"Raikou Enjin!" I yelled, surrounding some of the shrieking horde rushing hot on our trail with a ring of lightning kissed orbs of doom. A series of blasts followed the in-gathering of the orbs, but that only cleared out a small section of them. Yoruichi flickered in and out among the throng, taking out the little buggers one by one, but there were so many of the things and they moved so quickly.
"I'm gonna fall off!" Isana yelled desperately over to me from her perch on top of Tanner's back.
She clung desperately to the saddle with both hands, crouched low over it's neck, her hair damp with sweat and coming down in messy strands from its usual neat style. The not-horse underneath her was moving faster than I had seen it move since trying to outrun the avalanche. Its powerful hind legs sprung it up into the air to dodge the attempts of the little army of feral Realm Guardian's following us. They looked kinda shriveled little like pygmies with spears, they wore tribal-looking beads and feathers with only a loincloth wrapped around their middles, but they moved like something that very much was not human. Their limbs were long and thin, and their bodies wiry, their tiny little heads were actually shrunken (and shriveled looking) from the rest of their tiny forms. They leaped from tree to tree, scrambling down trunks like squirrels, swinging from vines like monkeys.
:Speaking of swinging from vines...: I thought glancing quickly over my shoulder to see three of the little demons swinging in mid-air on a vine aimed straight at Isana perched on Tanners's back.
:Got 'em!:
But there were plenty more where those came from. I flicked out Zabimaru's blade to catch another of the little pygmy critters before it could land on Tanner's back and pull her off it. And my afternoon had been going so well too.
Things on this world had been peaceful enough when we'd first gotten there, I'd figured it for another abandoned one... until Miss Isana got curious about one of the ruins nearby. One of the booby-trapped ruins, as it turned out. And she boobied right into it. Where there had once been nothing but quiet jungle and peaceful stone there emerged a horde of shreiking, shriveled-looking pygmies with shrunken heads weilding crude (but effective) little spears, all commin' at us with intent to harm. They were easily killed, one swipe and they were dust, but there were so many of them attacking us all at once we were forced into a strategic retreat, or rather, an advance. Because there was no-way we were going back, and the only way out was through, forward we went. And they chased after us.
"I think there are more of them than there were before!" Isana called.
I flashed out of the way and my blade licked out, almost by instinct, to knock a spear from the air before it could touch Miss Isana. I flashed from one point to the next, trying my damnedest to guard Isana on all sides as the not-horse beneath her rode hell for leather towards the gate. I'd managed to keep any of the attacks from getting through so far, but I didn't know how long I could keep it up.
"Raikou Enjin!" I yelled, launching another series of orbs at the stampede of pygmies trying to close in behind us.
"Ahh!" Isana yelled in sudden pain, I glanced over to note a new dent in her armor. There wasn't a hole and she looked more frightened than in pain so I'd just tell her 'I told you so' avout the need ofr her to wear her armor later.
I fired off three more Denshou Hou's in rapid succession, adrenaline pumping through me and making the back of my mouth taste sickly sweet. Even through the adrenaline I could feel the attacks I was firing off one after the other take its toll. I had only opened one chakra when I went to fight because it was easier to manage a small amount of power than a large amount, but it looked like I might have to open up another before long.
"We're almost there!" Isana called in relief. "I can see the Gate up ahead!"
I looked at the stone paved pathway overgrown with roots and other vegetation that Tanner was pounding his way down and-
"Nooo!" Isana squealed.
Her voice sounded as frustrated as I felt. The pathway was blocked up ahead by three large stone statues. They were each the size of an average-sized Hollow, not a menos but the usual run-of-the-mill slugger to come crawling out of the dark of a human soul.
"Shakahou!" Yoruichi called from behind and to the right of me, on the other side of Tanner. The blast of blue-white power was on par with anything I'd ever seen my boss produce to shut an enemy up. I hoped to see at least one of the stone giants go down from an attack like that but...
Didn't even scratch it.
"Yoruichi, get on Tanner's back with Isana, you're going through," I said. "I'll see ya on the flip side."
"Understood," she acknowledged.
I saw her spring onto the two-legged beast's back as lightly as any ancient warrior maiden out of a movie, wrap an arm around Isana's middle, crouch down and urge the beast to even greater speed. In a quick maneuver, Yoruichi pulled the draconian beast to pivot on one side, spring into the air, lash with its claws, backpedal and spring forward, crushing a small knot of pygmies under its feet, then spring in a powerful leap through the air to dodge around the first of the statues even as I gathered my own power in and shoved it down to the tip of my blade.
"Denshou Hou!"
I was using the attack more as a distraction than because I expected that it would do some damage. While Yoruichi made for the Gate with all the single-mindedness of a quarterback running for the goal in American football, I flashed in, Pygmies in a moving carpet covering the forest behind me, and struck at one of the pillar-like legs of the stone statue. With a sharp ring, Zabimaru sliced through the stone and the huge statue guardian fell over... almost on top of me. The other two concentrated their attention on me , one swinging with his stone axe-scythe and the other pounding at the ground where I had been before I'd flashed out of the way to dodge the axe-scythe's swing. While they were focused on me, Yoruichi made it into the clear and galloped at top speed to the gate, activating it on the fly. They took two of the little pygmies that had managed to latch onto the tail of Tanner before the beast gave one last bounding leap and flew through the swirling vortex of energy and into the next Realm.
A small ocean of snarling, thrashing, biting clawing shriveled little brownish-colored men descended on me like a pack of chihuahua's. This in addition to stone giant One and Two's hollow-like attacks. The third one was still thrashing around, trying to get enough leverage to continue fighting. I blurred in before he could become a greater threat and cut his left arm off at the shoulder, spun and lopped off his right. It's snout face lunged at me where I hung in midair at the end of my flash-leap and snapped at me. I jerked back by reflex and felt the soft whoosh of displaced air as the jaw closed not even an inch away. Zabimaru flickered out and severed the neck. The big stone whatever it was disintegrated into dust. Problem solved. I leaped up at the next nearest stone golem, kinda missing Snaketail a little, because if I'd had him right then the golem would not have had all of its limbs still attached. I dimly heard Babs give a small insulted grumble from the back of my mind. I also heard him prompt me to cut loose a little more power and he'd take 'em. It was a little hard to do when I had a hundred three-foot-tall little men clawing and biting at me, trying to drag me off balance. The shrieking horde had caught up to me and they were adding their own fierce little attacks in, making it a bit more of a challenge to take down the big guys.
"Roar!" I yelled, fed up with the small fry and needing a little space.
Snakey made a jubilant shout and sprang out as I whirled out my chain-blade in a circle around me, reaping a hundred of the little buggers in a wide radius just so I could get a little breathing room. Another whirl around got most of the little critters that had launched themselves up into the air to get at me. I sent it, practically singing, at the nearest stone golem thing. Got its arm on the first hit and swung it down and around to slice it off at the knees, it toppled to the side and twitched around for a while. The circle of peace didn't last for very long at all, ten seconds (just long enough to nail the golem) and they were descending on me in a crashing wave of ferocity. I leaped up into the air and kipped into an axle spin, spiraling the snaketail in on me to renew its recoil, I shot it out in mid air to impale the last giant still standing. The sharp flat head of the Zabimarus snaketail form embedded itself in the chest of the golem and I swung my end in a crescent to one side, reminiscent of a kid playing jumprope. Crouched in a ball, my feet landed, perfectly balanced, on the flats of the blade and I rode down the chain, my body automatically adjusting for the swing as the rest of him curled around me like a wave around a surfer.
"Shakahou!" I shouted, releasing a blast of reiatsu at a bunch of pygmies that had leaped up into the air after at me and dusted them.
The wind pulled the chain-blade to the left and I adjusted my balance on the way down, my momentum sending me barreling toward the stone giant with a speed that made my eyes blur with tears from the wind. I pulled the slack of the chain-blade behind me out and around as I leaped off it up into the air at the end and pulled Zabimaru into blade-rest, launching myself bodily at the target and plunging my zanpaktou all the way through it. As the golem crashed to the ground behind me, I swung Zabimaru out and around as far as he would go, dusting an entire cloud of little dried up, shrunken-headed little pygmy-ferals. I panted to catch my breath a little as things finally quieted down for a moment. But I was literally not out of the woods yet.
That was when I heard it, over the rumble of stone and the cries of the few remaining little pygmies that had survived Zabimaru's reaping... the sound of drums. Not a rat-a-tat-tat, but rather more like hundreds of those little skin-drums being beaten on, in a fast tribal-sounding rhythm. It sounded ominous. Scenes from old movies I'd seen where the intrepid jungle explorer or sailor runs afoul of cannibals, or tribes who needed to sacrifice the strange men to appease their gods, briefly surfaced in my mind. The drum beats got louder, accompanied by the shrill wordless shouts of the shrunken-headed feral pygmies.
:That can't be good,: I mused to myself.
I brought Zabimaru back in and pulled him up before me, a pleased smile stretching across my face. I could feel snakey just itchin' ta get at 'em.
::You've had enough fun, my turn!:: Babs prompted from the back of my mind.
I could sense that he was a little put out by the fact that I'd gone back to Snakey for the fight when I'd promised to fight with him for the next while, but it had been a tactically sound decision on my part. Snakey was a good form for wiping out a lot of enemies on all sides at close range. But a deal was a deal, I'd never master this form if I didn't use it.
"Howl!" I commanded.
Snakey went back with a disappointed grumble and Babs pushed forward. My sword Shikied into Zabimaru's diamond-headed howl-form.
From out of the foliage of the dense wood-cover overgrowing all the ruins around me, advanced a miniature army of shrunken, little men. Phalanx after phalanx of them stomped their way from out of the trees, rough, stone-headed spears strapped to their backs and drums pounding out a rhythm. War cries punctuated their display of numbers.
If anything my smile got even wider.
:Perfect.:
Before they could all decide to rush at me, I pulled Zabimaru before me and closed my eyes, concentrating. Time to push the limits of what I'd managed so far. I threw open two sluice gates at once, my second and third Chakra's practically burst wide, and my reiatsu came rushing out like a river in flood. A powerful wind generated by the call of my power sprang into being and gyrated around me, howling in my ears and grabbing at my clothes. I almost couldn't breathe from the uncomfortably tight feeling that ensued when I gingerly unlocked and very carefully started to slide open my fourth chakra, letting its power join the energy already pouring through me from the first three. This was the first time I'd done it without having a great deal of power already drained off in battle. My body felt uncomfortably bloated, like I was a balloon about ready to burst. I quickly pushed it into a channel (barely controlled, but I managed it) feeding it straight down into the tang of my blade which lit up with a misty white fire, sparks of lightning shooting off from the edges. The glow grew to blinding proportions as I slowly spread the gate sealing away the chakra wider, unleashing more power. A halo of misty fire surrounded the blade, extending up into the air for a ways. The army was almost advanced upon me, the drums a rhythm pounding into my from the air and up through the soles of my feet. They wanted me to know fear, but I was about to teach it to them.
I flared the power out from the double-edges of my blade, feeding it into the whirlwind of spirit energy already spiraling around me, saturating the air with power. It was thick and heavy and hard to control, but I managed to keep it centered in a neat spire, the wind screaming about my body and whipping my hair and clothes around me.
"Hikari Senpuu Higyou!" I yelled, sending the spiraling tempest out into the pygmy army advancing on me. It ate its way through the crowd, picking up the pygmy army like they were so many leaves, carrying them along swirling helplessly in the wind. The foot soldiers on the flanks tried to turn and escape, but the maelstrom sucked them up into it too, an unstoppable juggernaut. While this was happening I gathered a massive flare of reiatsu at Zabimaru's tip, a halo of white fire gathered in at its point. With a final shout, I unleashed the orb of power to fly like a comet to the top of the spout, hovering over the eye while the rest of the power gathered in, and with one last flare, a pillar of light so brilliant that I couldn't see flashed down to the ground. I felt the earth tremor in the soles of my feet when the lightning-pillar struck the earth. I crouched behind Zabimaru to wait out the remaining shockwave.
The air cleared as I panted for breath. The pygmy army was completely gone. Where there had been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny little shrunken-headed men, there was not nothing but a crater and dust.
:That last one might take a while to set up,: I thought to myself, grinning like a fool. :But it's powerful enough to clean up with.:
"Well well well," The dry and amused voice of Yoruichi seemed to echo a bit in the suddenly still air. "It seems that you've become quite a bit stronger than you were before Renji. I wonder how much its worth to you for me to keep this one a secret. Planning on surprising your Captain with it the next time you two go a round were we?"
Was it that obvious?
"My control still ain't that great and my time could use some work," I critiqued, as a way of avoiding the subject.
"I suspect that's because you lack refined control over your reiatsu, but that will come in time if you keep up your practices. Does Zabimaru have two different bankai's as well?"
"Yeah," I admitted, not seeing any reason why I shouldn't answer her since I'd already trusted her this far. "But I haven't come nearly far enough with this form to achieve it. Babs and I are still kinda gettin' acquainted."
I looked around, not seeing my charge anywhere.
"Where's Miss Isana?" I asked Yoruichi.
"There's nothing on the next world over but purple sand and rock," Yoruichi said with a shrug. "So I thought I'd come back here to rescue you from your valiant and noble demise, but it turns out that you didn't need my help."
"Thanks anyway," I said with a genuine smile over at her. I was glad I wasn't alone. "Let's get back to the woman before she finds something else to get her inta trouble."
"Wait a moment Renji," Yoruichi said, holding me fast by the elbow. "You know who Isana is... really."
I nodded.
"Yeah."
"So then, if you know that she's Byakuya's beloved wife, and Rukia's long-lost sister, why are you letting her expose herself to danger by trekking across the Divine Realms with you? You have to know that if your boss ever found out about it he'd Have Words with you, and I doubt any of them would be pleasant."
I pointed to the collar.
"It's not like she gave me a lot of choice," I said.
"You're powerful enough now, you could probably fight it, or get one of the old gods to take it off for you," Yoruichi pointed out.
I was quiet for a long moment, thinking about it. Yeah, the collar annoyed the hell out of me most days, but when I'd been inside the belly of the beast, it had been the thing that showed me the way out. And she was the one with the binding spell.
I shrugged.
"We've come this far, and her kid can't be too much farther away," I said. "Why not let her come all the way with us? Besides, if we're walking into the Shadow's nest, I'd kinda like to have a way to beat them with me. She is the one with the binding spell after all."
Yoruichi looked at me for a long moment with that exasperated look that women, sometimes even Momo a time or two, gave me when it seemed I was completely missing the point.
"I'm going to come right out and say it since you're so dense you probably won't notice it on your own," Yoruichi said in an impatient tone.
"What?" I asked blankly. "Notice what?"
"I rest my case," she said dryly to no-one in particular. "Renji, the two of you have been on quite an adventure together, over the course of which I'm sure you've risked your life to save her countless times."
I nodded, not quite seeing the point, but that much had been true. I'd promised to keep her safe after all, and I was a man of my word. I had my reputation to think of.
"You protect her from monsters, win tournaments for her-"
"That's not true, I was just wanting a good fight," I corrected. "And protecting her is part of my geas, not to mention, what kinda man would I be if I didn't? It's got nuthin' ta do with her as a person. I'd do the same for anyone else."
"You treat her well, or at least, you're not rude to her. She says you've carried her piggy back for the first part of your journey-"
"She can't flash-step on her own!" I protested, beginning to see where she might be going with this.
"You're helping her rescue her son, regardless of whether you're doing it for your own reasons. You eat her tasteless cooking without a word of complaint-"
"I've eaten worse," I said.
"From what I gather she's all alone in the world except for her son, abandoned by a worthless family, and here you come in her hour of need, rescue her from some mortal world thugs, and help her when no-one else can or will. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
I did see. I was in trouble.
"Add to that, the fact that you're not unattractive..."
"Um, thanks?" I said in reply to the very dubious tone in her voice that all but said 'there's just no accounting for taste'.
"Tall, broad, strong and powerful," she continued. "And you show up in her life like a knight in shining armor when there's no-one else for her to count on..."
Make that deep trouble.
"And she heals you up when you get hurt so you also rely on her a little. Any one of these separately would be grounds for a woman to develop feelings for you, all of them together is a sure bet."
I felt my eyes widen and the blood drain from my face in a panic. This was not good.
"You should see the look on your face," Yoruichi chuckled.
"Oh crap... he's gonna kill me. And it won't even be over something like the fact I wanna challenge him over Rukia. He's gonna kill me fer sumthin' stupid I can't do anything about!"
Yoruichi only laughed harder. if I hadn't been so panicked I'd have picked a fight over it.
"Crap! What should I do about it?" I muttered. "There's gotta be some way ta put her off..."
"Poor man, you got the wrong sister to fall in love with you," Yoruichi teased, laughing even harder.
"Shut up Yoruichi, it ain't funny!" I growled, irritated.
"Yes it is," she assured me, still laughing.
"No it ain't!" I insisted.
She just seemed to find this funnier than before, if her laughing even harder was any indication. Well, at least my discomfort had made somebody's day.
"C'mon," I grumbled. "If we're done here, let's just go."
If it seems like this chapter just plunged you all into action without warning there's a reason for it. Back when i was writing the original, I'd gotten stuck at this one point where it didn't seem like I had anything more to say. I wanted to write, but there was nothing there when I sat down. Finally, the bug bit me and I just started up a new scene figuring I'd go back and fix whatever was wrong with it later. The rest of the story started to flow out naturally after I'd gotten started, the fixing thing was what you saw in the previous two chapters. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the update and thank you all for the really, truly wonderful feedback for the last chapter, whew... I was nervous that everyone would hate it and cry OOC or something, I'm glad you all felt that it meshed in well enough. So this chapter pretty much marks the end of mid-game, now we start winding up to endgame; secrets and plots revealed and all that good stuff. Look forward to it please!