"I'll keep the shadowbeast busy."
The shadowbeast before us was twice the size of a Menos Grande, and apparently unlike with Hollows, (where the reverse was true) the larger Shadows and their puppet shadowbeasts got, the greater the power and strength they brought to the field. The shadowbeast before us was not only huge, but weird-looking. It looked like someone had taken a great black scorpion the size of a warehouse, with scythe-like fore-pincers, a backward-springing tail with a stinger on its tip and six or eight long, spindly legs that clawed and pounded into the hard sands and gravel of our particular place in Hueco Mundo but instead of having a regular head, the shadowbeast had about seven of them on long flexible necks covered in armored scales with long wide maws big enough to swallow not one but several people whole.
One of which roared at me and belched out a great gout of blue-black fire in my general direction.
:Oh that is just so not fair...: I thought distantly in that timeless second that it took the stream of fire to travel through the air in my direction.
"Hado 47 shield wall!" Rukia snapped, sending up the Soul Reaper equivalent of one of Orihime Inoue's protective shields in front of us. The fire billowed around us, the heat of it brushing against my skin but we remained unburnt by the flames. Useful having her around.
I was a man of my word and not about to let some fire-breathing shadowbeast stop me, so with a savage cry, Zabimaru and I coiled and sprang at our target. One of his many mouths was open and ready to receive even as the shadowbeast blurred into motion, one of its long, massive limbs slugging away and crashing into my bankai with all the force of a pile-driver into a wall. Zabimaru's fangs sank into the shadowbeasts now-substantial form at the join where all of the beasts seven necks met the wide flat carapace of the body. I slid down his back as he slithered over our enemy's carapace, wrapping himself in coils to tangle between the many legs and forelimbs of the massive shadowbeast. The main body of it struggled and thrashed but the heads of the beast were the real threat. They swerved and bit and breathed fire, trying frantically to hit me, for they must have sensed that if they got rid of me, they got rid of Zabimaru. I ducked and dodged and wove around multiple attacks coming from many different directions always keeping and ear out for Isana's chanting.
"Shakahou!" I shouted, lining up a spell to knock out one of the heads but the beast breathed a gout of flame at me, intercepting my kido blast and knocking it aside. I kept moving, firing off shots whenever I had an opening but my meager skills at Kido ( I was only firing off spells that used power from my second chakra level, trying to keep some strength in reserve for later in case things suddenly went south.
"First Dance, Tsukishiro!" Rukia shouted, aiming a pillar of ice directly at one of the heads of the Shadow beast. The head iced over (much to my surprise) and froze in place, unable to attack me any more. Alright!
I flashed Rukia a quick grin of thanks over my shoulder even as I dodged another strike by one of the numerous heads left.
"Shakaho!" I shouted, releasing another red blast of power at the nearest head and in a stroke of luck I managed to hit one of its eyes.
It bellowed in pain and whipped its head on its long neck around violently. The ice on the iced-over head begant to crackle and erupted into steam as a long flare of blue-black fire shot out from its mouth. I flipped up into the air to dodge out of the way of the blast only to have two of the many heads attack me from opposite directions, reaching the apex of my leap I began to fall back down twoards the earth and into the path of the open maws. I flared out with my reiatsu to slow my decent just enough for one othe heads to pass underneath me by a hair. I caught myself by one hand on the top of its elongated head and pushed off gathering in my power and slinging out a spell with a natural ease for the first time in perhaps ever.
"Shakahou!" I shouted, aiming for the fragile spot where the neck meets the head and I hit it! That particular head froze, stunned, in just the right position for the head coming from the other way to crash into it. And it did. What was even better was that the other head had its jaws open to breathe fire on me and ended up not only burning one of its other heads but having some of the flame rush back on it, blinding it momentarily.
"Hado, thirty three, Binding chain!" Rukia shouted, unleashing a mass of binding reiatsu to coil around the shouts of both heads like snakes.
Speaking of snakes, Zabimaru was just about in position. He gave one last heave of his great form, coiling about the central torso of the Shadowbeast, and gave me the mental signal.
I closed my eyes for a single moment, gathering in my strength and unlocked my next chakra, sending a flood of fresh power into Zabimaru, he glowed like moonlight for a long moment, the blades spiking off his vertebrates flared and elongated suddenly, piercing the shadowbeast like a thousand spears from all around. As a coup de grace, Zabimaru gave a sudden jerk, tearing the Shadowbeasts ephemeral form in long striations. The air rang out with a great keening wail, like the sound of tearing metal and screeching glass, behind which I heard Isana shouting against the wind coming off the array that had picked up during the course of our battle.
"...By the powers of the Four Great Courts," she chanted in a shout. "I command it... Bind!"
The array just in front of us had been glowing like lights off from a city until she started binding the keystone. I could tell that the spell itself was struggling against her for Isana's own reiatsu, which was pretty minor most of the time, flared out with unexpected strength and then focused in on her spell with the intensity of sunlight through a magnifying lens. The array suddenly flared with blinding brilliance. Lines and sigils of power that had written themselves on the ground in light started erasing themselves erasing themselves from the outside of the circle inward, like a ripple of light in reverse. I saw the keystone of the spell in the middle, as big as both of my fists put together, pulsing with white power trying to struggle against the binds of the magic that Isana was putting around it, but she held firm and the magic had no choice but to obey her will. There were five pillars of light around the inner circle of the spell with the tiny slumped forms of the missing children circled around them, weeping in terror, they winked out liked snuffed candles as the last of the lines in the array faded and were drawn into the central keystone, which was then written about, encircled with Isana's own binding spell. There came one last final flare of light, like a beast in its death-throes, and a burst of power that knocked everyone nearby to thier knees, even me, and orb of crystal formed around the keystone, sealing the last of its power away safely inside of it, then then all went deadly quiet.
I looked around, Isana slumped a bit forward in exhaustion at having accomplished what must have been the magical equivalent of playing tug-of-war with an ox, but bless her heart she stayed put in the saddle. Attagirl. Everything was still for a moment, both sides holding their breath to see what happened. I looked over at Isana, still, somehow, miraculously perched on top of Tanners back.
"Did we just win?" I asked her.
"Don't jinx it," she replied.
As if that were some kind of signal, the Hollows nearest us just suddenly went apeshit, and attacked with maddened berzerker fury the nearest target they could get to. The shadowbeast I'd just defeated was down but not out (on account of my not having gotten to and taken out the heartstone in the Shadow controlling it) and it blurred into black smoke and reformed itself with a flare of darkness, fresh for the fight and more than willing to go another round. Again, this was just not fair.
"Renji!" Isana yelled to me as I pulled strength from Zabimaru strength enhancement to block the creature's opening swing from one of its fore-pincers. Couldn't forget about those. One of its heads reformed and breathed blue-black fire at me.
"What?" I snapped back at her.
"I can't bind its heartstone!" she yelled weakly back at me.
I could hear the tremor of exhaustion in her voice and the edge of a pant at the ends of her words. Binding the array must have taken a lot out of her.
"What?" I yelped even as I continued to fend off the shadowbeast before me.
What the hell was I supposed to do now?
"I've used up too much of my strength binding the Array's keystone," she explained. "I don't have enough strength left to fight with. Please, help me get to my son!"
I sighed inwardly. I couldn't turn my back on a cry like that, besides, I'd given my word.
"Leave it to me, Missy!" I said.
We were so close! The end was literally in sight; her boy was only about the length of an American football field away from us. All we had to do was just get through this last Shadow and we could grab the kid an' git. Isana urged her mount forward, kneeing him into a full frontal charge, making directly for the Shadow before us. I pushed Zabimaru out to full extension, mowing right over top of and momentarily flattening the weakened shadowbeast, in the process making a bridge over the inky-black Shadow behind its guardian puppet.
"Hyaaah!" Isana cried, urging Tanner to ever greater speeds as the great two legged draconian beast galloped forward, its beclawed hind feet striking down on the back of the first vertebrates of the snaketail. Hollows that had made it past the party of fighters ringed up and guarding our flanks behind us, sprang at us through the air. I simply pulled off one of Zabimarus spikes from among the profusion of them he had growing out of his spine and used it as an impromptu sword (hey, he was my bankai after all). With swift efficiency I started clearing the way with it, running slightly before Tanners gallop to catch anything that might think of standing in our way.
"There!" Isana cried joyfully. "I can see him! I see my son!"
She urged Tanner even faster and I kept the way before her clear as we ran over the back of my bankai, (which assuredly was a personal first for me). Once over his back, I mentally commanded his form up and around in front of us to help me clear a path. We were nearly there.
The way before us had seemed completely clear and everything was at last going our way, which was why I was suddenly very much not surprised when things took a turn for the worst. Out of the stark moonlit pale of the sands before us there suddenly popped one tiny little poppet of a shadow. The little critter came to about mid-thigh on me and was vaguely man-shaped with no real distinguishing features, blobby and dark like a half-finished clay fgureine. It shouldn't have posed much of a threat, but my suspicious nature was willing to bet that even a tiny one of these Shadows could pack a bit of a wallop. I sent Zabimaru in to flatten it, which he did quite well. But that wasn't the end of it. Oh no. Popping up from out of the sand, like little killer daisies, there came to be an entire shrieking horde of the little buggers.
Surprise, surprise.
Undeterred, Isana kept urging Tanner forward. Her son was in sight, there was no way she was going to stop now, no matter who or what was in her way.
"Renji! I'm going, cover me!"
I didn't need an obedience collar to put me into a good fight. I sent Zabimaru careening around in front of us, knocking them aside and impaling them with his spikes while i kept the ones that slipped through and went after Miss isana at bay with my improvised sword. But the little demons were quick and the leaped and clambered over Zabimaru's massive snake body, even as reiatsu flared out from in between his vertebrates to fry some of them like bugs on a bug zapper. My bankai undeniably was huge and powerful, but there were just so damn many of the little bastards and they kept multiplying!
Tanner was quick but not quite quick enough, and a few of them scrabbled up his legs or tail, those I sliced apart with my bone sword, knocking them off before they could reach my charge but frankly we were cutting it closer than I liked. Zabimaru continued to flatten, stab, and fry the little shadelings like some sort of shadow-killing juggernaut, but they kept coming.
Not only did the little demons keep coming but when two or more of them got past my Bankai and close enough to do some damage they started merging together! When they merged they gained twice thier original size and strength.
:And yet again, so not fair!:
"I'm getting damned tired of this!" I snarled as thee shadelings merged together into a shadow-critter half again as tall as me, wielding a long, black lance and heading straight for Miss Isana. I blocked its attack with my bone sword and countered, slicing it six ways to market and feeling satisfied when it faded to black dust.
"Second Dance Hakuren!" Rukia said from one side of me, abruptly freezing all of the shadelings that were clambering over Zabimaru spine, trying to get to us. Her attack stalled them long enough to give my bankai the instant breather he needed to let a flare out from between all of his segments and blast them all to black dust. We moved on to the next knot of them, the next knot out of many.
"Hey Renji, you look like you could use a hand," Rukia said to me.
She had that little note of smug condecension she got whenever she had done something useful in battle, but I let her have her fun... there was plenty of it to go around it seemed.
"Thanks Short Girl!" I called back to her even as Isana and I surged toward our destination.
Rukia took one flank and I the other, while the enormous form of the snaketail plowed through in front and we fought our way through an ant mound of shadelings that grew in size strength and number seemingly without end to them.
"So what's the deal with you running off with some mortal, Renji?" Rukia demanded of me even as we struggled to hold back the seeping tide of shadelings. Yeah, one hit and they were toast, but there were just so many damned many of them!
"Are we really talking about this now?" I asked her incredulously.
"I should have known you'd fall for some battle-hardened Valkyrie," Rukia said, gesturing to the woman in elven armor perched attop a (litterally) firey steed.
"I haven't fallen for anyone!" I replied, irritated.
"How else could you explain that you'd just ditch your friends and your duties to go play knight to some mortal woman without even a thought to the people you were leaving behind," she accused me. "I never fgured you for the sort to just loose his head over a girl, and a mortal at that."
Was I being too hopeful to think that Rukia sounded just a bit jealous?
I was about to reply to the accusation when I felt Isana gather power and shout a command. There was a massive explosion of fire in front of us that spread out in a quick flare, dusting all of the shadelings within its circumference, we sprinted right on through it and left it to fade out behind us.
"I'm not an ordinary mortal," Isana called down to Rukia from her seat on her beasts back. "And we have other things to be concerned about, so I want you two to shelve the discussion for later and concentrate on keeping alive long enough to rescue those poor children."
I had the feeling that the rebuke, while said to both of us, was aimed more at Rukia, who was, in fact, picking a fight in the middle of a battle zone. I wondered, breifly, if it would have been worth the extra trouble that would surely follow me sticking my tongue out at Rukia.
"Who died and made her my mother?" I heard Rukia grumble even as she focused her attention back on the battle in front of her. The going was slower than I would have liked, but we were making progress steadily.
That was when the mass of shadelings all abruptly changed tactics. They all started to dance crazily to the beat of a drum that only they could hear, they trilled and pounded their feet and the ground beneath our feet began to shake. Miss Isana brought Tanner up short, causing me to nearly crash into her. I called Zabimaru in and brought him back to shikai, holding the segmented serrated blade out before me. I could feel Rukia on the other side of Tanner, calling her own blade Sode No Shiraiyuki into battle. We froze in place as we all fought to maintain our balance as the sand shifted beneath us, worse still, the already sizable number of the little demons abruptly began to multiply yet again as their dance called yet more of their kind from out of the soil!
"Got any brilliant ideas?" Rukia called over to me.
There was always... that.
I hadn't wanted to bring my "secret weapon" out so quickly, but in a situation like this, it really was the best and most efficient solution. Hikari Senpuu Higyou would make short work of the shadeling armada.
"Buy me a minute," I called over to her.
I walked out in front of the mounted woman I was protecting and Rukia, standing with perfect calm between them and the massing army of pygmy shadows. The enemy made a hissing noise at me like a thousand tiny steam kettles, and I stared back at them in challenge, a feirce grin snarling back at thier might in defiance. The wind blew my unruly tail out behind me like a battle flag, my cloak also caught in the wind snapping crisply as I brought my sword horizontally before me, preparing to summon Zabimaru's other form.
I was therefore completely unprepared for a sudden presence materializing at my side from out of no-where. I nearly lost my composure and jumped a mile out of my skin when a familiar voice spoke almost seemingly directly into my ear.
"Lieutenant."
:Gaaah! Why can't he at least warn a guy before he just appears from out of no-where?:
There had been no warning nudge of reiatsu, no whisper of movement, he was just suddenly there.
His coat was a pristine white, like the chaos and disorder of the battlefeild wouldn't dare have the temerity to land on his perfectly pressed personage. And he looked more like he was going for a leisurely stroll through his estate's gardens than he did like he was facing an enemy which outnumbered him by only about a few thousand.
"Hm," he said, looking at the massive horde beside him as if they were something of only mild interest to him.
He didn't say anything else, and his face was its usual marble-like statue of icy-cool aloofness as he calmly and unhurriedly brought his hand to his sword, and, with patient deliberation, flicked it loose and drew it with a smooth economy of motion.
"Renji..." Isana said urgently, sounding justifiably anxious about the mass of shadelings creeping in around us.
It might have been my imagination but I could have swore that I saw Kuchiki's shoulders twitch for an instant before he brought the sword before him and coolly murmured the words
"Scatter, Senbonzakura."
The silver blade shattered into thousands of tiny glinting, rosy flakes that began to swirl lazily around him, seemingly untroubled by anything. The air itself stilled, seeming to hold its breath, abruptly the petals of Senbonzakura snapped into a circular cloud, whirling around us in a tightly packed mass that was as beautiful as it was deadly.
Byakuya Kuchiki did nothing more than give a casual flick of the fingers on his sword-hand when the circle of whirling, dancing petals exploded outwards in a deadly ring, reducing any enemy that they came into contact with to dust. A bare moment later the cherry-blossom blades circled in on the blade-less handle and solidified into the plain, curved silver katana blade that was any Reaper-sword in its quiescent state. With one smooth, unhurried motion my captain sheathed his sword. Where there had once been an enemy of untold thousands before us there was now a few, scattered mounds of black dust. Even I had to admit that it was
:Call a spade a spade Renji,: I told myself.
Pretty freaking cool!
Without a word or a glance in either direction, which was entirely typical of him, Byakuya Kuchiki stepped forward, walking calmly through the now-empty space before us toward the place where the array had been a moment ago. The two of us, myself and my erstwhile mortal burden, just followed after him.
"Whoa," Isana murmured into the dead silence.
"Yeah," I agreed.
"He just-" she said, gesturing all around her at the mounds of black sand that had a moment ago been a rather sizeable army, clearly at a loss for words.
"And that's why he's the Captain," I said.
I was nearly dying of curiosity to see if, even after crossing the river Lethe between lifetimes and having her memories of him erased, there might be something that Isana might instinctively recognize about him so I casually looked over at her, studying her face through the lines of the helmet.
She was smitten. There was no other way to describe it. In the middle of a battlefield, just mere feet away from achieving a goal that had dragged her from her nice, safe mortal existence and sent her fighting gateway-by-gateway across strange new worlds, facing downing immortal beings, learning to control new spells and new magics and testing her courage, endurance and fortitude to the limit… all she could see was him.
"Renji… when you mentioned how strong your Captain was, you never said that he was so… so striking," she said, sounding just a little breathless.
Her gaze was locked on Captain's retreating form and she had this soft, melting look in her eyes. It looked like her cheeks had some color to them too, but that could have just been from battle-exertion. Somehow I doubted it though.
I honestly didn't know what the hell I was supposed to say to that so I didn't say anything, just led the beast with isana on its back to finally, finally pick up her child and put this whole problem back in the mortal world where it belonged. But I already knew deep down in my bones that things were not going to be that simple.
A thousand apologies for taking so long to get this posted. My computer got a virus, it was one of those pernicious ones that delve way down deep into your hardrive and won't show up on a regular scan... but I knew it was there. Me ad my antivirus went hunting. Okay, it sounds more exciting than it was... basically it was long hours of frustration but I finally got it fixed so that I could update. Yay! Hope it was worth the wait.
On another note, do you all realize that on the twenty-sixth, this will be the one-year anniversary of my posting up chapters of this fic? That's quite a mile stone! I wanted to be able to post the last chapter on that day, but that's obviously not going to happen... it is fitting however, that the next chapter I'll be posting, on this baby's birthday, is the real turning point. I won't give too much away, but prepare yourselves for the advent of Aizen. Next chapter's going to have the good stuff. Look forward to it please!