Long chapter- check
Record time- double check. Dont get too used to this guys.
Sond for the chapter is Bring Me the Horizon- Can You Feel my Heart
Chapter 48
"Where… where did he go?" Mara looked around in disbelief and dismay, "Shit! Renji, where did he go?!"
Renji again. Awesome. He didn't bother to respond as he took in the changes in the scene around them. Mara was apparently too frantic to even notice that she now stood on a whole roof instead of how it was cracked and crumbling before. It was as if… it had never happened. I fucking wish.
"Renji!" Mara barked, shaking him from his stupor, "Ace!"
"Yeah, I heard you," Renji grumbled as he stepped forward, not even trying to disguise the disgruntled tone in his voice, "where is your precious 'Otto'."
"Seriously?" Mara asked as she jogged across the now flat space, "You wanna do this ri' now?"
Normally, he knew that when her southern accent became stronger that it indicated her rising temper and that he should stop. Normally, he cared.
"Why not?" he drawled lazily, watching her check wildly behind vents that in no way could have hidden the tall man or the bloody mess that had been here from her sight. It would have been comical if it wasn't so goddamn frustrating. "I mean you did just fuck me, then run off to save the guy you still call your husband. I'd say it warrants talking about."
If looks could kill, the one that Mara shot him just then would have flayed the flesh from his bones and then brought him back to life and done it again.
"I'm just saying," Renji prodded, "that if you do find lover boy, he'll want to know how you got here and then he'll see me…."
"Where you always this much of a douche or did I just let the real you loose by letting you think with your little head, instead?" Mara asked scathingly, walking terrifying close to the edge of the building before peering over.
"Pretty sure we would have heard a 'splat' if he had gone that way," Renji told her, his simmering anger beginning to take the forefront. She was going to act like he was nothing after just assuring him of her feelings? And he was the bad guy in this?
Turning with her hands on her hips, Mara stared Renji down with black eyes and an emotionless face. "You are aware that I am lookin' for your best friend, right? The one who spoke to your character when no one else bothered? The only one in Seireitei who treated you with a quiet respect? The one you just called brother less than a week ago?" With every question, Mara stepped further toward him almost menacingly, voice raising. "You may have thrown him away 6 years ago, and you clearly have no problem doing it again, but he didn't throw you away. Maybe, you should return the favor- for once."
"Best friend?!" Renji asked incredulously, stepping forward as well, "What fucking best friend steals a guy's girl?"
"The type that didn't know because your ass was in hiding for 3 fucking weeks!"
"Healing is different from hiding, Mara," Renji growled, stepping chest to chest with the small woman. He wasn't surprised that she didn't back down at his intimidating form. He was slightly surprised that she was so damn good a still being able to look down her nose at him even as she had to squint her eyes up to see his face. "And when he knew, it didn't change a thing! He didn't want to, and he didn't care."
"Oh, he cared… about me. For once, someone here cared about what I wanted. He respected my wishes, even if when it came to 'the fucking espada'," she quoted, mocking his deep voice, "He cared more about what was important to me and guiding me than any other shinigami here. Including you!"
"Don't try to pull that shit with me. You are mine, and he knew it," Renji warned, "I did everything for you. I tried to protect you, I gave you memories…"
"You didn't care about jack! You wanted me to only remember you, you self-serving bastard!" she finally yelled, jabbing a finger in his chest. "Yet he, with no knowledge of my past, still found a way to help and give me back something of me. Meanwhile, your head was so far up your ass I could smell the shit on your breath."
"Ha!" Renji couldn't help but scoff, "I know you pride yourself on being 7 steps ahead, but you really think you have this all figured out? You're just a pawn in a game you don't know. You're Hisagi's power play. One I didn't even think he was capable of, but here we are!"
"Nice," Mara said with an eyeroll that probably reached her brain, "Both stubborn and stupid. You've got allll the bases covered."
"I seem to remember it was you being stubborn and stupid that got us in this mess in the first place," Renji hissed, his voice cutting.
Mara's face paled and she finally took a step back, as if his words physically hurt. Silence. She stared at him with tears edging her eyes until the silence was louder than a scream, ripping through both of them.
"You don't think I know that?" she finally asked in a shaky voice, "Why do you think I've been…. Fuck this. Nevermind."
Renji watched her shut down as she walked to the other edge of the building and sunk to her knees before peering over the side. She gripped the edge with white knuckles as she leaned over to try to thoroughly check the fire escape. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision and she shook her head to clear them, wobbling dangerously.
Without warning a strong arm came around her middle, stabilizing her before lifting her from the edge like it was nothing. Even though she quickly found her footing, Renji's strong hold on her didn't relax as he pulled her back flush against his chest.
"I'm sorry, Ippin," he rumbled, "I shouldn't have said that."
"Sometimes sorry isn't enough," Mara mumbled, still stiff in his arms… but she didn't push away even though she knew he would let her go. She didn't want him to. He was right, she knew, that she was his, just as he was hers, but he had to realize that things had changed. She had changed.
"I know," he answered lowly, "but I'm- I'm still…"
"Trying?" asked softly, stepping away to face him, "Because that didn't sound like trying, Ace."
"Yeah," Renji practically groaned, rubbing a broad hand down his face before staring aimlessly off into the flitting figures in the sky. "I just- I don't even know what I'm trying to do to now."
Mara waited in silence as she watched him work through his thoughts. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to wrap him in her arms so tightly that pieces of him that seemed so torn could mend back together. But how could she do that when it was her tearing him apart? Should she-
"You used to love me," he finally said quietly, turning tortured eyes on her, "and I don't know what to do now that you don't." Renji ran his hand through his tousled hair before gathering it up in his standard ponytail, looking back over the cityscape. "I thought I was supposed to win you back, and it- it felt like I may have actually done it for a minute there, but then…" He swept the expanse of open roof, unable to finish his sentence and letting the gesture do it for him.
"It worked, Ace," she said softly, dragging his gaze back to her.
"What worked?" he asked shortly.
"You won me back," Mara answered with a shrug as she dropped her gaze to the unblemished roof under her feet, unable to meet that questioning, painful stare. "I can't say I love you like I did, I can't lie like that but… but I do love you. I remember loving you. I know I did and I want- I wish…" Mara stumbled over her words as Renji felt a fissure of hope attempting to mend something broken in his heart- a sliver of hope that he didn't trust at all.
"Please, Ippin, please just say it." He was begging. He didn't care.
"I want to fall in love with you, again," Mara finally said plainly, meeting his gaze head on, "I want to be head over heels and swept away. But I don't only love you. You can't sweep me in just to yourself. And- and that's just how it is now."
And there it was. The elephant in the room stood between them, big and breathing and visible. This was a take it or leave it moment, Renji knew. Her cards were on the table. He knew what he had to try to accept, or what he had to reject.
Renji opened his mouth, unsure of what he even needed to say until a flicker of movement caught his sharp eyes. Thinking stopped as he called out her name, running and grabbing Mara before she had even processed what was happening and the roof shattered into splinters underneath them.
Hisagi was back.
His dust and blood covered form sat it its own crater mere inches from where Mara had been standing, but hell if that deterred the girl in his grasp. Desperation took over Mara's form as she wiggled so much that she stumbled when he set her down.
"Shuu!" she yelled, scrambling quickly over the debris again, before reaching his side and kneeling over him. "Oh my… Otto," she whispered. Her fingers fluttered over him, but she didn't touch, scared that even her gentleness would hurt him more.
"Koi?" Hisagi managed to gasp out, blood bubbling out with the breath. "How?"
"I don't know," Mara answered quickly, "I don't know."
Mara could hear Renji's normally light tread crunching the rubble as he came up behind her. "The fu-?" he gasped out, looking quickly over the carnage and then at Hisagi on the ground.
Hisagi's eyes were clouded with pain but sharp as he watched them both, already trying to put together the pieces and wondering if he wasn't in hell instead of his standard nightmare. Mara… Renji…. Shit.
"You… two…" He tried to garble out in question, but between straining against the confines of his nightmare as well as extreme injury, ho could barely form the words.
"Don't talk," Mara shushed him before looking up at Renji, clearly pleading for something silently. "We need to move him," she whispered, and he heard a forced exhale on the other side of him.
A heartbeat felt like eternity before he heard the soft reply. "Okay, Ippin." Hisagi watched while a nervous tenseness around Mara's eyes shifted but he had no time to examine it before searing pain arched across his back and he let out a wordless scream.
"Fuck!" he heard Abarai yell at the same time Mara ordered him to stop what he was doing. Hisagi flopped fully on his back again, letting out a grunt at another shockwave of torturous pain ran through him. At least this one didn't feel like the fire of a thousand suns shredding his core apart.
"Don't… No move," he managed to gasp out.
"Okay, okay Shuu. We won't move you," Mara agreed, but he could practically taste the word that she had left out of her sentence. A 'Yet' lingered in that promise.
"What is going on, Otto," Mara asked as she finally mustered the courage to trace his brow with her cool fingertips, "Where were you?"
Hisagi cast his eyes to the sky, but no figures were near enough to show them. "Up," he panted.
Renji let out a snort and Hisagi even managed a slight grin, knowing where he was going with it. "Yeah man, you were up," Renji acknowledged, "Now you're down."
Mara glared between the two of them. "Not helping," she pointed at Renji before looking back down at Hisagi whose eyes were quickly falling closed. "No, Shuuhei! Stay awake! Where did you go before?"
His glassy eyes could barely meet hers. "Up," he grunted again, "Stuck."
"Stuck?" Mara asked him before looking up at Renji whose brow was furrowed.
Hisagi's gaze lingered on Mara before his eyes finally drifted closed.
SNAP!
Renji held his arms out to stabilize himself as the roof seemed to rewind backwards in front of their eyes until it was stable and whole again. Mara still knelt on the ground, eyes huge as she watched the transformation of their surroundings.
"What. The Actual. Fuck." She stated, gobsmacked.
Renji could only nod in agreement. This was… interesting. "I… have no idea."
"It's- it's gone," Mara trailed off, biting her lip as she thought. Her mind was whirling away as she tried to make sense of something that her mind couldn't grasp. "It's like he wasn't here at all."
"He said he was though," Renji replied back thoughtfully, intrigue overriding his jealousy, "Just that he was 'up'."
"Yeah," Mara breathed out again, "But…"
Renji turned his eyes to the clear skies above them, lifting his hand to shade against the glare as his eyes were drawn back to the fighting in the distance.
"Your hands!"
Mara's gasp caught Renji by surprise as she leapt up and ran to him, grabbing his free hand in hers. Looking at her examining it, he lowered the other one to her to see as well. "What about them?"
"They're bloody."
She wasn't wrong, he noticed. Dried blood smeared his palms and sides of his fingers, crusting under his short nails. "Of course they are," he said as he narrowed his eyes, trying to see what was important about this fact, "I tried to lift him up and got blood all over my hands."
"Yes," Mara said gently, "but where is the rest of the blood?" She swung her arm in a gentle arc at the clear rooftop. "Everything disappeared- the rubble, Hisagi, his blood- but not the blood on you."
"That is strange," Renji admitted, looking closely at his hands again. Up. Stuck. As Mara continued to bite her lip, he looked out at the fighting figures again. Something was off with their movements. He and Mara had been jetting around so much, had been so distracted, but now that he looked, he realized what was off. He had seen the figures moving this way before. It was the same part of the battle.
"This is Hisagi's dream right?" he questioned Mara, "No longer mine?"
"I think so, yeah," Mara replied distractedly.
"I don't think it's a dream," Renji said, drawing a confused look, "I think it's a nightmare like mine was."
Mara stopped in her wandering of the roof to look at him again, confusion deepening. "Nightmare… dream… what's the difference?"
"Not just a nightmare, Ippin," Renji emphasized, trying to find the right words, "One like mine. I had been in it so long, I thought I had died and gone to hell. It never changed. I couldn't wake up. I was stuck."
Mara's eyes widened as she heard the similarity.
"I was stuck until you broke me out of it," Renji continued, "because you didn't come from the dream, you-"
Mara gasped as she finally connected what he was saying. "I was different and broke the cycle. Because I didn't belong there."
Renji nodded in agreement.
"And his blood is still on your hands and didn't disappear because neither of us was in his dream originally."
"Exactly," Renji agreed.
"So," Mara began, screwing up her face in determination, "we just have to interfere with the dream to break him out."
Renji couldn't help a small smile. She was glorious when she was determined. Fighting by her side just felt right. But as she turned he couldn't help but see that determined gleam in her eye and picture them as lavender, a black haired head bobbing a small nod as they set out to free a man she loved. Not him. Fuck.
"What's wrong?" Mara asked suddenly, yanking Renji out of the hellish reverie.
Damn her and her observational skills. Silently, Renji pursed his lips and shook his head. Was this really going to be his lot in life? Soul reapers lived too damn long for him to have to deal with this for the next 2000 years or so.
Mara watched Renji's face in turmoil and wondered what was going on in his head. Slowly, she reached out and set her hand on his bicep, surprised to feel him physically flinch beneath her touch. "What's wrong?" she repeated, meeting his eyes and refusing to drop her stare.
"Feels like I'm repeating the past," Renji ground out.
Mara nodded in vague understanding. Rukia. As much as she didn't remember, she knew the basics. The girl that tore him apart as they tried to rescue someone she actually loved, even though the man that loved her had been standing right beside her the whole time.
"It's not like that," Mara told him, receiving a dispassionate snort in return. "Seriously, Ace," she said again, "It's not."
"How?" He asked dully.
"For one, I'm well aware that this is my fault, and I'm not going to blame you for the position we find ourselves in… or if we succeed or not." She held up a finger, beating his disbelieving retort. "Two, I actually care about you."
Renji didn't make to reply, but he raised his eyebrows in doubt.
"I love them, too." She told him, willing him to listen fully before breaking away from her. Willing him to understand. "I love him. He is mine," God, please hear me out, "but I don't love only him. I can love you both if you'll let me."
She was pleading with him. He could see it. Her words made it sound so possible. It made it sound like there was still a future there. But she was his, sharing her affections? Hisagi had been his best friend, so maybe, but the espada? No. He couldn't do that. And surely she couldn't love them all. Not equally. Not forever.
"Please, Ace," she begged, "Please help me help him. Let me prove it to you."
He would help her, he knew he would. She didn't even need to ask. It was just how he was built apparently. Help the love of his life fall in love with someone else. He was all over that.
"You don't believe me," Mara whispered.
Renji could feel her withdrawal rather than see it, her hand leaving his tense arm seeming to pull all warmth and joy with it. This sucked but that emptiness she was leaving behind felt worse than death. "I'll help you," he groaned out even as he mentally slapped himself for it, "I don't have to believe you to do what's right and help you."
"Boiled satan, you are stubborn," Mara huffed out.
Renji couldn't help the laugh that wormed it's way out of him. "I haven't heard that one in a long time," he laughed out lowly, scraping the roof with the toe of his sandal."
"I reserve it for extreme circumstances," she jabbed back before her face sobered and she finally looked him full in the face again. "Just so you know, I'm more stubborn than you are."
"That's the truth." Sarcasm filled his tone.
"You worked on me until you got under my skin. You never stopped," she continued, stepping right up to him so that he had to keep facing her, "and I wont either. I will never stop proving it to you. Please never stop trying."
Renji met that dark gaze with his own uncertain eyes until it felt like he was falling into hers. His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her close and he leaned his forehead on hers, breathing in her fresh scent until it evened out the pounding of his heart and his racing mind.
"Try me," Mara whispered in his ear, parroting back his own challenge, "Test me."
Shit. He had said the same to her and had she not more than risen to the occasion? Had she not lit her own wall on fucking fire and let him in no holds barred despite being scared shitless? Was he even capable of answering in kind?
Jumping. 'Boiled satan' he hated jumping.
"At some point, we will need to actually talk about all this," he admitted, nudging her up to look at him again, "Not argue, not yell, but talk like we used to."
Mara nodded in agreement but waited for him to finish. "Until then, let's figure out how to save my best friend," he finally fished with a groan. A smile so bright that it glowed made that hard decision worth it.
"So, what do we do?" Mara asked him seriously but making no move to step out of his hold.
"You're the brains of this operation," Renji snorted.
"Hardly," Mara rolled her eyes, "You figured out the dream connection. Plus, I deal in logic and planning- dreams are illogical."
"This is less dream and more memory, I think," Renji told her, spinning her around and pointing at the figures in the sky. "I'm pretty sure that those figures, already did all that. It's like they are repeating the same part."
"So, Shuu is stuck in the loop that his memory is creating," Mara supplied, "But if he falls, and then goes 'up', why isn't he right back down again?"
"I guess the loop is longer than just the stabbing and the fall," Renji replied simply, "He must be 'up' fighting."
"Then let's go! Time to screw with things!" Mara tried to quickly step out of his hold to urge him on but he immediately yanked her back to him, eliciting a yelp of surprise.
"Absolutely not."
"Seriously?" she asked, spinning in his hold to face him again, "But you just said-"
"I agreed to help you, yes," Renji told her, face stern, "But I am not whisking you up into the middle of that shit. That's dangerous."
"It's a dream, Ace," she rebutted, as if that negated the risk.
Renji looked pointedly at her scraped knees and palms from her first desperate scrabble to get to Hisagi. "It may be dream, but I figure if rocks can hurt you, so can they."
Mara pursed her lips, unable to rebut his theory. But this was Shuu! Who cared if she got a little scuffed? Before she could open her mouth to say as much, Renji was already shaking his head at her. He knew her far too well.
"We will have to think of another way, Ippin," he told her softly, "This isn't just a regular fight, this is some of our best against their absolute worst."
"But he's going to get hurt again," Mara whimpered, lower lip trembling enough to almost break Renji's resolve. Almost.
"Then we…. Oh shit, here they come."
Both of their eyes were dragged to where a figure in white was going head-to-head with Hisagi. They seemed to get hits only for the other to flit away at the last possible moment.
Tousen's signature move, Renji realized. How many times had he thought he had one against Hisagi during their training only for the slippery little fucker to manage dodging by millimeters?
"Holy shit," Mara breathed as she watched the men blink rapidly from one place to the next, unsure where the drops of blood were falling from as they each seemed to elude one another.
Renji jumped as a strangled scream wrestled loose from the small woman in his arms and he watched as Hisagi was skewered on Tousen's sword and then kicked free to tumble down toward them.
"Stay here," he ordered Mara as he took off to the sky. Time to screw with things indeed.
.
.
Hisagi heard Mara scream as he plunged onto the blade and internally winced. He did not want her seeing this. He did not want to make her nightmares worse or force her to bear witness to his shame. It wasn't fair to her.
As Tousen kicked him off of his sword, he could only remember Mara in the bath, scrubbing imaginary blood off of her body until she had almost bled herself. She didn't need those scars ripped open again.
He was so deep in his worry that he almost didn't realize someone had grabbed him from the air until a hard arm scraped his raw back and he writhed involuntarily. Wait… he could move!
"Stop it or I'll drop you."
"Renji," Hisagi growled, surprised at the freedom that had been granted to his mouth. It had been such a fight just to turn his head, to look upon her face… "How- How are you here?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Renji grunted, touching down on the rooftop and laying Hisagi on the ground, "Trust me, I have enough nightmares, I didn't need yours."
Before Hisagi could process Renji's cryptic reply, Mara was on him, her hands, tracing his brow, ruffling his short hair. "He's down!" she cried out, "No broken building, no more injuries…" Mara trailed off as she looked at the quickly spreading patch of blood around them. "But why is there so much blood?"
Hisagi watched Mara's expression go from elated to frantic as she practically ripped open the front of his shihakusho, not bothering with the ties. "I'm sorry," Hisagi whispered, as he watched her yank of her own overshirt and bunch it into a ball, "I'm so sorry, Koi."
He barely managed to get out the words before hissing against the pain of her applying pressure to his stomach wound. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Otto," Mara said as she shot him an apologetic look and pressed harder.
"There's so much blood because he was shishkabobbed," Renji told Mara mirthlessly, "It was a through and through. That shirt isn't actually stopping the bleeding."
"Still, this much blood?"
"He was stabbed in the center, lots of meaty bits that like to bleed."
"Thanks for that, Ace," Mara snarked back, "I had no idea."
Hisagi watched the back and forth between them with worried eyes. Had she just called him Ace? This did not bode well. Besides the fact that they were both here, had both come from the same place, and were playing off each other like they had been doing it forever…
"What is going on here?" Hisagi groaned out, relieved that he could move his tongue and wasn't trying to speak with a punctured lung.
"Trying to save your life, Otto," Mara said with a wan smile, "And set your CD back to shuffle."
"I don't know what that means," Hisagi told her with a grimace.
"We are trying to knock you out of the memory loop thing," Renji explained, standing over him before looking over to Mara. "You don't have to save his life," Renji said exasperatedly, "we already know that he lives."
Mara shot him a small glare, before going back to prodding Hisagi's sides, "Well, I'm gonna do it anyway," she declared, "as soon as I can figure out why there is so much extra blood."
"Koi," Hisagi coughed, "my back."
"What?"
"So much blood because of my back," he panted.
"Renji," Mara looked up with big eyes, "we need to roll him over."
"I heard," the big man grunted, already dropping to his knees.
Mara moved forward to cradle Hisagi's head in her lap as Renji braced to roll him. This was going to suck.
"This is gonna suck, Shuu," Mara drawled, cradling his face in her hands and running her fingers through his spiky hair, "But I've gotchu."
Hisagi braced himself. Her accent was showing more than normal. This really was going to suck, but nothing prepared him for the fire brand of agony that shot through him when he was rolled over. If the pulling and tugging weren't enough, his macerated back had already started to scab and adhere to the warm roof, pulling flesh off as if the whip were falling anew.
"I'm sorry brother," Renji muttered through Hisagi's wordless growl of pain grew that seemed to echo through the very building, finally stopping the torturous movement and holding him propped up on his side.
Renji's eyes widened at the expanse of mangled flesh and slashes so deep that bone showed through. "Ippin, we got a problem."
Mara leaned, keeping Hisagi's head on her lap as she peeked around his broad shoulders. It looked as bad, if not worse, than the day of the actual whipping. "Balls," she whispered to herself.
"That good?" Hisagi choked out, fighting the black spots swimming at the edges of his vision. He couldn't pass back out, he just couldn't. it would all start back over. "Can't… keep my eyes…"
"No, no." Mara swung back to look down at him, "Don't fall asleep, what if you don't wake up."
"…will start all over again," Hisagi slurred, eyelids like anvils trying to slide shut.
"Can you fix him like you did me?" Renji asked causing both of them to pause.
Mara had fixed Abarai?
"I don't know," Mara replied, worry edging her sweet voice. Only the stroke of her hand kept luring him back from the darkness. "That was from memory, from before… I only remember him now."
She healed him from memory? The avalanche of thoughts again managing to pull him back from the brink. What had she remembered? Was that why they were together? Did she-?
Mara leaned down gently to shush him. His panicked thoughts were plainly visible in his wild questioning look and she leaned over to kiss his cheek. "You are still Otto," she breathed, trying to calm him.
They both missed Renji's pained grimace.
But with inner peace came exhaustion. "Can't… stay awake…" he managed to get out before his eyes fell shut.
SNAP!
"MOTHER FUCKER!"
Hisagi could hear Mara's yell all the way across the sky to where he was now positioned. He still couldn't turn to see her or Abarai. It appears the reprieve from this locked loop only came from the part where Renji had interrupted the cycle to when it started back.
Hisagi went through the motions of the dream. Welcoming the pain and willing it to go faster until he could grasp a sweet moment of relief- at least in his heart if nowhere else. He could feel a presence behind him, one he knew well. Abarai. But no sooner was it there than Hisagi's dream body led him around in an array of flash steps and the rietsu was gone.
He was going to have to truck through this on his own. Again.
.
.
Renji touched down back on the roof to an impatient and nervous Mara. He watched as her pacing froze and she looked at him expectantly. And he was going to have to deliver news she didn't want. He girded himself for rejection.
"I couldn't pull him out," he told her quickly, "His back is still destroyed but the stab wound disappeared, so he's functioning but they… they are moving too fast. I've got raw power but not the speed needed to yank him out without hurting him worse or hurting myself. I can try-"
"Stop," Mara said holding up a hand and narrowing her eyes as she watched Renji's fear increase tenfold. "Why are you cringing?" she asked gently.
"Because I-" Renji paused looking up at her open expression, "I was useless."
Scenes flashed in Mara's head for a moment, the wind of her spiritual pressure sweeping through fast enough to almost knock them off their feet before billowing away again. "You are not a tool, Ace," she told him softly.
Renji's eyes widened at the reference but he still didn't make a move.
With a deep sigh, Mara seated herself on an A/C unit box and rubbed her hand across her eyes. "You made the right call," she told him seriously, "We can't risk him having even more severe injuries and we can't risk you getting skewered with him. Then we'd really be sunk."
"But I didn't do anything," Renji volleyed back, "I couldn't keep up. What is that if not useless?"
"No one can do everything."
"You sure seem to."
Mara stared hard at Renji as she began to see how deep his cracks ran. Raw and exposed and fearful of her rejection, he made her want to protect him. Him, of all people! The pillar of strength, the wild card… he shouldn't feel like this. Not just around her but in general.
"No, I don't," Mara confessed, "I'm lost in a whirlwind all the time. Not sometimes, all the time. I paint on a brave face because I don't know what else to do. I screw up and cause this shit." She swirled her hand in the air before flopping it back heavily on her lap. "I hurt you. I hurt them. I'm a walking storm of chaos and I'm dragging everyone with me. I don't do shit."
Renji looked hard at Mara's open expression as she revealed how weak she actually felt. It sounded like him. All that bravado had been a front hiding all that fear. How had he not seen? It didn't even seem like her.
"You, however," she continued, "You gave me memories. You made me angry enough to try, and secure enough to keep going. You have done everything you could. And now, you have brought back pertinent information. You've proved our hypothesis."
"I… what now?"
"You proved that the stuff that affects him outside of the loop doesn't get caught up in or change with the loop."
Understanding lit in Renji's eyes. "Because the whip marks don't go away."
"Exactly," Mara replied, teeth at work on her lip again, "but how are we supposed to heal him and break the loop before he gets stabbed if he is stuck in the 'up'?"
"We don't need to heal him before he gets stabbed, as long as we heal his back," Renji said matter-of-factly.
He held up his hands as if in surrender at Mara's outraged look. "I'm not saying that for him to suffer," he clarified, "I'm saying that the stab wound won't actually hinder him. Once his back is healed, we can land him on that roof top and keep him conscious long enough to figure out how to stop the loop." Renji eyed Mara's still very incredulous look. "Do you not know how this fight ends?"
Mara furrowed her brow. "Not really. I mean obviously he lives but… he makes it a point not to talk about it."
Renji sighed and leaned his hip against the AC vent across from her. "Hisagi went through physical hell this day. First, he fought a fracion that made him actually release his zanpakuto, then most of the bones in his body were broken by some massive monster," Renji paused at Mara's gasp and the question in her eyes. "Kira fixed him, mostly. Then he jumped into this battle against his own captain, probably still not fully healed from round one and two."
That's why he needs control. His captain was a traitor… "What happened then?" she asked.
"Well, you've seen it," Renji gestured vaguely at the sky behind him, "Stabbed and thought to be out for good. But Tousen turned full hollow and had cornered Komamura and out of nowhere Hisagi dropped in from the sky, stabbing Tousen- and releasing Kazeshini inside of him."
Mara's eyes went wide. "Shuuhei did that? My gentle, fights-his-nature-at-every-turn Shuuhei?"
"We didn't reach the top by playing gentle, Ippin."
Mara nodded slightly. "Yeah… I just… wow."
"Don't let it freak you out," Renji told her, "If anything, that reputation helps protect you. People don't fuck with quiet strength because they can't gauge it. Besides, you freaked the first time you saw me release Zabimaru and it was not pretty."
"I did?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yup," Renji chuckled, "Royal freakout. Inoue had to slap you to make you snap out of it. You weren't used to that much raw power."
"Maybe I was just wasn't used to that much ego?" She poked back.
"Hisagi has quiet strength," Renji lectured with mock sternness, "Mine roars."
Mara couldn't help the bubbling laugh. On a mission to help him, he'd wound up comforting her. "You're a great man, Renji," she told him with a smile, almost faltering at his look of utter shock, "So if you say he can handle the stab for a bit and that we need to focus on his back, then that's what we'll do."
Renji shook his head as if trying to clear it. She thought he was good. No one had thought he was good in the world of the living, they had thought him beyond help. She hadn't though, she had always had his back. Had always buoyed him up. Had always believed in him. He didn't think he would ever experience it again, but here she was. Offering her trust to his counsel on a silver platter like she loved him as they went to save… her Otto. This was fucking surreal.
"Well, he's incoming in about one minute, so how are we going to do this?"
Mara raised her eyebrows and shrugged. "Like Nascar, I guess," she said with a chuckle, "Roll him in hot, get to work as fast as humanly possible."
"Aww, Ippin, we can go faster than that," Renji chided, "You're not human anymore remember?"
"Hooray," she grumbled sarcastically, "except I'm 132% sure that I didn't have to deal with all this insanity when I was human sooo…"
"You'd be about 57% wrong," Renji quipped back, "Those last years, you were all up in our shit."
At her gaping look, Renji smiled and launched into the air, snagging Hisagi like a football and flashing back to the roof.
"On his stomach! On his stomach!" Mara called out, waving him in like she was flagging an airplane and running up as soon as he touched down.
Running around to get where he could see her, Mara pressed a quick kiss to Hisagi's forehead as she dropped to her knees. "I'm gonna fix you, Otto. Just hang in there with me and don't pass out.
Hisagi snorted. "You say that like it's easy."
"I know," she whispered to him, pecking another kiss on his cheek, "I know."
"Nascar, Mara!" Renji's voice cutting through her sweet ministrations, "He only had minutes last time."
"I know, you're right," Mara pulled back much to Hisagi's dismay, to examine his back. "There's no way I can piece this back together…"
"You didn't piece mine back together," Renji told her, "You just remembered and slid your hands over skin."
Fucking great. Hisagi couldn't help the growl that escaped him.
"Save your energy, Otto," Mara said in that reassuring voice, "I'm going to try to heal you and if it doesn't work, then it may hurt."
The real hurt was that if it didn't work then Mara was proving that her connection to Renji was stronger. That would hurt.
Oh shit, nope this hurt too! Hisagi clenched his teeth as he felt Mara's fingers, regardless of how delicate, scrape his wound over and over again. Fuck this.
"Stop," he garbled out, looking up to see tears coursing down Mara's face. She sure seemed to care but-
"Why?" Mara gave flesh to his thoughts, though if she was talking to them or herself, he wasn't sure. "Why isn't it working?"
"You said it was memory power that unlocked for me," Renji hedged a guess, "Maybe if I could jumpstart you and you transfer it to him?"
"Wait," Hisagi groaned, tilting his neck to look up at them, "are you two..?"
"Yes," Renji grinned at the same Mara exclaimed "No."
Mara scowled at him. "Is that an answer?"
"No," Renji growled, chagrined.
"No," Mara verified in answer to Hisagi.
Hisagi stared hard at Mara. The memories. It must have brought her back to him, just like they had feared. But if it did, if they were what they were before, then how was he still Otto. She had just said he was. This was too much to work through right now as he fought through blood loss and pain in search of working brain cells.
"Put a pin in that one," he said gruffly, "Are you guys seriously thinking about making me watch you do something sexual with him to siphon your power for myself."
Renji grimaced at the ground. "Well when you put it that way…"
"Just let me die," Hisagi said, planting his face back on the ground.
"Absolutely not," Mara said, leaning over him and invading his vision, "First off, nothing sexual was in that statement. I healed him by remembering from playing with his hair. Second, I'd hump a cactus if it would make you whole, are we clear?"
Hisagi couldn't fight a grin at how she was such a spitfire, and hanging upside down in his view no less. "But he is back, huh?" he asked softly.
"I don't know," she replied back just as quietly, "but I swear we will talk about it. Just please, Shuu, please let me try to heal you first."
Hisagi nodded briefly and he saw Renji lower himself to lay on the bloodied concrete next to him, putting his head and Mara's lap and wrapping his thick arms around her hips. His storm gray eyes met fiery brown ones across her lap as he tried to read his old friend. Renji didn't look at him in friendship, but nor did he look at him in hostility. It was a questioning lingering in the air. It came from both of them, this wondering of if they could still be the friends they had been. If they could handle this new dynamic that was on the horizon.
Neither man dropped their gaze, neither deciding an outcome, before Hisagi closed his eyes and hissed at the searing pain of Mara's hand skimming his back.
"It's not working," Mara said in a wavering voice, "I can't have long left."
"Okay… Okay," Renji said, immediately lifting up, "I led you into a memory I knew would most likely have you touching and remembering the feel of me. Do you remember his for some reason?" Renji's teeth clenched at the thought.
"Training, sleeping, when he plays the guitar, when he spars with Grimm… He very rarely wears a shirt afterhours actually," Mara shot Hisagi an appreciative smile that helped bat away the darkness.
Renji's jaw clenched harder. "Any of those trigger your memory power?" he asked shortly.
"Training," Mara answered, "The barked orders, the forms, it triggered memories from before I was ever sick."
"That'll work," Hisagi said, moving his arms as if to get up.
"Oh, hell no, stay down," Mara cut in with a stilling hand on his bicep, "How's that going to work if you get up, huh? You call out strike and I beat you with a stick?"
"How then?" Hisagi asked, trying to keep his head straight.
"Last I checked, there's 3 of us here," Mara began slowly, "You say jump…"
"What the fuck did you just sign me up for?" Renji groaned.
Hisagi's eyes sparkled at the memory she invoked. "Jump," he whispered, smiling slightly as she hopped in place.
"Oh! Oh, no." Renji said, crossing his arms formidably across his chest.
"Turn in a circle," Hisagi croaked a little louder, grinning as Mara began to slowly twirl.
"You cannot be serious- OOF!" Renji protested until Mara slugged him in the stomach as she turned. How did such a tiny woman hit so hard? "Fine," Renji grumbled, lumbering quickly into a turn in place.
"Hubud!" Hisagi barked from his place on the ground, watching as Renji barely got his block up in time but fumbled on the parry. It occurred to him that Renji may have never learned this. Byakuya toed the line of Seireitei law often enough, but in his heart, he was still an old hand, rarely teaching or venturing out more than they had in the past.
"C'mon, Renji," Mara huffed impatiently, "Can't remember my training when you don't fake it with me!"
Hubud, Renji mulled over in his head. Fuck that must be part of one of the new things Hisagi had been playing with when he had left for the real world. Hisagi had always been trying to improve his fighting game in an effort to not release his zanpakuto. Racking his brain, Renji couldn't recall this one. Of course, Mara knew it. She would.
"Start again," Hisagi ordered, "go easy on your partner, Mara."
Renji blinked at his tone. It was unbridled command of a teacher to a student, but Mara didn't bristle or buck at it at all.
Slower this time, though not much, Mara threw a knife hand strike at Renji's jugular, pausing for him to block it.
"Block!" Hisagi called out as strongly as he could.
Renji gritted his teeth. This was fucking embarrassing.
"Parry."
Under Mara's direction, Renji parried her arm slowly with his back hand. That pleading look in her eyes though… that hope…
"Trap."
Hisagi's voice was already growing weaker. Renji caught Mara's arm.
"Strike."
Renji struck back with a knife hand as Mara had done in the beginning. In the blink of an eye, faster than Renji had known she could move, Mara had completed the sequence back and threw another strike at his throat that he barely blocked.
"Mara!" Hisagi barked as Mara's spine stiffened, "Don't get ahead just because you can. This is about teaching your partner.
There it was, a glimmer of amber in her eyes sparking to life. "Hai, Sensei."
Mara's barked reply only caused the amber to grow in her eyes as she sunk into familiarity. Renji marveled at how quickly it came about. She and Hisagi must practice every damn day to have developed such a rhythm that even his addition didn't throw it off. She paused mid strike, waiting further instruction.
"Again," ordered Hisagi, "Block. Parry. Trap. Strike."
Renji completed the sequence and Mara picked it up, this time following Hisagi's paced commands. The amber in her eyes grew with each movement and her rietsu swirled around them in palpable waves.
"Hold it, Koi," Hisagi ground out. Renji could tell he didn't have much longer before he gave out, "Again. Faster!"
Renji furrowed his brow in concentration as Mara picked up the pace, eyes glowing.
"Keep ahold of it, Koi," Hisagi rasped.
Mara's brow knit in determination.
Renji couldn't help but stare, wide-eyed. This is what they did? Hisagi wasn't just giving her memory, he was teaching her control. It was masterful.
"You're good, Ippin," he told her as the rietsu rose to a nearly gale force, "You used less power on me. Go!"
Mara ducked down, moving in seamless transition to place her hands on Hisagi's back- and he let out a muffled scream.
Her rietsu began seeping away from her in a thin thread. "Hold it, Koi."
Mara tried desperately to hold on the thin threads around her as her mind raced. It wasn't working. Why wasn't it working?
"Don't let the power go, Ippin," Renji encouraged her, dropping down next to her, "Remember how he looks healed, remember how he… felt." The words tasted sour in his mouth, but she needed this.
"I never touched him in training except to spar," Mara gasped, tears escaping her eyes as she tried to hold on though both her rietsu and her thoughts.
"Sleeping," Renji bit out, seeing Hisagi's eyes barely staying cracked open, "You touched him when you slept."
"You are fucking brilliant, Ace," Mara declared.
Hisagi watched through a view tinted so dark the world appeared monochromatic as Mara laid down next to him. She didn't care about the puddle of blood she had sprawled out in. She only cared about him. He rapidly blinked his eyes, trying to clear his sight. She was trying so hard, so he could to.
"Hang in there, Otto," she whispered and she nestled as close to him as she could.
Gritting his teeth, Hisagi let her pull his head to her breast, her leg draping over his hip. Gingerly, she pulled his hand to her hip, before raising her hand to comb through his hair and start tracing down his neck. But even as he settled into her comfort, he stiffened as her gentle fingers met mutilated flesh.
Mara blinked against her inner panic. She could feel in her heart what he was supposed to feel like. She grounded herself in his rainwater scent, like the grass right before a storm, but still her fingers pulled away bloody. Something was missing. The power she had maintained pulsed in her fingertips, ready to be used. What was missing?
Renji watched from the side as Mara wound together with Hisagi in a practiced pose, a lover's embrace. As impressed as he was with her training, he was equally infuriated by this closeness. He ground his jaw so hard in an effort to hold himself in check that he swore he was going to crack a tooth. He was so distracted that he almost missed what Mara had said to him.
"Renji… Ace,"
There was that pleading tone again, coming out to break him.
"Lay behind me."
Renji blinked at her, sure he hadn't heard her right.
"Please," she asked, "I can't do it alone. When we sleep, there's always two."
Well, if this didn't push the envelope, he didn't know what did.
"I don't know how much longer we have left."
Renji looked at Hisagi's ashen face and bloodshot eyes as he tried to stay up.
"God dammit," he swore under his breath, but he dutifully laid down on his side behind her.
"Closer," Mara urged, reaching back to yank at the hip of his pants.
Dutifully, Renji scooted closer. To his surprise, Mara arched back into him with a small moan before settling her head on his curled bicep. Hisagi hissed again as she pulled him with her, keeping him close. She reached down to pull at Renji's pant leg until he draped it over her low one. He still wasn't sold on an erotic dog pile, but he did have to admit that holding her like this with Hisagi was bearable.
Mara melted into the dual embrace with a sigh, and that's when Renji felt it. Her rietsu cocooned around them, slowly waning as it filtered into her and out into Hisagi.
"I've got you, Otto," she said softly, playing her fingers through his short hair and them drifting them onto his neck.
Hisagi sighed against her in sweet relief as the burning ebbed, beginning between his shoulder blades and then slowly down his spine. His eyes fluttered closed in exhaustion as he felt cool relief spread across his back and he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.
SNAP!
Mara's limbs fell through empty space before hitting the ground, but she didn't move. She was exhausted.
"Did it work?" she asked tiredly.
"I felt your power," Renji replied gently, felling her head fall forward on his arm. He knew he should get up and check but he would also rather carve out a kidney than let go of her again.
"So that's what it's like now?" he asked, cautiously curious but also stalling.
"Mm-hm."
"And that's how you want it?" he pressed.
Silence greeted him for a long moment. Misgiving or steeling herself for rejection as he always did?
"Yes."
Renji could feel himself wanting to cave into her. She was a singular force of nature to him, but he just didn't know if he could do this still.
Wordlessly, he extricated himself from her hold and flash stepped into the sky.
There was Hisagi, moving faster than sight at some points and he flitted and fought, but no blood fell now. She had done it. She had saved him. Renji watched as his friend moved through the sky with an enviable grace. He had been teaching Renji when they trained, just as Renji had helped him grow strength. They had been a team, unstoppable and feared. They had been drinking buddies. They had been brothers.
Renji watched the now familiar movements of this dance of death while his mind strayed to the vixen, dripping in blood, laying on the roof. He had once trusted Hisagi with his life, now he had to trust him with… her.
Following the dueling pair, Renji watched as the normal end approached. If he timed it just right…
Moving as quickly as Hisagi had taught him, Renji wrapped a strong arm around Hisagi's waist and yanked him up just as Tousen stabbed outward.
Hisagi's eyes widened as the blade missed by bare milimeters.
He and Renji skidded across the sky with the force of Renji's momentum, before they dragged to a stop.
"Look who learned something," Hisagi breathed out in a low chuckle, slanting his hard gaze at Renji, who lay sprawled on his back.
"Look whose ass needed saving," Renji retorted without looking over.
Around them, the battle continued raging and Hisagi had to marvel over how a mind worked. None of this was real, fueled only by memories, but the pain was real. Being trapped was real. Yet even now, as he dissociated away from the memory, it kept rolling like a perfect film.
"I could have lived with the sword wound, you know," Hisagi said nonchalantly, rising to his feet before striding over to stand above Renji. Holding out his hand, he offered to pull Renji up.
Surprising even himself, Renji took it and hoisted himself to his feet. "I know you could have."
"Thanks."
It was all that needed to be said before they both shunpoed down to where Mara waited on the roof.
"You've gotten faster," Renji commented from a step behind him.
Hisagi landed on the roof in front of a very shocked Mara and couldn't help a smile as he raised to his full height. Renji skidded to a stop, disbelieving of the expression on Hisagi's face. The man known to not emote at all was grinning ear to ear. "I better be," he laughed out as he took in Mara's shock, "I race an espada every day."
Mara gaped at Hisagi's strong figure silhouetted against the bright sky. His zanpakuto was still released and the vicious scythes at his side hung from his hands, chains wrapped up his arms. He was fearsome. He was damn near godly. He was the fruition of the storm she had always sensed inside.
But she was given no time to react as, with a simple whip of his hands, a chain link fell around her body and she was pulled bodily to him. Reaching out with a strong hand at the back of her neck, Hisagi pulled Mara in for a harsh kiss. One full of thanks and heat and worry and joy. She could taste the dichotomy, feel it in his desperate grip.
"What do you call me?" he mouthed nearly silently against her lips.
"Otto," she mouthed back.
In a flash the chain around her disappeared as Hisagi released shikai and sheathed his sword in one smooth movement. He cupped her face in both hands and delved his tongue in her mouth with a needy groan. She met him swipe for swipe, melting against him. Until they were startled by an uncomfortable cough.
"Abarai," Hisagi said lowly, pulling away from Mara's kiss but not letting her go, "I know you two reconnected…"
He held up a hand, stopping both Mara and Renji in their tracks from speaking.
"I don't want to know," he said quickly, "I'm just saying that I know."
Pausing, he turned his heavy gaze on the unpredictable red-head and then the wild child in his arms. "I'm still Otto?" he verified, relishing Mara's nod. "And you want him in this, too?"
"Need," Mara said, lowering her eyes in worry, only for him to pull her chin back up to make her look at him.
"Then you're going to have to get used to this, Abarai," he said without looking as he lowered his mouth to Mara's for another searing kiss.
"Now that I'm not going to pass out," Hisagi said, lapsing back into his no-nonsense demeanor, even though he smiled as he slung an arm around Mara's shoulder to turn and face Renji, "what the ever-loving fuck is going on with all this?"
He motioned between all three of them but was greeted with less knowledge than he'd hoped.
"We really don't know, Shuu," Mara informed him, "One minute we had conquered Renji's nightmare and then suddenly we were in yours… your guess is as good as ours."
"How were you in his nightmare then?"
"Also no clue," Renji's voice added, "I was in what I swore was hell for days-"
"Five days," Mara cut in.
"Five days then," Renji amended, "and then she came running out of the shadows like the devil was on her heels. No idea how."
"So now we are stuck in mine?" Hisagi asked incredulously, "We don't know how to get out?"
A shrug under his arm and an answering grunt was all he got in return.
"I vote we regroup away from the fighting," Mara piped up, slipping out from under Hisagi's arm to head toward the stars, "I don't like it up here."
Both Hisagi and Renji shrugged in agreement. Who were they to argue with the exhausted girl covered in their blood? Hisagi also remembered that more devastation in the town was to come. Better to get her out of there.
"Don't worry about the stairs, Ippin," Renji said, stepping towards her, "We can just carry you down."
Or at least that's what he tried to say as the floor cracked and broke beneath him. Both men shot toward Mara. Reaching her at the same time, both Renji and Hisagi wrapped themselves around Mara as the floor gave way beneath them.
Over Mara's screaming head, Hisagi and Renji locked eyes.
"I guess we found the way out," Hisagi yelled over the whooshing wind.
Renji looked around the swiftly passing darkness, holding Mara and by default Hisagi, moe tightly to him. "Yeah, but where are we going to land?"
"You in or out, brother?" Hisagi asked him.
"Don't see that I have much choice," he answered stoically.
In macabre synchronicity, both men loosened their jaws and bent their knees. Hoisting Mara higher, they braced themselves for impact. The bottom was approaching.