Renji was planning to be well and truly pruned by the time Ichigo got back. It had been weeks since he'd had a proper soak and this was heaven. Or it would be if it weren't for the wailing.

Guilt twisted in Renji's gut as his gaze gravitated to the rocky niche where Byakuya still writhed in his restraints. He'd been so convinced that he was after Zabimaru, and all that time the poor bastard had been starving to death. He should have known, should have guessed. Especially with those drugs he'd taken. According to Zommari they suppressed appetite as well stopping people sleep.

The wailing ticked up a notch. Renji sank beneath the water, but it followed him down, a kind of echoing vibration that he could feel in the top of his head. It was no good. He couldn't rest like this, and if they were going to try the bankai thing when Ichigo got back, he had to recharge.

Shoving himself up and out of the water in one move, Renji called, "Zabimaru? You around?"

The baboon appeared on a rock ledge above him, snake-tail weaving into view a moment later. "Where else would we be?" it hissed. "Thiss is our world too, though you failed to ask if we wanted visitors."

"Ichigo? He's not a visitor, he's-"

"Not a part of you. And unlike with that one, there is no formal tie between you," the baboon said, clambering inelegantly down from its perch.

"Thus it would have been polite to assk first," snake-tail hissed, swaying erratically from side to side as though torn between irritation and being a counter-weight.

"You're right. I'm sorry," Renji replied, dipping his chin. "Is it okay if he comes back?"

"Sso long as it sstops this fearful racket," snake-tail said, curling itself tight against the baboon's back as they reached ground level. Did snakes even have ears? Renji had no clue.

"Actually I've got an idea how to fix that," he said. "Would you guys mind if we went shikai for a bit, see if that helps keep him quiet?" That way he'd still be able to rest and recharge. From experience, Renji knew he could stay in shikai for days if necessary. Even sleep with it.

Snake-tail grumbled hissily but didn't argue. The baboon simply headed for the water in silence, sliding back into the pool as their reiatsu rose enough to let Renji know that the answer was yes.

Renji raised his to match, feeling the kick over into shikai and the energy around him settle out at that slightly higher level. A moment later, the wailing stopped and for a second Renji thought they'd cracked it. Then Byakuya whimpered. A sound that was almost worse than the wailing.

Forcing himself to go closer, Renji hunkered down and did his best to see past what remained of the man he loved and look at the situation objectively. Byakuya was feeding on the shikai, that much was obvious. His eyes were pretty glazed, clawed hands working, though not with the same ecstatic movement as they did with the bankai. But what he really looked was uncomfortable. The rock was tight round his limbs and over his chest, and it couldn't be fun being propped up like that all the time. Plus, it had to be damn cold with nothing on but that ragged yukata and no reiryoku to speak of.

Rotating on his heel, Renji contemplated the pool and then Byakuya again. "Do you reckon we could move him?" he asked. It was probably dumb, though not the worst idea he'd ever had.

Zabimaru had come as far as the pool's edge to watch them though they still seemed wary. Justifiably so, Renji was sure, but they could only deal with one problem at a time.

"I see no reason why not," the baboon said.

Changing the structure of his inner world permanently took a change in heart and mindset, according to Zabimaru, since the one was directly related to the other. But temporary manipulations were mostly just a matter of willpower, and Renji had that in spades. With a bit of focus, he carved out another set of rock shackles, every bit as secure as the first because he might want Byakuya to be comfortable but he was still potentially dangerous, and then pushed his reiatsu up to bankai level for the move itself. Predictably, Byakuya zoned out completely, and Renji took that as his cue to move him.

As the rock released, he caught Byakuya and staggered in surprise. Gods, had he weighed this little when they'd dragged him up here? Renji didn't remember. He'd not been letting himself think about it. He'd not let himself think about anything much until he'd heard Ichigo calling for him and known that help was finally at hand.

Now he let himself really look at the man-monster in his arms. At pale skin that Renji had always found so beautiful, now corpse-white and stretched tight across bones too narrow to be human. At flat black eyes where once volcanic grey had watched him so knowingly, so admiringly. At lips thinned to nothing around a mouth that had become a monster's maw, full of jagged splintered teeth. Hair like string hung in ugly clumps from Byakuya's misshapen skull, and spider-like limbs were tipped in skeletal fingers and bat's claws. And that belly, so hugely distended that Byakuya looked a year or more pregnant, his genitals withered to nothing beneath.

The night they'd escaped Matsuyama, when Renji had had a meltdown over his scars, Byakuya had told him that beauty was a fleeting thing and not for soldiers. And Renji agreed with that, wholeheartedly. But looking at Byakuya like this, so monstrous and wrong, if they managed to fix him on the inside but the outside stayed this way, what then? Would that change anything? Was appearance alone enough to make Renji stop caring about him? Was he really that shallow?

Byakuya shifted, nuzzling closer, and sighed. It was a behaviour Renji had witnessed thousands of times over decades of watching Byakuya as he slept. It was as familiar to him as a heartbeat, and as beloved as a kiss.

"Shit," Renji croaked, pulling that pitiful body close and pressing his nose into sparse lank hair. "You're still in there, aren't you. I didn't think…I couldn't-" His voice broke, only coming back as a whisper. "I hoped you were gone. But we'll fix you somehow, I promise. Ichigo's got an idea and you know how the kid is, he ain't gonna stop until you're back to normal. We'll make this right. We'll make you right." And if that meant black eyes and corpse white skin then they'd deal, because it might be the Gotei way to turn your back on someone when they were hurt, but it wasn't the right way.

Renji sat for what was probably too long, holding Byakuya in his lap. But eventually claws began drawing blood and Byakuya's movements became more agitated. Reluctantly, Renji surrendered him up to the new set of shackles. He cried as Renji's reiatsu dropped to shikai levels, but soon quieted again as warm water lapped around him up to his neck. He almost seemed to be enjoying it, moving his hands slowly from side to side, though that might just have been Renji's imagination.

"And to think I thought you were dangerous," Renji said, slipping into the water beside him.

Across the pool, Zabimaru eyed Byakuya warily. "Uncontrolled, he would have torn you apart," the baboon said after a few moments.

"And as you were before, you could not have faced him," added snake-tail.

Renji tipped his head back against the rock. Zabimaru was right, of course. He'd defeated Byakuya easily, but only because the three of them had been working together. If they'd still been shattered like they had been before Renji got to grips with his insecurities, Renji would have been facing high level kidō and an army of skeletons as a child armed only with a sealed sword. Byakuya would have taken him easily, and then he'd have taken Zabimaru, and then he'd have taken what was left and eaten every scrap.

"And he would still have been a monster," the baboon said, as Renji's eyes slid closed. "A soul cannot be sustained for long on stolen power, only on that which is freely given."


A smack round the ear woke Renji some time later, courtesy of snake-tail going by the way it was swaying smugly above the baboon's back. Renji curled a lip at it and growled, "What was that for?"

"The other returns," the baboon said hauling itself out of the pool and filling the air with diamond droplets of water as they shook off the excess. They looked ready to leave again.

"You could stay," Renji suggested, standing up. "Knowing Ichigo, he'd love to meet you, and he's bringing his zanpakutō with him this time."

He was out of the pool and putting on his shirts, when strange reiatsu suddenly appeared downslope. Renji swung round, almost losing his footing on the slick stone, and there, at the boundary where volcanic rock became lush meadow, stood three figures. One unmistakably Ichigo, and two others, the first very tall and so black that it looked like living shadow, and the second, pure white and reeking of hollow.

Renji had his sword in his hand before he remembered reaching for it. It came with eagerness, Zabimaru's howl in his mind as well as his ears as they moved to defend themselves and Byakuya from the invader.

Then Ichigo's hand was on his arm, his familiar reiatsu wrapping around Renji, drowning out the stink of hollow. "It's okay. Renji, let me explain. He's not dangerous. He's just a part of me."

"You?" Pushing Ichigo away, Renji looked him up and down and then past him down the slope towards the others. Now his mind wasn't completely swamped by hollow, he could see the resemblance. But- "That's not possible- How?"

"That bastard, Urahara. After you and Byakuya left, I had to get bankai quickly. He offered to help, but afterwards, when I was still exhausted, he stabbed me with a sword and I hollowfied." Ichigo raised a hand to his face and a white mask with two vertical black stripes formed beneath his fingers. Black and gold eyes stared back at Renji through the eye-holes.

"Hollow-fied." Even face to face with it, Renji was having trouble believing. This was Ichigo. His lover more even than Byakuya, he was now willing to admit. This kid- no, this man had come into his life, turned everything in it upside down. He'd taught Renji that sitting still wasn't an option, that he had to fight to be everything he could be. He'd saved people left, right and centre, turned Byakuya into an equal, and forced Renji into being honest with himself and his zanpakutō.

Basically he'd been the most unselfish soul Renji had ever come across in his life, and Urahara had done this to him! It was Hisagi all over again, only worse, because this was Ichigo. "I'm going to kill that bastard," Renji snarled, feeling his reiatsu start to swell and not having enough fucks to stop it. "I'm going to rip him apart and feed him his fucking intestines! I'm gonna-"

The rest of the sentence got lost in Ichigo's mouth as warm human lips pressed urgently against Renji's, hands cupping the sides of his face, fingertips digging into his neck. A tongue slid in beside his own, stroking, urging. Renji grabbed what was on offer and dragged Ichigo in close, deepening the kiss, plunging his tongue back into Ichigo's mouth as if he could drive every scrap of taint from his soul through the sheer force of his love. Reiatsu closed around them, mixing and merging, a black and red curtain of power. It felt so good, to hold him again, to feel his heat and have that lean body, so deceptively full of strength, pressed against him.

Ichigo moaned into his mouth and Renji felt his arousal surge, taking their reiatsu with it. He dropped his sword and his fingers wound into Ichigo's hair, holding him still so Renji could break away for just long enough to drag kisses across Ichigo's face and down that long elegant throat, to nibble at corded tendons and feel Ichigo's moan against his lips. But he couldn't stay away long. Their mouths found each other again, their usual back and forth less of a game this time and more a reaffirmation of everything they'd shared.

They could have got lost in each other for hours, but they had to come up for air sometime. When they finally parted, Ichigo pressed his forehead to Renji's and, still panting, murmured, "Gods, I missed you. I don't care what we have to do, I don't want you guys running off without me again."

Renji closed his eyes and nodded, though he knew it might not be that easy. He'd try though, with all his might, because Zabimaru might be his other half, but Ichigo was his soulmate. As they calmed, their reiatsu began to fall, quickly dipping well below shikai. Renji braced himself for the wail, but it never came.

Curious, he glanced over at Byakuya, who was slumped in his bonds, eyes closed. Renji's heart gave curious squeezy-thump. "He's sleeping," he murmured into Ichigo's damp hairline. It smelt of fresh sweat and arousal and, for some weird reason, pork ramen. Renji nuzzled closer.

"Hmm?" Ichigo hummed, turning his head on Renji's shoulder. "You're right. He must like the water. Good idea moving him."

Renji shrugged. "He looked uncomfortable stuck there on the rock face."

"Like a princess waiting for a dragon."

"Princess…?" It didn't sound like Ichigo meant it the same way as Mendori always had, but hearing the word directed at Byakuya still rubbed Renji the wrong way.

Something of what he was feeling must have bled over. Ichigo averted his eyes muttering, "Maybe not. Unless he's a monster princess."

It seemed to be a tired attempt at humour and it tugged on Renji's already tender heartstrings. He dropped another kiss into Ichigo's hair and, when he looked up again, he caught sight of the two monochrome figures still waiting at the bottom of the slope. They were patient, he'd give them that. "You gonna introduce me to your zanpakutō before we get started?"

Ichigo pulled back with a dry chuckle. "I think you need to do some introductions first," he said, his gaze shifting to something behind Renji.

Renji glanced over his shoulder. Zabimaru was only a few feet away, the baboon on all fours as though it had been about to attack, but with its head turned away like it was trying not to watch them kiss. Snake-tail was nothing but a lump at the baboon's rear end. Hiding, Renji assumed.

Trying not to grin, Renji took a step back and said, "Zabimaru, this is my lover, Shiba Ichigo. Ichigo, this is my zanpakutō spirit and the other half of me, Zabimaru. Also known as baboon and snake-tail."

"I'm honoured to meet you," Ichigo said, dipping a polite bow. "Please call me Ichigo." Baboon dipped back. Snake-tail only emerged for long enough to flick its tongue once before vanishing again. Was it shy or something? Ichigo gave them both a curious look and then glanced over at Renji. "Other half of you?" he asked.

Renji nodded proudly. "Together we're a nue demon," he said.

"Nue demon." Little frown lines appeared between Ichigo's eyes. "I'm sure we covered that in school… A chimera, right? With the head a monkey, the tail of a snake…" The corners of Ichigo's mouth twitched up, and his gaze slid down Renji's nude body. "The limbs and torso of a tiger and the balls of a tanuki?"

"Body of a tanuki," Renji protested, turning to grab his hakama and shove wet legs into them

"I'm think my version's more accurate," came Ichigo's laugh from somewhere behind him. There was silence for a second and then Ichigo said, "Your back's all healed, you know."

Renji's stomach lurched. He'd forgotten about his scars.

Holding his hakama with one hand, he felt tentatively up behind him and found skin that was almost smooth. There were ridges, shallow ones, no more than slight welts, but that was all. Shaking slightly, he moved his fingers downward to his backside and the tops of his thighs where the deepest gouges had been in the muscle. Even here he couldn't feel much. Ichigo was right, they were healed.

"It looks like it happened years ago. Just faded pink scars," Ichigo was saying. "You didn't know."

That last wasn't a question. Renji guessed from his reaction that Ichigo hadn't needed to make it one. "I had no idea," he said, horrified when his voice came out thick with emotion.

"Well, now you do," Ichigo said quietly. "So don't feel like you have to cover up any more because of them."

Renji stared at the hakama in his hands. Was that why he'd reached for them? He never would have before. Renji had been proud of his body, it was his best asset, and yet he'd done the same thing when snake-tail said Ichigo had arrived, grabbed for his shirts to cover up. And just then, he'd been fine until Ichigo looked at him, and then he'd had to hide.

"But if you're just cold or whatever-," Ichigo continued, suddenly sounding really uncomfortable.

"And deprive you of the view?" Renji said, letting the hakama fall to the ground and standing upright. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach, and he felt the urge to grab his clothes again.

This couldn't just be the scars, could it? He wasn't that sensitive about them.

A memory, of a tumble of coloured pictures spilling from his lap to a hotel room floor slammed into Renji's mind. The photographs. Gods, he'd forgotten all about the photographs. He'd not taken them with him when he left. Were they still in the apartment? Were they safe?

"Where are we?" he demanded, and now his voice had an edge that Renji didn't even know what to call. He stooped to grab his hakama again.

"In this training room under Ryūken's apartment block," Ichigo replied. "Why?"

Because Renji had to find those things and destroy them before someone else stumbled over them. "Who's with us? You mentioned your sister, is she out there now?" His movements were getting jerky, he knew, but he couldn't stop it.

"Yeah, there's her and Chad and someone called Itane or something. They're downstairs with us. And then upstairs in the apartment-"

Renji didn't wait to hear who was upstairs. Yanking his hakama ties tight, he spun round, grabbed Ichigo by the shirt and snapped, "I need to get out there, right now."

Ichigo flinched slightly but said only, "Go. I can hold the fort here." He jerked his chin in Byakuya's direction, and crap, Renji had forgotten all about him, about what they were supposed to be doing.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You sure?"

"Positive," Ichigo said. "Uryū said we should come out of jinzen regularly anyway to eat, and I just had noodles, so you might as well go now." He paused. "So long as Zabimaru's okay with us being here without you."

Zabimaru. Right. Renji spun round looking for his zanpakutō spirits, and found them in the far side of the pool, only the baboon's pink face and the very tip of snake-tail's snout visible above the water. Renji hurried over and hunkered down beside them. "I gotta go do a thing," he said when they both surfaced enough to hear him. "You gonna be okay if Ichigo stays here without me?"

Snake-tail sank like a stone, but the baboon stayed up long enough to say, "It would be better if we met our counterparts first."

Ichigo's zanpakutō. They'd not been introduced. Crap.

He was about to run back to Ichigo when snake-tail hissed, "Is it the picturess that bother you so much or what they represent?"

Helplessness. Vulnerability. The kind of exposure that reminded Renji way too much of that moment up on the scaffold on Sōkyoku Hill just before the first blow landed. Emotions surged through him and he couldn't move. His feet were frozen to the rocks, his limbs lead. There were hands touching him, tugging at his clothes, and he could hear voices, sweet, cajoling, calling his name, 'Ren-ji.' 'Ren-ji.'

"Renji!"

Renji managed to stop his fist just before it punched Ichigo in the throat. Ichigo's eyes were wide, startled. He'd not even tried to defend himself, and that more than anything else cut through the flashback. "Fuck," Renji gasped, suddenly shaking too much to stay on his feet. He sagged and then sat. This close to the pool, his hakama were going to get soaked.

"Are you okay," Ichigo asked, crouching down beside him, and followed it immediately with a mumbled, "Course you're not, stupid question." Then louder again. "Am I alright this close? You're not gonna hit me again?"

That one Renji managed to react to. He turned his hand palm-side up on his knee and Ichigo took the hint, shuffling closer and resting his own hand gently on top of it. For a long moment they just sat, Ichigo mercifully silent as Renji tried to get his head round what had just happened. Normally flashbacks weren't a problem, he'd been having them long enough that he'd learnt to snap himself out of them. He'd have been a gibbering wreck by the time he hit forty if he hadn't. But that had been different. There'd been no visual or contextual clues for him to latch on to, and without them, no way of focusing on the differences between memory and reality.

"There's no need to be embarrassed," Ichigo said after a minute or two, when Renji had almost calmed down enough to start thinking about moving. "I used to have flashbacks all the time when I was little, about mom dying. Asano-sensei said it was natural."

Renji closed his eyes and huffed a sigh. "I'm not embarrassed. I know what flashbacks are, but normally I can control them. This one just got away from me is all."

"Oh." Silence. "Sorry." More silence. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." What could he say? 'I don't remember anything but there's photographic evidence of me having a really great weekend and now you looking at me in the nude makes me hyperventilate and fall over'. It sounded stupid even to him. He didn't even get why it was bothering him so much. He was wagging his dick at Ichigo earlier.

"Okay." Silence again and then, "If you ever do, I'm here."

Rather than answer, Renji squeezed Ichigo's hand and said, "Introductions. Then I can go."

"Right, yeah," Ichigo said, standing up, "Only before we go down there, I'd better warn you, my zanpakutō's a bit of asshole, so try not to overreact if he insults you."

Still holding Ichigo's hand, Renji gave him a faux incredulous look. "Your zanpakutō, an asshole? I'm shocked, Shiba, truly shocked. And you such a nice polite boy."

"Fuck off," Ichigo growled, snatching his hand back and stalking off.

Renji sniggered, hauling himself up too. Damn but it was good to have Ichigo back. He was such an easy mark.

A couple of running steps and he had an arm slung around those stiff shoulders, planting a kiss on a pinking ear, making sure to blow a little hot air into it first. Ichigo elbowed him in the ribs and together they half-walked, half-wrestled their way down the slope.

They found the hollow sitting at the other spirit's feet when they got to the bottom. Renji tried not to look at it, disturbed by how much it resembled Ichigo. It must be really creepy having a doppleganger-hollow living in your soul. It was amazing Ichigo had even brought it with him, except leaving it unattended probably wasn't a good idea either.

The one standing, Ichigo's zanpakutō spirit presumably, was even taller than Renji had initially thought, towering over all of them. He was humanoid, with dark hair that stuck out like a wavy halo around his head and a thin face mostly concealed by white wrappings. They started just under his eyes and carried on right down, even under his shadowy clothing. He also had the weirdest reiatsu Renji had ever sensed. With all the hollow stink, he'd not noticed before, but this close, he couldn't miss it.

"Guys, this is Abarai Renji, one of my boyfriends," Ichigo said, then, "Renji, this is my zanpakutō, Zangetsu." Only, he gestured not at the shadow-man, but to the seated hollow beside it.

"That's your zanpakutō!" Renji blurted before he could stop himself.

"Oh yeah, got a great catch there," the hollow drawled, though it made no attempt to get up. It looked sick, with sunken cheeks and dark rings under its black and gold eyes, though that might be normal for all Renji knew.

"It's not Renji's fault," Ichigo snapped, though the scowl he shot Renji's way said otherwise.

"What?" Renji protested. "You said you'd been hollowfied and he looks just like you, so I assumed he was your hollowfied self."

The hollow and Ichigo exchanged looks. Some kind of silent communication must have passed between them because a moment later the hollow shrugged and said, "Got me, king. I just came out like this." Narrowed black and gold eyes turned on Renji. "And you'd better treat him right, monkey-boy, or I'll rip your balls off and feed 'em to ya."

An asshole, Ichigo had said. Don't overreact. Renji did his best not to let his irritation show and knew he'd failed when the hollow smirked at him knowingly.

"And this is Ossan." Ichigo gestured to the shadow-guy then paused, seeming to brace himself before continuing, "He's a remnant of Yhwach Bach, and the personification of my Quincy powers."

Renji's jaw dropped. He knew it had, but he couldn't have shut it again if his life depended on it. Because this was Yhwach Bach?

A year ago Renji wouldn't have been fazed because he wouldn't have known who the guy was. Now, after Ichigo's arrival and with the whole of Seireitei buzzing about Quincy again, Renji knew exactly who he was looking at. This was the Father of the Quincy and the bogeyman who, three hundred years ago, had taken out half the senior officer corp of the Gotei 13 and destroyed a good chunk of Seireitei before finally been brought down through a combination of sheer numbers and Aizen Sōsuke's hypnosis shikai. The key phrase being, 'brought down'. As in, killed, destroyed. And yet here a piece of him was, living inside Ichigo's soul.

It kind of put the hollowfied zanpakutō into perspective.

"Renji?"

Ichigo was speaking to him. Renji dragged his gaze away from the greatest evil Soul Society had encountered in a millennium and onto Ichigo. Fingers pressed firmly against his chin and his mouth snapped closed. Only now it wouldn't open again, and there were questions he wanted to ask, things he needed to know, but for the life of him, he couldn't think where to start.

Ichigo did, apparently. "There's a piece of him inside every Quincy, even those born after he was killed. It's passed down, I'm not sure how, but not normally as a spirit like this. Ryūken thinks he only appears like this for me, because of me being half-shinigami and having an inner world."

"Right," Renji finally managed, his eyes shifting back to the Quincy spirit. The piece of Yhwach Bach.

"Anyway, I call him Ossan and he's been there ever since the beginning… Renji?"

Renji froze, his fingers millimetres from the Quincy spirit's chest. "What, will it eat me if I touch it?"

"No! It's just…"

"It ain't exactly polite to go poking someone when you ain't even given 'em ya name," the hollow said, adding a mumbled, "Not that ya gave it to me either," and then quieter still, "Typical fucking shinigami."

"My name." Renji licked his lips and looked up, this time into the eyes of the Quincy spirit. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, something maniacal maybe? Like Kurotsuchi, with rolling irises and pupils like pin-pricks. Instead, calm brown eyes gazed back down at him from a face apparently unperturbed by Renji's behaviour, which even he had to admit by now was bordering on strange.

"Um," he said. "Abarai Renji." He paused. That wasn't right, not anymore. He tried again. "Zabimaru-Abarai Renji." Better. "Pleased to meet you." Belatedly remembering his manners, he dipped a bow and ended up head-butting the Quincy in the chest. It was something like head-butting a wall, but the hand that came out to steady him was purely human.

"He says sorry for not moving out of the way, and that he's very pleased to meet you too, Zabimaru-Abarai Renji."

When Renji glanced over at him, Ichigo's eyes were dancing with mirth. "You're taking the piss out of me," he complained, gaze flicking between the three of them. "All of you."

"Not really."

"I told you, we're all one. Me and Zabimaru and-

"It's not the name," Ichigo yelped, holding up his hands. "That's fine, great even, but it was kind of funny seeing you stuck for words."

Oh that. Renji huffed. "Ichigo, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have a hollow and a piece of the Quincy king living in your soul! Even I'm gonna be lost for words finding out a thing like that."

Ichigo's face dropped immediately. "I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but I didn't find out about Ossan till Zangetsu got free and then-" He huffed and shook his head. "I'll explain everything later. It'll take forever and we've not got time right now."

No, they really didn't. Renji had photos to find and then they had a Byakuya to fix. "Just promise me you've not got any other nasty surprises up your sleeve," Renji said, casting a wary eye at the two spirits. Predictably, the hollow smirked. Renji was starting to get what Ichigo meant about it being an asshole.

"Nothing I can think of." Ichigo chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. "But this is me, so-"

"Wait a few days and something's bound to turn up," Renji finished for him.

Ichigo looked so depressed at that, that Renji reached out, hauled him in and squeezed till his feet left the floor. He fought for all of about a second, before grabbing Renji by the ears and planting a hard kiss on his lips. Only experience kept Renji on his feet as the kiss deepened, one of them opening their mouths and then there was tongue and more than a bit of gropage and then a voice from beside them said, "For fuck's sake, king, get a room if ya gonna do shit like that."

Ichigo jerked back like he'd been scalded and Renji released him immediately. He spun away, scarlet and wiping at his mouth. Renji ground his teeth. The hollow's sneer had been too close to the type of shit the Mendoris used to come out with, and it looked like it had hit Ichigo the same way.

"Don't like it, don't watch," he snapped at the hollow, whose triumphant black and gold gaze met Renji's for a brief second before dimming slightly and flicking back to Ichigo. And wasn't that interesting. Was the hollow jealous?

"You should go," Ichigo said, still with his back turned. But Renji wasn't prepared to leave on a note like this. Stepping forward, he carefully wrapped his arms around Ichigo's waist and leaned in, resting his chin on Ichigo's shoulder.

"I think your little white clone's feeling possessive," he whispered. Ichigo went still for a second, and then peered at him from the corner of his eye. Renji nodded, saw Ichigo's expression turn thoughtful, and dropped a quick kiss on his cheek before letting him go. In a normal voice, he said, "We should move this to the top of the hill and check in with Zabimaru. For some reason I don't think they were expecting a hollow and a Quincy when I said to bring your zanpakutō."

"It's really not my fault, you know," Ichigo grumbled as they set off back up the slope.

Renji glanced back over his shoulder and saw the hollow shrugging off the Quincy's help to stand and walk. "What's up with that thing anyway? It looks sick."

"He's called Zangetsu, and he's not sick, he's recovering from some really serious injuries," Ichigo replied, slowing down and turning to look for himself. He grimaced at what he saw, but didn't go to help. "I told him to just let me take the sword, but he insisted on coming with it, stupid idiot."

The words were insulting, but the tone was fond. Renji got the impression that the relationship between Ichigo and his zanpakutō was just as complex as the one between himself and Zabimaru.

They did reach the top of the slope eventually. Zabimaru was still in the pool, about as far from Byakuya as it was possible to get, though their reiatsu was back up to shikai level, presumably because Byakuya was awake. He was playing with the water again and Renji found he had to look away from the expression of wonder on his face. For all his monstrous features, there was something disturbingly childlike about it.

"Monkey-boy's got a fucking onsen!" the hollow - Zangetsu, the thing had a name, Renji should learn to use it - crowed when it joined them. Shoving the sword it was carrying at Ichigo, it said, "Here hang on ta this," and started stripping. "And first thing, once yer done sorting out your stupid shitty love life, I want some serious landscaping redesign. Got it?"

"Hey," Ichigo snapped, taking the sword and smacking the hollow upside the head with the hilt, apparently oblivious to the network of livid pink scars beneath the white shihakushō. "You can't just get in without asking. This isn't our pool."

Zangetsu, who was already down to a pair of white boxers with red hearts printed on them, glowered at him but turned and bowed politely to Zabimaru. "Pleased to meet ya, I'm Zangetsu. I hope we can work well together." Then it turned back to Ichigo and whined, "Now can I get in?"

Renji tried not to laugh, he really did, but considering what a pain in his ass Ichigo had been at times, seeing him saddled with an equally annoying zanpakutō spirit felt like the best kind of karma.

"Try not to drown each other while I'm gone," he laughed, waving a hand at them. Since Zabimaru hadn't attacked immediately, Renji reckoned he was pretty safe leaving them to sort things out without him. "I'll see you when I get back."

The mountain onsen faded into harsh fluorescent light and silvery grey walls. As the familiar deadening sensation crept over him, stifling his ability to sense reiatsu properly, the subtle aches and pains in his body threatened to drag Renji back to the saferoom beneath the hospital and the aftermath of one of Byakuya's attacks. But they'd only ever happened in the living quarters, so this had to be the real world, not a memory or a flashback. Plus, although his body felt like it had been held in one position for too long, he wasn't sore in the right places for sex to have happened.

He was also alone.

Sitting up, Renji scrubbed his hands over his face and then peered around for an exit. There was a door on the wall close to where he was sitting, and another across the other side of the training room. One of them had to be the way out and it made sense to try the nearest one first. Keeping his movements as quiet as he could, Renji rolled to his feet and approached the door. He'd hardly gone a couple of steps when he heard voices from the other side.

"It still seems exceedingly unwise. Hachigen-san, you have a better understanding of how soul starvation works, is my nephew putting himself in unreasonable danger with this course of action?"

"I think not, Ryūken-dono," Hachigen's quiet voice replied. "Whether their attempt will work, I cannot say, however if Byakuya-dono's power is as curtailed as your son describes, then it should not be dangerous. My main concern is the presence of the other zanpakutō spirits and whether that will cause the desire for his own zanpakutō to awaken prematurely."

Renji hadn't thought of that possibility. He'd make sure to mention it to Ichigo when he got back. Silently, he turned, planning to head for the other door, which by a process of elimination had to be the exit. But the next question brought him up short.

"Where do you think it is? Kuchiki's zanpakutō."

The voice was younger than the previous unknown speaker but with a similar dogmatic tone, which meant it was probably Uryū, Ichigo's cousin. In theory Renji had heard his voice before, when they'd rescued him from the 12th, but back then it had sounded very different, hoarse and exhausted and sick. Now he sounded just fine, and Renji wanted to know the answer to that question as much as he did.

"Perhaps he left it in Soul Society before they fled. After all they seem to have brought little else with them." That was Ryūken, the uncle. Renji had never met him, he didn't think, though he'd seen photographs of him at Arisawa-sensei's apartment.

"Simply misplacing a sword is not the same thing as losing a zanpakutō. Even if the blade is broken or destroyed, the spirit is still present." Hachigen again. Now there was a weird one. Ichigo seemed to trust the guy implicitly and so Renji had gone along with it, but there was still that nagging doubt. After all, he'd been prepared to let the Iba kill all those humans, and he was helping them import weapons into Soul Society.

Having said that, he did seem to know his stuff and none of the rest of them were experts, so for now Renji was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Hachigen was still speaking. "What Abarai-san seems to have been describing is the loss of a zanpakutō, and that is both an entirely different thing and technically impossible since the only person capable of such a feat is dead."

"And that would have been?"

"The previous Kuchiki clan-head, Kuchiki Kōga-sama. As a junior member of the kidō corps, I witnessed his shikai several times, and the loss of the zanpakutō on the inside is a common factor."

It sounded like Ichigo hadn't been far off the mark then when he'd suggested some connection to Kōga.

"That was the one Isshin killed," Ryūken said flatly. "Byakuya's uncle, if I remember rightly. Do any other members of his family have a similar ability?"

Okay, now that was an angle Renji hadn't considered. Byakuya was by far the strongest of his clan but what if Kōga had had off-spring, some unacknowledged child who saw Byakuya as a usurper. Maybe he ran into someone like that the night before they left and-

But if that was the case, why hadn't Byakuya just told him?

"Not that I know of, Ryūken-dono, however it is many years since I was privileged with access to such information."

"I think it would be difficult to keep such a thing secret, father," Uryū said. "With the inherent danger of such a power, I'm sure the onmitsukidō would have kept a very close eye on any relatives and removed them from the picture."

True. And Byakuya wouldn't have let them slip by either.

Hachigen agreed with him a moment later. "I concur, Uryū-dono, though they would have attempted to recruit them first. I understand the tenshintai they use in Kōga's stead is a poor replacement."

"Tenshintai? I don't think I've heard that term."

Renji had. It was a bogeyman-tale told to all new recruits; mind your manners or the 2nd will rip out your zanpakutō and make it kill you. But it didn't work if you had bankai, which had given Renji all the more reason to achieve it as soon as possible. Too soon maybe, given recent events.

There was movement inside the room. Renji scuttled backwards and pressed himself to the wall beside the door on the off-chance someone looked out. They didn't but being out of earshot meant he missed the bulk of Hachigen's answer. He got back just in time to hear, "…three days, or so I was told. Urahara-sanseki, as he was then, was unable to extend its limit any further, so I think it unlikely that the tenshintai is the cause of Byakuya-dono's loss."

Urahara had invented that thing? Renji scowled. Of course he had. That was totally the creepy bastard's style. And Senbonzakura might not have been stolen by one of them, but there was nothing stopping Urahara developing something else, something more powerful, and using that on Byakuya.

Considering what the fucker had done to Ichigo, Renji wouldn't be surprised.

Anger rising, Renji slipped across the room and out of the door into the basement. He needed to get back into his inner world quickly and talk to Ichigo, but first he needed to find the photographs and destroy them.

Upstairs, the apartment door was propped open, and being worked on by a man in blue overalls who Renji didn't recognise. For a moment Renji hesitated. He wasn't in the mood for conversation and his experience with humans said that trying to get in while the guy was there was going to mean at least some interaction. And then he remembered. No gigai any more. He didn't even have to enter the apartment that way if he didn't want to.

In the end he did, making the man shiver as he eased through a gap that was hardly there. Inside, the apartment seemed to be empty. And also way more trashed than when Renji had left, though someone had started tidying up again. The TV in the living room had a deep dent in the middle of the screen with a spiderweb of cracks leading out all the way to the edges, and there was no sign of Kaoru's game controller or Zommari's laptop. Their stuff, which had been neatly stacked on top of their futons was also gone. Renji found it mostly shoved into trash bags in the back bedroom, along with what remained of the futons. It looked like someone had ripped everything apart with their bare hands. He went through it all carefully looking for the folder of photographs and found nothing.

It was the same story in the other bedroom, where there was nothing but a whirlwind of papers, clothing and rubbish strewn everywhere. The kitchen cupboards were empty too, their contents relegated to a cardboard box of smashed plates and cups; the new plates and cups that Zommari had bought online when they'd discovered that the police had left nothing usable behind. So who had done this more recent damage? Mendori and No-neck when they'd grabbed Byakuya? But they wouldn't have emptied the fridge, would they? And someone had, going by the broken cartons and packets slowly disintegrating in the sink.

And there was still no sign of the photographs.

Starting to feel desperate, Renji stuck his nose into the bathroom. That was tidier and set up for use, with towels stacked on the shelf and steaming water in the tub, but even the phantom cleaner couldn't hide the holes in the plaster where the cupboard over the sink had been ripped from the wall.

Renji closed the door and slumped back against the hallway wall, sliding down it till his ass hit the floor. Dropping his head to his knees, he tugged on the long bits of hairs at the back of his neck. He had to face the truth. The photographs weren't here. With any luck, Zommari had taken them with him when he left - which he had to have done otherwise him and Kaoru would have been stuck in the van with Renji at the same time Byakuya was.

If not that, then there was a slight chance either Mendori or No-neck had found them. But no, if they had, they'd have used them to make Renji's life even more of a misery.

Which left one more possibility, the one Renji didn't want to consider. That one of Ichigo's friends or family had found them and put them somewhere. Renji swallowed, hard. If that was what had happened, just don't let it be Yuzu, he thought. She was too young, too sweet.

"If you're looking for these, I found them earlier and put them to one side."

Renji's head jerked up so fast he smacked it against the wall. They'd never met, but the white-haired man standing in the hallway had to be Ichigo's uncle, Ryūken. Renji had seen a picture of him once, back at Arisawa-sensei's place, though he'd been a lot younger in that. Now he looked thinner and exhausted, his blue eyes darkly haunted, which is what a year at the 12th did for you, if you were lucky enough to survive it.

He was also holding a yellow folder in his hand. Not the same colour as the one Renji remembered, but why else would the guy assume the contents were Renji's unless he knew the photos were in it.

Renji leapt to his feet and snatched the folder off him, turning away to open it. The photographs had been wrapped in plain white paper and tucked under the cardboard flap, and pinned neatly inside the cover was the note from Hanna.

"I didn't examine the photographs in any detail, however I couldn't help but read the note. Abarai-san, what you hold in your hand is evidence of a crime. You may be a spirit, but as things stand you also have a human identity and, as a human, you are entitled to justice. What they did-"

"Did?" Renji laughed, though it came out kind of like a bark. "You saw the pictures. They just showed me a good time, where's the crime in that."

"There is one if they did it without your consent. They also tried to blackmail you."

Another laugh escaped him. He had to shove his knuckles in his mouth to get it to stop. "Now you sound like Ichigo," he said once he'd got himself kind of back under control. "D'you know the stupid bastard gave me a talk once about not having to put up with the shit Byakuya did to me?"

"I'm glad to hear he listened to some of the things I tried to teach him. Goodness knows, his father never did."

Isshin. Byakuya's mentor. All the air soughed out of Renji's lungs. "Course he didn't. He was a shinigami. What the fuck do we care about consent or love or anything except what rank you are and how much power you got and whether you were born the right side of the fucking wall. And you lot are no fucking better-" He managed to stop himself before he could go any further, muttering. "Sorry. I didn't mean to curse at ya."

"I think you're entitled to curse. I also think you're entitled to go to the police with those pictures."

"The police!" Renji tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling and this time he couldn't have said whether the sound he made was laughter or tears. "Don't you get it. One of them was a fucking policeman. Only don't ask me which one 'cause they cut off all the other guy's heads and I can't fucking remember!" As he said the last, his voice went. He pushed on anyway, feeling the crack and the tears and just kept on talking because if he didn't get this out now he was gonna choke on it.

"I can't- I can't remember anything. About this." He held out the folder in a shaking hand. "About whatever the fuck Byakuya did at Central, or how we escaped, or how the hell we survived for those first few weeks. It's just a blank, like someone stole great big chunks out of my life and there's no way to get them back, and all this important shit happened to me and I have no clue what it was! I was there but I wasn't and I just-" And then he really was crying, great wracking sobs that were beyond embarrassing and yet totally out of his control.

His legs went and he slid down the wall again, on his shoulder this time, and kind of hugged it, his face buried in his arms because if he couldn't stop this, he at least had to hide it. He was a Gotei lieutenant for crap's sake, not some kid. He had no real reason to cry. He wasn't injured, he wasn't dying. He'd just lost a bit of time.

So why couldn't he make it stop?

After several moments someone crouched down beside him. Then, after a moment or two more, he felt a cool hand against the back of his neck. It wasn't much. It didn't stroke or massage, it just rested there, but to Renji it felt like an anchor, like he could let the tears flow and the hand would keep him tethered so he'd know, when the storm finally blew itself out, exactly how to get home.

Ryūken was kneeling beside him by the time Renji finally recovered enough to wipe his face on his sleeve and look up. His head hurt and so did his eyes, but Ryūken didn't seem bothered by the state of him. He gave Renji a cool look and said, "Would you prefer tea or something a little stronger? I believe Arisawa-senpai was good enough to bring both."


The nice thing about Ichigo's uncle was that he didn't ask questions. Renji had been nervous about accepting the tea - not sake. Even he wasn't dumb enough to drink and then sit jinzen - but Ryūken made the drink in silence, handed it over without saying anything, and then took a seat opposite Renji at a makeshift table built from cardboard boxes and didn't say a word. In fact, it was so quiet that Renji kind of felt like he owed the guy an explanation.

"They're yakuza," he said after taking a sip of tea and putting down his cup. "They run a bar called the Red Iris down in Shinjūku. Ichigo's friend, Mizuiro - Kojima Mizuiro - introduced us when we were desperate for work. It was okay, security stuff that me and Byakuya could've done in our sleep, except it turned out one of the hosts was an undercover cop dating the boss's daughter and then, 'cause it ain't enough to just be yakuza, it turns out they're tied up with the Iba and the 12th as well. And they're shipping stuff, weapons, maybe other things, through to Soul Society. People too. Fighters. Experts. That's where Unagiya-san comes in, only Zommari's a friend and so when they kidnapped her we agreed to help him. I went to track her down, somehow got taken for the cop and suddenly everything's gone to shit."

Ryūken put his own cup down on the table and turned it between his hands, his gaze lowered. "I see," he said. Renji expected him to mention the pictures then but he didn't. Instead he said, "Offering to help Zommari-san was a very generous act given that there was no gain in it for either of you."

Renji tried not to bristle. "I told you, he's a friend. He helped us out when we first got to Tokyo, so we couldn't exactly let the yaks run off with his wife."

"Helped you when you first arrived, you say. This would be before Arisawa-senpai was able to provide you with gigai then."

"Well, yeah." Just what was the guy getting at?

"Of course, Zommari-san has high enough reiatsu levels that he would have been able to see you easily even without."

Now Renji was getting worried. For all that this guy was Ichigo's uncle, he was putting out the kind of vibe Renji normally only got from Byakuya when he was on the warpath, that banked, impending explosion, imminent end of the world feeling. He resisted the urge to shuffle backwards.

"Yet this one you helped, despite the fact that you killed my nephew and nieces for the exact same crime." Ryūken looked up and Renji froze under his arctic gaze that was full of everything Renji had sensed and more. "Abarai-san, I know that you were only following orders. I also understand that you have made your peace with Ichigo on this matter. I will even concede that I owe you my son's life, however," he paused and Renji found himself holding his breath, "if you ever - ever - do anything to hurt Ichigo again, I will make whatever these people," he tapped the folder with his finger, "did to you, seem like a walk in the park. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," Renji snapped a bow so quickly that he nearly head-butted the table. "I promise, if it's within my power to prevent it, Ichigo will never get hurt again." He would do it too because, unlike Zangetsu's 'hurt him and I'll disembowel you' speech, Renji actually believed this one.

"Good." Ryūken picked up his cup, the air of imminent murder fading from around him. "Then we'll say no more about it." Renji sagged with relief and reached for his tea. "Let's talk about my nephew's ridiculous plan instead." Renji's hand dropped back in his lap as he resigned himself to listening for a bit longer. "He probably thought he was being clever, giving the details to Uryū and then sneaking off the way he did, however Hachigen-san seems to think your idea will work."

Ryūken put his cup down again. Was he ever actually going to drink his tea? "In fact it already is working. That's why I came to find you."

"Working, sir?" Renji asked politely, giving his own tea a surreptitious glance. It smelt really good.

"Yes, and rather well at that. According to Yuzu-chan, about half an hour ago your third suddenly gained an influx of reiryoku belonging to both yourself and Ichigo. Apparently it was mixed together and arrived in quite a… rush. Now," the cup went up again. Ryūken's gaze seemed riveted to it and his cheeks turned slightly pink, "I do not want to know what you and my nephew might have been doing to cause such an event, but whatever it was, it seems to be the trick to helping Byakuya-san, so you should probably do it again."

Renji felt his ears heating up. As a rule, he didn't blush much, but he was pretty sure he knew exactly what had caused that sudden inrush of reiryoku, and he was also pretty sure that Ryūken knew too, and being told to basically go away and make out with Ichigo by Ichigo's uncle was enough to make even Renji's normally ironclad sense of embarrassment buckle.

"Yes, sir," he said weakly.

The cup went back down and Ryūken sighed. "Not sir. Ojisan will suffice. Or Ishida if you're going to insist on formality. Though I see no reason why you should. After all, you are the closest thing to an in-law I'm likely to acquire via Ichigo."

In-law, as in family? That any relative of Ichigo's would see him that way had honestly never occurred to Renji. It had never been an issue with Byakuya; the Kuchiki would rather suicide en masse than acknowledge a gaki as one of their own; so hearing this now from Ryūken was a bit of a mind-bender. He was gaping, he knew, like he had been over the Yhwach thing, and honestly this whole family was ridiculous. When were they going to stop turning his life upside down?

Realising he was staring at Ryūken like an idiot, Renji shut his mouth, then opened it again and managed to blurt, "I'd be honoured, sir. Ishida-ojisan, sir," before his brain gave up completely.

Ryūken gave him a level look back, took an actual sip from his tea and said, "It's customary to return the favour."

"Oh, you'd totally be a part of my family too, sir, if I had one," Renji assured him, dipping his chin respectfully.

"That wasn't what I-" Ryūken began sharply, only to visibly restrain himself with a hand over his eyes before trying again, though apparently to himself more than Renji since it came out as a muttered, "Ichigo really did not choose this one for his brains," which Renji thought was a bit unfair until Ryūken continued more loudly, "Abarai-san, it's customary to offer a less formal version of your own name when such an offer is extended to you."

"Oh!" And didn't Renji feel stupid now. "Renji, sir, Ishida-ojisan, sir. Just Renji, it's what everyone calls me, and anyway Abarai-"

"Father, are you up here. Did you find him?"

At the sound of Uryū in the hallway, Renji made a grab for the folder. Ryūken stood and moved between him and the door giving him time to shove it into his shihakushō. He'd take it outside and burn the contents before he went back to sitting jinzen. That way no one could ever get their hands on the photographs again.

"Ah, Renji-san there you are." Uryū was peering around his father, who only moved aside when he saw Renji had the folder tucked away. "Hachigen-san and I were discussing possible alternatives if this plan doesn't work out, and it occurred to us that if we wanted to attempt to sever the remaining thrall bond strings, knowing more about the arrancar who did it the first time might be helpful."

"The arrancar?" Renji asked, his mind elsewhere.

Uryū nodded. "Even some apparently useless detail might shed some light on exactly how the process was achieved."

Still in a bit of a whirl from his conversations with Ryūken and his breakdown earlier, Renji tried to think back. Much of that night was seared into his memory. The smell of the burning building as they fled. The cold bite of the winter air amongst the trees. The way the blood on Byakuya's face had stained the cloth over his damaged eyes, and the sound of his screams as the arrancar used the shield on him. "If you ignored the mask, she looked like a young woman, I guess. Pretty, orangey-brown hair." Big boobs, but he couldn't say that. "You should ask Tatsuki. She knew her from before, when she was still alive. They were friends." Or maybe more. "Mizuiro and Keigo knew her as well, so did Chizuru."

As he spoke, Uryū seemed to go still. Ryūken too stopped moving, except for a hand which he raised towards his son's shoulder. Uryū ducked away from it, coming further into the room, his face set. "Did Tatsuki give you a name?"

Renji shook his head. She had and so had Mizuiro and the others, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. "I'm sorry-" he began.

"Inoue. Inoue Orihime, was that her name?"

"Yes!" The weaver princess, how had he managed to forget that. More details came back with it. "Mizuiro said she died about four years ago of a supposed heart attack." And looking at Uryū's face, he wasn't over it yet. That made this next part hard. "But it wasn't that at all. Tatsuki saw what happened. It was a hollow-"

Renji cut himself off midstream, suddenly aware of Ryūken's eyes on him and where this story was going. But he'd stopped too late. Uryū turned on his father. "You knew, didn't you! You knew she'd been taken by a hollow and you didn't say anything. Was this why I was suddenly banned from Ichigo's house? Was she there? Did everyone else know but me?!"

Damn, the boy was hurting. Renji could see the pain on his face, hear it in his voice. He must have loved her a lot to still feel this way after so long.

"And what would you have done if you'd known," Ryūken asked him, his voice absolutely devoid of feeling. "Taken your bow and ended her suffering and thus condemned her soul to an eternity of nothingness? Or maybe tried to help her and been hollowfied yourself. Yes, Uryū, I did know about Inoue-chan and I chose not to tell you, because it was bad enough that she had to suffer without you suffering along with her."

Uryū stared at his father in horrified silence for a long moment and then ran, slamming the kitchen door behind him. The reaction was so like Ichigo's towards Byakuya that for a second Renji was back to those few difficult weeks they'd had before everything in their lives went to hell.

Ryūken stared after his son for a long moment and then his chin dropped and he sighed. "He'll come round eventually," he said and made his way back towards the table. "I don't suppose he'll ever really forgive me, but then that's what parents are for, doing things their children will never forgive them for, so they don't have to do them themselves."

It was a form of protection Renji could understand. He gave Ryūken a grim look. "I was gonna head outside, do a bit of trash disposal. Do you want me to have a word with him while I'm there?"

"He's as stubborn as I am and so he probably won't listen, but thank you for offering anyway," Ryūken replied, sitting back down heavily. He picked up his cup. "Now come, sit. Drink the tea I made for you before it goes completely cold."