The first time I tried to fight my way into consciousness I couldn't even open my eyes. My body felt heavy, the kind of heavy that told me that it was going to take the rest it needed, regardless of how I felt about it, and trying to fight it was going to be fruitless. I sank back into unconsciousness.

The second time, I managed to crack an eye open, my blurry vision caught sight of the face that I held most dear to me in all the world. Framed in a golden glow was Rukia. I relaxed instantly, if she was there then everything was fine. I think I might have murmured her name, trying to thank her for being there for me before I was pulled under again.

My third attempt at regaining consciousness was a little more successful. I weakly managed to get both of my eyes open this time. I still couldn't move, so I took in what of my surroundings I could see. I was inside a dome-shaped structure made of some kind of silk, covered by a thick blanket, my body supported by what felt sort of like a springy futon. My head pounded, and my throat was dry. I tried to wet my lips and rolled my eyes to my left. There was an opening in the tent and I could see outside. It was broad daylight, close to noon, and we were in a forest somewhere. I was surrounded by the overpowering smell of those Mortal Realm plastics, probably from the tent, but coming in from the opening was the scent of a forest and a campfire nearby and the two women I was traveling with. So we were somewhere safe, or relatively safe any way. Hadn't I been in a swamp?

I still felt weak but I wasn't accustomed to sitting still for very long and I wanted to work the stiffness out of my body, so I slowly pushed back the blankets and sat up. My head brushed the ceiling even at its apex. I waited for the lingering grogginess to dissipate as I gathered my thoughts into order.

I heard the light footsteps of the woman, Isana, pace over next to the tent and saw her shadow silhouetted on the wall. She ducked her head under the flap, clearly coming to check on me.

"Ah, so you're awake," she said cheerfully.

I swallowed against my dry throat and asked if she had any water.

"I have some right here," she said smiling cheerfully. "But first..."

Somehow, there was something that I didn't entirely trust about that overly bright smile, I had the oddest feeling that I recognized it from somewhere...

From behind her back she pulled out what looked like a rolled-up booklet or newspaper and advanced on me, still smiling. Her smile looked less friendly and more menacing now. I still couldn't move so I had no choice.

"Idiot!" she yelled at me, swatting me over the head with her impromptu disciplining device.

"Thick-skulled moron!" she continued swatting me again.

Then she got started with a long sting of curses in Spanish, insulting my ancestors and telling me how she thought I might have gotten rid of my brain as a child and what my head was filled with now. Spanish, I had learned, was a very rhythmic language and it gave itself well to being spoken rapidly, and Isana punctuated each melodious epithet with another thwack to the head with her paper teaching rod, beating a staccato rhythm on the top of my head while she chewed me out. In Spanish.

At first I'd tried to flinch back and avoid her "helpful teaching aids" but she just followed me. I tried to shield myself weakly with one arm, it didn't hurt all that much and she had to run out of breath sometime soon.

She did not. She went on to tell me that not only was my head just there for decoration but that all the discipline in the world wasn't going to make me any smarter and on and on. She was angry, but underneath it I could hear the sound of worry.

"Okay! Okay!" I protested finally when i looked like she was gonna start crying. "Geeze, I get it. We beat it, so calm down!"

"I will not calm down!" she snapped, hitting me again. "You were hurt and yet you threw yourself at it to protect me and then... then you disappeared and I couldn't sense you anywhere. Do you have any idea what it was like for me to watch you disappear right in front of me? I was terrified you'd never come out again!"

"I toldja I had a plan," I grumbled, scratching the back of my neck.

I never really knew what to do with females when they got all emotional like this.

Isana let out a wordless frustrated sound and hit me with a particularly hard whack.

"Besides," I added, seeking to placate her wrath. "You really helped me out. When I was in there, I couldn't tell up from down, it was like I was floating in darkness, but the spell on this damned collar is connected to you and it showed me the way out. Then after I'd beat the damn thing it was your binding spell that kept it down for good. So, you really carried the day."

She blinked and leaned back, surprised. Her face melted into a smile that reminded me of Rukia. She looked really pretty when she smiled, no wonder even the ice king had thawed out for this woman. The only real effect she had on me was to make me wish I were back home at Rukia's side again. I wondered if I should find some more presents for my girl, to bribe my way back into her good graces. By all accounts she was pretty steamed at me, getting bribes would probably save me a few arguments, or at least lessen the length of the ones that were going to happen anyway.

:I wonder what I should find for her,: I mused to myself.

I already had one present for her, but that one was special; I didn't want to give it to her until she'd cooled off (mostly because I didn't want her flinging it at my head).

:Maybe some flowers...: But flowers might wither before I could give them to her.

I wasn't sure what else, but considering how weird the Realms we'd visited up until now had been, I was bound to come across something unusual to give to her. I'd have to start paying closer attention. My thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of someone pressing a cool hand against my forehead.

"Seems normal," Isana remarked.

Was it just me or was she abnormally close to me?

"Huh?" I asked her.

"Your temperature," she explained. "You had a bit of a fever earlier on while you were recovering. And just now you look kind of spaced out so I was a little worried that you weren't quite over it."

Fever? Really? The only time anyone I'd ever known had gotten a fever was when Haru had gotten sick. That hadn't ended well. How close had I come to death? Was this normal for Mortals? I was still alive so they must have given me something.

"I feel a lot better," I replied, trying to reassure her.

"I would hope so, it took me and Carbuncle over an hour, working our Healing abilities to the max, to get you all healed up. I have to say, when you throw yourself into a fight, you don't hold back do you?"

"Of course not!" I said indignantly. "What would the point in that be?"

Isana looked over at me with an expression I couldn't read very well, it was the same sort of expression Rukia wore from time to time; like there was a mystery in the depths of her eyes that a poor clueless man like me would never know or understand.

"If you could keep in mind that you're the only protector I have out here in these worlds and be a little more cautious, I would appreciate that."

I felt a bit chastened so I replied

"Well if you could keep in mind that you're the only Healer I have out in these worlds and be a little more cautious, I would appreciate that."

Isana smiled a little at me and backed out of the tent saying

"I'll keep that in mind, Renji."

My nose caught the scent of the sole thing that had the power to pull me out of bed when i was feeling so drained and exhausted. Truth was, I still felt pretty weak, but I was more eager to be up out of bed and working the soreness out of my limbs.

"How long was I down for?" I asked, pulling myself up onto my knees and, hunched over, making for the door.

"This is the second day after your fight," Isana said.

I stared at her in shock for a long minute. No wonder I had to go to the bathroom so bad. How bad had my injuries been? It couldn't have taken me that long to recover. I hadn't been hurt that bad, had I?

"Welcome back lieutenant," Yoruichi called from her perch near the fire as I pushed myself out of the tent and into the sunlight.

"Should be he up and moving about?" Isana fretted.

Of course I should! My stomach felt emptier than a Hollow, and if I didn't get something in it soon it was going to devour itself.

"Don't worry about it," Yoruichi said casually. "His type never stays down for long."

That sounded like an insult.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, as I pulled myself all the way out of the tent and up to my feet.

"Just that you're so dense that even sickness doesn't stick inside your head, never mind anything else," Yoruichi teased with a sharp smile.

"Ha ha," I grunted dryly.

I made my way over to the fireside where the smell of cooking rice added an underlying sweetness to the scent of woodsmoke. I pulled the pot suspended from the tripod closer and investigated the contents. Food! I eagerly found a bowl and scooped some out.

"But seriously Renji," Yoruichi said, her tone turned from teasing to serious.

I listened with half an ear as I tucked in. It was hard to slow myself down to a civilized pace and not try to swallow it whole.

"I think you should tell me what's going on, starting with why your Zanpaktou is so different. I've seen you in battle before, even your bankai, but the sword that shikaied out last night for the opening rounds was definitely not Zabimaru. What gives?"

I'd answer her questions as soon as I was done eating.

"I'm waiting..." she prompted as I continued to scarf.

I held up a finger and refilled my bowl to the brim again.

"What do you mean his sword is different?" Isana asked curiously. "And what was that... thing? The thing that killed the Shadow-critter last night, it looked like a giant skeleton."

I scowled up at her in insult. How dare she call my precious Zabimaru a thing?

"Excuse you!" I snapped. "That's my buddy yer talkin' smack about!"

"You've never seen his bankai before?" Yoruichi asked curiously. "I would have thought for certain that he would have whipped it out to take down some of those Guardian Spirits you have bound to you, a few of them are very powerful."

"Ah, no, that was a first for me. What's a bankai?"

Yoruichi quickly explained the different stages of zanpaktou's and the significance (and extreme rarity) of the Bankai form to Isana while I finished off a third bowl of rice.

"...And up until that last battle, Renji's sword Zabimaru had the shikai form of a saw-toothed blade that extends out and acts like a whip," Yoruichi finished.

"Really?" Isana said, sounding uncertain. "The only sword I've ever seen him use is the one that looks like this..."

Isana sketched the general shape of an hourglass with a diamond-headed tip in the air with her fingers.

"And it's yay tall..."

She gestured and approximate height.

"And it glows when he fights and shoots out lightning blasts when he yells commands," she finished.

"Yes, and isn't that fascinating?" Yoruichi said, pinning me sharply with her gaze.

I looked back at her, continuing to shovel rice into my mouth.

"Well?" she demanded. "I'm waiting."

I rolled my eyes a little and held the quiescent blade horizontal before me and swallowed my mouthful of food.

"Roar! Zabimaru!" I commanded, releasing Snaketail's form.

"Yes, see, that's Renji's sword," Yoruichi said.

Isana looked over at it for a long moment, shook her head and said.

"Nope, never seen it."

I pushed it to full extension and whipped it into a spiraling knot around me and then pulled it back into blade rest, showing off a little. I let the shikai melt back into a regular blade, though Snakey grumbled about it. He was missing the battlefield already.

"I'd prefer you kept this under wraps, if you would," I said seriously to Yoruichi. "I have just started to learn it, and more importantly I'd like to keep an ace in the hole for when I really need it. You can't keep a secret if too many people know about it."

"I'm the soul of discretion," Yoruichi assured me.

I tried to keep my dubiousness off my face.

I shrugged and summoned

"Howl! Zabimaru!"

The blade was nearly as long as I was tall and wide enough to use as a shield. The elegant curves of Zabimaru's howl form with its matte etchings near the hilt and the pointed diamond-shaped tip sprang into being.

Yoruichi looked surprised. Her eyes widened and she stared in disbelief and everything. I preened a little inwardly. Yep, I'd said it before but now there was no denying it... Zabimaru was the coolest Zanpaktou ever!

"How... How is this even possible?" Yoruichi asked.

"You've seen Zabimaru manifest back when I was training with the brat to achieve bankai," I replied. "He's a chimera, a nue with a baboon front and a snaketail. They're separate aspects of one being, well his sword has two separate forms as well."

I couldn't keep the smugness from my voice.

"If you had all this power in reserve, I don't see why you didn't use it to rescue Rukia that time, or even in a fight against the arrancars or the espada or against captain Aizen or Tousen," Yoruichi said. "It's not like you to hold back."

"I couldn't use it then. This is all very recent," I shrugged a bit still debating with myself over how much I was going to tell her.

Despite the fact that we'd fought back to back in battle together, I didn't know if I could trust her to keep a bridle on her tongue. I sorta wanted to keep the goings on between Zabimaru and me sort of between us.

"It alright," Yoruichi said. "You can trust me. I won't tell anyone, not even Rukia, if you don't want anyone else to know."

:Whacha think Zabs?: I consulted the blade.

::Ya might as well, she don't got nobody to report to, an' she's the sort to enjoy having a secret ta keep,:: Snaketail replied.

::In addition,:: Baboon King added. ::She is a master of kido, she would be an excellent candidate for a supplementary instructor.::

::Yeah, she's probably forgotten more about it than you've ever learned.::

:Thanks,: I replied dryly.

I looked up at Yoruichi and shrugged

"Well they're all for it so I guess I might as well tell ya."

I sat out on the ground and started my stretching and limbering exercises, being careful to stretch and warm each muscle group carefully while I went on to talk to Yoruichi, no point in not killing two birds with one stone.

"All this is recent, just in the last few weeks really. Once things settled down from the Aizen War an' we all got back inta business as usual, I thought I'd polish off a skill that would make me a better fighter. Zabimaru urged me ta work on getting rid of those binding marks he put on me-"

I related the story of how he had asked me to clear out all the 'junk" from my chakra (though I certainly didn't tell her what my issues had been, that was personal). I had started it back when I'd still been in Soul Society, but when I got turned mortal and dumped in the Mortal Realm I finished unlocking my chakra and unsealing all of my reiatsu. Babs and I were learning how to use all that untapped potential of mine together.

"... Though to be honest," I finished. "I'm still not real comfortable with all this reiatsu I've got. It tends to roil and flare up inside of me unpredictably, so I mostly just keep it sealed away as usual. I haven't even been able to fight with all of my chakra unbound yet."

"What level were you fighting at when you fought with me against the Shadow?" Yoruichi questioned.

"I originally had three chakra opened, which was the most I'd managed until then. But at the end I had to open up another chakra because of what happened inside the Shadow."

I quickly related what had taken place after I'd leaped into the puddle of Shadow, about how the world around me had started to absorb me and the gem that floated in the dark. Once I'd finished, Yoruichi shook her head, rose to her feet, and bopped me on the head with her fist.

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing the spot.

Isana hit like a girl, but Yoruichi didn't.

"You really need to have someone knock some sense into you," she replied. "Idiot."

"Yeah yeah..." I muttered, knowing full well that in this case her claim had some weight to it.

The stunt I'd pulled to defeat the Shadow had been stupid enough to deserve its own monument.

"But gettin' down ta business," I said, still continuing to stretch and limber my stiff and sore body. "Whatcha make o' that bead and the shadowbeast? I think I recognize it."

"Yes," Yoruichi said, delicately batting a paw at my chest where the necklace I'd gotten when I defeated the Katschei pulsed steadily with the essence of my power.

"I believe you are right," she said. "It's one of these. It's a heartsblood diamond."

"Looks like the Shadows are using them to drain all the power that still exists in some of the abandoned Realms in the Dangai and are siphoning them off to augment their own," she continued stretching out lazily. "I do not believe that this has been the case before. Otherwise, the Shadows would not have faded into specters of their former power, they would simply have picked off the weaker ones of their kind, invaded their realms, drained them, and moved onto the next like locusts."

I nodded agreement with that, it made perfect sense to me.

"Something changed them..."

My mind again flashed back to that library I had stumbled across in the Katschei's realm. Would an immortal mortal magician spend time studying the Soul Reapers to the point he would bother learning about Hollowfication? Would he even know what it was? Texts about that experimental stuff hadn't even been in the Soul Reaper library and I had thought that anything of importance could be found there. Heck, I hadn't known about it and I was a lieutenant...

"You look like you're thinking of something," Yoruichi said.

I held up a finger for silence so I could continue to trace back that particular scent trail and see what was raising the stink.

I had nothing concrete linking Aizen to the Shadows besides a gut feeling. I had doubted that Katschei, isolationist packrat that he was, would be much interested in the goings on of the world(s) beyond his study, but what if I was wrong.

:It all seems to come back to those heartsblood diamonds...: I thought.

Katschei was a notorious collector or rare things, it only made sense that he would want to get hold of something that was as rare as those heartsblood diamonds that Genbu told me about. But wait...

:Waitaminute...: I thought to myself, realization dawning as I looked down at my chest.

Katschei was a miser. Would a miser ever give away a piece if its horde? I rather thought that he would not. So then how had the Shadows come by those diamonds? Furthermore... The Heartsblood diamond was the keystone, the lynch-pin, that held all of the spells that Katschei used to keep his Realm from unraveling. It had been invested with the core of his power before I'd come along and taken it over when I killed him. It had been this heartsblood diamond that had enabled him to truly become Katschei the Deathless. The Katschei was a packrat, and packrats did not share thier hordes with anyone or anything, unless they got something they perceived as being more valuable in return. More importantly than that, how had the Shadows gotten hold of the Heartsblood diamonds, not to mention the spells, that enabled them to unravel realms.

:Those who know how to put one together would know how to take one apart!:

"What?" Yoruichi demanded, clearly seeing that I had thought of something by the look on my very much not-a-pokerface.

"That's the link between the Shadows and the diamonds!" I exclaimed. "It's the Katschei. He's the only one that we know of that would have access to heartsblood diamonds because he stole them from Genbu of the Earth Court. He also knows how to create a Realm using spells with a heartsblood diamond as its nexus, so he'd know how to reverse the process. It's a tenuous link but I'd bet if someone were to look around the Katschei's personal quarters and library they'd find his own research into it. I dunno how it works, I'm not a researcher, we'd have to get someone who does that kind of thing to investigate."

I was muttering to myself as my thoughts raced furiously. I had a link, however tenuous and unsubstantiated, that could connect the Shadows and their recent increases in power to research done by the Katschei.

"Katschei's a miser though," I continued mumbling to myself. "Those types don't share anything, especially knowledge, freely. He'd have to have a reason for wanting the Shadows to know how it was done, after all, common sense says that if he were the traveling sort he could go off and harvest power the same way himself if he wanted, and misers don't set up a business for creating rivals to their own power. So then why...?"

Yoruichi and Isana both exchanged a look and waited.

I tried to come up with a reason why the Katschei might be interested in helping out the Shadows but couldn't come up with a solid connection. The problem was that this was all mostly useless conjecture. I closed my eyes and cleared my thoughts. Go over what I knew to be true.

One, The Shadows were using Heartsblood Diamond (or something very like it) to harvest power from the other Realms. Two, the shadows were able to create shadow-puppet-things to fight and protect them, they had not, to my knowledge been able to do so before. I wasn't absolutely certain about that second, my encounters with the Shadows had been brief and unfortunate; I spent most of my time on their trail but very little time actually fighting one. Elusive bastards. This wasn't helping. What else?

:The fact that they suddenly choose now, after centuries of obscurity, to interfere with Soul Reaper business could be significant,: I thought.

I didn't know how or why, but it seemed a little too great a coincidence to be accident.

I had pieces, but they were not making any sense. I couldn't connect Aizen to any of this logically, and there were things that I was missing. He had to be involved somehow, I could just feel it. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid. He was involved with the Shadows...

:Maybe I'm approaching it from the wrong angle,: I thought.

I was trying to figure out how the Shadows had gotten the Heartsblood diamonds in the first place but maybe that part wasn't important. They had 'em and that was that. I had to figure out how or even if Aizen was connected to them. My gut was telling me that this flare up of Shadow activity where there had been none before, and this close to the recent Aizen Rebellion was not a coincidence. I just didn't see the connection.

:If there is one,: I amended in my thoughts.

So, suppose there was a connection. The only side of the equation I had any experience with at all was Aizen, so I should start from there. His methods, his motivations.

:Aizen wants to sit on the throne of the world, so far as anyone can tell,: I thought.

That was his overall goal as far as we knew. He wanted to wield ultimate power. I paused at that thought and understood it.

"That's not so different from how it's done on the streets," I thought out loud. "When a thug wants to rise up on his own and carve out a piece of turf for himself, the first thing he does after he builds a reputation for himself is ta weaken his rivals. Once he's got a sizable chunk of turf and some people to follow him, he then starts going after the bigger fish, some he removes outright and takes over their gang, some he makes deals with if he thinks they're useful."

That was my experience anyway, I wasn't sure if it was done differently by people with education an' shit, but that was the world I knew.

"Aizen already has control of Hueco Mundo," Yoruichi pointed out, interrupting my chain of thought.

"Baby step," I rebutted. "He get's his own people under him, carves out a tiny niche then works from there."

"Shadows are not like Hollows, they don't all congregate in one place and they don't work together. Each of them is its own sovereign entity," Isana said unexpectedly. "Or at least that's what Shivna-vatu says. I think she would know, considering that she's a Guardian Spirit."

"So somethin' changed recently to cause 'em all ta start workin' t'gether," I said.

"Hm," Yoruichi said, joining in on the speculation-fest. "Suppose you were slowly fading from your former glory and someone came to you and offered you a way to get it all back, with potentially more to be gained and all you had to do was help him win a war before you went about your own business, wouldn't that sound tempting to you?"

"It would," I agreed. "So supposing that Aizen and the Katschei either know of each other or are actually working together, though for what purpose i can't imagine. The Katscei would have been able to provide the knowledge of how to take apart a Realm and harvest its energy, and the heartsblood diamond that would allow him to do so. But what would Aizen bring to the table? My gut says Katschei wouldn't have thought of seeking out the help of the Shadows without someone's pullin' on his strings, and we all know Aizen's a master string-puller."

"Plus Aizen has the motive of wanting a back-up Army when he's through using the Hollows." Yoruichi added.

I sighed and said

"This ain't doin' us any good, it's still all speculation an' no real proof. My Captain won't authorize an investigation based soley on a theory. Especially not now during war time."

"There's still the mystery of my son and those other children being kidnapped as well," Isana added. "What do the Shadows gain from that? What does your Aizen gain?"

"All good questions," Yoruichi said. "So my suggestion is that we set about getting some answers."

Gaah, late update! It been a hectic week though, I've had two papers due so i haven't had the time to edit and post like I wanted to. I hope you all didn't miss me too much... I know it's been sort of a slow week for Renru fiction, at least on FFN. In the next week or so I want to start posting chapters on my Byasana (my other favorite pairing that runs a very very close second to Renji and Rukia) fic, tentatively being called Welcome home (I might change it to Tadaimasen, which a believe means the same thing... what do you all think?) Anyway, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was necessary to get some of the speculation out of the way before the next action so we're all more or less on the same page. Until next time, read and reveiw!