I suppose I should put a violence warning on this chapter due to a certain scene. Can't ruin it by saying anything more so beware.
Hana silently entered the hospital room as not to disturb the sleeping family. He moved to the side of the bed where Nami slept next to her husband with his one arm wrapped around her. Avoiding looking at the stump at the shoulder that was left of Grimmjow's other arm, he swallowed as his eyes shifted to the son who looked just like him sleeping in the other bed. He assumed that Yusei and Mitsu had gone home to sleep. General Muguruma had sent him to get Nami because they had caught the person who fired the rocket launcher and was responsible for bringing down the plane. He had attempted to talk the General out of it, to just let the family rest and be together but the order had been issued and he had to follow it. Placing his hand on her arm, he shook her gently.
"Nami, Nami," he called in a low voice as not to wake the sleeping men.
Nami groaned and pushed his hand away. It seemed his efforts had failed until her eyes fluttered open before she slowly sat up. Pressing her finger against her lips to keep him silent when he opened his mouth to speak, she reached her other hand out to him so he would assist her with getting out of the bed. She followed him out of the room, closing the door carefully to make as little sound as possible.
"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, apprehension tightening every muscle in her body.
"I need you to come with me. The General ordered - " He stepped back when she fixed her eyes on him with a lethal glare.
"I don't give a damn what the General ordered," she hissed. "I'm not one of his soldiers and I don't have to do what he says. How dare you come here after what we've been through."
"Nami, we caught the person who fired on the plane," he told her in a rush before she acted on the murder in her eyes.
"What? Who is he?" she asked, grabbing him by the lapels of his uniform.
Hana swallowed hard, wrapping his hands around hers. He wanted to get a good grip on her before he told her the name of the culprit. "Her name is Renate Kurosaki."
"Let's go." Nami virtually dragged him out of the hospital to the car waiting outside. She sat up front in the passenger's seat with him but not a word passed between them as Hana drove to the brig. She was trying hard to maintain her temper. Her feral side screamed and clawed from deep within wanting to come to the surface. Maybe she would unleash the beast and all the hell with it making this the most literal of cat fights. If Renate was a hybrid, what would she be mixed with? What if she was just a regular human? Even if the woman was a so called 'regular' human, Nami had no intention of taking it easy on her because it was a given Renate was something less than human regardless. It appalled her that the woman not only conducted the human experimentation but even convinced her husband to allow himself to become a test subject. How sick and twisted.
Nami followed Hana into the prison. She did not notice the stares of everyone she passed because she was too busy willing herself to calm down. Her heart beat so loudly in her ears she could not hear anything but her own racing pulse. She was not sure if she took his hand or if he had grabbed hers, but she found her hand tightly encased by Hana's as he opened a door for her and ushered her into a dark room. Her eyes adjusted instantly to the dim light which was actually coming from the other room through the one way mirror. Closing her eyes, she stepped up to the large plate of glass. Feeling Hana's arm around her waist it seemed he was the only thing keeping her from falling apart at the moment. She could hear the General's voice being piped into the room through a speaker. After taking a steadying breath, she opened her eyes.
A petite blonde with her hair wrapped up tightly in a bun and tears in her big blue eyes sat at the table in the next room. She delicately dried the tears from her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. Her other hand nervously played with the buttons of the high collared shirt she was wearing. If Nami had seen her anywhere else she would have assumed the woman was a businessman's secretary because she was the stereotypical image of one.
"That's her," she stated aloud as if trying to convince herself.
"That's her," Hana affirmed, tightening his arm around her. "Are you all right?"
"No, Hana I'm not but that is moot at this time," she rejoined, squeezing his hand that she held between hers. "I want to talk to her."
"I don't know if that would be a good idea," he murmured feeling her body trembling again.
"Why was I brought here? Just to stare at her from afar and seethe in silence? Let me in there," she commanded him, turning to look at him.
"Nami, you're - " He could not finish his sentence as he stared into the eyes of the wild feline creature she used to be. "It's back."
"Only the best parts," she growled, baring her lengthy sharp incisors.
Hana dropped his arm from around her waist and allowed her to leave the room. He watched with fearful resignation because he knew the Commander General would be furious with him. His eyes followed his superior's path as the man crossed the room to open the door she had just knocked on. At the moment, he feared her wrath more than Muguruma's. Although he would never admit it to the man, it was somewhat satisfying to watch the big man be jerked from the room and the door slammed behind him. He smiled as she threw the lock and the General's voice was picked up by the sensitive microphone in the room yelling for her to open the door.
Nami turned to the mirror, placing her hand against his. She stared into the reflective glass not knowing she was actually looking right into Hana's eyes on the other side.
"You might not want to watch this," she warned, looking at her clawed hand in awe as if it belonged to someone or rather something else.
"What the hell is she doing?!" General Muguruma breathlessly demanded as he burst into the room nearly scaring Hana out of his skin.
"Nothing yet, sir," he answered much more calmly than he felt. "Do you think she will kill that woman, sir?"
"Oh, I have no doubt about it Yamada. We're looking at the last few moments of that little blondie's life. You might want to call the clean up crew and alert Urahara that he's about to have a mess on his hands," he said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. "Make the calls, son then prepare to watch the show."
"Yes, sir," Hana replied, pulling out his cell phone to alert the proper parties for the upcoming blood bath.
Nami circled the frightened woman sitting at the table. She put her hand down on the table, bearing down and allowing her claws to scrape across the metal causing a nerve shattering screech to fill the room that was worse than nails on a chalkboard. A cruel smile twisted her lips as the blonde woman gritted her teeth and covered her ears.
"You almost killed my husband," Nami informed her, tapping her dreadful looking claws on the table as she glared with loathing at the woman.
"You did kill my husband," Renate sniffed, tears flowing down her cheeks once more.
"Cut the crap," she harshly snarled at the despondent woman. "The tears won't work on me and I don't care how much you cry. I've shed enough tears of my own as of late so don't expect sympathy from me. Oh, and by the way, if your husband had not tried to kill me he would probably still be alive."
"What are you?" Renate asked, staring openly at Nami with the curiosity of a scientist.
"I'm something different than what you created. Were you aware that this genetic mutation can act like a virus, a disease, that can infect others?" she questioned the woman, watching her blue eyes open up wide in shock. No, she did not know apparently. "There's a lot of things you don't know about what you did. That's what happens when you try to play God. There will be hell to pay."
Nami walked over to the light switch, pausing to look at the mirror. "I'm sorry gentleman. This is a ladies only party."
"Dammit, Nami!" General Muguruma bellowed angrily, hitting the shatterproof glass with his fist when she flicked off the light.
"How does it feel knowing you're about to die?" Nami asked the woman.
"I don't know. You tell me, bitch," Renate returned, standing up so quickly her chair fell and hit the floor with a loud bang.
Nami watched in disbelief and mounting horror as the woman began to transform before her very eyes. This woman truly was a mad scientist because she had not only experimented on her husband but herself as well.
Shiny black scales popped up all over Renate's body and her eyes turned yellow with the pupils narrowing into vertical slits. Her neck flattened and flared out into a hood like that of a cobra. A long, narrow forked tongue protruded from her mouth and flicked the air to find her prey in the darkness. A snake! Could the woman have been any other kind of animal besides a snake? Of course not.
Nami swallowed the lump of pure terror that had formed in her throat. She was confronted with her two greatest fears in one. Sweat beaded on her brow and above her lip. Her limbs felt frozen and heavy, too weighted down with fright to move. Her mind replayed the horrific scenes she had taken in over the last twenty four hours: the sight of the plane going down, Ichigo in his half beast form, her husband after his life saving surgery that could not save his mangled arm, her son's stricken and pale face as he recounted the murder of the man he once called Daddy, and many more rage and hate inducing images. Anger drove out the fear, causing her savage side to rush to the forefront. Acting only on instinct and her desire to protect the ones she loved, she lunged at the snake. Sinking her claws into the chest of the detestable creature, she pushed her across the room into the wall. A set of snapping fangs attempted to sink into her face or her neck as she held the creature against the wall. The phobia tried to creep in and overtake her, but the thought of her husband and son lying in the hospital beds each trapped and suffering in their own private hell of mental and physical agony, kept it at bay.
"You must die now," she snarled, seizing the woman by the arms and slamming her against the wall so hard there was an audible 'thunk' sound of her skull making contact with the unforgiving surface. Nami continued the motion, literally beating her into the wall as the drywall cracked and disentegrated. "You will pay for what you've done. Not just for my husband and son. But for what you did to Ichigo and the others that you turned into freakish beasts."
"I don't think so," the snaked hissed, her tongue licking out and brushing against her adversary's cheek.
Nami released the woman and stumbled backwards a few steps in revulsion and trepidation from the most undesirable contact. She unleashed a high pitched feline scream that sounded like it had come from one of hell's own demons. Picking up one of the chairs in the room, she attempted to use it like a bat to whack the hideous snake woman. Her weapon was stopped with a raised forearm then pushed away to land on the floor with a loud clatter. Setting her mind to kill this thing no matter what, she bared her teeth and lurched forward with another disturbing shriek. Jumping on Renate and enclosing her body with her arms and legs caused the woman to stumble and fall backwards under her weight which left her on top. Her desire for wrath destroyed her rational thinking. Leaning forward she sank her teeth into the smooth cool skin of the snake's neck. Tasting the metallic, cold blood that filled her mouth, it immediately caused her stomach to lurch and tumble with the compulsion to empty itself. Despite Renate's thrashing and screaming, the finely manicured nails on the scale covered hands that tore at her chest and throat, she refused to let go and actually sank her teeth into the delicate skin deeper. With each beat of the woman's heart, blood gushed from the severed jugular vein in rhythmic spurts to soak both of the women. When the woman stopped struggling and lay still under her, she opened her mouth to release the abominable thing. Quickly crawling away, she could no longer hold back her body's desire to throw up.
"No, please!" she cried out, covering her face when the light was flipped on.
"Oh, god, Nami, what did you do?" Kisuke asked her, kneeling down beside her. He tried not to allow the disgust to show on his face as he wiped the blood from her cheeks and chin. Grabbing the prefilled syringe from his bag, he swiftly swabbed her arm with an alcohol pad and inserted the needle into her vein to inject the sedative. He knew she would need it but he had no idea how badly until he saw this revolting disaster. After dealing with this, he could probably use a dose himself.
"Kisuke, I had to do it. I had to," she mumbled, clutching the bloody towel to her chest to hide the blood that had drenched her chest and shirt.
"Don't think about it. Oh, sweetie, don't think about it," he repeated, holding her head and pulling her against his chest until the sedative took effect.
"Sweet Mary Mother of God, what the hell - " General Muguruma stopped speaking when he saw the distraught woman in the arms of the blonde scientist who was glowering at him. "Get her out of here, Urahara. They're expecting her at the hospital. I'll have the hazmat team take this mess to the morgue."
"Just destroy it. Get rid of it," he said, standing to his feet and holding the unconscious woman to his chest.
"But don't you want to do an autopsy? Research? Something?"
"I said get rid of it General. She doesn't need any reminders of what occurred here tonight. What the hell were you thinking by bringing her here?"
As Commander General Muguruma glanced around the room at the bloody mess, he could not say what he had been thinking. Perhaps he had been hoping seeing Renate Kurosaki would offer closure to the ordeal and help Nami get on with her life. Instead it had driven her to temporary madness. Rubbing his hands across his face, he contemplated ways to assist the family with getting on with all of their lives. There is an old adage that says it takes a village to raise a child. He guessed it would take an army to heal this family.