I'd never been so glad to sprint a cross a starpath before. Interesting enemies. but that last world had been cold, and I didn't do cold. The next world we landed on was another forest, this one looked partly alive this time. There was no real sign of any ruins or other structures and the trees weren't all dead or dying. The trees all looked healthy and the mist that clung here and there in low spots in the ground around us didn't smell of decay but like the world had just had a healthy rain. Maybe this place was inhabited.
Well none of that mattered, not to me anyway, I had a mission to concentrate on. The sooner I found that damn Shadow that turned me mortal, the sooner I could defeat it, get Isana's kid back, get them back to the Mortal Realm and then...
:Then what?; I wondered.
Go back to the Seireitei and make my report would be the obvious answer, but even if I found that Shadow and bound it up into its mitama, how did I know if that would undo whatever had been done to me to turn me mortal, and if it didn't, wouldn't going back to the Seireitei still stuck in a mortal body be an automatic arrest? But I had to tell my Captain about the Shadows, even if my guess was unconfirmed and just a gut instinct, maybe even paranoia, I should at least warn someone. I would have evidence that the Shadows existed at all, perhaps that would be enough to validate me. Then again... since the Aizen debacle, people had sort of been seeing traitors under their beds, who knew what they'd already decided about me behind my back?
I led the beast over the twisting forest ways at a sprint, Isana clinging to its back like a burr. If we hurried, we might be able to catch up to out quarry before this damn mortal form of mine was forced to stop and rest.
:Maybe I'll swing by Uruhara's first,: I thought to myself. :If nothing else he might have done some research on it and have a way to get me out of this body.:
I was still reluctant to get him involved though, this situation could be thorny enough without adding in the presence of an exile.
Still, I guessed nothing could be decided until I'd found that damn Shadow. I had a promise to keep first of all. I couldn't get this damned obedience collar she'd put on me taken off until she had her kid and was put back safe and sound in the Mortal Realm.
"You look like you're concentrating on something, a penny for your thoughts?" Isana asked me.
"It's Soul Reaper business," I replied shortly.
"In other words, none of mine," she said, sounding a little hurt.
Well, yeah. Duh, she wasn't a Soul Reaper.
"I'm just trying to plan what I'm gong to do next after I get you and your son back in the Mortal Realm, that's all. I mean, obviously finding a way to get rid of this body is what I want to do first, but I'm wondering if they'd arrest me on sight if I showed up in it, or if they'd at least hear me out before arresting me."
I'd stopped leading her beast along by the lead reigns in front of her and dropped back beside her to talk. She looked down on me from the top of Tanner of course but still, it was easier to hear her that way.
"They'll arrest you if you go back?" she said, sounding concerned.
"They might, just by accident," I replied honestly. "One of the major rules of the Seireitei is that a Soul Reaper can't bestow his power on a mortal-"
"But you haven't," Isana protested.
"Well, the last time this happened, she was trapped inside a gigai in the mortal realm for months, people might take one look at this body of mine and arrest me on principle, not knowing any better. That's another reason why I need that Shadow, I need actual proof that I'm not making it up about being made mortal against my will. None of them have ever even heard of the Believed before. So far, I'm the one with all the peices of the puzzle."
"Oh..." she said.
It was silent for a long moment and then Isana said with an odd, too-casual note in her voice.
"You could always just... not go back."
I stopped and stared at her, gaping a little in shock. Not go back? But...
"I mean it," she continued. "You're in a bonafide mortal body now, if they're just gonna arrest you when you go back and not be reasonable about it, then you shouldn't go back. Just stay mortal."
My mouth worked for a moment and I finally exclaimed
"I can't do that!"
"Why not?" she asked curiously.
"Because I'm not mortal, I'm a Soul Reaper!" I said.
It was more than what I did, it was what I was. Renji Abarai, Sixth Squad Lieutenant. There was a long drawn out silence and Isana said
"I guess that's true, you probably wouldn't fit in in the modern world anyway. I can't imagine you in a suit shuffling papers."
"I shuffle papers as a lieutenant, but I'm a warrior first," I replied. "You're right, I wouldn't make a very good modern man, no swords for one thing. And they seem to spend all of their time doing strange and incomprehensible things with computer screens and what not."
Isana chuckled a little ruefully.
"Yeah, it's kind of a shame though. I'm going to miss you when you're gone. Will you come and see me? If you're not arrested, that is."
"Probably not," I said.
It would be best to make the break clean, since I was going to be erasing her memory anyway once I brought her son and her both back where they belonged. I didn't want to have any unfinished business left behind.
"Besides," I said trying to make a little joke of it so she wouldn't look so disappointed. "Most mortals go out of their way to avoid meeting death, it's probably bad luck to invite it in."
"Probably,' she agreed, though it sounded a little sad.
I was relieved when she kinda changed the subject.
"What are you going to do when you get back home then?" she asked.
"Probably get chewed out," I answered promptly. "I'd bet good money that my Captain's probably already got his lecture written out, an' I'll bet it goes on for pages and pages. Or even worse, he won't say anything at all. Yeah, tha'd be more like him. At least Captain Zaraki'll smack you around a little bit if ya piss him off, but Captain Kuchiki is so hard to understand sometimes. I hate it when he doesn't say anything an' I gotta guess what he means. Geeze, it's like bein' married 'r sumthin'."
I hadn't meant to say all that last out loud. Isana gave me this piercing look and after a long pause she said
"You really admire your Captain, don't you?"
Of their own accord my eyes widened and I looked panicked, worried that she'd misunderstood me.
"That's not it!" I yelled, waving my arm in vehement denial. "That's not it at all!"
"Oh really?" Isana said skeptically. "Isn't he the one you write letters to every night before you go to sleep?"
Letters? where the hell was she getting this crap?
"They're not letters!" I snapped at her. "They're reports. It was the only thing I could think of that might help me convince him I'm sincere about hunting down the Shadows for the good of the Seireitai and not just larking off and doing what I want to."
"Aren't you larking off and doing what you want to?" she said with that facial expression that Rukia did when she said stuff like that.
"No," I grumbled by reflex. "And you're missing the point. My Captain is my rival, get it right!"
Isana's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.
"You want his position?" she guessed.
"Not really, I just want to become strong enough to defeat him one day."
"So you want to kick his ass?" Isana guessed. "You must really hate him."
"No, I don't hate him at all," I said honestly. "Well, not much."
She looked at me from the back of her not-horse Tanner and said
"Lemme see if I understand you right... You have a rivalry with your captain but you don't want his title, and you want to kick his ass but you don't hate him? That makes no sense."
"Relationships between Captains and Lieutenants can be kinda complicated," I muttered by way of answer.
Perhaps in these times more than ever, and especially between the two of us.
"There's a woman involved in this somewhere, isn't there?"
I goggled at her in amazement, it was like she could read minds!
"Whoa! How'd you know?" I said in amazement.
"I wonder," she said dryly. "Can't we slow down a little, I hate riding on this thing when it's going fast. It feels like I'm going to fall off."
"The faster we go, the better chance we have of catching up," I said.
It wasn't like I was without sympathy for her though, we'd already been through a lot that day, two world gates one of them being a world that was full of snow and cold, a powerful fiend, a yeti, an avalanche and a Guardian Spirit. It was a wonder I didn't feel more tired, but I was accustomed to living hard so this wasn't as big a deal to me. Poor Isana had been so sheltered before I came along.
:Look at the bright side, as soon as you get her back to the Mortal Realm she won't remember anything,: I thought to myself.
It wasn't that I disliked her so much, she was nice enough, but boy was she ever an unlooked-for complication.
We made our way without incident through that world to the gate platform where I sensed that the Shadow had been recently. The scent was subtly stronger but I couldn't tell how close we were to catching up and my body was starting to feel the effects of the day. We had been traveling, in between fights and a ride down an avalanche for most of a human day. We hadn't eaten anything and my stomach was grumbling. I slowed down near the platform and took a look around. This world was already at twilight and as near as I could tell, most of the Divine Realms mimicked the time of day in the human world at their old places of power. I needed to eat something and get a quick sleep.
Perhaps on the next world if it wasn't so dangerous.
Isana sketched the gate coordinate symbols while I summoned up some reiatsu to activate the gate. With everything I'd been doing with it lately, I could now actually feel the drain on me when I gathered in power. I might need to open up another chakra before long to give me an extra boost.
To keep my mortal body going the same way my regular spirit form would usually be able to go I'd had to augment my power by using my reiatsu to give me an extra boost. For the last week or so I'd only had to keep my first chakra unbound to do this, but with all of the more powerful fights against stronger foes, and the continuing wear that the journey was taking on my energy reserves being trapped in this mortal body, I might need to unlock another chakra to keep me going at the pace I needed to.
We crossed that gate into another world and this one was one of those worlds that seemed to be coming apart at the edges. There were ruins nearby, an old run-down castle done in the late medieval style, the kind that had been built of grey stone and designed to outlast a seige. The wood that was near the castle had tall trees but some of them were drooping and there were some small patches of sky that had gone missing.
More importantly, the scent of Shadow when I crossed onto that world was different. Not only was it stronger, the scent of incense was almost like a choking fog to me, but there were other, similar-but-different scents woven into it. My quarry smelled of temple incense and burnt metal, but now I smelled a lighter sandalwood-type of temple incense mixed with chalk, and a mhyrr mixed with old paper.
I stood still, sniffing the air and rolling the strange scents over my tongue, the power-signature interwoven with those scents was absolutely unmistakeable... it was the same sort of power I had sensed in Rukon, the same sort of power I had felt turn me mortal. There were other Shadows around here.
"What is it?" Isana asked nervously.
"There are more scents now. More Shadows," I said.
Unless they were all going in the same direction, this might complicate things a bit.
"Oh..." she slurred a bit.
I looked over at her. She was slumped down in the saddle, clearly barely able to hold herself upright, she looked drawn and pale. Utterly exhausted as a matter of fact. I mental kicked myself for not having noticed it earlier; I was so used to traveling with other Soul Reapers who like me could go for days and not get tired. Of course Isana would be feeling exhausted after a long day like this one, she'd just survived an avalanche.
"It's time to rest," I said gruffly, leading Tanner, with Isana perched on top of him, back across the gate we'd just come though and into the forest-Realm we'd just left. It had seemed quiet enough when we'd run through it, not fiends leaping out of the bushes at us or anything. I led her beast and the woman over to a nearby glen next to a small stream.
This would make an excellent camping spot and I might be able to catch some fish for her to give her protein and help her regain her strength.
"But I can keep going," she said tiredly. "I don't want to fall any farther behind."
"You have no choice," I replied. "If you don't rest now, you'll be in no condition to face the Shadow later, and I need the woman with the binding spell in top form when we do face it. For now, we are a team and both elements of that team need to be in top form."
"Yessir lieutenant sir," she said with weary sarcasm.
She was too tired to crack a joke. She was definitely going to need that protein.
it's a short little interim chapter, more a set up for what happens in the next few chapters. I hope you all enjoyed and please remember to reveiw to tell me what you thought.