AN:: I'm so sorry this story is taking me so long. But I was kind of really stuck on it. So Now I've been deciding some things that are going to happen and I can resume this story thought it's probably still going to go real slow. Sorry bout that.
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Renji stared at his lover, a wide grin playing on his lips as he took in the other man's body, now covered in tattoos similar to his own.
"Are these really necessary?" the noble asked to no-one in particular. He didn't really know what to think of his new look. But the baboon nodded at him with a smirk, telling them that he either looked really bad with them, or just plain weird.
"Comes with me." He said, Renji now grinning equally as wide. "But don't worry. They'll disappear as long as you're not handling me since I still am Renji's sword, and not yours. And they don't look half as bad as you think they do, right Renji? Now try to hit that tree over there?" He added the last part before Renji could even answer, but this time he actually came much closer to actually hitting his target than he had the last 3 hours.
Who knew that handling Zabimaru would be this hard.
He looked over to his left where Senbonzakura was now approaching the redhead fukutaichou.
"Your turn." The samurai stated, giving his sword form to the younger man. He hadn't trusted giving the redhead said sword form before giving the man some kido training. He wouldn't want an kido explosion to interrupt the flow of his petals, sending them in the wrong direction during a fight. "Normally you'd have to master me before I'd allow you to handle me. But since you are now Byakuya's other soul part and you are at least a LITTLE better at kido than before, I'll skip that part."
"Thanks… I appreciate that." The redhead said, grinning as he listened to the zanpakuto's orders about how to handle her. He actually felt quite strange holding such an elegant sword in his hands.
*You're not the only one feeling weird.' Renji thought to him, 'I'm not used to handling such a wild. Rough sword as yours.'
Renji grimaced at the double meaning flashing through his mind and almost cut through zabimaru instead of the tree he was supposed to cut down.
His own zanpakuto now yelling at him as well as his lover he decided to call it a day. They'd been going at it for hours with little to no improvement. And with a promise to practice kido a little more and to practice handling senbonzakura at least daily they finally left their inner world.
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When they woke up they thankfully found themselves in one of the white, boring rooms of the fourth division.
"Ah. Finally awake I see. How are the two of you feeling?" The soft and motherly voice of Unohana-taichou sounded from where the door was.
They both turned their gazes towards her before answering that they felt fine, Perfectly fine even, both on the exact same moment much to her amusement.
"So. Care to tell me what happened? Your House-staff was frantic and beside itself with worry about it and they refused to really give me some information.
They shrugged. "The pink arrancar entered the Kuchiki-mansion and somehow maximized our bond to a level we shinigami have never even heard of. We collapsed and somehow ended up in -our now combined- inner worlds where we had to train in handling each other's zanpakuto." Byakuya told her in his usual stoic and calm voice. To which Renji decided to add that they would really be needing more training for that because they absolutely sucked at it right now.
"You can fight with each other's zanpakuto's?" She asked, voice dripping with wonder.
"Well… not yet." Byakuya was the one to once again answer the question. "Since we are now basically two parts of the same soul, thought still different parts."
"That I HAVe to see!" they suddenly heard a voice call out from the door. Rukia walked in carrying the biggest smile they had ever seen on her face, making Renji groan loudly. "Yeah, I bet'ya do. But ya're going to have ta wait for us to MASTER them before we can show it ta ya. Because right naw, we really suck at it." He stated bluntly, falling back in his own accent when he was with her.
Byakuya had to try his very best to keep in an embarrassed groan and barely managed to do so. 'Renji!' he shot a glare at the redhead, making him cringe in response.
'sorry 'bout that. It's just that there are so little things you're bad at. You're great at like EVERYTHING so I kinda couldn't stop myself.'
This made the sixth division captain smile softly. 'you'd be surprised at the things I'm not good at Renji. Showing how I feel about something being one of the biggest things.'
Unohana smiled at them, obviously knowing that they were talking to each other through their minds by the look on their faces. Seeing them interact like that was actually really interesting to watch.
"Well. The both of you are free to go home. Just please do sent in a report of what happened in great detail."
They both nodded at this and sat up before walking out of the room just in time to hear Unohana's voice telling them to 'stay away from Mayuri as much as they could as well.'
The bastard would probably want to experiment on them because of the newly discovered level of bonding. With a shiver they walked home, trying to banish any thought of the freaky scientist.
"you know? I actually kind of like Senbonzakura. She doesn't say that much. But well… I thought she'd be cold and evil. Just thank god she isn't!"
The captain smiled at his lieutenant. "yeah well, your zanpakuto is taking his sweet time chatting away in my head right now about how I treated you unfairly in the beginning and how the both of you felt about that. You do know I'm sorry about that do you?"
"oh god. Yes I know." The redhead blushed and mentally started screaming at the baboon that he had to 'shut the fuck up!' Byakuya laughed softly at this, not even looking around to see if there was anybody else to notice this. With a smile still lingering on his lips he reminded Renji that he could very well hear what he was thinking, or in this case; yelling at the baboon, escecially when he was loud.
The redhead blushed even brighter and hid his face exclaiming that everybody was out to get him and that it was just not fair. Thought he immediately shut up when Senbonzakura started sending him images from when his lover was still young and wild, so very much like himself.
He had heard stories of that before, of course, but to actually see it? Wow. He really had to hold back a barking laugh at the scowl his taichou was now wearing. The exact same scowl he'd just seen on the younger version of his lover.
"Y'know Byakuya? I think that maybe, somewhere under that stoic appearance of yours, that wild boy is still alive and begging to see the light of day once again."
He expected Byakuya to blush again at this, but much to his surprise the man was now smirking at him. He actually had a full blown smirk playing on his lips!
"Well. You'll get to know the boy beneath the skin soon enough Renji." He teased the younger redheaded man who was now staring at him with enormously wide eyes. Oh. He could read between the lines pretty well and he didn't know if he should like, or be nervous about what the ravenhaired captain was suggesting.
They arrived at the Kuchiki Estate about 6 minutes later, Byakuya still with that fullblown smirk playing on his lips and Renji with a blush that equaled his hair in color.
"How about we go back into our mindscapes and train a little more?" the redhead asked as they dropped onto the outdoor sofa standing in the garden-patio. They should've been completely exhausted after such a day, but Renji was still full of energy.
"You just want to see me covered in tattoos." The nobleman huffed, smile once again playing on his lips. He sure was doing that a lot around Renji; smiling.
"Yeah well. You look absolutely great with them. Sexy even."
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