Authors Note: I tend to be a slow updater, sorry about the wait. Additional warnings for this chapter include past refrences to child abuse. Hope you enjoy!
Cold air cut like knives as they ran towards the flare of energy, even the least tactical among them saw the attack of failed Arrancars upon the schools of the town for what it was. A distraction.
Urahara lead the group of Shinigami and humans, the feeling to close to that of his former days as captain to be comfortable. No words were spoken as they ran; automatically they broke into groups to surround the area doused in residual spirit pressure.
The small band of Vizards were also nearing the area from their own diversion, but they hung back, unwilling to meet Shinigami unless necessary.
Suddenly the group stopped as they saw the two bodies, bloody and unconscious, splayed out on the grass. With experienced efficiency they gathered the two soul reapers, and swiftly began their journey back to the shoten.
Early on they had learned to stay together. One kid could be easily snatched or attacked. In a group people were less likely to mess with the skinny children that looked more like a rangy pack of coyotes than defenseless kids.
Renji almost obsessively counted their numbers, making sure that no one had strayed. He had heard the tales of his district told in frightening detail by the few older children late at night and seen the rest in the harsh light of day. He couldn't protect everyone he met, but that didn't mean he couldn't try.
In the dusty shack, their temporary shelter, Renji noticed that one of the boys closest to his age in appearance was missing. Saburo had followed him around like he was afraid to let Renji out of his sight, so he was instinctively worried when he couldn't find the boy with him in the shelter.
Suddenly he found himself on the nighttime street of his district, during the day dust coated his tongue and stuffed his nose, but at night the streets became busier and they were swamped with the scents and sounds of sake.
It felt like gravity had increased its hold tenfold on his body, he was frozen in place for what he saw next. Grey thin hair covered the head of the man dragging Saburo down the street. As they grew closer Renji finally was able to shake off his paralysis and run to his friend.
Tear tracks were etched into dirty cheeks, but the boy's face lifted when he saw Renji. Holding a finger to his lips Renji motioned for him to be quiet. Luckily the man was more interested in looking at the windows of the shacks than the road they lined.
Out from his robe Renji pulled a sharp broken piece of pottery he had found on the ground, he had picked it up thinking it would be perfect to skin the fish that they sometimes caught. As he made to pass by the man he jabbed the shard towards the man's leg.
To his horror the balding man grabbed his wrist, "Don't think I didn't know you were there boy."
With casual cruelty the man crushed Renji's thin wrist in his hand until he dropped the piece of pottery. Gritting his teeth to keep from crying out he looked to his friend then to the man.
Noting the frightened but untouched state of his friend, Renji knew that there was only one other thing that the man would do. From what others told him it was worse than the beatings they took if they got caught stealing or upset an adult.
Renji had taken beatings for others before, smaller kids who couldn't run away fast enough or those weaker than himself, he would take this punishment too.
"If I wasn't so busy I would knock some sense into you, but me and my son have somewhere to be." Renji was flung against the wall of a nearby building as the man finished talking.
Standing Renji looked at the desperate face of the boy that looked up to him. Once again he felt like his body was out of his control as he uttered the words that would lead to a type of pain he never understood before, "I can go with you instead."
Renji kept his eyes trained on the ground afraid to look at the man, he knew if he screamed no one would help them, so he waited for the man to reply.
"You cry?" The man looked at him contemplatively.
Nervously fisting his hands at his sides he replied, "No, I never cry."
Seemingly talking to himself, the man muttered, "This one cries to much, it's annoying. That red hair is really something…"
"Come here." The man gestured at Renji.
Feeling like he could no longer control his limbs he walked towards the man who suddenly grabbed his wrist again.
He kicked Saburo away, "Get out of here."
Running for a little bit the kid stopped and looked at Renji, he gestured him to go and gave a false smile. The younger kid took off. With growing horror Renji found himself being drawn towards a non-descript shack.
"Abarai."
Panic griped his stomach, and he felt like he was going to throw up.
"Abarai!"
Who was calling his name, was someone looking for him?
"Freeloader!"
Renji blinked his eyes beadily as he woke up.
Shaggy blond hair under a stripped hat greeted him as he dragged himself from his mind. Urahara straightened his kneeling posture when he noticed that Renji was finally awake.
Silence weighted heavily in the room while the lieutenant sat, surprised that only bone deep stiffness and exhaustion hindered his movement. Raising a tattooed eyebrow he looked to the shopkeeper.
Tracing the top of his cane, Urahara responded to the unasked question, "I was able to heal you myself, luckily your wounds were those I could treat."
Internally Renji sighed, he was glad that no one else saw what had happened to his body.
Warm spiritual pressure had curled around him since he gained consciousness; Renji always equated the feeling to a summertime breeze. Tension held in the back of his mind dissipated; the enormous, but for the moment calm, pressure could only belong to one person.
"I take it Ichigo's ok." Renji looked as his hands, they were curled into fists like that night long ago.
Urahara's hand held the top of his hat, "He's sleeping for the moment. His training, the fight, and Orihime's healing has taken a lot of energy out of him, but he'll be fully recovered soon enough."
The word physically wasn't spoken aloud, but it was heard all the same.
When Renji looked up at the older man he saw the lines that were etched into the young looking face. Sometimes with Urahara's façade he forgot that he too had his life torn asunder by Aizen.
"Abarai, whatever you need, I'll do my best to help." Renji eyes widened, showing his surprise for a moment.
Uncomfortable with the knowing gaze, Renji light heartedly responded, "You could start by not calling me a freeloader."
In an instant the serious look on the face beside him disappeared, "Ah… I don't know what you are talking about Abarai. I would never be so disrespectful to a lieutenant of the thirteen court guard squads."
Exhaustion still weighed down his limbs and Renji tried, unsuccessfully, to contain a yawn. Urahara flipped open his ever-present fan.
"Now, now Abarai I think it's time you got some rest, I wouldn't want to anger Captain Unohana."
Nodding sleepily, Renji repressed a shudder. He was in the human world, but that didn't protect him from her all seeing medical gaze.
As Renji laid back down Urahara rose, gave a short bow, and left the room.
Falling asleep, Renji was once more pulled back into dreams of his past where the plain black hair and constant nervous smile of Saburo was replaced by bright orange locks and a scowl.
Urahara looked at the recently closed door. Letting his smile drop, his features almost morphed into a frown, the erratic spiritual pressure forming behind the door was a sure indicator of nightmares.
Moving to check on his other patient, Urahara noticed a lanky body occupying the doorway.
"I'm surprised to see you here." The shopkeeper looked over his fellow fugitive, noting the dark circles and the deep frown that had taken the place of a usually wide grin.
"You shouldn't be." The Vizard refused to look from the still form to the other man.
He considered continuing his front of a shopkeeper, long removed from the serious feelings of worry and regret. But Urahara knew that Shinji was one of the few people that would never be fooled by his act, rendering it pointless.
Before Urahara could pick up the conversation again, the other man spoke, "That Arrancar wasn't here to kill Ichigo."
The former 12th division captain remained silent; Shinji's deduction was obvious to the more experienced soul reapers. Spirit pressure had flooded the area surrounding the two unconscious males, but the Vizards and the soul reapers of the Shoten knew that it was only tinted with the intent to kill. Underneath the recent struggle had laid a different objective.
"What are we going to do?" Shinji finally meets Urahara's gaze, his expression had been, like Urahara's, numbed into a mask of light heartedness, but now it reflected fury and fear.
The shopkeeper knew that Shinji, who rarely let anyone close to his family forged from Aizen's betrayal, had immediately accepted Ichigo. If both the Vizards and he were not careful, Urahara could admit to himself; the emotions running high would ruin any chance of defeating Aizen and ending his far-reaching brand of evil.
"We will do what we have been doing. What we must." The shopkeeper looked to his student as he spoke and felt a crushing guilt for ruining his innocence by dragging him into this war.
With smothered anger hanging around his frame, the lanky ex-captain flashed out of the shop.
Urahara walked closer to the occupant of the room, by the other exile's spirit pressure he could sense that he hadn't traveled far, and would most likely stay close by until Ichigo woke up.
Standing over the sleeping figure, Urahara briefly imagined that he could feel Benihime slicing through the flesh of the creature that so cruelly hurt the two men now under his care.
Ichigo left for the Vizard's warehouse as soon as he woke. The fan wielding man tried to make him stay but Ichigo was desperate to get away from Renji, the reminder of his utter failure. Urahara didn't have the heart to make him remain in his bed, he was satisfied that the Vizards would keep a close watch on him.
His lack of spirit pressure before had made him feel like he stepped into a frozen morning bare and without clothes; its return was like the comfort of a roaring fire during the cool midnight hours.
Shinji had wanted him to work on his fighting technique and to further expand his tactical usage, something that the human soul reaper had never really focused on. In order to keep him from relying on his spirit pressure when fighting his fellow Vizards, the former captain had Hachi perform a Kidō on him that would absorb some of his immense power.
The process had exhausted him, but he grudgingly admitted that Shinji was right, without having so much of his focus on spirit pressure he could better improve his sword fighting and hand-to-hand techniques. While sparing with the other Vizard he was ashamed at how difficult combat was without his reserves of spirit pressure.
Time had passed in a blur between the Vizards leaving to help kill the numerous unfinished Arrancar that had flooded the town, Shinji warning Ichigo to stay behind because of his fatigued state, and the appearance of Grimmjow's spirit pressure far away from the warring Soul Reaper and hollows.
Hurriedly, Ichigo tried to block the rest of the night from his mind but the effort was futile. As he raced across the rooftops of his town he remembered his exhaustion when he faced the grinning Espada and the horrific turn of events that had progressed through the night.
One thing had kept him losing his life or mind; Renji's Zanpakutō had not only protected him from the Espada, but had spoken to him. Two voices had echoed around him while he lay motionless and exhausted on the ground; they had conveyed Renji's plan, a desperate bid to keep him safe and the lieutenant from being killed on sight. The sounds coming from outside of Zabimaru had driven him to desperation, but the sword spirit had kept him from losing control, reminding him that Renji was relying on Ichigo to wait for his signal.
As he neared the warehouse the promise of an upcoming battle allowed him to distance himself from his memories. Scowling, Ichigo dropped down onto the Vizard's temporary home with his sword unsheathed, giving the group no time to deny his need for battle and distraction.
Luckily for the tattooed man, dreams of his past tapered off to a pleasantly blank slumber, in no small part thanks to Urahara's various experiments. When Renji once more reached consciousness, the exhaustion that had plagued him was gone and was replaced by the need to eat and take a hot bath.
Sadly for Renji those needs would have to wait a while to be sated. Rukia sat beside his futon, wearing a worried look that had never meant well for the lieutenant.
TBC