This fic is rated R because of language, violence, and sensuality. If any of the aforementioned offends you, please do not read.

Review if you like. No flames, please.

kaerichi
Chapter 6

The figure raced through the night, painstakingly trying to avoid the eyes of humans while they were still out. After all, it was still early. He was taking a real chance by flying. However, if he didn't fly, he was going to be late.

The stars were bright overhead against the smooth, new black blanket of the sky; though, with no moon, they offered about as much light as an unlit candle. Renji breathed even though the air was thin, using the back of his hand to wipe blood away from the corner of his mouth – the result of a fast meal. Clouds whizzed by his head as he rode the wind.

Finally, after another four or so minutes of flight, he was able to spot the meeting place: a tall building in the center of Shinjuku's infamous collection of shops, restaurants, and bars. He landed on the building and stepped through the balcony as he spotted Hitsugaya.

"Put on your damn hood, Renji," the younger (only in appearance) hissed at him.

"Yeah, nice to see your fuckin' face too, Hitsugaya-sama," Renji replied with exaggerated propriety. "Only a couple days out of near-obliteration and already back to being a bastard, eh?"

"Renji, I am serious. Put on your hood before the hunters come."

"Why? For fuck's sake, we're gonna take 'em off anyway…" But Renji obediently reached around his robe for his hood, securing it well over his face so that his features were hidden in shadow. The room was pitch dark as well, and a human would've had to squint to realize that there were actually many bodies in the room, silent, never shifting.

Renji broke that by leaning down to Hitsugaya's ear. "So who of the hunters are coming?"

"Probably Shihouin Yoruichi, maybe Ichimaru Gin."

"They'd send their two most elite leaders just for this?"

"And a couple others. You have to realize, Renji, this is the first time that our kind has ever asked for a peaceable meeting – a momentary truce, they called it – between our warring sides." Hitsugaya didn't look pleased at the thought, most likely because it had been the vampires to give in first.

"So what? We won't give up against the hunters."

"This is not about our war."

"It isn't?" Renji asked, genuinely surprised. When he got the voice message from Urahara, he had automatically assumed that they were meeting the hunters for discussion of war scenarios…possible outcomes…

"No."

Renji waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

"So what's it about then?"

And yet, even if his mind was nowhere near as advanced as his, Renji could see the words that fell from his lips even before Hitsugaya had opened his mouth. It was the same time that ten other cloaked figures walked into the room, causing the smallest elder to speak in a voice barely above a whisper:

"Rukia."

Rukia brought her hunter's wrist up to her lips, skimming it as she always did, enjoying the warmth and the thought of what lay just beyond the skin. Her eyes flew to the hunter's once; he stared back defiantly, and perhaps when he did not feel the telltale nudge on his mind he continued to stare into her eyes.

She broke their eye contact by using her fangs to lightly pierce the skin, not biting too deep. All the muscles in the arm tensed but her hunter made not a sound.

Her fangs retracted as she began to lap at the blood flowing out of the wound not too quickly, never letting a single drop fall.

The wound was too shallow. She hadn't cut deep enough. She lengthened her fangs again and used them to pierce deeper into the vein, though she kept her mouth over the wound and the hunter probably hadn't seen the action.

His breath quickened for a fraction of a second. She didn't blame him. Having fangs in your skin was not pleasant to most humans, and that last pierce was the equivalent of a light stab in the wrist. But he had asked not to be put under her aura.

Dutifully she measured out the amount she drank, careful not to take more than she should – he probably hadn't even fully recovered from the other day, either.

It was amazing that her detestation for killing things even extended to hunters.

With her tongue pushed against the wound, using the faintest trace of her aura to seal the skin, Rukia truthfully felt better than she had in days. She was almost full, nearly comfortable, and had gotten used to the slight detached feeling caused by the aura restrictors on her wrists.

But this hunter spoke the truth. By what limited amount remained of her once super-human senses, she could tell that they were far, far underground, more than just one or two stories. She had no idea if she was even still in Japan. And while Rukia was an immensely high-ranked vampire, even she would have no chance at a quarter power trying to fight out of a building hoarded with hunters.

She released him.

He released a breath he probably hadn't realized he'd been holding.

She stared at him for a second while he examined his wrist, pinching the skin, amazed that it had closed so seamlessly. All the evidence that remained of the bite was just a bit of red skin that would most likely fade in ten minutes.

Resentment welled up; he had (probably without knowing it) saved her again. "Jesus, are you masochistic or what?" she asked him touchily, breaking the dead silence. "Even a hunter – especially a hunter – should know the dangers of subjecting themselves willingly to being a vampire's prey, or are you just that stupid?"

"Shut the hell up," he replied to her half-heartedly. "I just thought that it would be better for me as a hunter to know what it felt like."

She snorted. "What, thinking of that big promotion now that you've caught me, is that it?"

"I didn't mean it like that," he snapped, "it's just that, most times, no one can hurt me."

"Oh, I see. Can you say egotistical?"

"Out of more than fifty vamps I've faced and twenty-eight killed, not one has managed to land a real wound on me," he said, ignoring her earlier comment. He grinned down at her cockily. "That includes you too, fearless vampire. Although my statistics should be fifty-two vamps faced, twenty-eight killed, and one captured."

"Oh, please. You probably just killed all newborns," she said dismissively. "Anybody with a gun can kill a newborn if you know the brainless concept of point and shoot."

"A newborn? I don't think so. Whenever there's trouble on missions I always get handed the shit. My best kill in a face-off was…Yamamoto, I think his name was."

"What?"

She turned her face to him so fast that he looked caught off guard. "You mean, Yamamoto Genryuusai? Him?"

"Well, I don't know if we're talking about the same vamp, but if he was tall, old, with a long beard and the weirdest-ass ability to move through air in just a second – then yeah, that's the guy."

I don't believe it, Rukia thought, her eyes wide. I just don't believe it. THIS is the hunter that killed Yamamoto? This was the hunter that so shocked Japan's leader and elder councils that they had to undergo a huge change to fortify the protection of the upper class? THIS is him? I can't believe it!

"What, shocked?" he asked her. Then he frowned. "I killed him, but he really fucked up my hunting technique at first; he would've killed me if my strike hadn't hit him when he was doing his instant-movement thing. That was the only time I was ever hurt real bad on a mission."

She continued to stare at him.

I can't believe it was him. The instant movement he keeps referring to must be shunpa. Only vampires of a certain aura level can do it…Yamamoto definitely would've been able to. But still, HIM! Yamamoto was killed around fourteen months ago, so that means, if he really was the one, then he was even younger than he is now…!

"It was too bad I didn't get to capture him though," the hunter was saying offhandly, "It wasn't ever confirmed, but I think he was really high up on the vamp hierarchy." He glanced at her to see if she would validate the statement.

Yamamoto and I were on the same aura level, but after his death, Urahara only got the top position because of his experience. That means…even without these aura restrictors on my wrist…I might not be as powerful as this hunter! How is that even POSSIBLE? Humans aren't supposed to be as powerful as vampires! Never!

"Hey, are you okay?" the hunter asked, when her thoughts continued to leave her silent. She snapped out of her funk.

"I was just thinking."

"Like, duh."

"Look, if you're going to reciprocate my statements with something idiotic, just shut up and don't say anything at all!" she snapped at him, her disbelief lowering her tolerance level. Before, this man had just been too much like Kaien, in face and mind, a total bastard and moreover an arrogant one.

Now, she had to consider the fact that he might be obscenely powerful without even knowing it. That didn't settle well.

He stared at her for a second more before getting up and out the door. "Well, fine. I don't know what I said, but obviously if you're going to stew then there's nothing I can say or do to make you feel any better."

Make me feel any better? The words had a hollow echo in her mind. Since when does ANY hunter care about making a vampire "feel any better?"

"So I'm going." He turned back to the control panel and shut her in. When that was done, he set off, though not without turning back again.

"You know, I meant what I said earlier about the torture thing. I don't like it. Maybe I can find some way to stall it or something…you never know. Until then, don't die, eh?"

The last words had not been meant offensively, Rukia realized, as she watched him go out the door and heard a computerized lock set into place from the outside. He had just meant it the way most other humans would have taken it…a request for her to stay well.

She glowered at the closed door before pulling her robes up to her chin.

Shihouin Yoruichi, hunter through and through as she was, would have made an excellent vampire, Renji decided, as he sat slightly diagonal across her at the long table and watched. Her stealth was silent, her words were sharp, her power was great, and her eyes…she had amazing eyes, the color and clarity that you knew would shine in the darkness whenever given the chance.

Rukia had eyes like that, too.

"So what you're basically stating is that you wish for us to free Kuchiki Rukia over to you, and in exchange you would release ten prisoners of ours that you detained on the last raid."

"Yes," Urahara said. He and Shihouin seemed to be in a face-off after their hoods had come off in accordance with the truce; their eyes barely flickered away from the other.

Renji managed to hide a grin at the last line. He knew that they'd gone out specially to trap the hunters – he hadn't known for what purpose then, but now he knew: it was to trade over for Rukia. He thought the hunters were getting a pretty good deal.

"No."

If the sudden flux of vampiric aura could then be translated to human actions, there would've been collective gasp. As it was, Renji was too stunned to utter a sound.

"I say no because we do not wish to hand over Kuchiki Rukia any time soon. Rest assured, she will stay well, and torture is not primary on our agenda. However, I am afraid that I cannot acknowledge your request. Do with your captured hunters as you will." She deliberately stared at Urahara for this.

The sick, twisted bitch! She was sacrificing the lives of ten of her men without even thinking! What the fuck kind of commander just sat there and toyed with the lives of her soldiers without even thinking about it for even one fucking second?

His aura was raging, and everyone could sense it. His was a leaping fire while everyone else's was just flickering in disturbance. Hitsugaya, standing behind him, placed a warning hand on his shoulder, pushing Renji's aura back using his own. The chibi elder's fingers were so tight into his shoulder that it could have cut skin if Renji hadn't been wearing clothing.

He could not afford to lose his cool in the meeting. This was a truce. It would not reflect well on Japan's vampiric society to attack in the moments of a called armistice.

Only very, very advanced hunters could sense vampiric auras; other humans, if one ever brushed them by, would know the feeling as "goosebumps" or "hair standing on the back of the neck." If Yoruichi or any of the other nine guards sensed Renji's aura, they never made to show it. She had never stopped staring down Urahara.

With all the finesse a human could possess, Yoruichi stood up silently and exited, her nine guards trailing, backing up to the door and never turning their backs on the occupants of the room. Only when they'd been gone for a minute did Renji breathe out a hard breath, an annoying human habit he'd picked up from Rukia.

Quicker than a flash, Renji lashed out with the anger he'd been keeping in check. Hitsugaya removed his hand from his shoulder as Renji struck the closest thing at hand: the long meeting table, which broke neatly in half from the strength of his initial blow. The sound of the attack seemed to echo in the silent room, but Renji offered no explanation.

"Stupid fuckin' hunters…" he muttered, standing up abruptly and heading to the balcony. "Hitsugaya, Urahara-san, I'm going. See you tomorrow." And he leapt off into the night.

Hitsugaya turned to Urahara, the latter of which leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the broken table, and tipped his hat down low. "Ah…" he sighed, "I have a feeling this is going to turn out to be quite troublesome indeed, don't you think, Hitsugaya-kun?"

Though he didn't see it, Hitsugaya nodded, before his eyes turned to the door the hunters had exited from.

Very, very troublesome indeed.

Ichigo had gone up to meet with Yoruichi and Ichimaru right after his conversation with the vampire; however, he learned that Yoruichi was out somewhere and wouldn't be back for a few hours. So it had been just him and Ichimaru.

"Anything new to report, Kurosaki-kun?"

"Yes," he'd said. "It seems that not all a vampire's blood needs to come from a living person, but it seems the vamp will take nothing else. Perhaps it ties in with the cold."

Ichimaru nodded and smiled at him. "Very good, Kurosaki-kun," he'd said back, flashing him the ok sign. "I'll talk this over with Shihouin-san and we will most likely get back to you soon. Dismissed. Oh, and continue the good work."

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

Being friendly was easier than he thought it'd be. All he had to do was show the vampire a bit of trust, and she reciprocated it by talking to him as well. Somehow, seeing her speak, think, get annoyed or angry or thoughtful…that made her so much more real than any other time he'd known her as simply a vampire.

Almost on a whim, his feet turned back to detainment sector 13-1; that was before Orihime came over the address system, calling for him to lead another unit for a raid.

Sigh.

He'd come back tomorrow.

tsuzuku