"A lot of the Realms resemble different places on earth and look like old movie sets, but some of these places are just plain weird," Isana remarked to me. She was riding on Tanner capturing images of the Realm we were traveling through, I assume for lack of anything better to do. It was slower going than I would have liked in that world because the ground was unsteady. The sky that arched above us was violet-colored and the plants that grew along the pathway we were traveling along were some very strange colors, some of them even glowed. I thought about picking some up for Rukia, but figured that they would have withered by the time I could get them to her.
"Can't argue with that," I replied.
We'd been traveling for hours non-stop. Tanner was a fast not-horse and he was able to keep up with me at a sprint, so sprint it was. We'd passed through five different Realms before this one, two had been obviously abandoned and were falling to ruin, one world had been full of feral creatures that had been fn for me to practice with Zabimaru on, and the two remaining had been barren wastelands devoid of any sign of life.
"Can we rest please? I've been riding for hours and my legs and butt are killing me," Isana said. "I'm hungry too."
It was rare for her to request a break, normally when I offered she'd insist on pushing on ahead, anxious to get to her son. I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity for a breather and some food.
"Sure, a short rest," I agreed.
I was feeling the strain of travel myself. Truth to tell I wasn't as recovered from my meeting with the Shadow as I wanted the rest of the party to believe, what I was doing was supplementing my mortal body's weaknesses with fuel from my reiatsu. Still, the sprinting and the fighting and then more running were beginning to take their toll despite that.
"This looks like a good spot," Isana said a few minutes later, pointing to a cleared out space underneath a strange looking tree that resembled a bulbous-trunked, upside-down jelly-fish. The large round trunk was smooth and skin-like, translucently clear, and its willow-like branches were pale white and swayed in the breeze slightly. Was it just me, or did that just seem to tree move on its own?
"Isana, I don't think-" I started to say, some instinct warning me of danger, but she had already guided Tanner over to the spot she'd chosen and was dismounting.
"Ohh!" Isana groaned in pain as her legs straightened. "I'd thought I was in good shape until I came on this little hike with y-"
The rest of her sentence was lost as the stringy vines hanging from the tree wrapped around her and plucked her up off the ground. She screamed in fear and panic as a gaping maw, brimming with a glowing liquid goo, opened up in the trunk and the tentacles that had wrapped themselves around her started moving her towards the opening.
"Howl!" I commanded, sword Shikaing out even as I rushed in and started hacking away at the other tentacle that were simultaneously trying to fend me off and get me in their own grips. My sword sliced and flashed in a flurry as I pushed myself to record speed through one of the most difficult sword-dances in the Soul Reaper repertoire, it was a defensive dance, one meant to fend against multiple attackers. I pressed my way inward through the tangle of tentacle-like vines, trying to reach her before she got eaten.
"Renjiii!" she cried in a panic as she struggled.
The thing was moving her steadily towards its mouth, despite the fact that I had removed a third of its not inconsiderable amount of tentacles and was working my way steadily in.
:I need a way to immobilize it,: I thought frantically.
Howl-form Zabimaru was large and powerful, but it didn't have the same reach that roar-form did. Maybe I should switch? I continued hacking and slicing away thrying to work out whether or not a binding spell would work on something I wasn't sure was smart enough to be bound by a spirit spell. Then the memory of Rukia using Sode No Shiraiyuki to freeze her enemies in place flashed into my mind and I shouted
"Isana! Unleash a freezing spell on it!"
"I'm too scared!" she yelled. "My mind's blank!"
"Call your Guardian Spirit!" I snapped back, hacking off a mass of tentacles that had wrapped themselves around my ankles and were trying to pull my feet out from under me.
Nothing daunted, the predatory plant thing tried again, this time it managed to get a grip while I had turned to fight off some vines trying to pin my arms in place. I found myself abruptly upside down and being whipped around in the air. The world spun crazily, everything a blur of light and color.
"...hear my call and come to my aid, Shivna-vatu, I summon thee!" Isana commanded.
There was a rush of cold air as the strange blue-white woman with a rime of frost sparkling over her skin appeared. The humid and moist air around us seemed to mist over and tiny snowflakes appeared and swirled around. The tentacles were supple and rubber-like, and things that were flexible like that never reacted well to cold. Indeed, they were moving slowly as they lost their flexibility and became more brittle.
The Guardian Spirit gestured, holding both hands up in the air. ice and snow gathered in a nimbus of white light between her palms and she cast the essence of cold forward at her target. I was more than a little reminded of Sode No Shiraiyuki's Second Dance when everything in front of Shivna-Vatu iced over... including me.
:The good news is, the tree can't move anymore. The bad news is, I'm fucking freezing,: I thought to myself.
I didn't like the cold, it was one thing snakey and I shared. Snakes and cold don;t mix very well, come to think of it, Babas was a jungle dweller too, so he probably didn't care for being cold much either. I hacked at the tentacles holding my feet and the snapped off at the touch of my blade like icicles from the eaves of a roof. I looked over at the tentacle tree to find it completely frozen over. It wasn't moving, which would make my job a lot easier.
I pushed a flare of reiatsu down my blade and shouted
"Denkou Hou!"
It shattered like shelf full of mama's finest crystal. Isana went down with it, landing in a pile of snow and ice.
"You alright?" I asked her, waiting for her to get back on her feet while I checked Zabimaru for damage.
"Y-yes, I think so," she said a little shakily. "Considering that I almost just got eaten."
She banished her ice-woman and struggled to pull herself up out of the snow drift. Pulling herself to her feet she dusted herself off and walked back over to Tanner.
"Good work there," I said, nodding once at her to congratulate her on her form.
She was still as raw as any noob I'd ever trained, but she had potential. She looked shaken still.
"Let's just go," she said shortly.
A little on the touchy side, but I guessed that nearly being eaten could do that to a person. I helped her remount and looked down at the cat.
"Hey, how come you didn't help out?" I asked.
"You weren't in any real danger," Yoruichi replied, smoothing the fur of her shoulder with a few unconcerned licks. "You're too experienced a fighter to let a surprise attack stop you for long, and the woman was a ways away from the creatures mouth. Interesting way of defeating it though. She should practice with them more so she doesn't freeze up, no pun intended, in the middle of a battle."
I shrugged at that, we really didn't have the time for practice right then. That was a pity because I really wanted to try a spar with Yoruichi and see if Snakey's enhanced speed and perception would even the field between us... because if it did, then I stood a better chance when I eventually went for a rematch with the Kuchiki.
"There is one theory I wanted to test out when it comes to Hisana's skills, and since we're on a break and you already have Zabimaru out, now's as good a time as any," Yoruichi said.
I looked at her suspiciously. I didn't like that smile on her face. Cat's smiled like that when they had bird-feathers stuck between their whiskers and dear Tweety had gone mysteriously missing.
"What do I have to do with it?" I asked guardedly.
"You don't have to do a thing, just stand there with Zabimaru out," Yoruichi reassured me.
I was the exact opposite of reassured.
"I don't like it," I said, not bothering to hide the fact that my built in sense of male-danger-alarm was going crazy at seeing the two females huddled together, whispering and glancing over at me.
"Relax, this shouldn't hurt," Yoruichi said.
My sense of impending possible doom went up a notch at her use of the word shouldn't. I narrowed my eyes at the both of them but, not really seeing any other way around it than to play along with whatever they were planning, kept Zabimaru out in guard in front of me, and waited. Isana took a firm stance, looked straight at me and began to chant
"From the four Palaces of the Heavens. From the Four Pillars of the World..."
My brow furrowed in puzzlement. Why was she chanting the binding spell?
...Renji Abarai, I bind thee!" she said at the end of the chant.
I frowned at her, but the spell slid right over me. I felt a ripple over my senses and a strange tugging feeling, but it was like a brush of cobweb, it did not stay. There was a tug on my mortal shell, but I had the feeling that if I was ever able to separate my body and soul properly again that remaining tether would not hold on my true nature.
Yoruichi and Hisana both nodded in agreement with some unspoken opinion.
"Well that confirms that," Yoruichi said. "Even if he's some form of mortal, he's still a being of the fifth element, of spirit, so a binding spell that draws it power from the Elemental Courts and not the Spirit Court will not work on him."
Well, that was a relief. The little missy already had enough power over me without giving her any more of it.
"Just stay right there, we're going to test out one more theory," Yoruichi said.
By now I was more than just a little wary about what else they might be using me as a lab-rat for.
"What other theory?" I demanded.
"Just hold still," Yoruichi said.
I trusted that even less.
"I think we've tested out enough for one day," I said. "How about you put the spell away and we keep moving."
"This will only take a minute," Yoruichi pressed.
"Then why don't you have her test it on you?" I replied.
"It won't really work on me since I don't have mine with me," Yoruichi said mysteriously.
Her what? I wondered as Isana began to chant. I felt a growing sense of unease as the binding spell progressed. If they weren't going to try to bind me, since they already knew it wasn't going to work, what else would they be trying to bind? The answer hit me just as she reached the final verse. I gathered inert momentum to me in preparation to flash-step the hell out of there... but it was too late.
"Zabimaru, I bind thee!" she finished the spell.
What happened next is hard to describe. I'd been placed under a geas that enabled the mortal woman in command of the spell to tether me in like a tiger on a chain. The spell was impalpable except when it was activated and then it only seemed to affect my physical body and leave the ephemeral contents of my soul-stuff alone. This spell seemed to touch something in a deeper place that no-one had any right to go poking their magic into, a place where my soul was bound and resonant with a being that was not myself but nonetheless was integral part of what made me me. He was the voice who came from within, telling me all of the hard and uncomfortable truths about myself that I would probably not pick up on. He was mirror, echo and soul-bound companion all in one. Even in the days when I had not achieved shikai, I could always feel him there, on the edge of sleep, in the hollowed out places in my soul where sorrow and hunger might have resided. He was the one constant in my life, when all else changed or moved apart or fell away, Zabimaru was right there beside me, inside me. I could feel him there when I reached out my thoughts.
Except that now I couldn't. In the hollowed-out places, I found suddenly emptiness. Where there should have been whispers there was now silence. It didn't hurt in the physical sense but the silent dark was so thick and strange and terrible that it might as well have been. My soul and sense of self was plunged into a pit of cold blackness worse than anything I had ever felt before, even on the insides of the Shadows. It felt like all that defined myself was washed away and replaced with a painful, starving rage.
I didn't think, I reacted. The silver edge of my unshikaied blade moved without my thinking about it to remove the source of the threat. It was damn lucky for her that Yoruichi was faster or the world would have had one less human in it. The dark terror left no room for anything but rage and aggression at everything around me and I kept lashing at the nearest thing I could sense, determined to bring everything I possibly could to a state of painful emptiness just like I felt.
I was flipped onto my back and pinned into a lock that I couldn't escape from but at that point my panic had overwhelmed me. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't feel anything but that terrible, dark, emptiness within me. I might have been screaming but I didn't recognize the sounds coming from within me.
Then suddenly my world was flooded again with light and that presence that completed me made me whole and kept me well and sane flooded back into my being, filling all of the empty places and banishing the dark. I lay there shaking in terror and reaction, my body covered in a sheen of sweat. Yoruichi very slowly, very cautiously started to let me loose from the full-body lock she had put me in, and her reiatsu started to pull back and away from mine. Sense started to return to me, and I couldn't say exactly what had happened but I knew it had been terrible. My memory of the event was clouded in a vague, watery haze.
"We know it works, but let's not do that again. Ever," Yoruichi said.
I reached up to wipe the sweat that had fallen into my eyes only to discover that two tear-trails bled down the sides of my cheeks.
"What did you do to me?" I demanded, in a voice that was all the more dangerous because it was so quiet.
The two women exchanged matching guilty glances. My suspicion hardened.
"What did you do to me?" I demanded again, my tone sharper this time as some of the visceral memory of what had happened just moments beforewhen I had mysteriously blacked out began to creep in around the edges.
:I'll tell ya what they did,: Snakey said into my mind, sounding seriously pissed off. :They laid th' magic whammy on us is what they did!:
:Indeed,: Baboon King said, his normally serious and dignified tone carrying an edge of anger to it. :They used the spell of binding upon us. It is a spell that is effective against any member of the Elemental Courts, spirit beings who derive thier power from Nature rather than the Fifth Element. We are an Earth Spirit originally, and so the binding spell that will entrap a Shadow will work equally well upon a Zanpaktou spirit, which I assume was thier point in attempting the excersize.:
:Without our permission,: Snakey added in. :If she'd have just asked, we coulda told her it'd work.:
I felt more than insulted, I was enraged and betrayed. I couldn't even find words to express my deep sense of outrage that someone I had cared for, guarded and protected would do such a thing to me without even asking me if it was alright. Sure, she had probably been egged on by the other female, but surely by now she should have had some inkling of what it was like for me to be a wielder of a Zanpaktou.
I climbed to my feet and locked eyes with the woman, pushing out my considerably angry reiatsu at her. My rage took the place of the air all around me, sucking it away and replacing it with a force of implacable sensation, like gravity had suddenly decided to go from normal to three or four G's without warning. The mortal went down, first to her knees and then prostrate. She gasped, desperately sucking in air like a landed fish. She struggled to move, but could not combat the strength of my spiritual power. It was a cheap trick and not one that I had ever really indulged in before because I considered it beneath me, but right then I was so angry that my usual fastidiousness was put on hold. For a moment, even Yoruichi was caught off guard, but really, a moment was all I was looking for.
"Listen up and listen good bitch," I growled, not caring that I was insulting her. "This is the last chance you get ta push th' mark. I don't care which one of you started it or why you both thought it'd be a good idea, but next time you wanna try sumthin' you fuckin' ask me first! I'll let most things slide, but if you ever, in any way, threaten my Zabimaru again, you'll learn what it means ta hold a tiger by th' tail, and heaven help you when I get loose."
I pulled in my reiatsu from where it surrounded me in a halo of force, point proven, and sought to reign in my temper at the same time. Isana gasped for breath and while she was recovering I picked her up by the scruff of her coat, deposited her none-too-gently across the saddle of her beast , took up the reigns, pivoted on my heel and stomped off, leaving the baggage and its carrier to follow in my wake.
"Renji, I-" she tried.
"Shut it," I said shortly.
We continued on in stony, uncomfortable silence for the rest of the Realm and the two that followed it. I could sense her guilt but I was too angry with her right then to reconcile. Moving along at a fast sprint helped me get much of my anger and aggression out of my system but I was still smoldering inside. I wasn't exactly angry at Isana per se, (not entirely anyway) I was angry that she would try something like that without asking me first. Granted, even though she had seen me fight the manifested form of Zabimaru in the Earth Court, Isana probably still thought of my Zanpaktou as being just a very large hunk of metal that I fought with. Human's relied entirely on their physical senses for data after all, and they didn't have that extra sense that Soul Reapers had to tell them things. It was entirely likely that when Yoruichi (and I just knew she had to be the mastermind behind it) had come up to her and said 'hey, why don't you try binding Renji's sword with your powers to see if it works?' Isana, not realizing that the sword was indeed a spirit and bound intimately with my own spirit, probably naively hadn't seen the harm in trying it.
Yoruichi might have even treated the whole thing like it was a prank the two of them would play on me and we'd all laugh it off in the end, but still... Isana had developed a bad habit of trying whatever she thought she might get away with. It was a very human habit, and one that I had seen on countless occasions in people of all sorts, even the good ones that I otherwise liked, but it still was not an admirable trait and it could get you into trouble. After all, had I ever tried to sneak around behind Kuchiki's back and steal Rukia away for myself? No, I had (mostly) forthrightly confronted him like a man and (mostly silently) made my intentions known to him. It disappointed me to see a person with whom I otherwise sort of liked and enjoyed spending time around constantly give in to this one weakness of character. I forgave her of course because I was beginning to see her, sort of, as a friend, but she was not learning to respect my boundaries. Maybe now she would. She was otherwise a nice woman; caring, kind and gentle with just enough strength and resolve to make her interesting. She could also be funny, in a human sort of way. Her observations sometimes made me laugh and I liked the way she didn't let what would for most people have been an overwhelming situation get her down, she just continued to try the best at what she could do and put her trust in her friends to help her through with the rest. I didn't see her the way a man would look at a woman, I still thought of her as my captains woman, and ya didn't poach on yer boss' girl, but as a person, I had grown fond of Isana.
Part of what bothered me about what had been done was the fact that it had made me lose control. I could have hurt her or possibly even Yoruichi. Something could have gone wrong, I might have lost my bond with Zabimaru permanently, in the process loosing myself and becoming something other than what I am. It angered me that they were so heedless of the dangers. Yoruichi knew me pretty well, but she knew me somewhat as an object of ridicule, so far beneath her in power and ability that I wasn't considered a threat. And most of the time she would be right, but I had changed and was still changing. The me she knew who bumbled around like an idiot, made stupid jokes, and fell for every single trick in the book wasn't who I was when Zabimaru and I were on the field. I knew she (for the most part) knew that but it seemed that it was easy to forget when the most exposure she had of me came from the time when I was goofing off at the Urahara Shop, letting those two kids climb all over me and use me for target practice.
On the third Realm we crossed Yoruichi stopped me and said
"Don't be so angry with her Renji. It was mostly my fault and if anyone should be a woman and apologize it should be me. I was the one who thought up the idea of testing out the idea of zanpaktou binding to see if it would work and I'm the one who urged her into trying it out."
"Yeah I figured it was you," I told her, an edge in my voice. "You were lookin' at a possible new weapon in yer arsenal, an' I get that. That's fine. What's not fine is you ropin' the both of us inta yer own plans an' not letting us have a say. I understand yer a clever kitty, ya like ta play with th' little mice of th' world, but we're not mice Yoruichi. Neither she nor I exist ta keep you amused. It don' excuse Isana not askin' me first about wantin' ta try somethin' out, but I'm not as mad at her fer being manipulated as I am at you fer doin' the manipulating. Yer powerful an' there's no denying that, but you gotta think about others first, missy. What if somethin' had gone wrong? What if, by some freak accident, you hadn't won against me and I'd hurt her? How do you think I'd feel about that? What if she hadn't been able to undo the binding spell, we've never worked it backwards you know, and Zabimaru had been trapped? How do you think that'd make me feel? Or Isana, how would she feel, havin' ta live with what she done? Develop a little empathy cat, or hit the road. We don' need a member of our team that's not going to pull for the group."
I don't know how she did it, but Yoruichi managed to pull of chastened and flabbergasted at the same time. It had probably been a very long time indeed since someone had had the brass balls to take her to task (and to be fair, it had probably been a good long time since it had been necessary, Yoruichi was good people for the most part, she just spent way too much time around the evil genius and it had skewed her perceptions a bit).
"Why must I be chastised by someone like him?" she demanded of the universe at large as if personally affronted by it.
"Because I'm the injured party and you earned it good," I replied smartly.
Too bad Kuchiki wasn't here, he'd be so much better and more articulate at this sort of thing than I was. If anyone could pull off a lecture that would leave you feeling like a lower life-form unworthy of the least consideration when you knew ya fucked up royally, it was Lord Byakuya Kuchiki Head of Clan Kuchiki. I was sure there were scads of points I was missing that he would have picked up on and been certain to elucidate in excruciating detail. Fortunately, by that point, having said my peace and counted to ten, I was ready to forgive and move on. I had a temper and I always had. It came with my passionate nature and it was something I'd always wrestled with, but one thing I could say about my temper... it might run hot and fast, but it cooled quickly and I was always eager to forgive quickly. I might have a temper, but I was basically an easy-going kinda guy and, with the sole exception of Kuchiki, I didn't really go in for holding grudges. Most of the reason that one had lasted so long was that it was mostly my own damn fault.
"And as fer you, Missy," I said, turning to face Isana, who looked down at my with a face sorrowful with guilt. "You need ta work on yer self-control. Yer a mom right? Would you let your kid act th' way you've been acting? Ya don't strike me as the type who would. Ya seem like a tough mom."
"I would have read him the riot act," she admitted sheepishly. "Especially if it was dangerous."
"You should practice a little more of what you preach," I said. "I'll accept apologies now."
I could tell by the momentary flicker across her face at the way I'd said it, grinning smugly at her, that she considered not giving me one just for that, but was clearly too eager to correct her mistakes to follow the contrary impulse.
"I'm very sorry for what I did," she said sincerely instead. "I didn't think it'd hurt you, and I didn't mean to make you mad or put anyone in danger. I was being stupid and not thinking ahead. Please forgive me."
"Water under the bridge," I said easily. "Just don't do it again."
Isana opened her mouth, looking like she was going to argue with me about my quick acceptance.
"That's it?" she asked a little incredulously. "You're so pissed off that you practically rain down fire from the heavens, swear and rant for a bit, go for a run, then I get off with a slap on the wrists and a don't do it again?"
"What, you want me to chain you to the wall or something?" I rebutted.
The two women exchanged a look and I rolled my eyes.
"Yer good people Isana," I said. "Sure, ya find new ways ta piss me off, but I don't know a single woman in the world that don't do that eventually if she spends enough time around a man."
Even Momo, whom I adored as a little sister, so sweet, so gentle and understanding, got under my skin sometimes. Sometimes she was just a little too sweet, a little too understanding and not willing enough to say when someone had pissed her off. Her unwillingness to take offense on her own behalf was a little irritating at times.
"I don't spend any time at all around men," Isana said in a wistful tone. "Well, my own age anyway. There are the old men at the nursing home I work, or rather probably worked past- tense by now, but they don't count. Maybe I'm just out of practice."
"Nah, yer doin' a fine job o' drivin' me up a wall," I assured her.
She mimed a swipe at me and clarified
"Dating. Between work for most of the day and taking care of my son the rest of the time, I don't get out much. I can't remember the last time I went out on a date that had the potential to go anywhere. Most guys my age are still looking for candidates for a potential booty call, and the few that have real potential I seem to miss out on. It figures that I finally find a good one and get him to pay attention to me and he's dead."
"Dems de breaks," I agreed with a shrug, deciding that I was going to ignore, completely the innuendo on that one.
"So you're really going to forgive me, just like that?" she asked, hopefully.
"No point in carrying a grudge," I replied. "I don't think that a person who understands and is truly sorry about what they did should have to apologize more than once."
Which was prbably the only thing that had saved my relationship with Rukia when we were growing up. She had always been a proud little thing, getting her to admit when she was wrong had been an uphill fight all the way most times, and we were both stubborn, but we also understood that about each other and that was why so much of what worked about us didn't need to be expressed in words, we understood.
"That's remarkably mature of you Abarai," Yoruichi said, sounding approving.
"O' course it's mature," I reproved her. "I'm plenty mature over here. I got maturity out the yin-yang. I'm a lieutenant you know. Lieutenant of Sixth Squad."
I puffed myself up a bit to show I was particularly proud of that fact and the two women exchanged a look that did not get lost in translation even on my side and we continued on our way.
Only the opening scene was originally written into this thing. I had had a vague notion of what was going to happen... as in, I knew that Isana was going to demonstrate her ability to bind Zanpaktou (pay close attention to that one class, there will be a quiz over it later) but for the most part I did not know what was actually going to happen. I'm just as surprised as you are. Let's hear it for muses that keep me up until three in the morning. So I didn't know that binding Zabimaru was going to bring Renji's Hollow to the surface (though, to be honest, I had been toying with that idea for another fic I was thinking about writing sometime in the future) and I hadn't planned on that fight happening either. Actually, I had thought that Isana's and Renji's "relationship" troubles were done with, but I guess my muse decided they needed one last little hoorah. Being a lonely single mom can be tough so I wanted to put that in there, just to make sure everyone knows that she's ripe for the proper man to sweep her off her feet...
Like that paper I started, accidentally deleted, and then had to write from scratch from my notes and hardcopy (it ended up being an A+ by the way, and the prof even read some out loud in class as an example of the importance of drafts) the result may not have been quite what I'd expected going into it, but once I got started, the rest seemed to flow without much help from me. I hope it was worth the wait! Until next time, signing off!