familiar. Renji had seen it more than a few times amongst Kuchiki hangers-on, like that fuck-wit Fugawa. For all his airs and graces, Kutsuzawa liked hurting people, and it was obvious he wasn't finished with Renji yet.
"I know several methods of getting a man to talk," Kutsuzawa was saying, "Some more effective than others."
Renji swallowed back fear and braced himself. Whatever Kutsuzawa did, it was only pain and it was only the gigai. All he had to do was endure until they were ready to kill the prisoners, and crap knew he was excellent at enduring. He was practically an expert at it after Kurotsuchi's table and there weren't nothing this human could do that'd compete with that sack of shit…
"We'll start by removing an eye."
…except that. Renji lurched to his feet with a roar, an instinctive, 'no fucking way, you'll have to kill me first,' racing through his head because, even if this was a gigai, losing an eye could be permanent. And that wasn't happening.
Only, with No-neck still hanging on to his collar, Renji didn't make it more than a single step before getting slammed face-down against the empty end of the couch. From there it was stupid easy for them to force him over onto his back and then, with Mendori kneeling on his thighs and No-neck's biceps tight up under his chin again, Renji wasn't going anywhere.
Unless he ripped the hands off the gigai. But if he did, that'd be it. Game over. He'd only have a few minutes before Byakuya got him and by then more thugs might have turned up with more prisoners and just no. No. He owed it to these people, to Zommari and Unagiya-san, to hang on.
But still, it was his eyes. Blinded, he'd be helpless.
Mind starting to blank in panic, Renji fixated on the single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling, using it to fight for some kind of focus. He mustn't lose it. He had to hang on, stay with it enough to take advantage if they fucked up. When they fucked up. Because they had to. Please, they had to.
A dark figure loomed over him, blocking the light, and then came the click of a switchblade.
There had to be a way out that wouldn't destroy the gigai. There had to be.
Breath cramped in Renji's chest and his eyes flicked and rolled, desperate to see who had the knife. Not Kutsuzawa. He was the one watching, greedy anticipation all over his ugly face. Mendori then, expression cold and set as he leaned forward. Renji choked as the blade came closer, struggling until metal pressed to the thin skin under his right eye. Then he froze, blood thundering in his ears, mind spinning so fast that it finally jumped tracks.
Behind his back, arms bulged with muscle as self-preservation won out over reason and that instinctive part of his brain that needed to escape decided to do it all by itself. More power, it demanded. More. His body tried, but there was no more. The gigai soaked it up, stopping Renji using his full strength, just like it had when Mizuiro had taped him to the chair, and when No-neck had wrestled him to the ground. There was no more power. There was no ripping the hands off the gigai. There was no escape.
Mendori's fingers flexed on the knife and then suddenly from out in the workshop came a noise like a metal sheet ripping apart and the night filled with people yelling, "Freeze!" and "Get down!" and "Drop your weapons!"
The blade lifted and absolute relief washed through Renji like a hot wind. He might have sobbed. He probably did. The police! In all this shit with Kutsuzawa, he'd forgotten about Nic.
In the office, everyone was staring at the door, though why, Renji had no clue. Then, from out in the workshop, a single voice rose above the rest. "Kutsuzawa, get your ass out here or you're gonna be down a son-in-law!"
Mendori's eyes widened and he leapt off Renji, dragging the gun from his pocket. But, rather than rushing the door and getting into a shootout with the cops like Renji expected, he yanked open the bottom drawer of the desk, shoved the gun and knife inside, locked it again, and tossed the key under the couch.
While he was doing that, No-neck finally stopped trying to choke Renji to death, and looked to his boss, who'd tugged the watch from his pocket with an annoyed tsk and was checking it. "Typical," he said, sliding the watch away and straightening his shoulders as he re-buttoned his jacket. "They're five minutes early."
That sounded he was expecting them, which couldn't good. Though Renji didn't have a chance to think about why because No-neck was hauling him to his feet and giving him a hard shove between the shoulders. Renji staggered a few steps towards the door on watery knees, his body still trying to deal with way more adrenaline than it could use. Though, as he reached the door and was bundled through it ahead of everyone else, he couldn't help feeling more than a bit resigned. Aborted eye-gougee to meat-shield in less than a minute kind of summed up the recent trajectory of his life.
They exited the office into a stand-off in progress. Someone had pulled the lights, plunging most of the workshop into deep shadow, except for the area just inside the main doors, which was floodlit by the headlights of the cars drawn up outside. Back-lit by the same blindingly white light were a mixed group of about ten uniformed and plainclothes police officers, armed with what looked like guns and batons. One of them already had Mendori-kun face-down on the floor, hands cuffed behind him, sword kicked well out of reach against the wall.
Kutsuzawa's men had pulled back into the shadows. No-neck pushed Renji in that direction and, as they wove around bits of heavy machinery and between stacks of tyres, Renji finally realised why the police hadn't just stormed right into the place and arrested everyone. Each of the goons back here was armed either with swords or with tools from the workshop. Not that effective against guns maybe, but they could do a lot of damage to an unarmed civilian before the police could stop them. And if they knew anything about what was going down at all, then the police had to know there were potential hostages.
"Kojima-san, was there a reason you broke down the door of my friend's business, or do I need to call your boss about harassment again?" Kutsuzawa called. He'd stayed back on the edge of the shadows with Mendori-san beside him.
"Takeda?" Kojima boomed in reply. "Hah! Even that old fart won't let you dodge this one. Tell your men to stand down or I'll order S.I.T. to open fire."
Glancing back toward the light, Renji managed to get a better look at the man standing over Mendori-kun. Kojima was easily Renji's height and from this distance his beard and moustache seemed to rival the sōtaichō's for length and fluffiness. Unless most of that black fur was collar. Either way, it was some impressive facial hair and made the guy look even more bear-like than he did already. Mizuiro definitely got his looks from his mother.
"No, you won't," Kutsuzawa was saying. "They might accidentally kill someone and you hate the paperwork."
Kojima harrumphed as though reluctantly conceding the point and changed tack. "What was the plan here anyway?" he demanded. "Business deal gone sour? Lover's tiff run out of control? Or don't you care so long as the right people end up dead."
"Dead?" Kutsuzawa said, and if he was aiming for innocent, he missed it by a country mile, the smarmy bastard. "I have no idea what you mean, Kojima-san. I'm merely here visiting a friend."
"Of course you are," Kojima replied, hauling a sullen looking Mendori-kun to his feet and giving him a shake. "And I suppose this here's the friend in question." Then his head jerked in an exaggerated double-take. "Oh my bad, it's not a friend at all, just a lying piece of shit who's going straight from here to freaking jail!" He shoved Mendori-kun in the direction of his men, a couple of whom quickly holstered their guns to dodge forward and grab the guy. "Now give it up, Kutsuzawa. We both know you're not walking away from this."
While the pair argued, Renji was pushed to his knees beside Byakuya, who was still pale and unmoving, except for his chest, which slowly rose and fell. Renji gulped back a flash of panic that rode in on the tail end of all the adrenaline. There was no need to worry. He was still alive in there.
Or something was.
Renji took a deep breath and tore his gaze away from his lover, making a determined effort to shove all his fears deep down where he could deal with them later. Right now, he needed to get his soldier's head on.
He turned his attention to the rest of the prisoners. The men were all huddled together, and looked like a sorry bunch of pen-pushers. Renji dismissed them immediately and moved on to Unagiya-san, who was kneeling alone a few feet further on. She glanced at Renji briefly before turning her attention back to - Oh shit. That's where Zommari had got to.
A goon, who looked like No-neck's younger bigger cousin, had him right in the corner of the work-shop behind a dismantled car, and was doing something. Tying him to something? It was too dark to make out the details but Renji was starting to get a really bad feeling about all of this.
For a start, Kutsuzawa looked way too relaxed for a man who'd just been caught red-handed with a load of people he'd kidnapped and planned to murder, and for seconds…what was it he'd said when the police arrived? Something about them being too early?
An odd shimmer disturbed the air in the middle of the room. Renji blinked at it, frowning. Was the gigai playing up again, or was that actually real? Then the shimmer became a shape and everything suddenly made a horrible amount of sense.
Casting a panicked look down at Byakuya, he sent out a silent plea, Zabi, if I dump the gigai, how long can you hold him off?
If you do not call on us for help, perhaps an hour or more, the baboon replied after a moment's hesitation.
That sounded good. Renji was just about to relax when snake-tail added pointedly, However you musst return to the false body afterwards or be sstruck down.
No shikai, Renji could work with. Not destroying the gigai when he got out of it made things more complicated. What he needed was another pair of hands.
After a quick check on No-neck, who was way more interested in what his boss was up to than anything Renji might be doing, Renji shuffled over to Unagiya-san, leaned over her shoulder and whispered, "Hi, I'm a friend of your husband's and I need you to stick your hand down the front of my pants-"
Unagiya's head whipped round, making Renji jerk back out of reach. "Sorry, sorry," he yelped, then cast a worried glance at No-neck and hissed, "Shit. That came out all wrong. I just… I need your help." Livid and disbelieving brown eyes stared back. Renji gave her a lopsided grin. "Honest. I'm not a perv. I mean, I meant it about the pants, but…" Unagiya-san's expression remained furious under all the tape, but hey, at least she was looking at him now, not Zommari. Renji tried again. "Look, my name's Abarai Renji and we all need to get out of here right now. There's a glove tucked down the front of my pants that we can use to escape, but I can't get at it."
Something he said must have rung true. Unagiya raised her brows doubtfully but, after a quick look back at Zommari, she moved as if to at least try and help. Which was when the senkaimon finally popped into existence and Iba Tetsuzaemon strode out of it wearing a gigai.
To the police it must have looked like he appeared out of nowhere. One of them let off a startled shot that ricocheted off a metal beam in the ceiling sending everyone ducking for cover.
"Hold your fire!" Kojima bellowed.
A shocked silence ran through the room, holding for about a second until a single voice rang out, "He's the one! Kill him! Kill them all!"
It was Kutsuzawa. Iba must have been expecting the order. He raised his hands and loosed a vicious shakkahō at the police line that only missed Kojima by a whisker, and took out one of the police cars outside instead. And suddenly everyone was yelling. Renji hit the floor, taking Unagiya-san with him. "Pants, pants," he gasped, wriggling around so she could get at his clothing and he could still see what was happening.
More souls were streaming out of the senkaimon. They were kitted out in the same dark uniforms that Renji remembered Iba's thugs wearing when they'd come to pick Fūra up from the 6th. At the time he'd thought the Iba were pushing their luck, dressing their people in something so close to a shihakushō. Now he thought he got it. To the uninitiated, they'd look the same, so anyone spotting them in the living world like this would simply assume they were Gotei and entitled to be there. Risky if they got caught, but clever.
Over by the doors, some of the police looked ready to engage. One or two even produced swords. Kojima had a billhook in one hand and a see-through shield in the other and was yelling for Iba's people to lay down their weapons and surrender or he'd give the order to open fire.
But rather than looking ready to start shooting people, most of the firearms officers just seemed confused and focused solely on Iba Tetsuzaemon, which made no sense. Sure the guy was a threat, but the others…
In a rush of horror, Renji realised that the guys with the guns had absolutely no idea Iba's people were even there, which meant they were reliant on the other group to defend them. It effectively halved their fighting force. Damn it, this was going to be fucking blood bath if Renji didn't get his act in gear, right now!
Another shakkahō. Kojima snapped an order and more shots rang out. Iba went down, gigai blossoming scarlet across the chest and belly, but his people were already moving, producing weapons as they advanced. Swords, spears, clubs, they had them all. Which was strange. As far as Renji knew, the Iba mostly relied on their fists and the occasional knife, except for their pit fighters. Hang on, was that who these people were?
Hands pushed at the top of Renji's jeans. As he sucked his belly in to give Unagiya-san enough room, the big pink guy that Iba had brought with him the last time stepped forward with a thundering, "Bakudō seventy one, zanshō!" and around the workshop, walls shimmered blue as a barrier went up.
That was it, no one else was coming in or out now. It was all up to Renji.
Something tugged in his pants and then yes, finally, the glove was free. "Put it on and slam it against my chest," Renji urged, peering over Unagiya's shoulder. "Quickly!"
The two groups met, someone on the police's side screamed.
Zabi, get ready!
Finally the glove hit his chest and with a tearing jolt Renji peeled himself out of the gigai. He was drawing Zabimaru even as he rolled to his feet, and damn it was good to have his real body back!
Behind him, he heard a shocked gasp; Unagiya, presumably; and then a growl; Byakuya? Was he awake? Was he a monster?
Not waiting to see, Renji stepped into shunpo. But the growl followed him, striking up through his feet and into the depths of his soul. Inside him, Zabimaru roared defiance and a stabbing pain shot through Renji from head to toe. His vision flashed to wide deserts with a boiling purple sky and he almost fell out of shunpo, catching himself only just in time.
When they'd spoken, Zabimaru had reckoned they could hold out for an hour. Renji wasn't so sure.
But at least he didn't have to hold back anymore. Souls fell before his blade like rice stalks. This was what he was trained for. More even than killing hollows, Byakuya had taught him to kill shinigami. He knew where to aim and how hard, what parts were vulnerable and how to exploit every weakness. Some of those he struck were weak, falling with nothing more than a token protest. Others fought back harder, obviously trained, and soon they were the only ones left standing.
They had the tactics too. Renji quickly found himself surrounded.
Sight wavering between this reality and the one inside his soul, he turned slowly on the spot. All around them chaos reigned. Despite the police's best efforts, their lines had been decimated. There were officers down all over the place, some badly injured, others shoved out of their bodies, their soul chains a fragile lifeline in the face of this battle of monsters. Only Kojima was still up and functioning, and he was heading to where Iba was struggling back to his feet like he thought he could take the guy on and win.
He couldn't though, and he wouldn't. He'd end up dead, and he was Mizuiro's dad, the guy who might have tasered Renji and taped him to a chair, but had still found him a job and given him money from his own pocket. Plus, he was a friend of Ichigo's, so that meant Renji had to look after him. And his dad.
Shaking his head to clear it, Renji focused on what was left of Iba's fighters, and snarled, "Come on then, if ya gonna."
One took the bait, then another, darting in to attack together. Renji snapped them both up eagerly, kicking bodies and weapons away once he was done. More followed, rushing him from all directions. Renji dodged and parried, shifting between hakuda and swordplay, balancing one with the other and using both to match and surpass anything the fighters threw at him.
Soon he had their numbers whittled down to just one, a woman wielding a kusarigama. Which sucked. Renji hated fighting those things. It was impossible to know where the hell either end was going to end up. And she was too fast and skilled to simply overwhelm. Not a thug, that was for sure. They had to be pit fighters, which would explain why the bastards had been so well-trained.
She also wasn't the only one of Iba's people still on her feet. Two more were hovering over by the senkaimon. Big Pink, who was obviously some kind of kidō expert, and a green-skinned shinigami that looked like a frog with huge teeth. They were both watching Iba, who'd dumped his damaged gigai and had Kojima on the run, though the big guy could dodge pretty well for a human.
Ducking as the weighted chain of the kusarigama zipped over his head, Renji lunged, trying to get in and under the woman's guard, only to come up against the sickle blade. He thrust it up and away, punching upwards, the heel of his hand skimming past her chin as she dropped back. He followed up, sword swinging for a diagonal killing slice, only for a hōrin to snatch at his arm and drag it back down. Renji spun into that, leg rising to take out the caster, who scooted backwards, dragging Renji off-balance.
It was the frog guy from by the senkaimon. "You'd die for stupid humans?" he demanded, adenoidal voice scathing as he fended off another of Renji's attacks, with a barrier this time.
Renji's foot struck the bakudō at full power and it didn't even quiver, which wasn't good news. Struggling to focus, Renji pulled back a little to assess this new threat. There was no sign of a zanpakutō, but Froggy's reiatsu said he was definitely officer material. Possibly as high as a fourth or fifth seat. But he didn't seem to be interested in fighting.
"They only last a minute. Here and gone in a few decades," he was saying, "Not like us. Just turn a blind eye. Walk away." He held out empty hands towards Renji, googly eyes dropping to half-mast. "Better yet, come back to Seireitei."
"Fuck off," Renji snarled, though with a undercurrent of relief. If he was suggesting going home, he couldn't have a clue who Renji was.
Froggy chuckled, and with his next words completely disabused Renji of that idea. "Sensible, Abarai-san, if it was anyone else but me making the offer." He puffed himself up even rounder than he already was. "Hiyosu Occhō, by the way, fourth seat, 12th division."
Renji felt his choke of horror was more than enough answer. Though knowing this guy was one of Kurotsuchi's did answer some questions, like why the hell he looked so much like a frog. And was that a crank in his head?
Overly large hands flapped at the end of skinny arms. "Ah, don't be like that. You don't have to come to us. There's a lot of people who'd love to make use of your services."
If you didn't mind working for people like the Iba. Renji jabbed a thumb at his own face and shot back, "With this ink? One look and anyone'd know exactly who I was."
Hiyosu's already scarily wide mouth broadened into a smile. "Not if I changed it."
Changed his face? Renji blinked, his guard lowering minutely.
"And re-tuned your reiatsu. I can do both, you know."
Together, that was basically a new identity.
"It's not like anyone's going to notice when they all think you're in Shugo."
He'd be able to go home. Not to the Gotei, Zabimaru would prevent him ever doing that, but to Seireitei. To Ichigo. He'd be able to breathe the reishi rich air of soul society again and get out of this damned gigai.
"If you're worried about him turning you in," Hiyosu gestured to where Byakuya lay several feet from Unagiya-san. "I can fix that too. A little work on his brain and he won't be able to tell the 2nd who he is, let alone you. Or, if you want to keep him as a pet, I can change that too. Make him a bit different, if you know what I mean." He waggled non-existent eyebrows.
Renji did, and he wasn't interested at all. Not in that part, anyway. Which wasn't to say that some of what Hiyosu was offering wasn't appealing. Or would have been to anyone who wasn't Renji, because Renji knew the 12th, he knew Kurotsuchi, and no way would a deal like this come without enough strings to make him into a puppet.
The next words out of Hiyosu's mouth confirmed it. "I'm sure the captain won't ask for many favours in return."
Renji's rejection of the offer must have shown on his face because Hiyosu's smile vanished. His googly eyes flicked to the side and, needing no other warning, Renji hit the ground and rolled. The sickle blade buzzed harmlessly over his head but, when he came up, it was to find Hiyosu pointing what looked like a small machine gun at his head, if machine guns came with extra antennae and a snapping mouth for a barrel.
He'd been right. The 12th were importing human weapons into Seireitei and modifying them, presumably to kill shinigami. No wonder the guy wasn't carrying a zanpakutō. He didn't need one to kill people.
"Put the sword down and your hands up," Hiyosu said.
Death or the 12th. Renji didn't even stop to consider his options. He dropped an ōrai, the kidō equivalent of a flash-bang, and stepped into shunpo, aiming for enough distance that he could at least try and dodge the bullets. He ended up running into something worse.
"Bakudō sixty-two, hyapporankan!"
Big pink's voice rang out and suddenly the air was full of flying rods of reiatsu. Renji did his best to evade them but, once the first one hit, he was lost. It punched through his shoulder from back to front, swept him off his feet and carried him across the workshop to slam face-first into what was left of a car. The second and third rods pierced his other arm, and then the rest thundered home, pinning all of him to the metal.
As if that would be enough to hold him.
He snarled, flaring his reiatsu high and hard, and realised his mistake the second he did it. The world flickered and, for a split second simultaneously contained roiling clouds as well as heavy machinery. Zabimaru howled and Renji heard the accusation in their voice. No shikai. Renji had promised.
But I need it, he snarled back. Without shikai, he wouldn't be able to break the kidō and the humans would die.
This time the flash of other lasted longer. Renji found himself looking out over the desert of his inner world, at fast approaching banks of cloud, heavy with sand and what looked like lightning. He was seeing through Zabimaru's eyes, he realised, and that storm was Byakuya. Hunting. For him. For Zabimaru.
Using shikai with that watching would be the equivalent of painting an arrow over Zabimaru's head. Byakuya would know exactly where they were and once he found them, there would be no more hiding. Renji would have no choice but to fight.
At one time, Renji might have put Zabimaru's safety first; after all, Hiyosu was right, these were only humans with their tiny lifespans; but that was before. Living here, amongst them, meeting Arisawa-sensei and his granddaughter, Zommari and Mizuiro and the rest of Ichigo's friends, had brought firsthand knowledge in place of theory, and even if every single one of the humans in this place had enough spiritual power to summon a menos, Renji couldn't have turned his back on them and let them die.
I'm sorry, he said silently, screwing his eyes shut. We have to.
Five minutes. No more, came Zabimaru's sonorous reply.
That would have to be enough.
And then the sscore will finally be ssettled.
As it probably should have been years ago.
The truth of that settled over Renji's heart like ice. He opened his eyes to the sound of Hiyosu arguing with Iba over the spoils. He wanted the gigai while Iba was hell bent on collecting the reward on Byakuya's head. And they both wanted Renji. So much for a new life back in Seireitei.
This time when Renji reached for shikai, the power came. It vaporised the kidō and blasted a hole through the car beneath him, peppering the concrete below with lethal shards of metal. It also attracted a satisfying amount of attention. As Renji swung into action, he was greeted by three of the four remaining souls. There was no sign of Big Pink, but he had to be around somewhere, so Renji attacked keeping his back safely towards the wall.
Only Iba came to meet him, but Renji couldn't focus on him, not when Hiyosu was there with that damned gun. Keeping Zabimaru closed up tight, he by-passed Iba with an off-handed shō, and went in for the kill on the shinigami behind him.
Hiyosu hurriedly raised his gun, eyes wide, but made no attempt to fire. Renji had less than a moment to wonder why before a tanto sliced through where his throat would have been, had he been a heartbeat slower ducking. Too close! But a short blade like that was no match for a sword. Renji dodged to put Iba between him and Hiyosu's gun and then lunged, thinking to use Zabimaru's greater reach to earn a quick kill. Iba side-stepped as, with a whispered word and a surge of reiatsu, his tanto morphed into some kind of machete.
Now that was a zanpakutō, Renji thought, pulling out of the lunge and only narrowly avoiding disembowelling himself on Iba's new longer blade. But since when was Iba a shinigami?
He kicked out, sending Iba flying before stepping into shunpo, which took him back out of immediate sword range, but of course left him open to the machine gun again. It gave a deafening chatter and Renji cast blind, instinctively, "Enkosen!" feeling the bullets rebound off the kidō. He kept it going, expecting another burst, and whipped Zabimaru forwards at Hiyosu.
It was a great idea, that would've worked if there hadn't been machinery in the way. Zabimaru bounced off a tall metal arch and snagged on a set of shelving, and getting it free again nearly cost Renji an arm as that damn kusarigama woman got in behind him, her weapon a whirl of death. Iba came in from the other side and suddenly Renji was very much on the back foot. Five minutes, Zabimaru had said, at this rate, he'd be dead and buried in half that time.
"For fuck's sake," he snarled to himself. "You're a fucking lieutenant, Abarai, get your head in the fucking game."
Ducking and rolling, he sent a hainawa after Iba and came up behind the woman's back, slicing upwards, and felt flesh and bone part beneath his blade. She fell, silently and in two pieces.
One down permanently. One only temporarily, because if Iba had shikai, that kidō wouldn't hold him for long.
Hiyosu had to come next. That gun was almost as bad as the chain and sickle.
It chattered again and Renji went high, searching for cover amongst the metal beams of the ceiling. It worked, inasmuch as bullets ricocheted everywhere sending Hiyosu diving for cover. Renji didn't bother. A bullet burned through his upper arm, but it was worth it because now he had all the advantage he needed. The byakurai hit Hiyosu while he was still recovering, skittering up the gun to fry his face and most of his right side, which was gonna hurt like a bitch.
With a pained bellow, Hiyosu flung the now sizzling gun away and it went spinning off under the machinery. Something told Renji the guy wasn't used to going up against armed opponents with that thing. Or at least not anyone of Renji's calibre. Bastard probably just used it to bring down fleeing 'research subjects'.
Now unarmed and half-blinded, Hiyosu was on borrowed time. Renji landed between him and gun's final resting place, and sent Zabimaru flying in at full extension. As a blade, Zabimaru's shikai wasn't designed to stab, they preferred slicing their food, but on this occasion, they managed it. The broad tip sank into Hiyosu's rotund gut from just below the rib cage to the navel, punching him back half a dozen paces. Then it yanked free again.
Hiyosu screamed, falling to his knees as Zabimaru's teeth ripped out his innards, one hand pressed to his belly, the other reaching instinctively to scoop up what should still be on the inside. Renji turned away. Two down. Or close enough.
Finally he could deal with Iba, who'd broken the kidō and was coming in fast. The machete flashed again, and this time it came with back-up. When Renji tried to lean out of the upward slice, brass-knuckles caught him in the ribs hard enough to crack them even in shikai. With a curse, Renji spun away, dodging behind some shelving where he almost tripped over Unagiya-san and the pen-pushers who were busy tearing the tape off each other's wrists. He missed them with a skip and a jump and ended up way too close to Byakuya for comfort.
Byakuya was moving. Or whatever was inside the gigai was. Twitching like a fly-blown corpse, distended and wrong and no way did Renji want to be anywhere near that when it blew.
Shaken, he shunpo'd away, heading towards the front doors, though he stopped before he reached them. It was either that or he'd be in amongst what was left of the police lines and those poor bastards had taken enough damage already. Renji still had no idea what had happened to Kojima, except that he had to be down somewhere since Iba wasn't bothering with him any longer.
Speaking of… Renji raised his sword to face the incoming yakuza. As his did so, the gun-shot injury in his arm pulsed hotly and his grip faltered before sheer stubbornness made his fingers close tighter around Zabimaru's hilt. Still, it was a warning. He needed to finish this, and he needed to stay in one piece while he did it, otherwise whatever was left of Byakuya was going to eat him for lunch afterwards.
Then, suddenly, Iba wasn't coming for Renji at all. He'd veered towards the senkaimon, putting on a burst of speed that was almost shunpo. The bastard was making a break for it!
Renji went for the intercept but, as he took off, an inhuman screech that sent chills down his spine rose from the other side of the workshop. Byakuya, it had to be. Inside him, Zabimaru howled and there was just enough desperation in the sound to put Renji off his stroke. He missed his timing and his footing, coming out far beyond the senkaimon and had to watch as Iba vanished through the double doors into the dangai.
"Fuck!" he bellowed, casting Zabimaru after him in sheer frustration. But the blade never got as far as the senkaimon. Instead it bounced off a hastily erected barrier, returning to Renji with a furious snap. Big Pink. Renji had forgotten about him.
He'd concealed himself with a kyokkō close to the senkaimon and the kidō was now diffusing, making it look like the guy was slowly coming into focus. Renji took his stance, ready to fight if that's what it took to go after Iba. Because Renji had to stop him. If he reported in, this place was gonna be swarming with more yakuza than the pits on a festival weekend, and Renji wasn't entirely sure he could take all of them, en masse. At least not before Byakuya caught up with him.
"I'd move, unless you wanna die," Renji snarled.
Big pink simply gave him a sad look and raised his hands, ready to cast. As he did so, the right one glinted oddly in the car headlights and it took Renji a moment to realise what he was seeing. The hand was mechanical, which was a new one on Renji. He hadn't known such a thing was possible, let alone how it could work with kidō.
Still, it raised some interesting questions like whether the original had been taken as a punishment. If so, then the guy was probably ex-shinigami. Maybe they could bond over that or something. It had to be worth a try.
"If we stop him before he gets back, no one'll know what happened. You can go AWOL, join us," Renji tried.
Big pink shook his head. "I'm sorry, Abarai-san," he said, and his speaking voice was so much quieter than when he was casting that Renji had to strain to hear him. "But if I do not return, many people will die."
"And if you let that asshole report in, a lot of people here are gonna die."
If anything, Big pink's expression just turned sadder. "But these people are not my friends."
That took the wind right out of Renji's sails because the bitch of it was, he got it. He really did. He totally understood how you could ignore what was happening to some poor bastard down the street because at the end of the day, all you could do was protect the people that mattered to you. The ones you were responsible for. The killing fields? Sure, he hated them and would close them down in a heartbeat, but who was gonna listen to him, so he ignored them and avoided thinking about them. The 12th, with all the fucked up shit that went down there. Renji's strategy? Make sure none of his people ever ended up in their clutches. Same with that creep Urahara, though Renji's heart broke every time he saw Hisagi.
So yeah, he got it.
Heaving a sigh, Renji straightened his stance. "Guess we'll just have to fight then," he said, hoping against hope that his time lasted that long.
He'd hardly taken a step forward when a scream rang out. "Renji!"
At the exact same moment, a gun fired. Renji spun, ducking, the world around him seeming to slow to a crawl. As he turned he saw bullets hanging in the air behind him at head height, trapped by some kind of kidō as, across the workshop, the gun fell from Hiyosu's suddenly lax fingers. He was slumping into some shelving, his other hand pressed across his belly, the remnants of a healing kidō still fading around it. But he was dead. He had to be, because even Unohana-taichō would have struggled to heal the massive hole that had been punched through his chest.
As his body fell, Ichigo's bird-boy friend, Sado, emerged from behind him like a blood-spattered serial killer and, just as suddenly as it had slowed, the world sprang back into motion. People flooded in from everywhere, humans and souls, their voices raised as orders flew and the injured finally got the help they needed. More police poured in through the back of the workshop, and he saw Kojima struggling to his feet, though the severed soul chain dangling from his chest proved it was pointless. Others were luckier. They were being helped back to their bodies and healed by a grey-haired woman with a braid over one shoulder.
Unagiya-san, who'd been the one to scream the warning, was being comforted by Zommari, whose jacket was covered in the same sticky white residue as Renji's. Even Kutsuzawa was there with the Mendori duo, though all three were in handcuffs and being escorted out by uniformed cops.
Renji stared around at everyone, trapped between hope and terror. It was great to see people getting help, but more people meant more potential victims. His five minutes were running out fast, he could feel it, but if he left now, before Iba was caught…
Zabimaru?
He is almost here.
The baboon's warning sounded like a death knell. I can't leave yet. If I do and Iba comes back- they'll all die.
You must, or it will break free and they will die anyway. Look.
Pain stabbed through Renji's head as, over by the shelves, a movement caught his eye. It was Byakuya's gigai, which had somehow managed to prop itself up and was rocking back and forth as it stared hungrily at Renji across the room.
Fuck, that was creepy. Was there anything of Byakuya left inside at all?
"Are you okay?"
Renji shuddered and dragged his gaze from the horror show that used to be his lover to find Sado beside him, brown eyes full of concern beneath messy over-long bangs. He must have crossed to this side of the workshop at some point, though Renji had no idea when. "No, I'm not," he snapped trying to swallow down the growing sense of urgency in his chest. "I let Iba get away. Someone needs to go after him or this place is gonna be crawling with reinforcements."
Sado's gaze flicked briefly from Renji to the senkaimon before settling on Big pink, who for some reason was looking a lot less determined than he had been. "I don't think that'll be a problem," Sado said.
With both of them to fight, maybe not, but that wasn't gonna happen. The urgency became a tightness that made it hard to catch his breath. Renji pressed his fist to his chest and continued, "Yeah, that's the thing. It can't be me what goes."
That attracted Sado's attention back onto him, and the concern in his eyes deepened. "Are you injured?"
"No." The tightness became pain and Renji's knees started to go, his head becoming fuzzy. "I've got a prior engagement." He should explain, except that'd mean breaking the taboo around inner worlds, and to a non-shinigami at that. "In here." His fist jerked.
Something of what he said must have made sense because Sado nodded seriously. "I see," he said, "Then you must do what you need to do. I will take care of everything here."
It was a dumb claim, and one that the guy couldn't possibly back up. Renji opened his mouth to tell him so, just as the senkaimon started glowing.
"Crap," he gasped instead. A glowing senkaimon meant that Iba was back, and there was no one here left to fight him, because Zabimaru was calling him home and Renji could no more resist that than he could suddenly give up breathing.
But Sado must have felt it opening too. Turning his back on Renji, he pushed past Big Pink to stand before the gate, bandaged fists still dripping gore from punching through Hiyosu's chest. He stood strong, a rock across a river, the twin horns of his tekko gleaming in the floodlights like they were eager for more.
They were his zanpakutō. Renji wasn't sure how he knew, but he did, and a bark of laughter escaped before he could stop it because, of course the guy had shikai. He was Ichigo's best friend. And no doubt he'd meant it when he'd told Renji that he'd look after things too. Just like Ichigo would. Now, Renji was no idealist, he knew that some promises you just couldn't keep. But he also knew that sheer bloody-minded stubbornness played a huge part in keeping the ones you did.
"I promise you, Abarai-san, no harm will come to anyone in this place after you leave."
The quiet confidence in Sado's deep voice soothed parts of Renji that had been stretched to breaking point for days and, for the first time he really got why Ichigo called this guy his best friend. With belief like that behind you, you could do anything. Even bring down the moon itself.
"Thanks," he gasped, ass hitting the floor as his knees finally gave out. His hands dropped to his knees, sword across them, the classic jinzen pose. "Tell Ichigo-" It was getting almost impossible to think, but he should try and warn Ichigo about Byakuya. If Renji lost, the monster might go after him next. "Tell him… Byakuya… Bya…"
But it was no good, his focus was slipping. His time was up, the world around him fading. Then, finally, it folded in on itself and dumped Renji unceremoniously on his face in the middle of a sandstorm.