Warning: lemons ahoy.
To judge by the very slight slant of the sunlight when I pulled the covers back from around my head it was about mid-day in that Realm when I finally woke up. I was feeling a bit groggy and stiff from an unaccustomed overabundance of sleep and my stomach was tellin' me it'd like to get full again. I didn't know how differently time might pass from Realm to Realm, but my belly was never wrong about these things. I stretched out and wondered if I should start out with my usual morning routine with Zabimaru, but decided that it could wait until after I'd found something to eat.
I poked my nose out of the little hut I'd been given to sleep in. I hadn't woken up with any brave little bunny girls in my bed that morning so they must all have some sense of propriety when it comes to treating a guest. There was a basket filled with strange fruits of various sizes and another next to it with small round loaves of bread and a long-necked bottle of fruit scented water. I pulled the bounty provided to me by my gracious hosts in after me and tucked in. Isana, I had to assume, was already being fed and housed elsewhere with her teachers. The rumbling in my stomach abated as I filled it and I came to realize that for the first time in a good long while, I was at loose ends.
Even before I became Lieutenant of Sixth, having nothing much facing me was rare. Practically from the day I had graduated the academy (with the goal of beating Kuchiki so I could redeem my stupid mistake and maybe win back Rukia for myself) I had always been doing something. There were a lot of things that required a lot of training and practice and that was usually what I filled my free hours with. First came shikai, then mastery over it, then as I climbed ranks in Eleventh I learned the ins and outs of the paperwork, commands and expectations that came commensurate with my increasing ranks. If I had a few hours to kill there was always a good sparring session with Madarame, or if Madarame wasn't free, Kira (and more rarely Momo) or Shuuhei could be convinced to go a round with my to help me sharpen my skills. If not training or simply hanging out with my friends, drinking or mooching off someone for lunch, there was ranked officer stuff to deal with. Eleventh was the squadron that was most well known for the strength of the fight in its reapers, and with Zaraki being Zaraki and our little lieutenant being Yachiru... all of the paperwork for the damages, the payroll, the requisitions and supplies (etcetra ad infinatum, as Kira would say) was handed down to the lower ranked members. Madarame called it repayment for taking up his time (even if he did love to fight just as much as me) but it wasn't a lie to say that by the time I ever got around to trying out for my promotion to Lieutenant I was already well practiced with all of the work that was expected of that rank. All of these things, including the fun I had in my free hours when i wasn't training, ate up the years that I only measured by how much stronger I got.
:It feels kinda strange to be totally without sumthin' ta do,: I thought partly to myself.
I'd rested as much as I cared to, my belly was already full. I couldn't see myself lazing around much. I could be a laid back kind of guy but I preferred to be out doing things. Already the itch in my blood and at the soles of my feet called me out to see what I might find in the wild wood. There was bound to be something out there. Logic told me that if these bunny girls spent time out there patrolling the wood then there had to be threats that were considered dangerous enough to need patrolling against. If I was really lucky there was a fight good enough for me to warrant using my bankai for practice against it.
My mind made up, I felt the restlessness inside me goad me into action. I dropped down through a hole in the floor, shikai-ing the saw-toothed snake-tail form of Zabimaru on the way down. I caught the teeth of his head on the wooden lip of the hole in the floor and extended the blade as I went down, pulling on it to slow my fall as the ground rushed towards me. The end of the line snapped and sprung like a bungee cord and I dropped neatly the last few feet to the soft, leaf-covered turf.
"Going down, ding ding..." I joked humorously to myself.
:Very funny, weilder,: Zabimaru noted dryly from the back of my mind as he caught the fact that I'd been teasing him partly.
I stripped to the waist and left the mortal-style shoes and socks off my feet. The day was pleasantly warm and I was comfortable wearing nothing more than the slightly clingy pants of toughened blue cloth mortal favored while I dipped my torso under the water of the pool at the base of the tree for a quick wash up. I shook the water off me like a dog and pulled back my hair while it was still wet.
I ignored the sursurations of movement for above me and pretended that the sighs came from the wind, but really, couldn't a man get some privacy for a bath?
"Up for some light morning excersize?" I asked my sword, suddenly wishing myself away from the unspoken desires of a people who were strange to me.
:You just can't stand not havin' nuthin' ta do, can ya?: Snakey demanded of me.
:It has been an exhausting journey, perhaps you should take this opportunity to rest up,: Babs recommended.
That was rare, Zabimaru usually reprimanded me for going out drinking and partying too much with my friends when I should be practicing with him to grow stronger.
"I think I'll rest better away from the village," I replied cryptically.
I flash-stepped off in a random direction, zipping along the ground at what, for me, was a decent pace.
:Call me out, and let me show you how it is done,: Babs said to me.
manifestation of a Zanpaktou's spirit form was possible only for those who had already achieved, or were about to achieve bankai... thus, it was a rare ability. I was proud of myself that I could do such a thing. I shrugged and did the particular mental and spiritual twist-pull-push that called a creature of spirit into the world. Baboon King Zabimaru appeared beside me, running along the forest floor in the way of a baboon; reaching forward with his powerful fore-limbs and pulling along his hindquarters. It should have looked ridiculous and awkward, especially with the snake hovering up behind him, but it didn't. Especially when he pulled himself up easily into the trees by branch and vine. His powerful form grasped the trunks of trees and scaled them and leaped as easily from branch to branch and tree to tree as a bird would fly. It made me want to try it.
I had just recently gotten good at that trick where I slid down the flats of Zabimaru's blade when he's still fully extended, moving the way a surfer would ride the curl of a wave. After a long moment of careful observation I decided that mimicking Zabimaru's easy movements in and among the treetops was not impossible for me. I pulled myself up on one twisted-vine covered trunk and and surveyed the distance between one tree branch and the next then tested the solidity of the branch beneath me.
:You'll never get anywhere like that,: Zabs scoffed at me.
I watched as he whizzed right past me, sprung off the branch like a trampoline and caught himself easily on another branch using that to bounce himself up higher then slide down a tangle of vines to the trunk, scrabble up it and then fall down to his next destination. It looked like fun. It also looked like a good way to break my neck.
"Race you to the river!" Snakey called back at me.
That decided me. I was a lot of things but a chicken wasn't one of them, and I never backed down from a challenge. I took a running start down the the trunk-like thickness of the tree limb that really looked like a lot of other smooth-barked branches all grown together, pulled on one of the numerous vines that looked like a lot of thick hair grown all together and pulled hard, using the backspring to launch me awkwardly into the air. I tried not to flail my limbs as I misjudged the distance and headed just about straight for the trunk of the tree in front of me.
"Gaaah!" I cried unable to stop myself from a noise of dismay as I braced for impact.
I suppose I would have impacted with the tree trunk, if I hadn't gotten beaned by a branch first. Rukia was always teasing me about what a thick, hard skull I had, but right then it was a blessing rather that a curse. I was only very mildly stunned as I went crashing down through the foliage, trying to gather my scattered wits enough to grasp one of the branches. It was the one that punched into my stomach that stopped me.
"Ulf," I grunted but wrapped my arms around it an pulled myself up onto it.
It hadn't exactly been the most glorious of first attempts, but then again, when I'd first been getting to know the ins and outs of Zabimaru's tricky snake-tail form it hadn't exactly been a walk through the park either. I pulled the leaves from my hair and took a running start along the thick, twisty-limbed branch I'd landed on and aimed for the next tree.
"Ha! Made it!" I exulted as I landed on the branch that time... right before it nearly snapped under my weight. I instinctively flash-leaped forward and smacked into the tree trunk this time.
:Renji, you almost disappoint me, are you goofing off?" Zabimaru asked me as he hung upside down right in front of my face.
"Leemee alone!" I snapped, embarrassed.
Snakey wove down around the other side of me and hissed into my ear
:With th' way yer movin' you'd think you'd never used my form at all over the last forty years."
I throttled my irritation and felt the smooth bark of the branch beneath me swaying slightly with the movement of the tree. Zabimaru leaped easily from limb to limb like a fish swam through water.
"Show off," I muttered, but I got what he was doing.
The canopy top wasn't like walking along rooftops or solid earth, there among the branches swayed by the wind and the spring and snap of living wood, movement was the constant. The environment was always changing, ever so slightly, i had to be aware of my surroundings down to the last nuance if i was going to move among it. I closed my eyes and listened, letting the wood fill me sense by sense, first the sound of it, then the myriad cocktail of taste-scent on my tongue, then smell, then touch through the soles of my bared feet, until at last I opened my eyes and took in every detail around me. i crouched, tensing my muscles and sprang off.
The feeling of the wind rushing around me was nice, the drop of descent and the soft give of the branch I landed squarely and with perfect balance on was more forgiving than the harsh ground but also more difficult to balance on due to its lack of solidity. I swayed for a moment trying to stay upright as the branch moved underneath me, my foot slipped and my body adjusted the exact same way that i did when i rode down snakey's tail. Sliding down the branch I pushed off at the trunk to find another one, then pulled and swung up again into the air. Babs was still in front of me.
"Better watch yer back, Fuzzy, I'm on my way!" I called a challenge back to him.
Having found my center, we resumed our race. He was far more practiced and agile than I was, but that would come in time and practice. Sadly, but not unpredictably, he won the race and we gulped down water from the river with an easy feeling of comraderie between us. Outside of this wood a war in the Spirit World held its breath, a strange enemy amassed its forces and worked towards a goal I did not yet know the purpose of, and forces gathered yet dismissing any importance I might have in the grand scheme of things. Many things waited and took place in shadow while I did nothing of any real importance here in this wood, but surely a few stolen days here would not matter overmuch. I felt like a kid playing truant from classes, but surely it was alright to rest just for a little while.
:Taking care of that mortal woman can be exhausting!: I thought to Zabimaru.
She was a nice enough girl most of the time, but damned if she didn't find some of the darnedest situations for me. So far I'd rescued her from countless minor Feral realm-dwellers, I'd defeated at lest four Guardian Spirits for her, the defeat of Katschei the Deathless had left me with a heartstone, and not to mention the tournament with the Elves that had netted her that armor she wore and the not-horse she rode on. All of this in addition to the fact that I guarded her at night from additional Ferals when we stopped to make camp, and I didn't even get to sleep in the tent! It wasn't that I didn't think she wouldn't make room for me if I asked her to, it was just that...
:If Captain ever caught wind of me sharing sleeping arrangements with his woman, mortal or not, there wouldn't be enough of me left to feed to a cat.:
Yoruichi might take a malicious sort of delight in devouring the tiny quivering bits of me that were left, or if not her, then I was sure the Captain would feed me to his fish. Not his prize koi of course, oh no, such an end would be too good for the likes of me. He probably had another fishpond way out back that he reserved for getting rid of the last few traces of his enemies. My brain stuck on that thought, a little tickled by the notion that my Captain might keep carnivorous fish for the purpose of disposing of evidence; it was simple and elegant, and he did seem to have a strange attachment to his koi ponds. I shook my head, a little amused at my fancy. Maybe someday, after we'd had a few years to settle into being Captain and Lieutenant (and I caught him on a good day,) I'd share the notion with him.
:Or maybe not,: I reconsidered. :I'm too afraid that he might, in fact, find the idea to be a good one.:
I didn't want to end up as fish food.
My muscles were good and warmed up by now and Zabimaru and I took advantage of the relative quiet and privacy to unbind the first three chakra gradually as we ran through a number of the forms. We able to take longer at it than just a quick practice session before we broke camp for the day, and after that good rest (and the fact that I wasn't at all injured) I was in top form and we could really concentrate on getting the power flowing through my body. My reiatsu struggled a bit but soon began to pulse and flow steadily within my, pushing a pulling, ebbing and flowing with every measured breath i took. Each breath corresponded to an exact measure of movement, power cracked off the ends of powerful thrusts and jabs, added extra spring to leaps and blasted out of the ends of kicks. I had been a brawler out in District 78 before I'd ever been a Soul Reaper, and even in Eleventh Squad I'd gotten into my share of fist fights because not everything there was a sword-drawing offense but likewise couldn't be let to slide, so more often than not we'd smack each other around for a while before we had a drink to settle it. I'd been a fist-fighter for a while, but I'd never really felt true power like this before. Not where it was part of every movement; attack, defense and avoidance.
Out of curiosity I pulled in and centered a small pool of power in my lower chakra and wove myself into a fighting pattern that led me straight to the base of one of the massive trees in that wood. I launched my finishing blow right into the center of the trunk. The wood shattered in an explosion around me as I instinctively crossed my arms and shielded to keep the wood splinters from piercing my flesh. There was a creaking groan and then when felt like a thunderclap as the trunk split and the leafed sky-pillar fell before me. I looked at my knuckles, glowing softly with a lingering orangey-gold aura and not bleeding at all. I hadn't felt a thing. I blinked.
"That's how it's done," Zabimaru said from one side of me.
There was no mistaking the pleased satisfaction in his tone.
"Yeah," I agreed, a little dazed.
Prosaically, my stomach rumbled.
"I guess we should get back," I said to him.
We took to the tree tops for further practice in maneuverability, and my new found mastery over the power in my movements added further challenges to the game for Zabimaru insisted that I should practice it. By the time I made it back to the bounds of the tree-top village I'd be in need of a Healer, but that was the price one paid for greater strength and mastery.
It was my good luck that, as I was heading home, a nice, big Feral placed itself in my path. A creature long and thin with reverse haunches and a waist like a tree, several top-limbs and skin that was hard, like bark, with wooden spike like spines protruding all over it rasped at me in challenge. I smiled my fierce battle-smile, the one any fighter of any worth tended to pick up in Eleventh after a while, and resisted the urge to sing "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay" as I went to work.
Zabimaru was already out in manifested form, so I couldn't really call on the blade without unmanifesting him, and I just didn't feel like doing that. So, since we had been practicing with enhanced zanjutsu I just decided to have a good old fashioned brawl with him and flew at him with my fists. I'd almost forgotten, in my relentless drive to perfect all aspects of my swordsmanship in the hope of beating Kuchiki, just how much fun it really was to just lay into someone. Especially someone who gave almost as good as he got. I dodged out of the way of his counter strikes, spiked with the wood of his body as they were and concentrated on finding and shattering all of the weak points in his physical shell.
Like most fights, it was quick and brutal, over with a little bit quickly for my sense of fun, but the Rukongai in me prompted me not to draw out a fight and give my enemy a possible opening to defeat me. In Rukongai, if you had to fight at all, you defeated your opponent as quickly as possible in hopes they wouldn't summon allies. The Feral was quickly reduced to kindling and fell to one side, revealing a hollow in the nearby tree trunk, something sparkled from within it, pulling on my curiosity. So I went to investigate.
The little niche in the tree was filled with a nest-like basket holding about twelve or thirteen stones. They were vaguely egg-shaped and of various sizes ranging from about the size of a robins egg to one that was a little larger than a goose egg. They weren't exactly smooth though they did look polished, they were all sort of multi-facted and milky-white, or rather, more like an opal, where sparks of color appeared and moved about randomly within it. They also glowed from within, a marble-sized dot of light at the heart of a glowing fire-opal, that sort of pulsed slightly, like a heartbeat. I shrugged to myself and thought perhaps my hosts would know what was best to do with them. I picked up the basket and brought it with me as I journeyed through the trees. It was a challenge dealing with my new-found additional power without dropping any of them, but it sort of made it fun.
"Honey, I'm home!" I called whimsically as I landed in a crouch on one of the main flat areas that a number of the communal activities that took place in the village were performed at.
"Are you quite alright, Mortal Soul Reaper?" one of the bunny-girls (who had been fletching an arrow when I had dropped in) inquired of me in a worried tone.
"I'm fine," I assured her. "This is minor, really. The usual ya get when ya put all yer best inta a good practice. An' I found myself a good fight on the way back, I just need a quick visit with the healer, so if you'd be nice an' show me where I kin find one..."
"I am able to perform healing magic, if all it is is a flesh wound," the bunny girl offered.
"Oh! Thanks!" I smiled at her, and presented my tatooed arm, where I'd sliced it several times on several occasions navigating the rough bark of the woods. "Much obliged."
"My pleasure," she said, looking a little short of breath as she summoned up a glowing green circle in lines and sigils between her cupped hands and a softly glowing green light emanated from it touching on the wounds on my arms and torso and neck and shoulders. They glowed and then faded.
"Would you like a further examination?" she asked me, looking hopeful.
I smiled warmly at her and (a little reluctantly) shook my head.
"You can do sumthin' else for me though," I said and showed her my basket full of strange stone eggs. "Tell me what these are."
She gasped as her eyes widened in both awe and delight. Her little bunny-girl face lit right up.
"Wow! So many! You must be really strong and powerful!"
Maybe it was bad of me, but I'll admit that I preened a little bit under the look of naked longing on her face as she looked at my bare chest.
"I don' wanna brag but..." I said, resisting the urge to flex a little bit. I was not some immature teenager after all.
I noticed that our formerly mostly unoccupied little spot was becoming quite the little hub for bunny girls to oh so casually bring whatever it was they were working on with them to work out of doors in the fresh air I was sure.
"So what are they?" I asked her.
"These stone eggs are where our tame elementals are born from," one of the nearby bunny-girls explained. "We call them mancers."
Another chimed in with
"When a Mi'kote comes of age, they go on a dangerous coming-of-age quest to acquire one of these eggs that hold a mancer, within it. When the egg hatches, the mancer becomes part of it's "parents" essence, becoming an extension of their will, enabling them to control the magic of its nature."
"I remember my first mancer," one bunny-girl reminisced.
"So when these things hatch all of 'em are just gonna what, imprint on the first thing it sees, like a baby duck?" I asked, wanting to be sure.
"Basically, that's how it works," one of the small group of bunny-girls replied.
"Mancer-eggs are very very difficult to acquire," the voice of the Matriarch said, appearing from out of no where almost right beside me.
"I have lived in these woods for a very long time, and I've never seen so many together all at once in all of my life."
"I beat some kind of giant tree-thing," I replied.
"Tree-thing?" The matriarch inquired archly.
I shrugged and took a charcoaled stick from out of the fire and drew a quick sketch of the enemy I'd beat a little while ago on a nearby surface. Some of the bunny-girls jaws dropped as they stared at me, other exchanged glances like they couldn't believe what they'd just heard.
"You beat a tree-reaver?" one girl asked, sounding shocked.
"Is that what it was?" I asked. "Yeah, he wasn't to hard, musta ben young one, cuz he didn't seem ta put up a whole lotta fight. O' course I've gotten used ta dealin' with Arrancars and thier Vasto Lorde cousin's so I guess that there are a lot of things out there that seem pretty weak when ya compare 'em."
"Tree-reavers are one of the greater dangers that we Mi'kote guard the Wood against. They are predators who prey on nature-spirits, they harvest mancer eggs, waiting until the Mancer hatches and then consuming the power of the Nature spirit while it is still young and vulnerable."
There had been predators like that in Rukongai too, though what they did with any "hatchling" that was unfortunate or unwary enough to be caught by them is better left unsaid.
"A strong reaver will grow stronger, and become a danger to us, the Mi'kote," the matriarch explained. "For once they grow enough in strength, they always come to prey on we who have a larger concentration of mancers that are full grown in thier power."
"Glad I could save ya the trouble o' killin' this one. Truth ta tell though, I did it mostly cuz I was bored," I admitted.
"Mancer eggs," the queen said a little archly. "Are far more valuable than gold, than platinum, than... well, just about anything you could think of. It is not just true in this Realm, where we Mi'kote make them a part of our lives, it is true in every Realm you will come to. You can sell them or trade them for about any sum or favor that you would care to mention, Lieutenant of Sixth Squad Renji Abarai. A single egg of even small dimension represents a vast deal of power."
"So I guess eggs and bacon are out of the question," I joked wryly.
"Quite," the matriarch replied.
"Any of these things likely ta be fluffy and furry when it hatches?" I asked her hopefully as a sudden idea occurred to me.
I could take one of these eggs back to Rukia as a present. She loved fluffy, cute things. The downside of owning a bunny was that they tended to be short lived and Rukia didn't like to loose things she loved. One of these babies though... well, if it was a spirit thing, then it was bound to live a really really long time! I'd have gotten her the best present ever!
"The appearance of the mancer depends on its nature. Many of the air ones are, as are some of the water. Some few earth ones too, depending on the nature of their power. Fire ones, almost never though, fur would be a detriment to a creature of flame," one of the other bunny girls said.
"Any way o' tellin' what it's supposed ta look like?" I asked.
"It might take some time, but one of our water-mancers should be able to sense the form of the mancer inside the eggs," one of the bunny girls volunteered.
"We will consider it repayment for destroying the tree-reaver," the matriarch said.
"Thanks!" I said, grinning up at her.
With any luck, there'd be a nice, cute fluffy one in this lot for me to give to Rukia. She was sure to be so pleased and happy about it that she'd forgive me for whatever I'd done to make her mad this time.
:And maybe I'll give one to Kira and Momo too,: I thought consideringly.
As far as I was concerned, you couldn't go wrong with something that would love you unconditionally and didn't take up much room. These things didn't really appear to even have fleas!
:I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest though,: I thought with a shrug. :Maybe sell them, I could use some solid cash ta augment all the time I've spent AWOL and Captain's docked my pay for. Plus, it's always nice ta have a little nest-egg, no pun intended, saved away just in case.:
The matriarch took the basket with her and bid me a fine evening. The other bunny girls crowded around me and begged to hear about my battle with the tree reaver. After a moment or two of expectant stares I got the feeling they were asking less because they wanted to hear my tale of derring-do and more because it gave them all an excuse to crowd in around me and make a big show of how impressed they were by me.
There were two or three particularly aggressive ones that crowded up my space. I had come to be a good judge of reading people and situations over the years and rarely did I misjudge when I had enough information to go on (the thing ith Ichigo had been mixed-up from the get-go). The three girls who crowded in on me I could tell were the three top little queens of the village; by what they said of themselves, it was they who had brought down the most prey, they who's mancers were the strongest, and they who had been proven fertile time and again (i.e. they had contributed to the village population most often). Granted, it was easy to tell by looking at them how that last one had come to be, they were all tall and statuesque women, long and shapely of limb and fair of face. However...
Well, there were these smaller, sadder-looking bunny girl's in the back, the ones who hovered on the edge of the gathering, playing with children nearby and every now and then casting a wistful, longing eye my way.
:Watcha think, Zabs? You see what I see?: I asked him.
:Smaller, frailer specimens of their type,: he agreed with me. :Not as suited for hunting or fighting, and relegated to village tasks.:
:An' it looks like they get to raise everyone else's kids but their own,: I thought, feeling sad for them.
One particularly intrepid bunny-girl brought two of her kids carefully to the edge of the fire and visibly pushed herself into raising her voice to be heard over the bunny-girl to my left who had offered to give a long massage after all that work I had done today.
"Will you tell another story?" she asked of me. "The Mortal who travels with you carries a charm that grants permission to use a Binding spell from each of the four Elemental Courts, perhaps you could tell us how that came to be."
I smiled a little at her because she looked partly terrified by the act of putting herself forward, and partly because her request had earned her the feircest glares of the females nearest me, the strongest in the tribe. The girl was joined by another tiny woman with a bunny-child on each hip, who deposited her little long-eared burdens to have Storytime With Renji. Well, I wasn't against it, some of the other Soul Reaper men might grouse about it not bein' manly, but I was a Barai brat, and I'd kept ties with my onee-san who saw nothing wrong with pressing her prodigal son into babysitting service. I liked kids. I planned to have as many of them as the woman I loved could be convinced to let me father on her.
"Sure thing," I smiled at her.
She blushed hotly and tried to cover it by fussing with the child in her arms. I had to admit that I was getting a bit of a kick out of being the only rooster in the henhouse. The three village warrior-queens leaned in, pressing themselves adoringly against me as I began the tale of my visit to the Earth Court, the subsequent quest laid on me by Genbu-sama, my surprise battle against my own zanpaktou, Zabimaru, and then my sneak-in and battle with Katschei (leaving out the part about how I had assumed his Realm and heartstone for myself). They were all appropriately impressed, but I was sure if that was genuine wonder or an attempt to act impressed in hopes I'd go to bed with one of them. By the end of my tale the little ones were nodding off, and thier two caretakers were looking up at me with stars in their eyes. I'd have ta be a far, far greater man than I was not to be a little bit moved by that. Still, I didn't want to leave a string of broken hearts behind me either.
"I too have faced dangers out in the Wild Wood," the warrior-queen bunny on my left told me and launched into a quick tale of one particularly gruelling fight she'd had with what they called a Clinger (a forest creature who dropped down, smothered its prey and then sucked the live right out of them).
"So you see," the bunny-girl finished. "I have strength and endurance as well as bravery and powerful Mana. Any offspring you could give me would be best served by having such traits on both sides."
"I guess that makes sense if ya wanna look at it that way," I said neutrally.
It was a little sad to hear me reduced to genetic factors. I didn't think bravery, was really something that would be bred. Maybe to a certain degree, but a soul existed as it existed, regardless of its parents.
"I have birthed three fine whelps, all of which have grown to be a credit to the village," she pressed her case. "And you will find it, I am certain, to be no hardship at all to share my bed."
She posed in such a way as to make all of her many fine attributes display themselves. I couldn't help but admire the view, she was a very very beautiful woman, tall and proud and graceful as any depiction of an amazon queen. I wasn't the sort who preferred meek, docile women either, I liked a woman with a lot of spirit and fight in her (maybe too much exposure to Rukia too early in my life had permanently warped my tastes) but when the bunny girl slyly glanced out of the corner of her eye at the poor smaller, weaker, shyer bunny-girl sitting just at the edge of the gathering and smirked, any attraction I might have felt for her shriveled instantly and was killed deader than dead. It was especially sad to see the hopeful look on little babysitter bunny-girl's face turn to resigned dejection.
I could see the scenario now, amazon-queen bunny girl probably got first dibs on any adventurers traveling through the lands or lured down the rabbit hole on a mid-summer night. They had the babies (which probably in turn increased their status in the tribe) and left them to be raised and nurtured by the less-useful, weaker ones while the queens got to go out and fight and hunt and do whatever it was they did. Poor little bunny girls got to stay home and mind everyone else's kids and never had any of their own.
:Ya think I'm readin' too much into it Zabs?" I asked him of my imaginary scenario.
We watched as she visibly consoled herself by dandling the child on her knees.
:Nope, I'm pretty sure you're spot on about it,: Zabs assured me.
:Good, cuz I think I'm feelin' a little contrary,: I told him with an inward smile.
I could feel his answering smile tickle the back of my mind. I stood up, bringing myself to my full, broad and powerful height, and had to almost visibly restrain myself from strutting as I walked over and fetched the little bunny-child out of little miss bunny's arms. I walked back over to amazon-queen bunny and promptly deposited the gift.
"I'm glad to hear you've so many little ones," I told her with my falsely-bright lying-lieutenant smile, not bothering to hide the fact that I was sort of enjoying handing her a set-down. "You'll have no problem lookin' out fer these ones for the next little while then."
I walked back to the tinier bunny girl and scooped her up.
"Just yer bad luck," I said to the amazon queen over my shoulder. "That I prefer petite girls."
The one I was carrying off bridal-stlye in my arms looked happily dazzled and my conscience suddenly panged at me on two counts. She might not actually want me, I mean, I was a stranger after all...
"This alright with you?" I asked her. "Cuz we don't have to if ya don't want to..."
"I want to!" she exclaimed eagerly then looked embarrassed at her outburst.
"Also, I think it's only fair ta warn ya," I added on. "My heart's already got an owner that ain't me. We can have our fun, but..."
"You would not be able to stay anyway," the bunny-girl informed me. "This Realm is not meant for mortals. it's very nature would eventually reject you. In any case, a little while is all we will ever have."
"Oh, well..." I said feeling a bit bad that I was relieved at an easy out. "If a little while is all we'll have I'll certainly leave you with a good memory."
When she blushed again I thought that I might be entering virgin territory. Well, if I was, I shrugged, I'd just make it extra special for her.
"I didn't get your name, miss," I said as I navigated the tree limbs back to my little guest hut.
"Lin'ata," she told me.
"That's a pretty name," I replied as I pushed the round little door aside (it rolled into the wall like a coin on its edge, and then could be made to roll back) and stepped into my sleeping room. The bed was already made up, and someone had thoughtfully left a fresh basket of tidbits suitable for trysting nearby. How thoughtful of them.
Sex among two people who barely knew each other could be awkward when not spurred on by lust and passion of the moment. I'd had a few decades to learn my way around the pointy bits of it but Lin'ata hadn't. I'd grant her points for trying her best though, when I set her down to look at the contents of the bottle they'd given me so I could decide how much to pour she dove right in there and started working her clothes off.
"Slow down a little, we got all night an' I ain't goin' nowhere," I said, chuckling at her.
She did sort of look at me like she was half afraid I might decide to. Awwww. I fed her some of the fruit-alcohol to calm her down a loosen her up a bit before I led her over to the round, nest-like bed that was a deal more than big enough for two (even for a guy my size, and I wasn't tiny) sat on it and pulled her closer. She stayed standing while I sat in front of her.
"Is it... can I touch it?" she asked hesitantly.
I looked at her in question. She was looking at my hair.
"Yeah, it's real," I told her a little humorously. "All me, baby."
She looked at me in confusion so I just smiled and tugged the hair band out.
"Go ahead and play," I invited, trying to keep the mood light.
Truth to tell, I loved having my hair played with. There was a reason why ancient kings and warriors had once considered long hair to be a man's pride rather than a mark of femininity, feeling a woman run her fingers through your hair was instantly erotic and quite addicting. I didn't see how all those men who wore their hair short went without the pleasure of it, but I supposed that was on them.
"It's so thick and bright," she noted, scritching my scalp a little, I leaned my head into the attention. Hah... bliss. But there was something I just had to know...
"Do you mind if I...?" I asked, reaching up towards her long, up-standing ears.
I'd wanted to do that ever since I'd gotten into the village. I ran my finger tips delicately along the shell of them. They were furry, like kitten fur and the smelled dry and slightly spicy, like the soft, cinimony scent of bird feathers. Her breath caught when I played along the outside edge of one. Jackpot. I repeated the attention as I leaned in and nuzzled along the side of her neck, she had a very woodsy-scent to her skin.
I was a very tactile person, I always had been. Even as a child, among my gang-mates if hugging was frowned on as being unmanly, my "brothers" could always expect a rough sort of affection. The habit hadn't disappeared any over the years, Kira had long since resigned himself to putting up with the one-armed man-hug at odd moments when he looked like he needed it most. Momo, the only other "girl" in my life besides Rukia, was a safer target for my need for touch. It never went into pervert territory, but she was liberally blessed with physical tokens of affection in the form of chaste hugs, hair-ruffles, pick-her-up and-swing-her-around whenever I could find an excuse. I loved touch, which was probably one reason why celibacy just simply didn't work for me. I craved physical contact, maybe it was the result of being bonded to (essentially) a baboon, which was an extremely sociable and tactile animal. While she was getting over the novelty of my hair I started working my hands over her skin, slowly loosening her clothes, savoring the smooth feel of it. I suckled along her collarbone and shoulder, she had a very pleasant spring-like taste, then paused to nibble near the nape of her neck. She let out a soft gasp and I felt attraction simmer within me.
She had soft hands that played over my shoulders and down my back as I closed my eyes to feel the pleasant sensation of her skin over mine. I could feel her curiously trace the lines of my binding marks with her fingertips, scratching very lightly as though she were amazed that they didn't come off. Meanwhile I began to unfasten her clothes, which were put on more like armor than clothing. The breast-piece buttoned up the right side and the tight hose she wore fastened at the back to accommodate the little tiny puff of a tail just above her shapely, firm little derriere. The clothes came off easily and I pulled her forward onto my lap and on the bed where I started to stroke and knead down her back with my hands while I buried my face in her front to fully enjoy her scent.
Lin'ata made delighted noises when I cupped her bottom to bring her closer, took a breast in my mouth and kneaded the other one in a leisurely fashion, feeling her body pucker and writhe from the sensations and the taste of her skin turned tangy from my work. She arched against me and her fingers dug softly into the skin of my back as I ran one hand down from her buttocks outside her smooth, shapely thigh then tickled a light touch along the inside of it, causing her to instinctively grip my hips. My body was urgently reminding me that it, too had not known the joys of pleasure in far too long a time for its comfort and would gladly dispense with the opening act, but I wasn't a neanderthal, and my onee-san had always told me that a mark of both a fire and a man was not how fast and hot it burned but whether it could make it through the night.
She gasped a pleasured moan and pressed harder against me, causeing my skin to jump electrically, as I worked a thumb along the crease of the join between her thigh and her torso bringing my other hand down from her breast to press at the crease at the back of her knees while my tongue made sure the recently vacated breast didn't get lonely. Her skin was very soft, and well taken care of. I pressed my face into her chest, scraping my teeth lightly along a puckered nipple, eliciting another moan that increased in pitch and fervor as I took it fully into my mouth again. I reached a hand between us to unfasten the mortal-style pants and pushed them off with a quick arch of my hips that pushed full-body up against her soft feminine curves. I pulled her down with me so she was stretched out supine on my chest, breasts a soft cushion against my own muscles. I couldn't restrain a groan of pleasure of my own when I rubbed her bodily against me. My eyes closed in delighted bliss at the feel of her soft, naked skin against mine, her thighs pressed tight to my hips, the softly firm flesh of her stomach was stroking over my abs. I throbbed with anticipatory contentment stoking and kneading over her back and buttocks to keep her body moving against mine. She instinctively began to writhe in rhythm arching and moaning against me, her thighs squeezing with eagre pressure, her hands working over whatever part of me she could reach.
I rolled us to one side so that she was on her back and pushed her up a little so that my face was buried in the valley between breasts and slowly began to lick and nibble my way southward, enjoying the feeling of her soft flesh beneath my lips and the steady chorus of stifled moans and soft cries from my partner. There was a particularly emphatic noise that came when I poked my tongue inside her belly button and I stayed there to play for a moment as my hands kept working down over her hips. I stroked her inner thighs with the callus-roughened pads of my thumbs and she shuddered slightly and her knees clenched hard. She was a responsive little thing, wasn't she? I pressed my thumbs harder along the insides of her thighs while my teeth scraped along the smooth plains of her chest and stomach and down to her hips. Working her body to a feverish hotness, I could tell from the moist jungle-like scent coming off from her skin that she was ready. With what for her must have been aching slowness, I pressed my fingers up into the folds of skin at the join of her legs and gave a soft shallow stroke that caught the tip of her clitoris, just so. She whimpered in suppressed passion and tried to arch her hips up into me. She was slick and waiting for me so I pushed up further into her to be met with a delighted moan while her knees gripped me and her inner walls tried to clamp down around fingers to keep them there. I toyed a bit, pressing around her insides and working the moist delicate flesh with the pads of my fingers and thumbs. The noises she made were music to me.
Due to the powers my zanpaktou granted me with regards to tracking, my sense of smell and my sense of taste were both heightened. As much as I enjoyed the touch that came with love-play, the taste was ten times more erotic for me. The moment I got that first taste of passion, when she was waiting and eager, that was where I found my true delight. I pulled her arms up and fastened them behind her knees and held them there while I pushed her wide open, running my tongue first up one smooth inner thigh and then the other. Her body was worked to such a hot fevered pitch she couldn't quite decide wither to pant or moan or whimper so she did all three. Eagerly, I buried my tongue inside her, tasting her sweet salty essence as I closed my eyes to savor it. No wine or sake could ever be quite so intoxicating as this. I could smell and taste and almost feel the desire roiling out from within her, it was headier than aged merlot, sweeter than sangria. I suckled and tasted the delicious cologne of need, almost entirely oblivious to the screams above me. The drink only intensified as her body tensed and roiled around my tongue. If this was what Hollows tasted when they consumed a soul, no wonder they were always hungry.
I played for a while, bringing her to the brink of delirium only to pause and wait for her body to cool for a moment then reawakening the sensations once again to intensify the flavor on my palliate as she begged me to put an end to the pleasure so intense it was kin to agony. As deliciously pleasant as this was for both of us, there was a satisfaction yet denied and the timbre of her screams had turned an ache into an imperative. I was painfully ready to end it.
I laid her out and positioned myself, sinking into her tight warmth with a groan of both desire and relief. It had been far too long for me. My partner was already shivering from the last near-miss I had given her to wake her up, so the feel of me slipping inside of her, pushing along at her walls, made her clench in delight. I entered slowly, drawing the moment out while she writhed under me in helpless pleasure. My hands still worked along her skin, skimming, kneading, scratching to emphasize my movements inside of her. I stayed seated inside of her, squeezed in her warm heat while she panted helplessly an wriggled around me. Oh, but it was good.
"Keep that up," I groaned. "An' I ain't gonna last to the end."
She ran a nail lightly up my back, causing me to do a full-body twitch that had me grunting in further pleasure as the twitch caused her to squeeze around me slightly. I hovered over her, weight suspended mostly on my arms as my hips moved with the direct precision of a fighter whose life depended on having excellent muscle control. We moved push-pull together as our bodies made and unmade each other in Nature's timeless dance. The delirious pressure built quickly within me thrust upon thrust and I pulled out a little more quickly than I had intended to and pushed in with a bit more emphasis as my control started to unravel around me. Lin'ata's eyes closed and her whole body tightened in a spasm. She screamed, long and hard, while her warmth embraced me, sending me spinning hard into my own jubilation. The world pinpointed white for a long moment as the pleasure rocked over me and I lost myself, bursting into chaos. It was a long, glowing moment until breaths were caught and sweat-slicked, sated bodies were pulled into their separate skins. She tried to sit up to leave and I yanked her back down onto me, slightly offended.
"Any woman who shares my body, shares my bed 'til dawn," I all but growled at her. "It get's cold in the morning."
That, and there was no chance of further pleasure during the night, nor of possibly being fed by a woman's willing hands, not to mention the mild insult of a woman slinking off like I was a shameful secret. A woman should be proud to be well-treated by me. I wasn't claiming to be the gift of the Heaven's to women everywhere, but it was an undeniable fact that sharing my bed was not a one-sided pleasure, to return my consideration for her pleasure by treating me like some kind of disposable commodity was just rude.
"I had not wanted to impose," she sighed with sleepy contentment as she lounged against me, luxuriating as much as I was in the contentment of skin on skin.
"Do you think I will conceive a child of this?" she said, looking at me hopefully.
"If not this once, we'll have plenty of other times tonight," I promised her. "One of them's bound ta take."
It pleased me in a very animalistic, cave man sort of way to hear a woman talk about wanting ta have my babies so badly, but another part of it was bothered by the fact that I was siring children I wouldn't be around to see. It went against the grain of my honor.
"You, ah, you gonna be raisin' this kid all by yerself?" I demanded of her.
"Heaven's no," she said merrily. "The whole village raises the children communally. That's the way it has always been in the history of our race. Viable conceptions are rare so every child is precious and treasured. That's the way it was for me and for my mother, and my mother's mother. It's a good life."
"Don't they ever get curious about their father?" I asked, feeling unexpectedly lonely with the thought.
"A bit. It's natural that they would, what short tales of the men who sire children there are will be kept within the village memory to be told and retold to feed the child's hunger," she explained to me. "It is not a bad way of life. Your daughter will be well loved, and well cared for, and if she breeds your stock true, then she will be strong and brave, perhaps even enough to knock Ka'hayla off that self-congratulatory little pillar of hers."
I took it that Ka'hayla was the name of the particularly arrogant little amazon queen. It seemed that knocking reining social rulers off their self-congratulatory pillars was going to become a family business. I smiled at the thought.
"Well then, tell my daughter this piece of advice for me when the time comes. Never start a fight... but always finish it."
Lin'ata smiled up at me and nodded her head affirming that she would. The rest of the night passed quickly, and very very pleasantly. I did get fed, several times in fact, between bouts of lovemaking. If she didn't get the little red-haired spawn of Renji she so desperately wanted out of this, it wouldn't be from lack of trying. Morning found me nestled comfortably in bed with my head pillowed on her breasts. I stretched as Lin'ata reluctantly vacated my bed to dress and go back to her regular duties for the day, I thought about possibly accompanying her but decided against it on the grounds that it would be distracting. I didn't want to be responsile for no little bunny-children falling off a tree limb because thier caretaker kept imagining the two of us alone together. I went down the trunk of my tree to bathe in the pool again, washing the night's excecions away then took to the tree-tops again to go find a quiet place to practice with Zabimaru. After a full afternoon's worth of working with keeping the power in my meridians, steady and constant and controlled while we moved through the sword movements, I went back for the evening meal.
On my way back I was not surprised to feel the soft-furred form of a cat suddenly pounce on my head and insert her needle-like teeth into my shoulder along with her claws.
"Ow! Owowowow!" I yelped in both surprise and pain so that I nearly missed the branch I was aiming for.
"Yoruichi, what the hell's wrong with you?" I demanded in pain and offended dignity.
"So, I heard you had quite the fun time last night," she said conversationally.
"Yeah, what of it?" I asked.
"I thought you weren't a no-strings-attached kind of guy," she replied arching her back in a way that should not have been able to look sexy on a furred feline, but still did.
"There were extenuating circumstances, and how'd you hear about it so fast?"
The cat gave me a golden-eyed glare and washed her paw with immense dignity.
"In a village of fifty people, word gets around quickly. If Lin'ata were glowing any brighter you'd have to put a lampshade on her."
I didn't bother to hide my pleased look at that. It was nice to be appreciated.
"Not to mention, I have the ears of a cat," Yoruichi added.
My face flushed hotly without my meaning it to.
"You can't act like the injured party and pretend you didn't know exactly what was up," I countered, remembering well the smirk. "I know you well enough, cat-lady, to know that you at least had some money riding on something happening."
"Don't be silly, I never even try to gamble on the vagaries of the heart," she said with mock offense. I scoffed.
"Vagaries of the heart, tch! You know that a healthy body, especially a mortal one with all it's biological imperatives, is gonna act exactly the way it's supposed to!"
I paused to reconsider
"Unless o' course yer, Captain Kuchiki..."
The man, to knowledge public or private, hadn't been laid in long enough to declare his privates legally dead two lifetimes ago!
"He probably wouldn't be half so uptight if he'd just get laid like a normal human being every once in a while," I muttered to myself.
Yoruichi, with her kitty hearing, caught the observation and snickered at it. She made a wry noise of agreement with that one and added
"You know, we could totally just drop this whole quest thing, kidnap his wife and leave her tied up naked in his futon. One good long look at him and I'll bet any protests from her end would quickly dry up."
She leaned forward and whispered in a conspiratorial tone
"She's been a single mother to a six year old and hasn't had a man in four long mortal years. And you know mortals measure time differently than us."
Did I ever, a few weeks as a mortal and I about wore miss bunny girl out with that suddenly insatiable biological drive to perpetuate the species!
"She wants a man she can count on, he misses his wife..." she continued. "We couldn't go wrong by bringing these two lonely, hungry souls together. The Kuchiki Clan would probably even throw a banquet in our honor for finally at last getting their precious and only Head of the Clan to even look at a woman again."
"I agree with you in point on that Missy, but I'm worried about the practice," I replied. "She's mortal. And she's got a kid. If she were on her own I'd say yeah, whack her, take her home to him and have done with it, but her boy ain't gonna have no-one ta look after 'im if his mama's dies, and I've seen th' foster care system that orphans get stuck with. It wouldn't be pretty for him an' that means we've no right to interfere."
"Both empathic and responsible, Renji, I'm impressed," Yoruichi replied sounding halfway sincere for a change.
"But that doesn't tell me why you tapped the bunny tail and left the kitty high and dry," she growled at me in a very feminine sort of fury.
"Because the poor bunny girl wants a baby and is pleased to have me and what I can give to her. The kitty is just curious, and besides that... the kitty also comes with a likeable but thoroughly scary as hell little evil genius attached. If he ever found out I'd been fooling around with his woman I hate to contemplate the things he'd do to my gigai before tricking me into climbing in it."
"Awww, he doesn't need to know," Yoruichi said, not bothering to hide the fact that she had an "arrangement" with that Urahara.
"I'd know. And somehow, he'd have it out of me," I replied easily.
"Are you going to be sleeping with Lin'ata for the rest of our stay? If so, you've got two more nights of going at it like... well, like rabbits, before Isana is finished with her training. I wouldn't let her catch wind of your conquests if I were you, she'd likely to react badly to it."
"Thanks for the tip and I don't think that's any of your business," I told her.
"For what it's worth," she said with another rare note of seriousness in her voice. "Even though I'm in love with him, I can't help but think those are two lucky ladies, one to share your body and the other to hold your heart."
But then she ruined it with
"Even if you're not very bright."
"Uh, thanks. I think," I said as we parted ways.
It was a nice little vacation for the next two days. I spent my days at a leisurely (for me anyway) practice with Zabimaru, and my nights were filled with the joys of the flesh. Lin'ata was a sweet girl, she had two friends of hers that had also long wanted children and had never gotten the opportunity of getting past the possessively jealous amazon queens, and she gave up her chance at another two nights with me to request that I would accept them into my bed and hopefully give them the children they also desperately wanted. How could I turn that down?
I did worry a bit about my future offspring though. It was a rukongai tradition that my onee-san had hammered into my head at a young age; that a man of quality did not leave any child he sired without a legacy, or at least some way for the kid to make their way in the world. On the third day, before Isana rejoined us from her training session, the Matriarch sat down beside me at lunch with the basket of mancer eggs that I had loaned to her earlier on and almost forgotten about, and told me about each of them and the solution to my dilemma over what legacy i could leave to my unborn girls occurred to me.
"You're matriarch over the whole village, right?" I asked.
When she nodded I said
"Well, ya gotta know that I've been well... canoodling with some o' yer girls. They understand that I can't stay an' I been real good to 'em," I hastened to assure her. "But where I'm from its a dishonor to a man o' quality not ta leave somethin' behind fer his kids when he gets a woman with his child. In Rukongai, if a man acknowledges his get, he'll come back when they're to go off on their own an' he'll give 'em a weapon, or a tool to help them survive with. Well, since yer th' Matriarch I'd appreciate it if you'd do sumthin' fer me. I'd like it if you'd keep three o' these mancer eggs fer when any o' my little girls grows up, and give it to her as her first mancer."
"these eggs are worth-" she tried to protest.
"I don't care about how much they're worth, it's worth it ta me ta know that any kid o' mine has a good life, right an' proper, if I can't be there ta take care of 'em," I said.
I tried to pretend I didn't notice the way my street accent thickened when I got distressed.
"I will do as you ask, and your name will be honored in our village," matriarch assured me. "Travel well, Mortal Soul Reaper."
"Thanks, you too," I said, uncertain of what else to say.
I was gonna miss my girls, Lin'ata, Shi'neesa and To'lori. I bid them each a fond farewell and asked that they would take especial care of my little girls since I would not be able to be there to do it for them. I'd heard that there were types of men out there who could father a child and not feel anything about it, but I'd always known I'd never be one of them. I was genuinely sad and upset over the fact that there would be (possibly) three young Mi'kote girls with my bright red hair who would never know a father who loved taiyaki and sang "Tiny Dancer" abysmally well, and that I would not be there to change their diapers and give them their baths and offer them sensible advice about how and when is a good time to beat the crap out of someone.
I met up with Isana and Yoruichi waiting for me at the Gate to that world, all packed, saddled and ready to go. I shrugged off slightly sad, wistful thoughts of a life that simply could not be and put my game face on. It was time to get back to my work.
Wow. I gotta say... wow. This chapter didn't even exist when i woke up this morning except as a few ideas and scenes that i sort of wished I'd written. The I come back from breakfast and the muse tacked me around the knees and dragged me to my computer. This is the result of about six hours (with adequate rests) of straight writing then editing and polishing. A lot of it read exactly as I planned, but there were a few surprises, and a couple of observations (Byakuya Kuchiki) that I'd had kicking around in my head and never thought I'd have the temerity to put down. I don't normally do chapters of over eight thousand words simply because of the audience I write for, most have limited time or borrowed computers and would like to be able to reach the end of it before they get kicked off. But in this case it was unavoidable. And I have to say, my very first posted lemon (sadly not a renru) was due almost entirely to the remarks of BloodyRoses, tellie and airenya. I had actually originally intended the scene exactly the way it was written here for the previous chapter but I thought "nah, they'd never go for it, it'd ruin the story" but the reveiws made me reconsider and put it in, and what do you know it works! I hope you all enjoyed the work and we able to read it without getting kicked off. the next chapter picks up right in the middle of things. We're on our way towards the home stretch kids, but don;t worry, whenever this one is done, I have your next epic all lined up for you. I still need a title for it though. Any way, please reveiw and let me know what you think. As I said this is my first posted lemon and so I'm really nervous about it.