The walls and gates of the Seireitei loomed before me as I showed my badge to Jidanbo and tossed him a skin filled with sake as a tacit bribe to keep silent, he nodded at me in agreement and lifted the gate. When the thing slammed down behind me it woke Rangiku up.
"Wha--?" she asked, probably wondering who's shoulder she was hanging off from.
"Morning Princess," I said facetiously, as I very carefully set her on the ground. I didn't know how sensitive her stomach was and I didn't want a jostle to prompt her to spew all over me.
"Can you walk?" I asked hopefully. Maybe she could make her own way back to her quarters and then I could go and get some sleep.
She took two faltering steps and then lost her balance. I sighed in irritation as I caught her arm and steadied her. No help for it.
"I'll take that as a no," I grumbled. "Come on then."
With one arm streched across my shoulders, I helped her stumble across the courtyard and into the rats maze that was the Seireitei. Squad Ten HQ was to the west if I wasn't mistaken. I part-walked, part-dragged her along the twisting labyrinthine streets that made up the Seireitei. I knew that they'd been set up that way, instead of in a sensible grid pattern in order to confuse intruders. It had been thought that if an invading force couldn't find their way to all the most important places easily then it would be easy to pick them off one by one.
:Unfortunately for them, guerrilla warfare tactics work both ways,: I thought in some amusement, recalling the recent invasion with Ichigo Kurosaki.
"Renji..." she said, her voice quavering, either from nausea or from sorrow.
"Yeah what?" I replied, absently as I was faced with an intersection that I could have sworn wasn't there that morning.
"Do- Do you think it was my fault?" she whispered shakily.
"Do I think what was your fault?" I asked, confused by a question that came completely out of nowhere.
"That he left. Do you think it was something I did?"
I was surprised. What rubbish! Clearly, someone needed to set things straight for her. Might as well be me as anyone else.
"Listen good!" I snapped. "He left because he's a selfish ass who doesn't know how good he has it. It's got nothin' t' do with you, and evrything to do with his own ambitions. Some guys are just too smart for thier own damned good and they think that gives 'em the right to walk all over other people and do whatever the hell they want. Don't let him take up a minute more of your time, he sure as hell don't deserve it and neither do you."
So of course she started crying.
:Gaah! Knock it off already!: I thought in frustration, trying to move her along to her rooms a little faster so I could dump her off at her place and go my own way.
"Halt!" cried the voice of a patrolling sentry. "Who goes there?"
"As you were," I called back. "It's just me."
"Lieutenant!" he said, clearly surprised and nervous.
"You wouldn't happen to know the way to get to Squad Ten from here?"
"S-sir!" he said, snapping a salute. "Turn a right go down three passages to the right, four more on the left after than and another right."
Gee... well why didn't I think of that.
"Thanks," I said, hustling her along as she swayed from one side to the next. I kept part of my attention on keeping Rangiku mobile and the other half in counting out passages. She started slurring some drunken song about the night three scotsmen went out on the town. I had never been so happy to see the gate to Squad Ten in my whole life.
"Which one's yours?" I asked her trying not to sound relieved that this nonsense was almost over with.
"Up there!" she giggled, pointing.
"Oh, great!" I muttered, cursing under my breath.
She would have a room on the third floor. I helped her, swaying and stumbling over to the steps and then concluded that trying to navigate steps was beyond someone in her condition. I slung her back over my shoulder without asking (to which she promptly burst out into a fit of giggles) and started climbing.
:Second floor, one more floor to go,: I thought to encourage myself not to just leave her out on the steps.
"R-Renji..." she said quaveringly.
:If she starts crying on me again, I'm leaving her here.:
"Yes, what is it?" I asked, with long tested patience. I'd liked it so much better when she'd been passed out, at least then she'd been quiet.
"I... I think I'm gonna be sick," she choked.
"If you puke on me I'm dumping you over the side," I warned her.
"Ohhh, I don't feel good," she moaned.
I cursed and flash-stepped the rest of the way up, hoping that the sudden change wouldn't set her off. She made a choking noise so I slowed down at the top of the stairs and made my movements as smooth as possible. A white haired little head poked out of one room and demanded to know what was going on in a voice filled with sleepy annoyance.
"Just a little over-indulgance Captain," I assured him. "Nothing to worry about."
"You could have left her by the gate," he grumbled with a small smirk.
My lips quirked up in amusement and as I passed I said
"The trashman makes a run in the morning and we're already down two lieutenants and three Captains."
I sighed with relief when I pushed the door to her quarters open and considered just dumping her on the floor. But I'd started the job, and she was sort of a friend of mine, so I fished in her closet and pulled down her futon and blanket and laid them out.
"There," I said. "Now go to bed!"
I turned to stomp off before anything else could happen to me but she caught my sleeve and looked up at me with quavering eyes.
"Ren-ji," she said, looking at me with the most pitiful look.
"What now?" I growled in annoyance. "I'm not tucking you in, so you can forget it."
"It's not that, it's just... Gin's in the tower facing execution but... didn't you once serve under him in Squad Three?"
"Yeah, for a few years," I said cautiously. "What about it?"
"Well... You know how I feel about him."
I nodded.
"I mean, you really get it. When you were in my place and Rukia was to be killed, wouldn't you have done anything to save her? Even if it meant going against the whole Seireitei?"
"Yes," I said simply, keepng my voice level.
It was still hard for me to think of that time, especially now. I'd been a fool to leave it to Byakuya to use his aristocratic influence to get her out of there but at the time I'd figured that those aristocrats were always scratching each others backs, I figured they'd give her a slap on the writs, some punitive chores and let her go. By the time I found out otherwise it was too late for me to sneak her out from under guard. Then I'd had to suffer the humiliation of some punk kid with not even a fraction of my experience coming along and rescuing her where I failed. That failure still ate at me, that remembered sense of helplessness was a continual goad for me to get better and stronger so I'd never have to go through a situation where there was nothing I cold do. I knew how she was feeling, even though Gin was a traitor to the Soul Reapers, Matsumoto's heart would still tell her that he was the one she loved.
"He's going to die, Renji," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry for you but--"
"I couldn't think of another officer I could trust with this," Rangiku said hurriedly. "But I-- I'm going to get him out of there. I know he's a traitor but I love him. You know how I feel and what I'm going through. I know a way to get him out without anyone even realizing he's gone until later. No-one would have to know you're involved."
I blinked at her in surprise, completely taken aback. She was the one who'd turned him in!
My mind flashed back to how it had felt when I'd had to hand Rukia over to those assholes... but still, it wasn't like she'd betrayed the whole Seireitei, just broke one or two stupid rules. Gin on the other hand had knowingly turned traitor against his whole people. I'd fought him personally.
"I'll take care of all the rest, all you have to do is cover for me," Rangiku went on.
"Rangiku," I said gently. "I know this is hard for you, believe me, I know. But Gin is... well, he's a traitor."
"He was your captain too once," Rangiku said. "Besides, what's it to you whether he's a traitor or not? You've had your fun chasing him down, now you can have even more fun by sneaking him out right under the very noses of your superiors. C'mon Renji, I know you certainly have no love for the Seireitei. Half the time I think you despise every last one of us."
My stray dog instincts scented something in the wind, not danger, at least not an overt one, but something to put me on my guard.
"I wouldn't say despise," I fudged, a little irritated at how close she was to the truth.
There were days that I wanted to take the whole damn place and everyone in it and drop it down an inter-dimentional hole and hope they never came back out again.
"So then what's the problem?" she asked. "Just consider this putting one in the eye of all those high nosed prats who looked down on you because of who you are and where you came from."
There was something about Rangiku's eyes that was a little too sharp, a little too assessing, which was odd considering the fact that she was drunk. In fact for how drunk she was, she sounded remarkably sober. There was something odd going on. I shrugged mentally, I wasn't getting any sense of threat from anywhere so my instincts weren't going crazy, I figured I could afford to play along.
"The problem is that I'd be sneaking a known traitor out from under guard," I answered honestly.
"You were willing to throw away everything you'd worked for once," she pointed out.
That was different, I thought to myself. Rukia would never intentionally hurt someone and she'd never ever turn her back on a friend. Gin Ichimaru was a completely different story.
"You don't really owe these people anything," Rangiku pressed. "Certainly they've never shown any real appreciation for you. Why don't you try joining a side where your skills would be more appreciated? If you help him escape he certainly has the means to reward you well for your trouble."
"Reward?" I asked, trying not to sound as incredulous and disbelieving as I felt.
She must have taken my tone as being interested for she went on and said
"You could be wealthy enough to live in comfort and never have to lift a finger for work if you don't have to. You're from the Rukon District so you could surely appreciate that. Furthermore, you have no money and no connections and yet you made it all the way to Vice Captain in under half a century, you're an ambitious man. Help him escape and he could give you all the power you could want."
I stared for a long minute, struck absolutely speechless. This was Rangiku for heaven's sake! She might be a flake, and a bit of a drama queen, but her loyalty to her friends and her captain was unquestionable. Hearing her say stuff like this was just too--
:Waaait a minute,: I thought, my head finally catching up with my surprise.
She might love Gin, but Rangiku Matsumoto cared too much about the people in this place to turn her back on them like they meant nothing to her. That could only mean one thing in my book, he had some kind of blackmail or hostage on her and had to be using it to force her to do what he wanted.
Like any stray dog with a known threat to lock onto I took a position on her flank and raised my hackles. She might be a flake, I'd never seen her soiling her delicate-looking self in a practice ring, and she sure liked to waste her time and money on frivolous things (like closets full of clothes she never wore)... to be honest there had been a time or two when I had wondered how in the hell she'd made lieutenant, but in the end Rangiku was good people and someone that I considered worth respecting. Maybe I still had some of that street-gang-leader mentality hanging around me, but I sort of considered her as one of "my own." I knew she was a fellow lieutenant the same as I was, and we were not really all that close, but if she was in trouble, I was gonna help.
I stood up, put a hand on either of her shoulders and looked at her seriously.
"Rangiku," I said, making sure my voice reflected how serious I was about this.
"We've kinda been friends for a long time now and I know what you're going through. That's why, as your friend I'm tellin' you ta walk away. Just walk away now. No-one else will have to know about this conversation but you an' me, I promise, but I can't let you throw away your life over some selfish, manipulative, backstabbing bastard who's too pig-stupid to keep hold of what's really important. He ain't worth it. Now I don't know what he's got on you, but just say the word an' I'll get together a couple o' guys an' we'll take a little visit to the tower and have a nice friendly little... chat with him."
I cracked my knuckles loudly to demonstrate that I was gonna let my fists do the talking.
"You think he's blackmailing me?!" she said, sounding incredulous with surprise.
I couldn't help the puzzled look that crossed my face when I answered honestly
"Well yeah, what else could it be? You might love him, but you love your family here more. You're not the type to betray them, even for the guy you're in love with, and you knew what he'd be facing when you turned him in. So he must have something on you, that's the way it's done. I don't really care what it is, but don' worry, I'm real persuasive... I'll get it out of him for ya."
She caught the pleased, anticipatory smile on my face and rolled her eyes.
"Everyone's right," she muttered, almost to herself, it seemed. "You really are a thug."
"Sticks an' stones," I assured her.
"Well what about when you turned Rukia Kuchiki in? You did your duty at first but then you turned around and tried to go against the whole Seireitei to get her out of the tower."
"That's different," I maintained. "I only turned her in because I figured that Rukia being part of an aristocratic family was finally going to do her some good for once, 'cept that her brother wouldn't do he was supposed to and let her get sentenced instead of getting her off on a technicality or somthing. Secondly, Gin Ichimaru is a whole 'nother kettle of fish from Rukia."
"What about the money and power?" she asked, eying me a little sharply.
I stared at her, non-plussed.
"What about 'em?" I asked flatly.
To be honest, I was a little hurt, I thought she'd thought better of me than that. Sure, I'd clawed my way to the top desperately but when it came right down to it, I wasn't an ambitious kinda guy. I wasn't after the power or the position of vice captain (or even captain) itself, I just wanted to get to a place where I could put myself on equal footing with Rukia Kuchiki and be at her side again without it feeling like an unequal relationship.
"Someone offers you enough money to live well off and power enough to do what you want with it in exchange for a favor or two and you just tell them you're not interested? That's not how its done in Hangdog."
"First off, what do you know about Hangdog?" I replied flatly. I knew damned well that Matsumoto was from one of the first ten districts; the nice places in Rukongai, what the hell did she know about the lower Rukon districts besides possibly the best places to find a drink in them?
"Secondly," I pursued. "Glim and status don' mean shit without shine from y' maties," I said, slipping into streets cant.
"Iffen I wanted glim I could get it easier on the catchin' lay than 'ere, and as for pecking lay..." I switched out of street slang and said in a normal tone. "Consider the source."
"I'm sorry, what?" Rangiku asked, apparently not understanding a word of what I'd just said.
"I said," deciding generously to translate for her. "Monely and power mean nothing without the respect of your friends, and that if it was money I was interested in, I could get it a lot easier by bashing rich people over the head and taking their money, otherwise known as mugging, than I could find it in this place. As for that supposed power your friend would offer me... do I look stupid?"
She opened her mouth to answer and I interjected quickly
"Don't answer that." I rushed on to explain what I'd meant before she could think of anything else to say.
"Anything Gin Ichimaru would offer to anyone for something that seemed inconsequential would have so many strings attached to it you could use it in a puppet show."
"That's...remarkably sensible of you. So you're saying that you wouldn't help him out for money or power, even if a friend asked you to? Even if you thought that friend was being blackmailed?"
Her tone didn't sound like it was disbelieving, more like she was just checking to make sure.
"Is that just because he's Gin Ichimaru?" she pursued.
"Bastard tried to kill Rukia," I shrugged. "I know he means a lot to you Matsumoto, but to me, he's nothing but an enemy."
"What if it weren't Gin?" Matsumoto asked.
::For someone who is supposed to be drunk,:: Brother Zabimaru noted in my mind, rousing a little from his nap. ::There is an awfully sharp look in her eyes.::
I'd noticed it too, something was definitely up. My instincts weren't detecting immediate danger, just advising caution on a possible future one.
"Say what?" I asked, uncomprehendingly, partly to buy time and partly because her question didn't make much sense to me.
"Clearly you have a grudge against Gin," she explained. "But if I were offering you money and power and an easy life in exchange for just a few minor favors, y'know, like "forgetting" to file a specific report, or overlooking a few insignificant discrepancies in the paperwork on someone else's behalf, would you do it?"
"No," I said bluntly.
I hadn't been intending to say anything at all because the entire situation seemed fishy to me, and I was suspicious of what was going on, but the honesty had just been startled out of me. Hearing Matsumoto say things like that had come as a shocking and unwelcome surprise. I'd really thought she'd known better than that. The fact that she'd make an assumption like that about me made me feel very hurt and insulted. As a consequence, I spoke before I thought and what I was really feeling came spilling out.
"What, you think that just because I'm from the Rukon District that I'll just accept bribes and let things like that slide under my nose as long as I get a cut of the take, is that it? You think that just because I'm from the streets that I have no honor or loyalty an' I'll just take money from anyone?"
It was ridiculous how much my feelings had been hurt by that. We'd fought side by side, I'd even dragged her drunk ass home instead of just letting her get herself into trouble, and I find out this is what she thinks of me! I pivoted on my heel to storm out. She could pass out and choke on her own vomit for all I cared!
:I thought she was kinda my friend, but in the end she's just like all those other noble brats,: I thought, hurt and insulted that she thought I was just a dog that would take scraps from anywhere and wag it's tail for one master as much as another.
:Forget this,: I thought, hot with anger. :I don't have to stick around and take this!:
"Did you get all that, captain?" Rangiku, called, looking off to the side. Abruptly, like an actor taking off her mask, her drunken slouch straightened and her eyes cleared of their haze, her whole demeanor changed from inebriation to perfect sobriety in an eyeblink. The shoji leading to the next room slid open to reveal the kneeling form Captain Hitsugaya.
I frowned, my suspicions hardening into a certainty. I'd just been had.
"See? I told you," Rangiku said to the kid, who promptly rolled his eyes.
"I didn't disagree with you Lieutenant," he replied. "Lieutenant Abarai is too straightforward and linear for subterfuge."
"Loyal too," Rangiku reminded him.
My eyes narrowed to slits as i stared hard at the both of them, Rangiku and the young Captain of the Tenth Division looking up at me in partly abashed chagrin.
"I apologize for the ruse Lieutenant," the little brat said to me, his tone serious as ever. "It wasn't my wish to deceive you, but given everything that has happened recently, all the betrayals and upheavals, the Head-Captain felt it necessary to test the loyalties of all the upper-level officers still remaining in the Seireitei."
"Hn. 'Zat right?" I grunted, hunkering down to examine them both. "Whad'jyou two do ta get stuck with it? Isn't jobs like this what the Second Division is for?"
"It's our outstanding loyalty and people skills," Rangiku said, plastering on her best winning smile.
"We're on good terms with most of the officers still left in the Seireitei so we were the ones he picked to sound people out," Hitsugaya explained, shooting a look of annoyance at his lieutenant for her levity.
"The whole Seireitei is vulnerable right now with so many of our officers and sub-officers either AWOL or permanently decommissioned."
That was a nice way of saying dead, I remembered.
"It's more important now than ever to be sure of the loyalty of our officers."
I could see another angle to why I'd been singled out that the little captain hadn't said out loud; as a most recent visitor to Hueco Mundo, there would naturally be an obvious suspicion cast on me. After all, Gin and Aizen were both tricky enough to have fooled everyone good with their charade, it would only be natural to think that while I'd been there they might have turned me. After all, I'd never really been all that enthusiastic in my loyalty towards the Seireitei as a whole; my rebellious side was well known and any who could really say they knew me knew that I was really only here because of her. It wasn't a terrible stretch of the imagination to think that I might have either gotten sick of waiting around for her to change her mind, or had seen an opportunity to topple the Kuchiki House in all the confusion and gain my goal that way. Still, the suspicion stung a little... even if I didn't really care what they thought of me.
"And you passed! Isn't that great?" She was flashing me her most winning no-hard-feelings smile, I scowled in response. I didn't like being fooled with, even by a friend.
"I spent most of my extra wages for this month covering your tab," I growled in reply. "You owe me one Matsumoto."
"Aww, Renji," she protested whingeing. I held up a hand, signaling I wasn't having any of it.
"Don't think I won't collect on it, I had to haul your heavy ass half way across the Rukon District--"
"Are you calling me fat?!" she demanded hotly. Okay, so I had said that to get under her skin a little.
"And then pull you most of the way through this place, so you definitely owe me one."
She huffed a sigh as I nodded in respectful parting to Captain Hitsugaya.
"I'm off to sleep," I grumbled. I was tired and not inclined to waste time on pleasantries I didn't feel.
A word about continuity. I don't really have access to all the tv episodes, and after the first filler arc (with the Bounts) and then they stop right in the middle of the Rescue Orihime bit, just as Ichigo finally rescues her (don't they look like a bridal couple in that scene! with the white dress and the black shihakushou) and then the show producers wave thier magical wand of author powers and then suddenly and inexpicably we're back in the mortal world and it's like nothing happened... without any explanation at all, just suddenly there, and all this other stuff is going on also without any explanation whatsoever, they lost me. They completely lost me.
So you know what, I'm just going to ignore the Anime. The manga is easier to track down and verify facts anyway so I'm following purely the manga up to around chapter 317 or 318 ish. I'd read about that far when I just decided to start writing. So, the story starts technically at a lull when all this supposed fighting in Hueco Mundo and later in fake-Karakura is over with, and I'm sorry but it doesn't take into account any of the cool stuff that happens after chapter 320. So assume that everyone who is alive at that point makes it through just fine and it's a few months later and the war is still technically on, but everyone is resting and gearing up for the next big fight.