Chapter Thirteen-Tension

The tension was so thick in the Visored warehouse that you could have cut it with a knife. Of course, said knife would probably be shattered in the process and said tension would still be just fine afterwards. Regardless, all of the Visored were pretty tense at the moment, not that they weren't always tense in some form or another, but their tension had been significantly higher in the past few days. The Arrancar had everyone waiting on bated breath, especially Ren.

Ren in no way, shape, or form doubted her abilities or the abilities of her fellow Visored, but she couldn't help but worry about things. Based on what she saw from the two Arrancar that nearly killed Ichigo and his friends, things were a lot worse than she had originally thought. Sure, she expected Aizen's little followers to be strong, but not this strong. And that had only been two of them. There was no telling how many more of them there were, or how strong they were in comparison to those two. And to top it all off, Ichigo still hadn't shown up.

And even beyond all of that, a group of Shinigami decided to show up. That meant that the Visored were virtually stuck inside their warehouse, so they couldn't exactly go out and try to convince Ichigo to join them again. Ren was about the only one that had left the warehouse in the past few days, and that was just to quickly run and grab some food. And of course, with all the tension and then the fact that they were stuck inside the warehouse, some of the Visored were, of course, a little crankier then normal.

Ren was starting to spend the majority of her days trying to keep the peace between some of her comrades, and while Ren loved them with all of her being, they were beginning to annoy her. If she didn't have to leave and get food just about every day and got a break from them in the process, Ren may have seriously contemplated killing a few of them. The whole thing just made Ren more and more irritated at the Shinigami that had barged into Karakura Town, but she had to give them credit, because they did have their uses, particularly when a large group of Arrancar showed up. She could only assume that Ichigo got his ass handed to him again, but the Shinigami had managed to knock off a few Arrancar. Sadly, the strongest out of the bunch got away, but still, five dead Arrancar were better than no dead Arrancar, even if they weren't some of the stronger ones.

At the moment, Ren was making a food-run, so she had plenty of time to contemplate everything as she carried her bags of groceries down the street. She had thought about trying to track Ichigo down, but she decided against it because seeing one of the Visored might just piss the kid off even more. She also thought about stopping by Kisuke's, but again, she decided against it. While she would love to talk to the shopkeeper and her former captain to see what they thought about the whole Arrancar situation, Ren figured she should stay well away from the shop in order to avoid running into Ichigo or any of the other Shinigami. The whole situation just led to one dismal walk for Ren, and she couldn't say that things were much better back at the warehouse.

When she walked into the warehouse, the first thing that Ren heard was Shinji talking. She was mildly shocked when she felt Ichigo's reiatsu in the warehouse, but also a little relieved. Now that the Visored had a new toy to play with, maybe, just maybe they wouldn't be so tense and cranky. Emphasis on the maybe. From what Ren had heard out of the conversation already, Ichigo was being a little shit, talking about how he'd use them, and of course, Shinji just had to ask him how he'd do that, to which Ichigo replied by saying that he'd rip what he needed out of them with force, and of course, Ren could not contain her snicker any longer at that point, and once said snicker was let out, all of the Visored plus Ichigo looked about ready to piss themselves. Apparently they didn't see her walk in.

"Careful, he might like it if you use force," Ren warned him with a wry smile on her face. Ichigo looked at her like she had head three heads for a moment before a look of realization finally came over him.

"You!" he muttered.

"Ren!" Shinji called. "When did ya get back?"

"Just now, of course," she replied. "It seems like I made it back just in time, too. Nice to see you again, Ichigo."

"You're really a Visored?" the orange-haired teen asked her, causing the woman in question to slightly tilt her head.

"Yes, why do you ask?" she cautiously asked him. She was mildly afraid of his answer, because she had a hunch that it would piss her off.

"You don't…look that tough," he told her. And what do you know, she was right! His answer did piss her off!

"And you look like a fucking idiot with his head up his ass, but you don't see me being all judgmental towards you," she chirped, smiling the entire time.

"Holy shit, I love her," she heard Shinji mutter. Poor Ichigo looked a little too shocked to make a comeback.

"Ah, well, anyways, let me get by with these groceries and you can continue to 'force' Shinji to do your bidding," Ren chuckled, shuffling her way past Ichigo and jumping up to the same floor that Shinji was on.

"Well, don't you look smug," Ren commented as she passed him. Shinji still had a huge smirk plastered on face from Ren's earlier comment. He couldn't deny that he felt an extra smidgen of pride for his wife when she verbally bitch slapped Ichigo.

"Try not to hurt him too bad, eh?" she added, before she walked off to put the groceries up. None of the other Visored followed to help her, but she understood why. They all wanted to see what this kid was made of, and they were inevitably about to find out. With that in mind, Ren unpacked the groceries like a mad woman and sped back to the others, only to get there just in time to see Shinji spiraling through the air. Obviously, Ichigo had not been the one to do that.

"Damn it, Hiyori! What have I told you about hitting him when he is attempting to be serious?!" Ren shouted.

"It's not my fault your damn husband was pussyfooting around!" Hiyori shouted back. Ren let out a huff, but she didn't say any more. If Shinji had really been pussyfooting around, then Ren could understand why Hiyori knocked the hell out of him. Hiyori wasn't very patient anyways, and in a tense situation like they were in…it isn't hard to imagine that her already thin patience had virtually disappeared.

"Husband?" she heard Ichigo shout in disbelief, which caused Ren to snicker again.

"Dumbass," she muttered.

"That was uncalled for," Shinji grumbled as he walked over to his wife, rubbing his face the entire time.

"Isn't it usually?" Ren chuckled. "Ah, well, at least it saves you a little bit of trouble, right?" Shinji only grumbled again at that. Ren was about to say something else, but as she opened her mouth, she felt a sudden and massive change in Hiyori's reiatsu.

"Well damn, does she actually want to kill him?" she muttered seeing that Hiyori had pulled out her mask.

"Better him than me," Shinji mumbled, although he was just as surprised as she was to see Hiyori using her mask against him. It was safe to say that all of the Visored were pretty surprised, even though they probably should have been able to guess that she would have done something that drastic. To his credit, Ichigo did hold his own; he still got the hell beat out of him, but he hadn't died, so that was good. He was obviously afraid of his Hollow, though, which was evident because he had yet to call on his Bankai, no matter how much he bled or got knocked around. But, even if he was stubborn, Ren couldn't help but admire him a little. He had yet to give up, so it was apparent to Ren that he had a strong will, and she could only hope that that will wouldn't get broken in the fight against Aizen. Assuming that he made it long enough to fight Aizen; with the way that Hiyori was going, the possibilities of that were slowly dropping.

"Should we step in, Shinji?" Ren asked her husband, never taking her eyes off of the fight.

"Nah, there wouldn't be much of a point to it. If he won't let his Hollow out, then he's as good as dead anyways," he told her. It may have sounded a little callous, but it was true. If Ichigo refused to let his Hollow out, then he would end up dying against Aizen, and Ren understood that so she hummed in agreement with Shinji.

"I think she's going to kill him," Hito commented, the zanpakutō finally making himself known after quite a long period of silence, which was unusual for him. It was bad when even her zanpakutō were being affected by all of the tension that was going around.

"I don't. Surely he isn't so afraid of his Hollow that he'd rather die than let it out," Kiri countered. Well, at least someone had some hope in the situation.

"Ren?" Hito prodded.

"I can't tell with this kid," Ren mumbled, causing Shinji to turn his attention towards her.

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

"Hm?" Ren hummed, apparently unware that she had voiced her thought.

"You said you couldn't tell with this kid," Shinji reminded her.

"Oh, that. Don't mind that. The two 'guests' in my head are debating whether he'll die or not," Ren assured him.

"And?"

"And what?"

"What do you think?"

"I already said I couldn't tell with this kid." Shinji scoffed at her reminder.

"If anyone should be able to tell, it's you," he pointed out.

"Maybe, but I hardly feel like putting forth the effort to take a deeper look at his reiatsu. Let's just wait and see," Ren told him, looking back towards the fight. It was true that with her being more of the sensory type, that Ren could have concentrated on Ichigo's reiatsu to see if she could feel if his Hollow was about to come out or not, but she hadn't been lying when she said she didn't feel like it. And unlike some people, she had enough patience to just wait and let things take their course.

She didn't really need that much patience, though, because it seemed that as soon as she turned her attention back to the fight at hand, that Hiyori hit Ichigo one final time and the kid finally lost his shit. Only half of his face was covered by a Hollow mask, and in an instant he had his hand wrapped around Hiyori's throat and was shoving her into a wall. The Visored were quick, and in the blink of an eye, they had Ichigo pinned to the ground with all of their swords pointed at him. Instead of joining in on the 'dogpile', as it was, Ren decided to go to Hiyori instead, which was a good thing, because it would have been rather difficult for her to find room in the pile for herself and her two tanto. Shinji was the one that broke Ichigo's mask off.

On the bright side of Hiyori almost getting choked to death, it was finally agreed that the Visored would teach Ichigo how to suppress his Hollow. It had taken a while, but some progress had finally been made.


Ren knew that this wasn't going to end well. Ichigo was far too hotheaded and impatient for it to. Almost immediately after the whole choking incident (which everyone silently agreed to not talk about for Hiyori's sake) they had thrown Ichigo onto the 'Super Hiyori Walker', or as Ren like to call it, the Glorified Fucking Elliptical. Sure, it drained the user's spirit energy, but it was still far from 'super'. It looked like Ichigo had similar feelings about the walker, if the irritated look on his face was any indication. Ren was just counting down the moments until he snapped.

"It's way past lunch time, ain't it?" Shinji mumbled. "Ren-chan! Make me something!"

"Nope," was his wife's immediate reply.

"Why not?" Shinji whined.

"Because Mashiro and Hachigen are probably almost back with the food," Ren reminded him. For once, Ren hadn't been the one to go out and get food. Instead, Hachi had offered to go, and Mashiro just…Mashiro just had to go to let out some energy. The poor thing just didn't do well with being stuck inside the warehouse for prolonged periods of time.

Of course, right about the time that Shinji started whining about being hungry, Love started laughing his ass off over some manga while Rose was trying to ask him about some music, Kensei started scolding Lisa over not keeping an eye on Ichigo which caused Lisa to start calling out a rhythm to Ichigo in an overly monotone and uninterested voice, and to top it all off Hiyori started yelling at Shinji to quit whining. All the noise just seemed to merge together and form one giant ball of annoyance, and just like Ren had predicted, Ichigo snapped.

"Stop that shit!" the orange-haired teen yelled, which was followed by him throwing the Glorified Fucking Elliptical in Hiyori's direction. And Hiyori being, well, Hiyori, grabbed Shinji and used him as a shield. Ren could only cringe as the walker hit her husband's face.

"One of these days, she's going to cause permanent damage," Ren muttered, as she crouched down by her husband once Hiyori finally let go of him.

"You'll…still love me…won't you?" Shinji asked her.

"I suppose so," Ren breathed. "It'd be pointless to divorce you this late in the game."

"Thanks," Shinji grumbled.

"Oh hush," Ren scoffed, leaning down to wipe the blood off of his forehead. "You know I'm just playing around with you. Now get up and stop these two from actually killing each other."

"They get along well, don't they?" Rose chuckled, looking on as Ichigo and Hiyori argued.

"Swimmingly so," Ren snickered.

"They're loud," Lisa commented.

"What's going on with Berry-tan?" Mashiro asked as she and Hachigen finally got back and joined the others.

"He doesn't seem to like the Super Hiyori Walker. Hiyori probably should have explained it better," Love told her.

"That thing is annoying no matter how you explain it," Kensei grumbled.

"You really want me to go and break that up?" Shinji asked his wife, pointing over to the fighting pair.

"Yep," Ren chirped. "No need in them tearing the whole warehouse down over that damn glorified elliptical."

"Fine," Shinji huffed. For the most part, everything went smoothly when Shinji explained the purpose for the, as he put it, 'Shitty Hiyori Walker' and told Ichigo to stop being a little shit. Again, it went smoothly for the most part. It really only went "smoothly" because nobody lost a limb in the process. Because of course Ichigo went on a rant over how ridiculous this all was, that he could go for days on the walker, and that he was getting fed up with the Visored. And of course, Shinji told him to 'shut the fuck up' because he had no clue what he was talking about. Ichigo looked surprised when Shinji mentioned Aizen and the Hōgyoku, but he didn't have too much time to think about it before he was rendered unconscious.

"Well, ten points for the warning there, Shinji," Ren commented, giving her husband a mildly cross look.

"What? It got the job done, didn't it?" he retorted.

"Yes, but if Love hadn't caught him, you'd have let the kid fall flat on his face," Ren pointed out.

"What's yer point?" Shinji asked her, with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin. Ren just shook her head at him.

"You're not right in the head," she mumbled.

"You're the one that married him," Lisa reminded her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I realize that. Anyways, we should get this show on the road," Ren pointed out.

"Let's see of this kid can actually make it," Kensei agreed, and after Hachi put up another barrier, they made their way to the underground training room, where Ichigo would either learn to control his Hollow or his Hollow would consume him.

Author's Note:

A special thank you to Buzooka Zooka, ILovepenguins24, The Truth Seeker, xxDosSubmarinosxx, animexxfreakxx, blob80, lucaskid1000, cutepennamehere, Akabane Karma, TishaLiz, AdamThorn, Aknamkanon, Darkening Light 666, Clymentined, Onoxis Draconus, Lady Syndra, Mokasakura, kanna-yamamoto, Pierced Pretty and Perverse, Ulquiorra-Schiffer-4, and Sheriffgirl.