Title – Kneel to the Baboon King
Author – c2t2
Part – 2 of 3
Disclaim – No own Bleach, no money.
Credits – Thank you again to Junko for cheerleading!
As always: Tidbits, out-takes, and commentary can be found on my livejournal, (username squizbee, or find the url in my profile)
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Kneel to the Baboon King
by c2t2
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When the blade was in his hands, everything stopped.
He stopped moving midair, the creature was completely still on the floor. The breeze on the mountaintop vanished.
The only thing Renji could hear was the pounding of his heart, as the blade dissolved in his hands, and the world around him dissolved with it.
-.-.-
Chapter 2: Ice
-.-.-
Renji was cold.
The blackness receded. Renji opened his eyes, and immediately shut them again, blinded by the dazzling white of the landscape.
"The weapon wasn't the way out? You have got to be shitting me." He was talking to the air again. Isolation clearly didn't suit him. Renji arranged himself to sit with his legs crossed, making sure each foot rested on the fabric of the opposite pant leg. That way, his bare feet would stay off the ice.
Ice.
The first and most obvious thing about Renji's new situation was the blinding white. The hard-packed snow was solid beneath him, a substance on the border between snow and ice. The blinding white was from the cold, but unnaturally bright sun reflecting off the pristine landscape. Renji couldn't even look beyond his lap without his eyes watering. He couldn't help noticing that he was wearing his Academy Uniform. In the swamp, he had been wearing the rags of Inuzuri.
Huh.
His breath swirled in front of him like smoke, and Renji felt a stinging sensation as the lining of his nose began to freeze. Inuzuri had never gotten this cold. Where had something like this come from?
"Well this blows," Renji said aloud.
A scraping sound behind him told Renji that the creature was here. He did not leap to his feet and attack, mostly because he would be fighting barefoot and blind, and if the beast meant him harm, an enormous fist would have clubbed Renji over the head by now.
"Nice place you got here," his words dripped with sarcasm.
"Us?" the snake's voice rang out, strangely dampened by the landscape. "You think we would create a place like this? Hurry up and die, you worthless brat!"
"The landscape of your soul is savage and cruel," the baboon spoke behind him, "It is a place of extremes, sharply divided."
"Fantastic," Renji deadpanned, "If this is my soul, then why the hell can't I get out?"
"Your instincts are more trustworthy than your mind. Somewhere inside, you know that you must not leave. Not yet."
Had a monkey-snake just insulted his intelligence? Renji was truly sick of the beast, and decided he would stop talking to it. It would be more productive to spend his time figuring out what he needed, and how to get it.
After a moment, Renji decided that first he needed to get his vision back, so he could see what resources were at hand. Second, he needed to be able to move, to get those resources. Third, he needed heat, because it was fucking cold. Last, he needed a plan, because sitting here was pointless and his ass was going numb and starting to stick to the ice.
Renji pulled off his blue-and-white Academy jacket, and with some effort, tore off the sleeves. The osode sleeves were large enough that he could twist the fabric to wrap twice around each foot, leaving a strange-looking bunch on the top - not that he cared what it looked like. Renji tore narrow strips off the bottom of the jacket to wind around his feet and keep the makeshift shoes securely in place. Renji's practiced movements tying the rags around his feet spoke of the long years in Inuzuri. Nobody had shoes in the slums of outer Rukongai, but that did not make the winters any less harsh.
The wind began to pick up, mercilessly blowing across Renji's bare skin and making him shiver.
He tore one, much wider strip from the bottom of his jacket, and then put the now much smaller jacket back on. It was more of a vest at this point, but Renji needed any insulation he could get. He wrapped the last length of cloth around his face and head, leaving a tiny sliver to see through.
In order to block the glare, the gap had to be so small that it closed and opened with the slightest movement. When open, Renji could see a tiny slice of the world through the gap, and he turned around slowly to see what resources were around.
Nothing.
He was on a featureless glacier stretching in all directions; blinding bright and bitter cold. The wind was blowing harder, driving invisible needle-like shards of ice through his inadequate clothing.
There was no shelter here, and no fuel to be burned. Renji scanned around again, this time focusing on the horizon.
There! A lone mountain rose in the distance, providing the only feature on the landscape.
The wind was steadily building, and before Renji realized it, it had grown to a howling roar
"Let me guess. If I stop moving forward, the blizzard will get me?"
Ah, hell. The silent treatment had lasted a whole five minutes. Before the beast could answer, Renji stalked past it and headed toward the distant mountain.
In some ways, this journey was worse than the swamp. There were no bugs and no stinking slime, but at this point Renji would welcome a foul smell, since it would mean his nose was still functioning. This featureless field of white contained no obstacles to maneuver through, and the landscape provided nothing to hold Renji's attention and occupy his mind. The cold, the ice drew his thoughts to the worst possible topic: Rukia.
There had been only hours between Rukia leaving and Renji finding himself in the swamp. He'd had no time to grieve, no time to mourn, no time to heal.
He'd had no time to lick his wounds like the dog he was.
Rukia.
She had been 'one of the boys' when they were kids, and she'd never lost her boyish figure, which frustrated Rukia but which Renji secretly loved. He'd told her to be glad she wasn't a boy. She didn't have to deal with a squeaky voice and unwanted hair on her face. When water was too scarce for washing, Renji and the other older boys stank, while Rukia would just smell kind of cute, like she was trying to get B.O. and just couldn't quite manage it.
She may have talked like a boy, and she never developed most of the curves that women were known for, but in some ways, Rukia seemed so different, so much better than the rest of them. She saw fleeting scraps of beauty in the Inuzuri filth and violence. She wore rags like she was royalty. She had principles she nearly always honored. The rare times she failed to live up to those principles only made him love her more.
Renji was the only person alive who had seen her break her code of honor. The summer had been particularly harsh. The drought and the sewage pumped from Seireitei made the river so toxic that even animals sickened and died when they drank the foul sludge. They were all desperate, and the older children had divided what they had left into a week's worth of starvation rations.
Mad with hunger and thirst, Rukia had broken into their emergency rations and gone through the entire week's worth of water meant for everyone, and followed by eating their last scraps of food. It had been Renji's turn to guard the stash, but he feigned sleep when he felt her approach, she didn't notice him peeking out under his eyelashes, and afterward she left without a word, letting Renji face the wrath of the other children.
That evening, Renji limped over to sit next to her as she stared miserably at the horizon. Rukia gently touched the bruises swelling on his face, her eyes tracing the trails of blood, and he watched out of his good eye as one tear slid down her cheek.
They never spoke of it, but Rukia must have guessed that Renji knew, and that he had let her do it. What he never told her was that he loved her intensely in that selfish moment. It showed Renji that she was not perfect. Rukia had shown him that she was not a saint, not an angel. She was just like them, and the sacrifices she made came at a great cost to herself, yet she made those sacrifices anyway. Renji was no poet, and did not have the words to tell her how much that meant. They strove to be better because of her example. She kept them from falling into violence and cruelty.
Back on the glacier, the makeshift scarf had given Renji back his vision, but failed to protect him from the cold. Renji had gone from shooting pains to complete numbness in his ears. The tip of his nose had lost all sensation, and everything between his nose and lungs felt raw and damaged. The movement of his mouth was slow and clumsy, his lips not quite doing what they were told. A bone-deep ache had settled into the rest of his body. Renji glanced to his left and eyed the beast's fur. It looked warm, and if he had any way of doing it, he would have killed the baboon, skinned it, and worn its fur wrapped around him while it was still warm and bloody. Renji's feet were shooting pain up his legs with every step. There was no way this was good, but it couldn't be helped. He had to go on. It was either that or die.
Renji's mind drifted back to Rukia, this time focusing on physical things. He was in too much pain to be annoyed with himself for being a shallow horndog.
Renji drifted in contemplation of the cupid-bow shape of Rukia's mouth, fantasized about running his tongue up the line of muscle on the back of her thigh. The tiny hairs on the small of her back made her shiver if he rubbed them the wrong way. Her knees and toes were absurdly ticklish. He remembered her callused feet curling and uncurling against his back, her body shuddering and slick with sweat. He remembered Rukia aggressive and demanding, remembered her begging and needy, remembered her baring her neck in a subtle submission to his will. He would have her any way she let him, just as long as she allowed him to touch her. The things they did in the privacy of darkness were some of his most intense memories, and here on the cold glacier, Renji spent entirely too much time reliving them.
The wind was no longer driving ice shards into him, but by now the only way Renji could tell that it had died down was by the fogging of his breath. His skin had lost the sensation of anything but pain. Renji's feet had gone completely numb. His arms were faring somewhat better, tightly crossed over his chest with his hands tucked into his armpits, but his feet only had two flimsy layers of cloth against the ice and the cold air. His uniform top, which he had mangled to make the shoes and scarf, now barely qualified as a vest. Renji always generated plenty of heat, but he had never overwhelmed his limits like this.
He was going to lose pieces of his body to frostbite.
For a moment, Renji warmed himself with a searing hatred of the beast that traveled several paces to his left. The baboon's fur must be warm, even if its hands and feet looked even less protected than Renji's. The beast's furless hands and feet had turned blue and showed the beginnings of hardened black blisters. The ape's head hung low, and the snake lay on the baboon's back as if dead.
Good fucking riddance.
Frostbite in his soul world was just as painful as the real world, but hopefully the physical damage here would not transfer over to his real body.
It couldn't be helped.
Renji forcibly changed his thoughts to less grim things.
Rukia.
Damn she was a fine woman. Too good for him. He loved her intensely. All the boys did, at some point. Renji was not ashamed to admit it. Renji was certain he didn't deserve something as good as her, and the Kuchiki family had proven him right by taking her away.
Damn it.
Maybe it would have been better for them to remain stray dogs.
Rukia would be a toy of the nobility, performing tricks to please her masters.
Renji was being trained to fight in the pits.
Was this really their fate?
At least they would be fed. That was something.
Renji's skin was completely numb now, and he was having so much trouble concentrating that he almost missed the steam.
-.-.-
At first, Renji thought one side of his vision was fogging over, his eyes slowly losing the ability to function. Blinking rapidly to clear his eyes did not work, and Renji interrupted his death march to glance to the side.
Smoke.
What?
No, the color was too light for smoke. It was steam.
Renji immediately switched direction and headed for the pale wisps. Soon, he came upon the source.
Renji nearly wept with relief. For a moment the blurriness in his eyes had nothing to do with the steam or the fog of his breath. He barely managed to stop himself from jumping in fully clothed. In his rush to get into the hot spring, Renji's stiff, clumsy fingers dropped his clothing into a messy pile.
"Don't do it, Renji," the snake rasped, apparently alive after all, "Don't give in."
"Beware," the baboon added.
"Ah, blow it out yer ass," was Renji's courteous reply. Did the beast want him to lose parts to frostbite?
Clothing removed, Renji slid into the near-scalding water with a groan of pure anticipation. Warmth. At last.
The beast, head bowed in a picture of utter misery, stepped into the hot water behind him.
"What the hell? You just told me not to go in here! You just want to hog this place to yourself or somethin?" Renji asked the creature.
The beast's yellow eyes focused on Renji in a way that seemed significant, but he couldn't read the beast's inhuman expression. Was that… Fury? Pity? Fear? Renji decided he really didn't care.
The pain of frostbitten flesh coming back to life occupied Renji's mind for the next few hours. His limbs went from numb, to shooting pain, to feeling like his flesh was on fire, horribly hot. Renji clenched his teeth and breathed rapidly through his nose to keep from screaming. His ears were burning off, and Renji's legs and feet felt like he was being boiled alive in his own skin.
It was wonderful.
Renji was alive, and he was warm.
Well, now what?
Oh shit.
The glaringly obvious drawback suddenly became horribly clear. Renji had done something really stupid, even for him.
"The storm approaches." The baboon seemed fond of stating the obvious.
And they were both drenched with water. They couldn't stay here, so Renji was going to have to tough it out.
The heat of the water lasted only moments in the icy wind. Renji was already shaking as he pulled on his inadequate clothing. The baboon emerged and shook out its fur, head bowed in misery. Once again Renji took off toward the mountain, the beast at his side.
It was worse than he could have imagined. His limbs went numb almost immediately. His hair froze to his scalp and frost gathered on his eyelashes. In minutes, he began shivering so violently he could barely stay on his feet.
Less than an hour later, Renji struggled to make his numb lips form words, "Th-this is even worse than if I hadn't jumped into the sp-spring at all,"
The creature looked just as cold as Renji, but its voice was steady and strong, "You are not meant to take the easy path. Trying to do so will only lead to greater suffering."
"Now ya t-tell me."
They limped on for a few more minutes. The baboon's fur had frozen into icy chunks. Its hands and feet looked like they were frozen completely.
A sudden thought struck Renji, "Hey. Wh-what happens… if I die here?"
"I do not know. I have never known a soul world so treacherous."
Renji, unable to feel his feet, tripped on a small irregularity in the surface of the glacier and stumbled to his knees. He was shaking so hard that no matter how hard he tried, he could not regain his feet. The jerking movements of his arms and legs combined with sudden and random moments of weakness made it impossible to catch his balance.
Was he really going to die here?
Then, one of Renji's aborted movements hit a solid mass. Renji looked up to see the creature beside him. His increasingly confused mind insisted that now that it was this close, the beast was… magnificent. Even half-frozen, it was both strong and graceful.
Renji had lost the ability to grip, but the beast ducked under the crook of Renji's elbow, and he used the creature's solid mass to lever himself to his feet. Renji did not think to remove his arm, and he continued to stumble on with his arm slung over the beast's neck. The mountain was close now, so close.
"Why... why did you get in the sp-spring if ya knew this w-would happen?"
The baboon raised its head, its yellow eyes distant, "We are one soul. Whatever you experience, Renji, I will experience with you. I am beside you in everything, through every trial."
Renji would have stopped in his tracks if he didn't know that stopping would mean he'd never be able to start moving again. Each step took enormous concentration, each step an ever-greater struggle of will.
How was it possible that Renji felt guilty for causing suffering to this murderous beast, this demon?
…The demon he was now leaning on. The demon whose bare hands and feet were frozen. The murderous beast who had followed him into the hot spring during Renji's moment of weakness.
The ice abruptly ended at the foot of the mountain. It was in sight. It was almost in reach.
Renji's body had stopped its jerky shivering. His elbow was locked in place over the beast's neck. Each shuffling footstep took so much willpower that Renji started to wonder if it was worth the effort. His mind spun away in a confusing trail of fragmented thoughts.
Rukia…
"No!" Renji had to stay focused. He would not give up. Sleepiness dragged at his eyelids. He focused on the muscles he was moving, putting each foot in front of the other, and then shifting his weight forward, he had to trust the creature beside him to keep his balance.
The line of bare dirt at the foot of the mountain was drawing closer.
"We're almost there." Renji didn't even know who he was talking to. The words were slurred so badly that he was barely understandable.
A hundred meters away. Fifty. Ten.
One.
Renji tentatively set one foot over the line of earth, shifted his weight forward one last time, and collapsed to his knees.
The sheets of ice flaked away from Renji's hair and clothing, vanishing before they even hit the ground. A warm tingling spread through his body as the dead parts of him came back to life. This wasn't the slow, painful recovery from frostbite, this was true relief.
Renji carefully got to his feet. His body was as good as new, even if his mind still felt weak with exhaustion and shock. Renji could have wept and kissed the warm ground. He rose back to his feet and took one step, then another. His legs felt strong and steady. A few more steps. Soon, Renji was running up the mountainside. He felt exhilarated enough to laugh. The creature had taken to the trees above him, easily keeping up.
Then the slope ended, and they were at the mountain's peak.
There was the fancy building.
Renji felt oddly nostalgic seeing the structure again. He couldn't help a grin as he caught his breath.
There was a dull thump as the beast landed heavily beside him.
Renji's grin slipped away. There was something he had to do.
"Thank you," he turned to the beast and spoke directly to it. "Thank you, I could not have made it on my own." The beast's yellow eyes were unreadable. "And… I'm sorry." Renji wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. He was definitely apologizing for being a dumbass, for leading the beast into the hot spring, but something inside Renji told him he should apologize for blaming the children's deaths on the creature as well. Renji wasn't sure if he was ready to do that.
The same powerful, borderline-evil aura hovered about the building, but this time Renji was not so wary. He would go inside and claim the weapon as his own. It was a part of him, after all.
The beast dissolved into a black mist, and Renji sighed and turned around, intending to enjoy one last view of his inner world.
The moment he saw the landscape, Renji's jaw dropped.
This was the first time he had really looked outward from the mountain peak. His head whipped from side to side, then he ran to the other side of the building and did the same thing again.
"What the…?"
The mountain peak gave Renji a full view of the landscape in all directions.
It was perfectly divided.
The landscape beyond the mountain was neatly separated into four quarters, each swath stretching into the distance. One of them was green. Another was white. A third was blue, and the last one was tan.
"The hell?" he said again, just for emphasis.
The section that had been directly behind him was white, so it must be the glacier. That would mean that the green section was the swamp. So what the hell were the blue and tan ones? Renji didn't really care to find out. Still, what kind of fucked up soul-world was this anyway?
The beast had vanished again, but Renji could still hear its voice in his mind, something the creature had said…
"The landscape of your soul is savage and cruel … a place of extremes, sharply divided."
"Wow, he wasn't kidding." Renji was speaking to the air again. It was about time he claimed the sword and got out of this place.
Renji strode up to the building, with much less trepidation this time. He was still slightly unnerved by the fancy building, half-expecting someone to storm out and demand he get off their property, but at least he wasn't panicking.
Renji slid open the shoji door and stepped inside. He walked across the gleaming wooden floor and looked at the weapon on the wall. Once again, he sensed the creature appear behind him.
"Well, I guess this is me, and I'm just gonna have to accept it," he stepped forward. "Let's paint the town red, shall we? We'll tear up the city and lay waste to the countryside." Renji heard the beast chuckle darkly behind him, and Renji knew his own grin must be more than slightly evil as his hand closed on the hilt and he lifted the weapon off the wall.
Everything stopped. The world went still, and slowly faded away.
-.-.-
Renji opened his eyes, only to close them immediately. It was painfully bright out here. Déjà vu. At least he wasn't cold. In fact, Renji felt like he was roasting to death.
He sat up, and slowly squinted his eyes open just a crack.
Sand dunes as far as the eye could see, the land blazing bright and scorching hot. Sand dunes a suspiciously familiar shade of tan... and a lone mountain far in the distance.
"Oh fuck me!"
-.-.-