My Tumblr: xfreakxninjax .tumblr. com (and if Fanfiction is an ass and the link doesn't show up, it's the same username as here)
So so so so so sorry this took so long.
Also, some triggering material in here, maybe? I don't want to spoil it, just be cautious after the first page break.
Chapter Fourteen-Family
As invigorating as fighting Ichigo's Hollow form seemed to be, Ren pointedly avoided it. She attempted to give some witty commentary instead, but nobody seemed to be in the mood for that (although she did get a few chuckles out of Rose and Love, so it wasn't a total waste of time on her part). After her mostly failed commentary, Ren instead put her skills towards keeping an eye Ichigo's reiatsu. It never hurt to be extra cautious, and since she was the most sensitive to reiatsu out of the bunch, she was the best person to do that. If he started to lose to his Hollow, she'd be able to feel it, and since so much time had already passed, the rest of the Visored were looking to her to see if Ichigo still had any hope in pulling through.
The extra caution wasn't needed, though. Without much time left to spare, and with a reiatsu so wild and chaotic that it seemed like it would literally burst from his body, Ichigo's Hollow form faded, and the bright-haired teenager was left beaten and exhausted, but alive and grinning nonetheless. And so, his training with the Visored began.
Ren almost pitied the boy. He trained day in and day out, getting smacked around by Hiyori on a near constant basis, with little to show for it. None of them had been this bad at calling their Hollow. Hell, Mashiro was damn near an instant pro at it, and everyone else could at least maintain their masks for a few minutes. Ichigo could hold it for a few seconds, and it was dismal, to say the least. It was not the result that any one of them had been expecting, especially not with how long he went (or could have gone) on Hiyori's glorified elliptical. It was very distressing, to say the least, especially for Ichigo.
And then, one day in the middle of all of this, they got a visitor. Ren hadn't been paying too much attention; she didn't feel like she had to because of Hachi's barrier, but then she felt that little inkling in the back of her head, and she focused on the reiatsu that was right outside of the warehouse. It didn't feel particularly threatening, mostly just gentle and troubled, but when the reiatsu started to move through the barrier, she felt it necessary to alert everyone.
"Is anyone expecting company?" she called out, rhetorically of course.
"What?" was the only reply that she got, and it came from her illustrious husband before he was cut off. Hachi's head swung around towards her very quickly as he focused on his barrier, finally noticing what she was talking about.
"Someone…has slipped and entered through my barrier," he announced.
They were all on high alert, and Ren's hands curled around the hilts of her tanto blades, ready to strike just in case the holder of the reiatsu wasn't as gentle as she thought. Most of her comrades were concerned that the Shinigami had finally found them, but Hachi assured them that he didn't think that was the case. The fact that neither he nor Ren could identify what had slipped through, however, was more disconcerting.
Whatever it was started to descend the stairs, and once they saw what, or who, rather, it was, Ren could have slapped herself. A teenage girl was not the enemy they were expecting, and other than her failed attempt at a joke, she was apparently harmless. Based on how awkward she seemed to feel standing on the stairs, she also knew that she wasn't supposed to there. Of course, if she hadn't known that before, Kensei's glare would have been enough to clue her in.
"Isn't that the girl we saw try to fight those Arrancar not too long ago?" Kiri asked her.
"Well, good for her. She lived," Hito chuckled.
"Don't be rude, Hito. And yes, that is her, now that I think about it," Ren told them.
A loud crash drew the girl's attention away from the Visored; the crash had been caused by Ichigo's body, and once she called out to him, it became slightly clearer as to why she was there. The Visored decided to give the two a moment since whatever the teenage girl had to say seemed important, and it was time for Ichigo to take a break anyways.
"You alright over there, Hachi?" Ren called to the large man, who was sitting off to the side, apparently in deep thought. He didn't reply to her verbally, but he did hum in response. She figured he didn't want to be bothered, though he was far too polite to state it outright. He was probably thinking about his barrier and how someone could have slipped past it, so she just left him be for the moment.
The girl left before anyone could question her, a fact that irritated Kensei, apparently.
"Just who the hell was she?" he grumbled, staring at the direction she had left in as if the answer would fly back at him.
"She only talked to Ichigo and then left in the blink of an eye," Lisa mused.
"Seems she was a friend of his," Rose pointed out. Ren hummed in agreement with him, starting to make her way over towards her husband in the hopes of teasing him to entertain herself.
"That girl was Orihime-chan," Shinji called out, and Ren stopped in her tracks. A pretty high school girl that Shinji knew? She could only guess that they had met while he was undercover, and if that was the case, then she knew what was coming, and she couldn't help the sly grin that crossed her face. It seemed the entertainment that she craved had fallen right into her lap without her having to lift a single finger.
"What the hell Shinji?! You know her?" Kensei shouted, obviously annoyed that Shinji hadn't shared that information with anyone.
"Orihime-chan…was my first love."
It took all of five seconds for him to realize what he said. Kensei rolled his eyes while Lisa snickered and looked to Ren, seeing the smirk that had donned the married woman's face before it was replaced by a more exasperated expression.
"Really, Shinji?" she scoffed. Her husband's face was ghostly pale as he slowly turned his head to look at her, and she could visibly see him swallow before he opened his mouth to try to say something. Nothing came out, though. She kept staring at him with a cocked eyebrow until he slowly shuffled over to her. Shinji then fell on his knees in front of her, burying his face into her stomach and wrapping his arms around her in a vice grip.
"Please forgive me, Ren! She means nothin', absolutely nothin' to me!" he cried, pulling her closer to him.
"There, there. There, there. I'm aware, Shinji. Honestly, you have got to stop saying that about all the pretty girls," Ren chastised him.
"He's even said it to me before," Lisa offered, as if to prove the point while also implying that she was cute, something that Rose caught onto if his incredulous stare was anything to go by.
"Oh, all the pretty girls, eh?! That's funny, 'cuz I don't remember you saying it to me!" Hiyori yelled, and Ren slammed her hand over Shinji's mouth before he could dig his own grave.
"You're a bit young for it, Hiyori," she pointed out, trying to curb the young girl's wrath before she actually tried to murder Shinji. Ichigo, like the angel that he was, made her life easier by trying to attack Hiyori, miffed by the fact that the girl had turned her attention elsewhere while in the middle of training him.
"Time out!" Ren called, halting the two before they could move away.
"What is it?" Hiyori demanded, and Ren pat the young Visored on the head.
"Give it a minute, yeah? Ichigo, not to pry or anything, but I doubt your friend would have busted in here, of all places, unless it was something important. Anything we should know?" Ren ask, and Ichigo seemed to think for a moment.
"Oh, yeah, something about Aizen and an Ōken," he finally told them, only to receive quite a few wide-eyed stares in response. Ren was the one to finally break the silence.
"Do tell."
"An Ōken, huh? Figures that his god-complex would be that big."
The other Visored had all gone their separate ways for a bit to catch their bearings. Honestly, they probably should have been able to guess that he'd be up to something like that, but it still felt like a swift kick in the teeth to hear it out loud. Ren had stayed behind with Ichigo, trying to patch him up a bit before his training resumed since Hiyori would undoubtedly come back in a foul mood and take it out on the young Shinigami. Ren figured it was only appropriate to try to help him out.
"You're taking this pretty well," Ichigo pointed out.
"So are you."
"Well, yeah, but you guys have a longer history with him, so I figured you might be a bit more upset to hear what he was up to."
"I suppose. Honestly, at this point, nothing he does surprises me. So long as we get a chance to take him down, I'll be satisfied."
"I take it this has been a long time coming?"
"You have no idea. You've heard what he did to us, what happened that night. We almost lost everything, and we're still feeling the aftereffects of it. The paranoia, the grief. I am willing to do to make sure he gets what he deserves."
Ichigo hadn't known Ren long but he knew that she wasn't one to be so serious and incensed about something.
"You seem very…intent on this."
The brunette Visored stared at Ichigo for a moment, before taking a deep breath and turning her head up towards the ceiling.
"Ichigo…I'll tell you something, but keep it on the down low, alright? Only me, Shinji, and Tessai know about this. None of the other Visored even know about it, and I'd like to keep it that way for various reasons. Shinji and I…we've been married for a while now, as you can imagine. Honestly, we've pretty much been in love since we met, and we knew what we wanted with each other right from the start.
"After a few decades of marriage, we figured it was a good time to get started on the family we'd always wanted. We'd been trying to get pregnant for a few months before Aizen betrayed us, but we hadn't had any luck. At least, we though we hadn't. We found out very quickly after we escaped Soul Society that that assumption was wrong.
"I woke up, not even knowing if we had all survived, afraid that I had lost Shinji, but there he was, right beside me, completely and utterly broken. He didn't even have it in him to cry anymore when he told me about it. I didn't know I was pregnant, and I wasn't even conscious when I miscarried, but fuck if that didn't make it hurt worse. And with everything else that happened on top of that…It was a hard time for us. And it wasn't like we could try again while living in exile or with Aizen still hanging around. So, yeah, I won't be too sad if he dies on agonizing death, fair trial be damned."
A few beats of silence passed between them, when Ichigo suddenly shot up and slammed his fist into his open palm. His teeth were grit together tightly while his neck muscles were straining, making him look very determined and irate at the same time.
"That's even more reason, damn it!"
"Huh?"
"Thank you for telling me that, Ren. I won't tell a soul, and I swear, I'm going to keep getting stronger so I can kick his ass for everything that he did to you guys!"
"I believe you, kid. So long as you can survive Hiyori, I'm sure you'll do fine."
"I still can't believe you sent Hiyori after that girl," Ren muttered, looking over to Hachi.
"I have questions for her," he told her.
"I understand that, but Hiyori? If you wanted her back in one piece, literally anyone else would have been better."
"I asked her nicely. She'll behave."
"You…are giving her too much credit."
"I'm sure she wouldn't do anythin' that Hachi couldn't fix," Shinji chimed in.
"Should you really be here, Shinji?" Lisa asked him, giving him a very pointed look.
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"You tryin' to make me jealous, Hirako?" Ren teased. "With your first love coming back here and all?"
Shinji just…stopped working. He completely froze, eyes wide open and unblinking, as he stared off into the distance. His mind had gone blank, and Ren couldn't help the snort that she let out.
The two females in question finally made it back, with Hiyori unceremoniously throwing Orihime on the ground by Hachi before she stomped off. She was surprisingly no worse for wear beyond that. Everybody else left the two of them alone, with Ren physically having to drag her husband away from them because he still wasn't responding to anything. Kensei stayed the closest to them, still untrusting of the young girl even though they had established that she was indeed harmless to them.
Mashiro, shockingly enough, did not appreciate the attention that Orihime was getting. She promptly threw a fit to make sure that everyone knew her feelings over the situation, and Ren didn't care to listen to everything that she said. She was more focused on trying to snap Shinji out of his daze, at least until Rose's voice chimed in.
"I'd think he's happy," Rose offered. "We have never come into contact with someone who had the same type of power as us, so surely, he probably feels like he just met a long lost relative. I doubt he's the only one either."
Rose's gaze drifted over to where Hiyori and Ichigo were still fighting, and Ren couldn't help but chuckle.
"She always did have a funny way of showing affection," she laughed. She couldn't blame her, though. He hadn't been there for very long, but it really did feel like Ichigo was worming his way into their little family. It was unexpected, seeing as they hadn't let anyone new close to them in a century, but it wasn't unpleasant, especially since he was keeping Hiyori occupied.
Ren's attention then turned back to Hachigen and Orihime. Obviously, he'd been able to fix her weapon, and the girl seemed over the moon about that. She couldn't hear what Hachi was saying to her exactly, but his words of wisdom were apparently exactly what Orihime needed to hear based on how her expression was slowly lighting up as he kept talking. By the time that she was getting to ready to leave again, her smile was nearly as bright as the sun itself, and just seeing it made Ren happy, as well. War may have been on the horizon, but that didn't mean that they couldn't find joy in the meantime, especially since Orihime hadn't exactly asked for any of this.
"They have similar natures," Ren pointed out as the orange-haired girl made her way up the stairs. "They're both far too gentle for war. But…Hachi at least had the benefit of being born in Soul Society and training there. He knows what to expect. There's no way she does."
"What are you trying to say, Ren?" Kensei asked the question that was on everyone's mind.
"It's nothing, really. Her determination to try to help is very endearing, but…I just hope it wasn't a bad idea to encourage her to fight."
The next month was actually pretty boring for Ren. There was only so much entertainment that she could get from watching Ichigo and Hiyori throttle each other, and he wasn't exactly improving by leaps and bounds, either. There just seemed to be some sort of disconnect going on between him and using his Hollow form, and Ren couldn't wrap her mind around it, especially when considering how fast he had apparently caught on to all of his previous training. Hiyori wasn't exactly a shining example of a good teacher, but she should have been more than sufficient enough to train Ichigo.
It wasn't like she could complain, though, since none of the rest of them were making too many efforts to help out with Ichigo's training. Currently, Kensei was making dinner, and he was the most productive one out of the rest of them. In the midst of staring off into space, spoiling manga, playing music, and looking at skin mags, Ren was probably the least productive; she was leaning against Shinji (the one that was staring off into space) and taking a light nap, a nap that was abruptly interrupted by Kensei hitting a pan to signal that dinner was done.
"Gather 'round, you bastards! Last one here has to do the dishes!"
He was certainly an effective alarm clock considering that Ren was the first one to get to him, even if she was a little drowsy.
"Thanks for taking over dinner tonight, Kensei," she yawned, only receiving a grunt of acknowledgement. Dinner was as loud as it usually was, and afterwards Ichigo had to take care of the dishes since he wasn't used to Kensei's 'last one here can suck it up and clean up' rule. Whenever Ren cooked she just forced Shinji to help her do the dishes, claiming that it would be good bonding time for them, and it usually was. They had had some very deep conversations over that sink, all with various levels of seriousness.
"So…how's Ichigo's Hollow form retention progressing, Hiyori?"
"If you were watchin', you'd know. It ain't. He's up to a little over ten seconds. Baldy over there ain't nothin' to write home about."
Ren was surprised that none of the dishes had been broken yet. Ichigo's pride was being ruthlessly attacked, and Lisa certainly didn't help anything when she joined the conversation and accused Ichigo of borrowing her magazines. She had never seen someone's face turn red so quickly.
"I guess he was bound to run into a roadblock eventually," Ren breathed.
"Couldn't've come at a worse time," Shinji agreed. "We're not exactly getting' a lot done here, and we don't have a lot of time left."
"Maybe he just needs a little extra push."
"I told you you're not ready yet!" Kensei's voice rang out through training room, quickly followed by Love's.
"Your friends from Soul Society came to handle things like this! Leave this to them!"
Ren was starting to regret telling Ichigo that more Arrancar had shown up. Even if he had control over his Hollow now, they knew he wasn't ready to take on one of the strongest complete Arrancar yet. He obviously did not agree. Whether it was out of cockiness or the shear desire to make sure none of his friends got hurt, Ren couldn't tell.
"Am I not training for situations like this?! What's the point of all that if I don't go now?!"
"Let him go."
Ren looked at her husband like he had grown a second head, as did the rest of the Visored. Ichigo was able to slip away from Kensei and Love in their moment of confusion, and he sprinted out of the warehouse before anyone else could go after him. To say that they were questioning Shinji was an understatement, mostly for the aforementioned reason of Ichigo not being ready yet, but Ren was questioning him for different reasons.
"Shinji…"
"Hm?"
"…Why did you let Ichigo go? You know you'll have to intervene."
"Probably, but it'll be fine. I won't let the kid get too hurt."
"I couldn't care less about that, Shinji."
"…What?"
"It's date night Shinji. We've already missed two thanks to Ichigo. I refuse to make it three."
"…I think this takes precedence, Ren."
"Not when there are plenty of Shinigami around to deal with it, and especially not when you could have avoided this by not letting Ichigo leave."
"I-"
"Get your coat, Shinji."
"They're right there, Ren."
"Call someone else to take care of it if you're that worried, if there's any need to. Look, one of his Shinigami friends showed up. Do you really want to interfere now?"
"Well, I didn't exactly want to in the first place, it just seemed like a good idea so Ichigo could see his progress and so we could get another look at the Arrancar."
"Mhm."
"Look, you know that ice won't hold him for long."
"We have a reservation, Shinji."
"And we'll make it, I swear. Why are you so obstinate on this? Normally you'd be all for fighting to protect everyone, or at least containing the damage to keep the civilians safe."
"I just want to have a nice dinner with my husband, Shinji, and I will be very upset if I have to make said dinner myself."
"Aw, I get it now. If you were feeling neglected all ya had to do was say so, doll."
"…"
"Just let me take care of this and then I promise I'll take real good care of you next."
"…That Shinigami is about to die."
"I'll be quick!"
True to his word, Shinji was quick about it, and before the battle could go on for too long, one of the Arrancar that she had observed before showed up and pulled the other one back. She was almost disappointed by that since it seemed that the blue-haired Arrancar was about to use his release form, and it wouldn't have hurt to see one of those up close before Aizen made his big move, but unfortunately that wasn't going to happen.
Their dinner reservations had to be put on hold yet again, although she wasn't too terribly mad about it this time. She couldn't be, not when Ichigo was apparently too hurt for even Hachi to heal. When Hachi said that he couldn't be around them because the Arrancar's reiatsu was in his wounds and he needed to get away from Hollow-like reiatsus to heal, she felt slightly guilty, even if his wounds were his own fault. There wasn't much she could do about it anymore, though.
As she watched Ichigo get carried away from the warehouse, Ren felt a pair of lanky arms wrap around her. She leaned back into Shinji, enjoying the comfort from his embrace and the familiarity of the smell of his cologne. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, and then buried his face against her neck.
"This is getting rather complicated, isn't it?"
And it got even more complicated when Orihime disappeared.
Author's Note:
A special thanks to qweenashleyfox. hidoineko, nachobeats823, jmdubing, Silvers Ashe, KimiAshinhurst, Sage Rage, m00nbunnie, Spectre8, MarvelGeek13, Starawesomeness2,Kyokonhime, Doragon no Namida, hatterlymad, Therjj, Nymphadora Jackson, Rookie-Cat, AmazingAmazon, blitz129, XxDarknessxInxYourxHeartxX, Shiracchan, Tanjatailor, patamon642, BasslineJunkie1, Lyisle Lualdi, SmokedSalmonSushi, diegokpo30, Lena Jabez, LittleRin26, Li JiWei, Dragon Queen 001, Katsumi Senju, ruler of ice dragons, .15, Ms Velvet, SmilesAreIn, DarkEmpress192, Glowduck, Cunnake, reptoholic, kmardon93, jrmacaldo, Lily Resh, Baperben, redrosebird, Suzume Amai, tigerlilyroars1, FearingRepercussions, RJKcastleINUSmoochyChick, BonBombBerrillizer, victoria cullen34, lunatic4eva, viper-sindel, TheDemonfoxHiddenWithin, joker4life, alyssagodinez16, Chrlottee, Scarlett D. Uchiha, IceQueen In The Summer, Kikidevil70, aayjames, harbingerofchaos98, Lily Rozewood, Feyre55109, akirakita8457, and OnePiece99 for all of the love! Again, Sorry for the wait!
