Orihime awoke to an intense itching in her chest two days later. It got her out of a deep sleep, one that had kept her sleeping past the roosters crowing and assorted birds chirping in the trees outside her window.
She flung off the bedclothes and grabbed her chest, fingers tightening on her camisole before she realized what the odd sensation was.
Or maybe, she hoped, what it wasn't. Maybe it wasn't a problem, but actually Urahara's methods against Hollowfication at work.
She rubbed the irritated spot above her camisole collar and then smoothed it carefully. Her heart beat fiercely below her hand, mostly out of fear of what may lay beneath than the shock of awaking to the sensation.
"Stop it," she told herself, swinging her legs over the bed and taking a deep breath. "It's just a little itch. That's all."
She found a yellow tank top and pulled it on, and then whisked up the pair of jean shorts she'd set out the night before. Outside the sun was trying to peek through the curtains still pulled. She ran a hand through her hair and went to the window, moving it aside.
In the back yard she saw Renji at the patch of garden they'd begun to call the wonder garden, mostly because they wondered what was in it, if anything. The yard was wet with a fresh rainfall from the night before, the grass still holding the water in low spots. Beyond him at the yard boundary she saw a stand of sunflowers among the weeds. Their faces were turned to the sun at the front of the house, black rounds with mild yellow petals framing.
She smiled, looking back to Renji as he walked around the garden plot, a hoe in one hand. A few feet away a push-mower was silent. She leaned against the window frame, watching him bend over one corner of the garden, moving the thick of weeds back with the hoe. From her angle she could barely see the black marks tattooed at the nape of his neck, dissolving beneath the collar of his gray t-shirt. She knew they were from accomplishment, marks he had awarded himself for achieving something personal to him. She wondered how many had to do with his captain, and how many with Rukia.
She debated for a moment if Renji wanted to best Captain Kuchiki because he was his captain or because Byakuya was Rukia's brother.
She also wondered why it mattered so much to him. Being a lieutenant in Soul Society was no easy feat. She watched him stand up and push the weeds back with the hoe, uncovering a layer of dark, damp ground beneath the overgrowth of gnarled brush. For a moment his arm paused at the movement, his attention on the ground.
Orihime tilted her head, eyes moving over his extended arm, his broad shoulders, to his back. She'd rarely seen Renji fight, but she knew Zabimaru was a complex weapon to master, taking not only countless hours and decades but skill and strength to command.
A leap pulsed in her heartbeat, surprising her. She blinked, putting a hand to her neck at the slight blush starting to warm the skin there.
It surprised her, as she reasoned the quickening, which led to more of a flush that reached her cheeks. Friend or brother or unrequited lover, Rukia was lucky to have Renji in her life, she decided, sighing as she fringed at the curtain. She tried to decide which he was, or more importantly, which he was now.
A sudden knock at the front door of the house jolted Orihime's thoughts of tattoos and pulse rates, bringing a muted startle from her.
By the time she reached the main floor, Renji was at the front door, letting Reese in.
The handyman tipped his baseball cap at her, grinning as she fixed her hair into a long ponytail. "'Morning," he said, then nodded to Renji. "Widow said to get that washer fixed for you. Now okay?"
Renji nodded, wiping his hands on his shirt as he gave Orihime a quick glance before looking back to Reese. "You know where it is?"
"Yup," Reese said, lifting a small, worn toolbox that had more dents than straight sides.
Orihime followed Renji and Reese to the basement through the kitchen. It was an old house, and the basement was predated most Renji had seen. They descended the wooden stairs, the dark eclipsing them with creaks of each step until Reese switched a lever at the bottom of the stairs. The basement lit by a single bulb hanging bare over the worn washing machine and dryer set, ductwork and pipes lacing the cement wall behind it.
Reese nodded, leading the way with a faint trail of used smoke. "Dig out that garden spot yet?"
Renji looked from Orihime to the handyman. "Not quite. Anything in it?"
Reese set his toolbox on the floor by the washing machine and moved the appliance out from the wall a few inches. "Last I seen, not much. Widow said to come on over if you want any vegetables or eggs. Or raspberries. Trail's full of 'em."
"Ooh, raspberries," Orihime murmured, smiling at the thought. She looked to Renji as he glanced at her. "Do you like raspberries?"
He nodded, eyes dropping to her collar. "You feeling okay?" he asked in Japanese.
She nodded immediately, answering in the same. "I slept too long."
They both looked back to where Reese had opened the washing machine lid and was hunkered over it. "Seen the newspapers?"
His voice was muffled and echoed inside the machine's tumbler as he looked around at the interior.
Renji frowned. "No." He glanced to Orihime as she bit her lower lip. "Go up and get some breakfast. We'll look into finding the school later."
"Oh, uh ..." she was about to finish her answer when Reese turned to them, holding up a small wad of material.
He grinned, looking from her to Renji. "That's your problem."
Renji grumbled as the handyman unrolled a tiny infant's sock that had long since dried. "A baby sock?"
Reese nodded, picking apart the item. "Some things like this get wedged up and inhibit the transmission from getting to full spin. Won't empty." He looked to Orihime expectantly, wiggling the sock. "Not yours?"
"Oh, oh ... no," she said, blushing deeply, looking almost guiltily to Renji. "Not mine. I don't ... we... no."
Reese had already turned back to the machine as she blushed as crimson as Renji's hair. He felt around inside under the rim of the appliance and pulled out another somewhat larger wad of clothing, this one bright purple and still damp from a recent washing. He shook it open, eyes darting to Renji as the shinigami took a quick step and snatched the wad of purple panties from him.
"I'm, I'm ... going up," Orihime mumbled, quickly skipping up the stairs as Renji gripped the purple material tightly.
He glanced to her and then to Reese, resisting the impulse to get a better look at the balled purple in his hand. "Anything else in there?"
Reese was already waist deep in the machine. "Sorry 'bout that."
Renji gave him a sharp look, which was mostly ignored as the handyman looked beneath the lid of the machine for more items of interest. "Anything else?"
Reese searched for a moment. "Think that's it."
Upstairs they could hear Orihime's footsteps cross the floor overheard. Renji clutched the purple until it disappeared in his fist. "What about the newspaper?"
"They found one of the escapees. Nyles, or so they thought," Reese said, standing upright from investigating the appliance. "Let him go coupla days ago."
Renji nodded, mind drifting. "Hisagi."
Reese raised an eyebrow. "You know him?"
Caught in a truth, Renji shrugged. "Yeah. From work."
"Oh."
Renji chanced to look down for a better glimpse of the purple in his hand as Reese crouched behind the washing machine to check the inlet hoses. "What was a baby sock doing stuck in there?"
"Hmm? Oh, well, Widow Mayes rented out to a couple a few summers ago, so guess it's from them. Little things like that float up when the water rises and get stuck when the machine spins."
Renji turned the panties over, seeing a few pink hearts lining the waistband, and then crumbled them into a ball again as Reese stood up.
He didn't look at the purple Renji hid. "Butler and McDarrow were both seen in Grundy yesterday," he said, voice lowering as he sent a cautious glimpse to the staircase. "Town's getting kinda nervy with the school year starting up and the convicts still loose. Didn't want to scare your girl, but ya'll being new, just letting you know."
Renji's estimations of the handyman raised half a notch. "Yeah, thanks."
Reese closed the machine lid. "Most people out here set store by a twelve gauge, but anything you got would be better than nothing."
It took a moment for Renji to equate the reference to a firearm, but he nodded. "We're prepared."
Reese grabbed his toolbox. "Good."
After Orihime's late breakfast, she and Renji headed out to find the high school. She'd argued with herself over saying anything to him of the itching sensation that had woke her up that morning, deciding it better to wait until he asked, as she knew he'd have to when he filled out the reports Fourth Division insisted upon.
But she still hesitated as he opened the truck door that morning, her fingers pausing on the collar of her shirt.
Renji's attention was on the passenger side seat in the truck. "Dammit," he muttered, seeing the darker area of bench cushion. He quickly cranked up the window that had been left down a few inches overnight. "I forgot it rained. Sorry."
"Oh, it's okay," she said, putting one hand on the truck's cab top as she prepared to boost herself in. "It's just a little wet, Renji."
"It's soaked. Shove over," he said as she prepared to sit half on the damp seat.
"Okay." She settled into the center of the seat and waited as he slammed the door.
He rounded the truck and got behind the steering wheel, watching her buckle the middle seatbelt as he started the truck. "Hopefully Fourth Division will send over your paperwork for school and you can start on time."
She nodded. "I hope so. I don't want to fall behind."
He put one arm across the seat top behind her and turned to back the truck out of the curving driveway. "Think you feel up to going?"
She nodded, her ponytail rubbing across his arm as the truck backed out onto the road behind them. The pavement stretched hot ahead of them as the truck turned down the road twisting between the mountain and slope of hill to their right as they headed for town. After consulting the phone directory briefly over an even briefer breakfast, they knew Chesney High School was a matter of turns and bends away, most of it swooping lower into the crook of mountains behind their temporary housing.
"Here," Orihime said as they came to a stop sign just before town. "That's the name of the road the school was listed on."
Renji followed the arm and finger crossing his chest to the road branching out from town, which, if were straighter, would have run parallel to their rental house. He turned the truck, glancing back to Orihime as she lowered her arm. His eyes trailed the faint bruises marking her arm near her elbow. They matched the few spots of blue on her knees and one side of her left thigh, something that interrupted the otherwise smoothness of her leg nearest him.
He stifled a growl as the truck continued on down the new road. "You've still got some bumps," he said, catching her quick look to him. "I've got to fill out a more thorough report tonight; otherwise Fourth might think I'm hiding something from them. I'm sure Captain Kurotsuchi's getting a copy of everything, too."
She frowned over the road ahead of them as the thinning residences started to bunch up as a collection of larger building came up on their right. "I kind of felt odd this morning, Renji," she said slowly, sinking back in the seat more, sighing carefully. "Just a little. Just ... well, I thought it was because I started the second set of vials from Urahara-san."
He nodded, looking across her out the passenger window as a large red and white sign read "Chesney High School" from the lawn of a modest brick building. He glanced to her as she looked to the building set farther back from the road on a relatively flat piece of land. He couldn't help but wonder what, if anything, was going on beneath the innocent appearing yellow tank top with the purple ribbon threaded at the collar. He saw nothing amiss, the collar high enough for modesty, as he knew she usually wore her clothes, but there was no denying she was far past most modest means for a girl her age.
His eyes flicked to the school as he turned the truck into the wide double-lane drive and Orihime looked to him.
"What do you mean by odd?" he asked, taking his arm from the seat behind her to maneuver the truck to the row of parking spaces at the side of the school's front doors.
"Just a little tingle." Orihime resisted putting her hand to her chest, clasping them on her lap as Renji nodded. "That's all."
He shifted the truck into park and opted for brute honesty as he rested his arm behind her again and turned to her. "Okay. How much tingle and how much odd?" He glanced to the scoop of ribbon at her collar as her fingers edged there. Mentally damning Fourth Division without naming names for putting him in the position he found himself – and Orihime – he took her nervous fingers from her collar, feeling slight resistance as he pulled them from the tank top.
She caught her breath at the movement, fingers curling over his hand as he lowered it from her shirt. "Just a little of both," she said slowly, the pink gathering in her cheeks in force as he studied her chest.
"You look fine to me," he said, gripping her hand tighter at the nervousness coursing through the slender fingers. He grinned a little, hoping to set her at more ease than he felt. "I can't tell you how many times Fourth Division has put me in awkward spots."
A timid smile fought through the blush on her face. "Fourth Division?"
He nodded, picking a strand of hair from her ponytail, feeling its softness between his fingers, mostly to distract him from his observation. "I came to after my fight with Kurosaki to have an attendant from Fourth tell me my tattoos were uneven."
She looked to each of his eyes, then giggled. "Really?"
He nodded, grinning more. "On my ribs. Said they weren't evenly spaced. And another time Isane said one mark on my back was longer than the other side. I was ready to go get it fixed, to match, when Kiyone told me they'd measured wrong. Damn, I'm unconscious from injuries and they're taking the opportunity to measure."
A louder giggle broke from her and she tried to cover most of it with her free hand.
He grinned as the fingers to her other hand relaxed in his. "Fourth is where you go – or get taken to – for medical attention, and then you find out they're just as curious as any other division," he said, estimating her smile when she lowered her hand. "I'm just saying people in that field kind of have one up on you when you're at your most vulnerable. And," he added, tugging slightly on her ponytail, "sometimes they recruit others, too, so don't let it bother you, if I have stupid questions."
She leaned back in the seat, her smile less bashful as her fingers tightened in his. "Thanks, Renji," she said with a sigh, finding her attention drifting to what she could see of the tattoos above his black headband. "It helps."
He nodded and placed her hand on her leg, his thumb rubbing over the back of hers for a moment. He cleared his throat and sat back, glancing to the football field behind the school as male voices came from that direction.
Orihime looked past him, seeing no one, just the track that circled the football field, stands of bleachers on either side of it, a long garage, fence and a few buses blocking most of the field.
"Well, we've found the school," he said, looking back to the brick building that was quiet, locked up tight in its last few days before the onslaught of another school year. "We can't get you registered yet."
She nodded, eyes on the one story building before them. "Do you think the paperwork will come in time from Fourth Division?"
He nodded, giving the track and field a brief glimpse before taking his arm from the back of the seat and sifting into gear. "I think so. I'll try to call again later today."
He pulled out of the parking space and let the truck troll around the school's small lot, neither he nor Orihime able to see much of the athletic facilities due to the bus garage and netted fencing obscuring most of the view.
The dry heat of the day was magnified from the black, pocked pavement as the truck made its way back to the entrance that also served as the only exit. At the road they paused, Renji checking for traffic.
Orihime's fingers smoothed the edges of her cuffed jean shorts as the truck turned back onto the road toward town, a few thoughts tossing through her mind. She was still volleying through curiosity when Renji's arm came back across the seat behind her. She glanced to him, watching his eyes alert on the winding road before them. Her gaze dropped to the few black tattoos angled at his neck just below his hairline.
He glanced to her as her neck rested at his arm, her body settling slightly against his side, conforming more than necessary to avoid the wet part of the bench seat.
"Were any of your tattoos uneven?" she asked timidly, attention shooting to the road when he looked to her.
He chuckled. "Not that I know of."
She nodded, ponytail bouncing a few strands of auburn hair across his arm. "Oh."
Szayel watched Reese's lanky form weave its way through the raspberry bush-strewn pathway leading from Widow Mayes' place back to the collection of small efficiency dwellings set back across the small valley to the next shorter mountainside. Finding the handyman's humble housing was simple; Reese had left it to cross the bramble path to Mayes' early that morning, calling hellos to chickens and Samson as he went, unaware of Szayel, still possessing Morgan's injured body, watching from the half-dilapidated barn.
Now in the brighter, ever-growing warmth of the day, Szayel had not only found the handyman's small house, but took his time investigating it while Reese had been in the basement with Renji and Orihime, fixing the washing machine. The efficiency was one of a few, most belonging to other odd-job workers gone for the day, and was small, consisting of only a kitchen and living area, bed against one wall, and tiny bathroom. It was mostly bare, somewhat clean, smelled heavily of smoke, and offered a good view of the back of Mayes' place.
Szayel had eaten from the Widow's garden under Morgan's direction, and now he was ready to move on with more of his plan. The small table and one chair in Reese's kitchen area had provided a helpful avenue, one Szayel intended to use. The newspaper on the table held a picture of Shuuhei Hisagi, as well as mug shots of Morgan, Butler, Nyles, and McDarrow.
It took Szayel a moment to recognize Morgan despite the inner hinting his host shouted at him. Szayel did, however, recognize the photo of Shuuhei Hisagi.
"He bears the markings of Kaname Tousen's shinigami vice-captain," Szayel had said when he first saw the photo in the newspaper after making himself at home in the Reese's small abode. The researcher in him was stronger than his Espada tendencies, and Szayel quickly calculated the photo of Hisagi against what he knew, as he did with every bit of knowledge crossing his path, and after having Morgan read the article to him, Szayel nodded in satisfaction.
"I can use this," he said, nodding at Hisagi's photo, and then looking to the one of the escapee Nyles. "Even with the rudimentary facilities available now, yes, I think this may be of assistance."
"What the hell are you –" Morgan had begun.
But Szayel cut him off without allowing the inmate to finish the thought. "Shut up. I have an errand for you. My research material is very close and I need to set up observation." He looked around the small few rooms. "This may do for our purpose, but I have a few necessities."
When Reese opened the door to his small house nestled among the other small efficiency houses, he was greeted by what appeared to him to be one of the escaped convicts still at large. No sooner had he opened the door than Morgan pinned him to the wall, one large hand at the thinner man's throat, the strength of Morgan increased by the determination of Szayel now controlling him.
Reese's eyes bulged, unable to speak as he sputtered under the hand clenched at his throat.
"You seem to know the territory here," Szayel said in Morgan's booming voice, grinning at the handyman. "I have need of your facility."
Reese's hands went to the arm pinning him against the drab white wall, clawing at the hand locked around his neck.
Szayel pushed harder on the man's neck, frowning at the smell of smoke pervading him. "Have you seen a human living girl around here with a hole in her chest?"
The fright at seeing Morgan in his house was substituted for confusion at the question. Reese shook his head as much as he could. "Human?" he stuttered. "Living?"
Szayel realized his mistake. He nodded to the newspaper on the table. "Shuuhei Hisagi. Have you seen him?"
Reese shook his head, his face starting to turn purple, his fingers still trying to pry the hand from his throat.
"He matches the description of a subordinate I heard described by a colleague," Szayel said, thinking back on what he'd heard from Tousen in Las Noches. "Not really a colleague," he clarified, what to him was a point of distinction, "but we were both under Aizen-sama's orders, so ..." He frowned as Reese's neck began to sag under his hand, Morgan's hand actually, from lack of air. He let the handyman drop as he passed out from lack of oxygen.
Szayel scowled at him. The Living were frail, but proving necessary to his research. He glanced back at the table, eyes on the mug shot of Morgan. He looked to Reese's still form at his feet. "I'm sending you on an errand," he told Morgan. "You haven't the qualities I'm looking for in a host, but I think I can use you. I'm sending you to retrieve Nyles for me."
For a moment Morgan struggled to take control of his body, but Szayel held him at bay.
"You're to bring him here, where I can work in quiet, and in return I may leave you alive when I'm finished with you." There was a bit of grumbling from within, but Szayel squashed any rebellion Morgan attempted. "With this one," he said, glancing to Reese's unconscious body, "I can move about without suspicion. If that one is the Soul Reaper I believe it to be," he added, looking to the newspaper photo of Hisagi, "then she is definitely still near. I'll deal with Abarai if necessary, but first I'd like to assemble my resources."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, you –" Morgan began.
"You don't have to know," Szayel told him, stepping away from Reese. He went to the kitchen area and sorted through the drawers for a moment. "Since you lack some of the loyalties necessary for an obedient fraccíon, I'll put something else at stake for you."
With a smile belonging to Szayel on Morgan's face, Szayel withdrew from the drawer a large knife with a chipped blade. "You go back to the region I left this Nyles' body and bring it back here." He set Morgan's arm on the counter, examining the forearm of his host.
Morgan panicked at the arm before him under Szayel's control. "What are you doing?"
"Quiet." Szayel pushed on the forearm with a finger of his other hand, the knife angled away as he found the best place to sever the arm at the elbow.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Szayel fought back Morgan's feeble attempt to commandeer his arm. "You bring back Nyles' body by this evening and I'll reattach your arm."
Inside Morgan's mind the inmate screamed at the Espada as Szayel held the large blade of the knife to the skin below the elbow and cut deeply into it.
The blade soon buried beneath skin and blood, disappearing into the thick muscle of Morgan's arm as the convict screamed against Szayel.
Szayel ignored him, cutting first through the flesh and muscle around the arm and then taking a moment to hack through the bone. He ignored the pain, berating Morgan for fussing. When the forearm lay on the counter in a bloody mess and Morgan's body was left with a stump for a left arm, Szayel departed the human host.
Morgan grabbed his hacked arm with his right hand, a cry escaping him that was cut short as an unseen hand clapped over his mouth.
Unseen to Morgan, Szayel stuck two fingers inside his own hip and retrieved a thin film from one of his few pockets of skin he liked to carry. He held it to Morgan's bloody stump. After a moment the film effectively stopped the bleeding, but did nothing to lessen the pain.
"Now listen to me," Szayel said, crawling a few thoughts into Morgan's mind so he could be heard. "Do you hear me?"
Morgan nodded, still unable to see the pink-haired Espada, but certainly aware of him.
"You go get Nyles and bring him here and I'll reattach your arm."
Morgan's eyes wandered wildly around the room for the source of the voice and invisible hand at his mouth, but he nodded.
"Good," Szayel said, easing his hand away. "Hurry."
Morgan took a step away, glancing to his stump of an arm that no longer bled, but skyrocketed in pain. For a moment he stood dazed, hard eyes on his arm on the counter. His heartbeat was painful in his chest, a mixture of fear and astonishment at the voice in his mind.
On the floor he saw Reese sit up, an odd struggle as Szayel possessed the handyman as host.
"What the hell has this thing been eating?" Szayel said as he took over Reese, sitting back against the wall. He wiped his mouth, spitting on the floor beside him, glaring at the brown saliva.
"Hey," Morgan said, unsure of the handyman.
Szayel pushed Reese's baseball cap back from his face – Reese's face – disliking his new host as much as his last.
"Get going," Szayel said, Reese's voice sounding tinny to him. "You have until dark."
Morgan glowered at him. "You're in there."
Szayel nodded, swallowing carefully from where he'd throttled Reese. "Get going, fraccíon."
Morgan gave him a wide berth and ran out the door.
Szayel stood up. He figured he had a few more minutes before his host came to and tried to reclaim his body. His attention turned internal as he ran through Reese's most recent memories.
Orihime Inoue's image popped into his mental view.
Szayel smiled, creasing Reese's face into a tight grin. "Well, here we go." He held the image in memory for a moment, dismayed that the girl was whole.
He nodded. "We'll see."
Author's Note: Thanks for reading and for reviewing!