Chapter 12: What Should Have Been
"Dad?" Ronin said, entering the deathly quiet room, "Dad, are you here?"
He moved forward into the room and was, at once, touched by the gentle scent of sakura, and the warm, familiar feeling of his father's presence. But looking around the room, he found no sign of the man.
He wouldn't have left now, the boy reassured himself, He was happy when I saw him last. They were about to kiss when I came in. There is no way Dad would leave Renji now...not after all that we've been through.
He walked to the desk and stopped short, bending to pick up a brush that laid on the floor. As he touched it, a vision flashed in his mind.
Byakuya stood before the mirror, smiling and smoothing out a small section of his hair that had been disturbed by Renji's fingers as the red haired man had kissed him. He closed his eyes for a moment as the brush slid through his hair, then opened them again, gasping as a strong hand wrapped around his throat.
"Be very quiet," Tsuyoshi warned him, "I am willing to settle for just you. But if you fight me, I will kill every last one of them, Cousin."
Byakuya's hands rose to his cousin's restraining arm and held on, trying to loosen the man's arm enough to allow him to breathe.
He heard footsteps in the hallway outside the room.
Ronin!
"Very well, then, I will go with you," Byakuya managed.
Tsuyoshi guided him to the window as Ronin's footsteps drew nearer, then paused outside the door. Byakuya did not resist as Tsuyoshi forced him out the window, then started to follow.
"Dad?" Ronin said, tapping on the door.
"Dad?" Tsuyoshi repeated, turning his deadly gaze on his cousin.
"He is...adopted," Byakuya said quickly, "a child of the Rukon. He is no one."
Tsuyoshi narrowed his eyes and shook his head in disgust.
"How very like you, Cousin. You just can't seem to stop bringing Rukon trash into the family."
"I am no longer a part of the clan."
"Dad? Are you okay?" said Ronin, trying the door handle.
"We had best leave if you want to escape," Byakuya said softly.
Tsuyoshi took hold of Byakuya, holding him tightly as he flash stepped away. Behind him, the bedroom door opened, and Ronin stepped into the empty room.
"D-dad!" Ronin whispered, tears coming to his eyes as he walked to the open window.
He froze, sensing the one small use of kido that his father had retained and had used commonly to leave messages...a small kido mark on the glass, in the shape of a skull.
"Danger," Ronin whispered, "Do not follow..."
Then he sensed the reiatsu of the man that Kiyoshi had faced as they had raced to save Kiko and Tsuneo.
That man is going to kill my dad!
I can't let him!
I can't!
I have to do something!
He felt a harsh, burning sensation inside, and placed a hand on his stomach, reeling as a blaze of fire seemed to ignite inside him. Ronin sucked in a stinging breath as power raced through his spirit centers, swelling inside him until light exploded from one slender hand and something began to form there. Ronin watched, his gray eyes flaring in surprise as a lovely, slim blade formed in his hand, and a soft voice sounded in his mind.
I am here, a smooth male voice whispered, I will help you to find him and to save him, Master!
XXXXXXXXXX
It's funny, thought Renji, standing by Kisuke and waiting for Byakuya to appear in the doorway, dressed in his father's wedding kimono and led to the redhead by their own son, I know a time when I would have felt bad asking Byakuya to marry me under such conditions...in a modest safe house in the lower Rukon, only a few people present, and with none of the spectacular displays, fancy decorations and expensive delicacies the Kuchiki clan could have offered us. But standing here, the way we are now? I know this is the right thing. We are together. We have our son. And we are surrounded by people who would die defending us...our nakama. We don't need those other things. We never did. We only needed each other.
It's so ironic how many times Byakuya tried to tell me this...but I always looked down on myself. Yeah...I didn't need them to look down on me, I did it myself. I felt like I didn't deserve him...like he needed and deserved all of those things his clan could give him. And asking him to accept less so that he could have me seemed wrong. Kami, it was never that Byakuya thought I wasn't good enough. I was the one who thought I wasn't good enough. And Tsuyoshi was all too ready to take advantage of that!
Why couldn't that bastard leave us alone? Byakuya gave everything to Tsuyoshi. He gave time, kindness, camaraderie, even affection to his cousin. And Tsuyoshi stabbed him in the back as though it meant nothing. With the exception of Rukia and Kiyoshi, the other clan members just stood by and watched that man destroy their leader.
I wonder if...given Tsuyoshi's leadership for the last ten years...if they regret it...abandoning him like that when he needed them. I wonder if they knew Byakuya was alive, if they would...but who am I kidding? All of that is water under the bridge. We are finally back on the same page, and we are going to make things the way they should have been all along. We'll get married and we'll be a family.
Kami, I can't wait to get to know that beautiful boy we made together. Ronin is everything I dreamed our kid would be like. He's beautiful like Byakuya and had the spirits and smarts like I did to survive childhood in the Rukon. I hate that he knew hunger, because I promised myself when I left Inuzuri, that I wouldn't let my kids have to suffer like I did. I would always be there to make sure they had what they needed. And so help me, now that we're together, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that neither Byakuya nor our kid know what it's like to be cold or hungry again.
Now that we're together...
Renji's mind and body froze as reiatsu he recognized as Ronin's exploded somewhere nearby. The wicked beauty and terror of the moment gripped the redhead as he sensed his son's, the Kuchiki clan heir's zanpakutou forming.
"Kami!" he gasped, breaking into flash steps and racing out the open doors.
He blazed down the hallway and threw open the doors to the room where Byakuya had been.
"No!" he hissed, sensing Byakuya, Ronin and Tsuyoshi's reiatsu but finding no one in the room.
"What has happened?" Kiyoshi called after him, appearing in the hallway with Tsuneo a step behind him.
"He has Byakuya!" Renji cried, "And Ronin went after them on his own!"
Not waiting for a response, Renji flew through the window and out in the direction that Ronin had taken.
I have to reach them!
I have to reach them before Tsuyoshi kills them both!
XXXXXXXXXX
"You are unusually quiet for a man about to die, Cousin," said Tsuyoshi, checking the heavy bonds on Byakuya's wrists, then shoving him so that he fell to his knees, "Don't you have anything to say? Any last requests of your leader? That I might spare you? That I might make your death painless?"
"You are not now, nor have you ever been my leader. You have no right to command me, nor to act as my executioner."
"You are WRONG, Cousin!" Tsuyoshi yelled, striking him across the face, "Follow the rules, they said. It was a simple request, ne? Follow the rules from now on and you will remain in leadership. But you couldn't do that, could you? No, from the time you were born, you were favored by Ginrei. You and your weak, useless father..."
"Don't you dare speak against him!" Byakuya cried, leaning on a bound arm and sweeping Tsuyoshi's legs out from underneath him.
He was shocked almost immediately with a blast of power that sent him tumbling and left him lying on his stomach. Tsuyoshi came to his feet and flash stepped to the noble, taking his breath away with a well-aimed kick to the ribs, which the former leader couldn't stop because of his tightly bound hands and the shock of the kido blast that had stricken him. Byakuya closed his eyes as Tsuyoshi's foot struck him again in the ribs, then the man fell on him, raining down physical and kido blows.
"You got away with everything!" Tsuyoshi yelled, "While I stood right beside you and that old bastard refused to acknowledge me, while I obeyed the rules and grew to great strength, all the old man could see was you! And even when that weak, pathetic son of his died, he still loved Soujun and you more! When Soujun died, everyone expected my father to be named heir, but instead that weak-hearted old fool chose you! You, the son of a pathetic disgrace!"
"M-my father was no d-disgrace!" gasped Byakuya, cringing as the heavy, unrelenting blows began again.
"You and your father both turned out to be USELESS!" screamed Tsuyoshi, "The day I destroyed you was the day that 'right' was restored to our clan! But you couldn't even DIE like you were supposed to, ne? You had to crawl away to live in the gutter with the peasants...to lie among them and soil yourself with them. You are only lucky that you never had a child..."
"Because even with my fall, the line of leadership still runs through me," Byakuya panted, cringing as Tsuyoshi's kido shocked his shaking body again.
He tasted blood in his mouth and felt his consciousness beginning to fade.
"Yes," agreed Tsuyoshi, in a calmer voice, suddenly gone cold and deadly, "But that threat ends when I kill you."
Byakuya turned his head and met Tsuyoshi's eyes.
"So, kill me. End it. You are right. It should have ended a long time ago."
He loosed a low, guttural sound of pain as Tsuyoshi rolled him onto his back, then drew Tenrai Keibatsu.
"This time, there will be no mistakes," Tsuyoshi said coldly, raising the blade over Byakuya's defenseless body, "This time, I will suck every last bit of your power and life force out of you! There will be nothing of you left at all! Nothing left to..."
Tsuyoshi went silent, his dark eyes widening with rage as Ronin's power erupted and flared in the distance.
"R-ronin!" Byakuya gasped, struggling to sit up.
Tsuyoshi's hard kick threw Byakuya back to the ground.
"You lying, scheming little bastard!" he howled, "That brat is not an orphan of the Rukon!"
"No!" Byakuya panted proudly, "Ronin is my son with Renji. And that makes him the rightful heir! All of your deceptions and backstabbing have failed! Even if I die, he will carry on my father and grandfather's line proudly! Go ahead, then, Cousin. Strike me down with Tenrai Keibatsu! It doesn't matter anymore. Renji won't let you get within a hundred miles of our son!"
Tsuyoshi stared off into the distance, his senses extended. A moment later, the sound of his laughter shocked Byakuya, where he sat, still panting and straining against his bonds. A chill ran down Byakuya's spine as his cousin's laughter grew louder, until it echoed in the dark, chill forest around them.
"Oh..." he laughed, "Oh, this is perfect! Just perfect! The little half-peasant is coming after us. This will be all too easy. It will be..."
His words ended in a soft gasp of surprise and pain as Byakuya's fury sent a pulse of reiatsu through the kido bindings and shattered them. He dove onto his cousin, throwing. Tsuyoshi down and taking hold of Tenrai Keibatsu. The two struggled, their bodies rolling over as each tried to gain control of the blade. But despite the small flare of power that had enabled him to free himself, Byakuya was still defenseless against his cousin's kido. And Tsuyoshi was more than happy to remind him of that cold fact, by stunning him with a hard blaze of power that left him unable to move. Tsuyoshi rolled him onto his back again and stood over him, raising the blade with both hands and striking downward at Byakuya's unprotected chest. Byakuya closed his eyes and focused his last, terrified thoughts on his lover and his son.
To his surprise, Tsuyoshi's blow never landed. Instead, there was the sound of metal striking metal, and Tsuyoshi's voice roaring in fury. Byakuya's eyes opened and found Ronin standing over him, holding a slim, fiery red sword. The boy's eyes had gone red, and red flared on the ends of his black hair as he raised his sword and fire danced on the shining metal surface.
"Come one step closer to my dad and me," Ronin yelled, "And I will kill you!"
"Ronin!" Byakuya cried, crawling onto his hands and knees, "Get out of here, quickly! If his blade so much as touches you, then..."
"I'm not going to leave you here for him to kill, Dad," said Ronin, in a surprisingly calm voice, "My zanpakutou said that he will help me. I'm going to save you from him."
"Ronin...run! I know you want to help me, but you cannot! You have to escape him or all is lost! Go, Ronin! Run!" Byakuya ordered the boy.
Instead, the youth pressed closer to Byakuya, trying to help him to his feet.
"Ronin!"
"I'm going to get us out of here," Ronin assured him, "I'll go, but I'm not leaving you."
Tsuyoshi stepped forward, calling forth Tenrai Keibatsu's power and closing in on the two.
"Neither one of you is leaving here alive," he said coldly, "You are both going to die. And there will be no one left to threaten me as rightful leader of the clan!"
"Ronin," Byakuya said sternly, "Stand back. Do not engage that blade. You have only first manifested your zanpakutou. You cannot face Tenrai Keibatsu without a ban kai!"
"I won't let him..." Ronin began.
"He's right," said Tsuyoshi, "You have no hope against this blade. And you are about to get a taste of what I mean. I am going to use some of the power I sucked out of your father to put you on the ground. And after I drain the life out of the two of you, you'll both be six feet under it!"
He leveled the sword, aiming it at Ronin, but not advancing.
"If you think that this blade was horrendous, stealing the power from your veins, Byakuya, watch it blast your pretty peasant son to bits!"
Byakuya surged to his feet, pushing Ronin to the ground as a blast of white power erupted from Tenrai Keibatsu.
"Dad, NO!" screamed Ronin, his eyes going wide and terrified as the white power bore down on the defenseless former clan leader.
He tried to get up, but heavy reiatsu swelled around him, pinning him tightly to the ground and holding him there. A screeching roar filled his ears and something huge wrapped around Byakuya and him, taking the blast and holding steady as power hummed in the air all around them.
In front of them, Tsuyoshi glared as Renji's skeletal snake curled around Byakuya and Ronin, and the redhead flash stepped into view.
"You are out of bounds, Captain Kuchiki," Renji said in a low, threatening voice, "As captains, we are supposed to protect lives, not take them. And we are meant to set an example of restraint, of proper use of our powers, of working in the pursuit of a peaceful society...or weren't you listening to what they told you when they gave you that haori?"
"This is a clan matter," Tsuyoshi said coldly, "I am the leader of the Kuchiki clan, and i have every right to carry out the execution that our council gave their blessing to ten years ago!"
"Not so fast!" said Kiyoshi, appearing next to Renji, "You weren't just attempting to kill our cousin, Byakuya. You were attempting to kill his son, the rightful heir as well!"
"He was in my way...obstructing clan justice. It was within my rights to cut him down...as it is within my rights to cut all of you down for interfering in a clan execution!"
"No," said a deeper, masculine voice as more flash steps sounded, "You must stop, Lord Tsuyoshi!"
Tsuyoshi glared at the twelve black haired nobles who appeared around the group. Renji relaxed and allowed the skeletal snake to fade, then flash stepped to a sobbing Ronin, who was crying over Byakuya's collapsed form. Renji examined him briefly and squeezed the boy's shoulder.
"He'll be all right. He's just unconscious, probably from the intensity of the power flying around here."
"The council gave me the right, ten years ago, to kill Byakuya Kuchiki!" Tsuyoshi snapped angrily, "Now, get out of the way while I finish what I started!"
"No," said the leader of the group of nobles, "You may have had the right to attempt to execute Byakuya Kuchiki, but having failed, you lost that right. And in addition, you had no right to attempt to kill this boy. Our council has sensed his awakening powers, and we are compelled to accept him as heir to the clan leadership. You are still leader, but you must not interfere with our former leader anymore. He is powerless, and no threat to you. And as father to your successor, you owe him a place within your household."
"What!" snarled Tsuyoshi, "This man is a disgrace! He shouldn't even bear our name, nor should his Rukon-dog son!"
"The boy is appreciably powerful," said the head elder, "He qualifies as heir."
He glanced at where Renji was in the midst of lifting the still unconscious Byakuya into his arms.
"By council edict, you are forbidden to do harm to these three. You are to provide them a place at Kuchiki Manor and you are to see that no harm comes to them, or you will be disgraced."
The head elder held Renji's eyes as he went on.
"By clan rules, Byakuya Kuchiki has thirty days to raise his sword to end your leadership. If he fails to kill you, then, you may, of course kill him."
"Huh..." muttered Tsuyoshi, snapping Tenrai Keibatsu back into the sheath at his waist, "So, I'll wait thirty days, and then I'll kill him."
He glared at Byakuya's peaceful sleeping face as Renji walked past him and joined the Kuchiki elders.
"Thank you," Renji said to the head elder.
"No thanks are necessary," the man assured him, "If we had done right by our leader ten years ago, then none of this would be necessary. But you have your work cut out for you, Captain Abarai. You have thirty days to make our cousin strong enough to defeat the man who wields Tenrai Keibatsu. To lose would be extremely costly. We would not only lose our cousin, yet again. But we would lose the heir, and you as well. Tsuyoshi will not let any of you live if Byakuya is unable to defeat him. And at that point, the council's hands will be tied. Tsuyoshi will not dare interfere with you until the battle. So, I would suggest you put all of your effort into that."
"I will," Renji promised, looking down into Ronin's proud eyes, "Ronin and I, and our friends are going to see that Byakuya regains his powers and kills that bastard!"
The head elder gazed down at the unconscious former leader and sighed.
"He has endured too much because of Tsuyoshi's relentless ambition, and our council's inability to act. But clan law is on your side now, Renji Abarai. You must make the most of it...and do not lose."
"We aren't going to lose," said Ronin, pressing up against Renji and resting his cheek against Byakuya's, "We'll find a way to make him strong again!"