Consolation Prize (of Victory)

Consolation Prize

Interval 5: 'Someday' Slides Shut (Acceptance)

In which one door closes…

“Ji-ji, are you going to eat that?”

Renji came back to himself and then looked down at the small boy sitting next to him. Abisara took a large bite out of the last of his skewered teriyaki chicken and speculatively eyed his guardian’s lunch. Vindula, parked on the other side of the bench, got to work on her third skewer, tilting her head back and sighing happily. Her wings fluttered lazily behind her as she perched on the edge of the seat, swinging her feet back and forth. The park, a commons edged with tall plum trees, a large swath of green grass and meandering gravel foot paths looked like most of the others in this District. A three-tiered stone fountain bubbled in the park's center and the rest of the pretty grounds seemed designed around it in geometric patterns of carefully placed flower beds.

“Ah…” he said intelligently, and then gave up and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. The redhead handed the untouched skewer over to his surprised charge. Big green eyes blinked up at him and the meat on the skewer promptly disappeared.

He absently considered speaking with Szayel about increasing the ‘lunch’ budget for these outings. If the twins’ collective appetite kept growing, the vendors in this area of the 3rd District were going to need to step up their production and Renji predicted the local poultry population would decrease significantly… just as the local Arrancar population was about to dwindle by two.

Who the hell were these idiots trying to fool?

They’re fuckwits for even thinking about pulling a stunt like this.

It was just as well. He’d wanted a chance to work out his frustrations on something more significant that a target dummy. Fate and the stupidity of a couple of soon-to-be-dead twits had provided him the perfect opportunity.

His stomach was out of sorts today and he doubted feeding it street food would help the situation. When the children tired of playing and when Abisara had finished collecting his three allowed ‘specimens’ for the day, he’d slip down to one of the staff break rooms and make some tea to drink before dealing with the afternoon’s chore list. Maybe that would soothe his suddenly fretful gut. Really, he’d been ‘out of sorts’ for a long while, ever since last winter, when he’d received the news.

No. ‘Out of sorts’ wasn’t quite the right term.

Pissed, shattered, angry, upset, devastated… those were much better words, and even these failed to really describe the amazingly shitty feeling of having one’s heart roasted over an open fire, even if the fire was proverbial and the roasting seemed to go on and on, no matter what he used to try to drown the sensation. He supposed it was a good thing he had no access to whatever anesthetics Szayel kept on hand and an insufficient sake budget or he might have turned to them. Self-medicating wasn’t his style, however.

What Renji really needed was a good old, knock-down, drag-out brawl.

“Can we go play near the fountain? I promise I won’t climb on it!” Vindula asked, tugging at his sleeve.

Renji stood up, scanned the area again to make sure of his position and the location of the enemy. One was acting as the decoy, with barely-suppressed reiatsu. The other was a little better concealed, but still stuck out like a sore thumb in such a boring, quiet neighborhood. He also eyed the distance between the bench and the fountain. Reaching down with his right hand, he wrapped his fingers around Zabimaru’s hilt, as if merely resting it there. A tiny flick of his thumb against the tsuba loosened the blade from the saya.

“Sure. Just stay where I can see you.”

As soon as he gave permission, the little girl was off like a shot and Renji made a show of turning towards Abisara and quickly taking the three empty wooden skewers from him. He palmed them, holding the sharpened points facing his fingertips.

‘Abisara?”

“Hai, Ji-ji?”

‘Grab the top of my obi, put your foot on top of mine and don’t let go, okay?”

The boy’s green eyes got just a little bit bigger as Renji inwardly counted out the steps Vindula took while running towards the splashing water. He had about five seconds before some very poorly-concealed Numeros made the last mistake of their lives.

“Hai!”

Abisara’s small hands grabbed hold of the sash on Renji’s left side as he flash-stepped away from the bench and drew his Zanpakuto with his right. He spat out the command and Zabimaru roared to life as he brought it about in a backhanded strike, the extending length of the fanged blade whistling a good foot above Vindula’s head…

…and caught the first, blond-and-black-haired attacker across the midsection as he made a grab for the girl. Vindula froze in her tracks, eyes huge as the momentum from her guardian’s blade carried the Arrancar a good twenty feet before depositing him less-than-gently against the thick trunk of a large oak. The tree shuddered as the Numero’s body slammed into the bark and shook the tree hard enough for a shower of leaves and a few branches to rain down around him.

Renji took three zigzagging steps, left-right-left and intercepted the second, dark-haired, would-be child-snatcher with a hand to the face before he could touch Vindula. The Arrancar promptly screamed as three sharp, wooden chicken skewers stabbed into his one good eye. While the assailant tossed his head back, wailing and clawing at his face, Renji proceeded to grab the creature by the side of the head and bounced him off of the side of the fountain with all of his strength. The stone basin shuddered and the water rocked back and forth within it. This one, tall and thin, with short hair and a mask that reminded him a little too much of the Fifth Espada, landed chest-first on the ground. The redhead pulled Vindula into the relative safety of his own personal space and retreated a few yards.

Meanwhile, the first attacker, his bi-colored hair tangled in his eyes, regained his feet. Renji retracted Zabimaru’s Shikai and told Vindula to do as her brother had and put her small weight on his other foot. Abisara still clung to his uniform on the left and with the skewers now deposited in one enemy’s eye socket, he got Vindula to take the same position on his right, effectively freeing up his arms.

Alone, he would have gutted the two by now, but he wasn’t by himself and the best way of protecting the twins from harm was to go straight to his best weapon. Still, he figured he’d give the idiots a sporting chance to retreat before he pounded them into the middle of next week.

“Give up and go home. Today isn’t your day,” the former Fukutaichou warned, sounding more irritated at the quality of their attack than angry.

“You think I’m going to let some fucking pet of a pet get in my way?” the first one snarled back at him, reaching for his own weapon.

Well, he’d done the right thing by these incompetents. So be it. Renji heaved another sigh and glanced down at the children. Vindula had folded her wings down and her small form pressed against him as tightly as possible.

‘Close your eyes. I don’t want either of you to see this.”

“But Ji-ji…”

“Do it now Abisara!” he snapped and the boy quickly imitated his sister, both burying their faces in the black fabric.

“BANKAI!!!” Renji roared out, holding the long, fanged sword before him. “Hihio, Zabimaru!!”

The scarlet energy he released created a whirlwind around him, blowing anything unlucky enough to be outside of a few feet away end over end, including the park bench. Leaves, blades of grass, a great deal of dirt and a couple of unfortunate songbirds swirled through the air as Renji’s Zanpakuto manifested in all of its segmented, skeletal, red-manned glory. Whatever the first attacker was going to say died in his throat as he came screeching to a stop, staring at the ten-foot high baboon skull with fangs bearing down on him. Three of Zabimaru’s closer coils served as a moving, writhing shield around Renji and the twins, effectively protecting them on all sides while the head of the great whip slammed into the Arrancar, plowing him ass-first into a flower bed.

As much as he wanted to fire Zabimaru’s bone cannon and cremate the two pinheads with one blast, such an action would incinerate much of the park and maybe the neighborhood as well. Reluctantly, he gave the hilt another crack and hit the idiot again as he tried to rise. This time the Arrancar and the skull propelling him across the park left a deep furrow in the earth, before retreating. The sword he’d been holding went flying, bouncing harmlessly off of one of Zabimaru’s links. The thing came to rest, point-down, in the grass a good fifty-feet away. If the guy wanted it, he’d have to make a dash for it.

“You motherfucker!” the one he’d blinded screeched, finally pulling what looked like a long knife from his belt and began to unsheathe the blade, facing the howling sound Renji’s Bankai made as it opened its mouth. This guy seemed a little more coherent, despite being sightless and the redhead saw the beginnings of a Cero building at the tip of the weapon.

Renji snarled a guttural, nasty sound he’d wanted to make for a while. He’d simply lacked a proper excuse before now. He added another coil around the three of them, completely covering the children and pulled back Zabimaru’s head. He let it fly just as the Arrancar took a deep breath, possibly to release his Resurrección and toss the growing Cero their way.

Whatever the blinded Arrancar was going to say was rudely cut off when a long stream of water from the fountain jetted out from the basin and hit him full in the face. Then the Arrancar’s face promptly froze as the water covering his head iced over. A second, larger blast of water and cold froze the first in a crouching position. The Cero fizzled away as if it was a firework set off too soon and tossed in the wrong direction. The remnants landed in the fountain basin, extinguishing with a loud ‘hiss’ that almost rivaled his Zanpakuto. Seeing that, Renji redirected Zabimaru’s fanged tip, angling it back up to hover, ready to strike the next one to move.

Unfortunately, that seemed to be that. The cavalry had arrived before he could really let loose and burn off some of the toxic mixture of emotions simmering within him. The more practical side of him was glad, for the twins’ sake. Another part of him raged in disappointment.

“Abarai Renji, stand down and seal your Bankai!”

Hitsugaya Toshiro and the Third Espada touched down a few feet away from him, their respective weapons drawn. Renji turned to see at least five members of the 3rd Division come into view, having shunpo’ed their way to the 3rd District Park on very short notice. More than a few of the vendor stalls along the road had hurriedly closed once Renji had released his Zanpakuto, the owners scurrying to safety and he could see those Division members casting nervous glances at the remaining civilians busy running for their lives.

Toshiro cleared his throat and Renji met both blue-green gazes impassively. The links to his Bankai shifted, moving until the two could see the twins huddled against Renji. Toshiro’s jaw dropped, while Harribel’s aquamarine eyes narrowed and hardened. Of the two, she seemed to have deduced what had led to the fight before the others did.

“Abarai, you need to drop your Bankai, now!” the white-haired young man ordered, a little more force in his voice. “I don’t want to have to bring you before Aizen, dammit!”

For what, Renji wondered, protecting his charges?

“I’ll do it if you neuter those pedophiles, before I kill them,” he replied coldly.

His reply probably ticked off the young man, but the redhead decided that he didn’t care. The one he had to answer to wasn’t a seated officer.

Harribel took the time to saunter over to the first attacker, heedless of the vicious-looking end of Renji’s whip, and carefully looked him over before making her way to the one that Renji had blinded with the wooden skewers. This one got a smirk out of her before she turned around and walked slowly back to Toshiro’s side. The attacker who could actually see her coming promptly peed himself and started trembling as she circled him.

“I know these two. Luders Friegen, Thirty-Ninth and Asguiaro Ebern, Fortieth of the Numeros. They didn’t learn their lesson the first time, evidently,” he heard her say in that deep, whiskey-rough voice. Toshiro went from irked to confused, as did Renji.

“First time?” he and Toshiro asked simultaneously.

They stared at each other, but Harribel made a languid motion with her hand that brought their attention back to her before they could bristle at one another. Folding her arms across her chest, she gave the two on the ground a withering glance.

“Mmm-hmm. Years ago, before Aizen-Kami set foot in Hueco Mundo, they were part of a pack that tried to corner Apache. I interfered with their hunt and brought her back to my den. These two managed to escape me, but then there were originally seven of them.”

Then she chuckled, a thoroughly wicked sound.

“The second time they tried for one of my fraccion, I let Sun Sun-chan dance on them a bit before I broke their arms and tossed them from Las Noches.”

“Do you mean Luders and Asguiaro?” Toshiro ventured.

“No, I mean I tossed their arms over the side. A pity the rest was still attached.”

She delivered this in a dry, understated tone and Renji wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. How anyone could fail to take that kind of hint was beyond him.

“This seems to be a recurring problem with these two. Perhaps they didn’t realize that the Aspect of Destruction holds the rights to you and these children,” Harribel answered and even through Renji couldn’t see her mouth due to her high collar, he could tell she had a nasty smile on her lips, as if she found some sort of ironic amusement in the whole situation.

There was nothing remotely funny about it from Renji’s perspective.

When he showed no sign of complying, the Third sighed, walked right up to the wall of bone and energy that made up Zabimaru’s coils and looked in at the Zanpakuto’s wielder. There was no small amount of understanding in her ocean-hued gaze and, strangely, something akin to respect. However, her voice held no less authority than Toshiro’s when it delivered an order.

“Abarai Renji, please lower your weapon. Hitsugaya-Taichou and I will take these two to the Palace. Aizen will deal with them, for going against his edict regarding the hybrid children. Take them home and then wait to see if Kami-sama summons you.”

“Harribel-sama, I… don’t think this one’s breathing...”

Toshiro cursed, stalked over to where a dark-haired, slender young woman bent over the first Arrancar, and with one hand, the Taichou hauled it up by its hair. Indeed, the Arrancar’s face was turning an exquisite shade of robin’s egg blue, since the water had initially filled its mouth and nose. A few blows from the Taichou’s fist later and Renji heard a gasp. He also saw what he suspected were teeth coming away with the ice chips.

“Ise-san, please take notes on this incident for the report I’m going to have to submit. You two get that one over there under control and see if he has any delusions of escaping. If he does, quell them. Use a large stick if you must and apply it often.”

Toshiro barked this out with all of the irritability he was famous for and the redhead wondered whether he’d been interrupted during lunch. The Third Espada’s presence was and wasn’t too much of a surprise, considering he’d finally unleashed Zabimaru. One of Aizen’s minions would have been assigned to be on the lookout for anyone creating such a disturbance. Renji wondered what might have happened if one of the others had decided to show up and then tossed that speculation aside. It hadn’t happened and it didn’t matter.

As much as Renji wanted to kill their attackers, he had to admit that the fight was no longer two-on-one and he had a couple of small considerations clinging to his sash that took precedence over spilling blood. With some regret, he pulled Zabimaru’s power back, letting go of his Bankai and felt the cowl of ape-fur and the skull clasping it around his shoulders disappear along with the great bone whip. Abisara and Vindula stuck close and he shook out his sword arm and sheathed his Zanpakuto, mindful of the little girl’s wings.

All the while, Harribel stood there, considering him carefully, almost critically.

“Where is your master?”

Renji opened his mouth to say ‘probably buried in some lab in the basement tormenting bacteria or some of the staff members into doing somersaults for his entertainment’, but quickly realized that Szayel’s location wasn’t what she was after.

He mentally kicked himself.

She wanted to know why Szayel wasn’t there, in a tizzy over his offspring. Renji cursed inwardly and threw together an excuse for the lack of an Espada summoned via stress on a presumed Claim. Thankfully, he didn’t have to search too long for a reasonable excuse and used enough bravado to serve as camouflage.

“These two aren’t worth rousing him from his studies,” he answered scornfully, giving a toss of his head to indicate the two Arrancar. In that, he was honest. Their abduction attempt had been a pathetic distraction at best. A first year 11th Division recruit with a bum knee could have done better. “I’ll fill him in when I take the children back to the Science Division.”

The blond seemed to accept this, given Szayel’s reputation for single-mindedness when it came to his work and the evident reputation of the assailants.

“You’re a fine guard for his children. I now understand why he puts such faith in your abilities.”

With that, the strange woman gave him a slight nod of her head and moved once again to Toshiro’s side, placing one tanned hand in the middle of his back as he encased the pairs’ hands, feet and knees in blocks of ice with his Shikai. He saw her rub the hand a bit in the middle of the young man’s shoulder blades and damned if it didn’t look like Toshiro actually relaxed into her touch.

He had no idea why the sight angered him so much. Unless it had something to do with the fact that the blonde was the current Third and had that same, damnable reasonableness that he associated with another who had once occupied her position. Renji promptly shoved all thoughts of the woman in question away before he could start wearing away the enamel on his teeth by grinding them together.

Instead, he crouched and wrapped an arm around each child’s waist, picking them up as if they were sacks of rice flour and settling them on his hips.

“We’re leaving, kids…”

 

---

 

Aizen never bothered ordering him to come in for questioning on the incident. Toshiro and the Third’s testimony seemed sufficient enough for ‘Kami-sama’ to punish the two severely. Szayel showed up at the door to his room that night, hours after he gave the Espada a mirthless accounting of the attack, and thanked him. That surprised Renji, as Szayel never thanked anyone for anything he considered part and parcel of his or her job. On a whim, Renji asked if the two morons that tried to take Szayel’s daughter still had a pulse.

Szayel was of the opinion that if they did, they probably weren’t too happy about it.

That sat just fine with Renji, in all save one area. Once Szayel had left, he turned out the light, stretched out on his futon and his thoughts turned inevitably inward.

Kami, he’d missed fighting. He missed the feel of Zabimaru in his hand, cracking the blade and doing some well-deserved damage to a foe. This afternoon’s duel answered a need he thought that years of menial labor and child care duties had blunted. As pitiful as his opponents had been today, they’d still been opponents whose asses he had official permission to kick and it helped ease a little of the unhappiness within him, if only for a few minutes. Maybe less, considering how easily they had gone down, which was the only part that proved less than satisfying.

Most of his life, other than the time he spent with the twins, fell into the less-than satisfying category. It wasn’t as if he personally had much to hope for now. Five years’ worth of snooping around for information to pass to Yoruichi hadn’t produced much in the way of progress against Aizen. Aside from those who seemed to have come to terms with their Claimers, he’d seen no help forthcoming for the survivors of the Winter War, no concerted effort to scrape together some kind of resistance. A few years ago, Yumichika had expressed doubts about not only a rescue but also whether or not they’d ever be free at all and Renji was starting to feel the same way.

If he was honest, he had to say that there was really nothing left, aside from Vindula and Abisara, for which he would put up more than a token fight. The first month or two after he’d heard the words fall from Nel’s lips had been hell. He’d exited the Kido barrier without saying anything to anyone, his clothes hastily thrown on and wanting to get away from anyone and everyone. The two remaining in the chamber, Karin and Szayel, knew something was up, if only from his tense body language, but Szayel had quickly excused himself, taking the shrunken Kido cube with him to its hiding place. Karin asked if he was okay. Renji had looked at her without really seeing her and had muttered something about being ‘fine’ before heading for his room.

He doubted that ‘Hey, your brother got married and you weren’t invited’ would go over any better with her than it had with him. Renji decided that self-censorship in this case was a wise course of action.

By the time he was done scrubbing his body with a washcloth and soap, the shower had run cold, his fingers had pruned up and two hours had passed. There was a note on the door from Rin about putting the children’s rooms back in order, left there while he was rubbing his skin raw. Renji tore it into small bits and vowed to toss them in Tsubokura’s next pot of tea.

Three days went by before he remembered that he’d never had a chance to ask Nel about the Las Noches raid. The thought of her hurt so much that Renji decided not to think of her until he absolutely had to. With her Claim laying on him, a silent, warm reminder of both their connection and of how poorly their last encounter had ended, he concluded that there was a limit to the amount of torment he wanted to handle at a given time.

It wasn’t until March that he’d emerged from the semi-fog that clouded everything around him. He threw himself into whatever work Szayel or the rest of the Science Division tossed his way, since hard physical labor was better than doing nothing at all. His time with the twins had the same effect, in that he didn’t have to think about the fact that one of the biggest motivating forces in his life had been snatched away yet again, this time for good.

Rukia was married.

Rukia, his Rukia, had married Kurosaki Ichigo, because Kurosaki was tired of waiting and had proposed to her during one of those idiotic romantic human holidays.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for the war to be over? Waiting for someone to wave their magic Zanpakuto in the air and kill Aizen, restore the Gotei 13 and ask Kuchiki Byakuya for his sister’s hand in marriage to make it all nice and proper?

Waiting to try to make a life in the Living World of some kind?

Waiting to start a family in hiding while the Realms teetered on the brink of destruction thanks to one megalomaniac’s delusions of grandeur? Ichigo was human; it was a human trait to try to persevere despite the odds, despite the obstacles and Ichigo had never been the poster-boy for patience with either of those things.

No, Ichigo was a die-hard adherent of the ‘it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission’ school of behavior and problem-solving. The orange-haired jerk wouldn’t have let any of the things that had stopped Renji in the past get in his way.

Renji almost, almost hated him for it… as much as he hated himself for his lack of courage.

Renji had his chance and he’d blown it, long ago.

Wasn’t that just the story of his life, though? He’d always let ‘someday’ be his mantra. Someday he’d be powerful enough, strong enough, well-positioned enough to get the girl he’d followed from one of the worst Districts in the Rukongai to love him. He’d worked his way up, clawed his way closer to her, day after day and she remained just out of reach, moving one step ahead of him by either merit or circumstance.

Now she was someone else’s wife and if he thought too long on it before falling to sleep, he’d end up staring at the ceiling all night, trying hard not to image the two of them together.

The only good thing about dwelling unhappily on Rukia’s nuptials was the fact it kept his mind off of Nel.

Kami, what a cluster-fuck that had become.

Renji had descended into his inner world a week after the disaster of his latest Claiming, hoping to find a little peace, only to discover the place as still as a tomb. The temple, the forest, the statues were all intact, but the usual signs of life had gone silent. He’d found the Baboon King sitting mournfully in the dying grass in the central courtyard, idly lifting handfuls of snow-white sand and letting the grains sift through his paws back to the ground. A half-hearted hissing sound to the side showed the tail end of the nue coiled on one of the stone steps. The snake gave him a dejected glance and went back to staring at the small, browning field, as if eyeing it long enough might summon a packrat.

When he approached, the beast sighed, scooted over to make room and Renji joined his Zanpakuto in what seemed to be a pity party in progress.

You’re both mad at me.

No. It isn’t as if we haven’t been in these straits before.

Thisss sssucks…

Zabimaru ran a claw through the tiny crystals below, then plucked a long blade of grass and began to chew on it, staring dolefully at the eerily quiet treetops.

This was always a possibility. Wounds to a back… those heal up eventually. Wounds to a heart take longer.

Ssseriously ssuckss, I tell ya…

Sorry. Rukia and Ichigo…

At that point, Zabimaru turned and stared at him, red eyes boring into Renji’s with a look of disbelief and disgust.

Do you really think this is because of that little Kuchiki heiress?

Now the baboon half of Zabimaru turned around and bared his teeth at Renji and the serpent half slithered up his other side, its fanged head inches from his face. Both of them glared at him with an intensity he wasn’t sure he deserved. The Nue’s black and white fur bristled in umbrage at Renji’s statement, huffed and sent a puff of air directly into the Shinigami’s eyes.

You don’t know yourself half as well as you think you do, fool.

It wasss nice while it lasssted…

It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but our boy here let it and now here we are.

I liked the moussess…

It usually took years and years for a Shinigami to come to the kind of understanding with his or her Zanpakuto that he and Zabimaru shared. For good or ill, the beast was a reflection of his innermost wants, desires, aspirations and abilities and communing with the Nue was best done with Renji prepared to deal with whatever truth the creature had to present to him. He’d benefited from doing so in the past and he’d come here with some hope of trying to mitigate the damage he expected to find after his pride had been stabbed and cherished dreams torn asunder.

Instead, the damage was of a completely different sort.

The truth, when it slapped him across the face, in the form of the Baboon King angrily cuffing him upside the head like an errant infant, didn’t exactly make him feel better.

You’re both at fault, from what I can see, but what did you expect?

Ssselfish to want your cake and eat it too, ssstupid!

Everything you are is here for her to feel with this… and here the baboon’s paw signaled the courtyard, and you expect a strong female like that not to care when you howl out someone else’s name in your heart each time you’re with her. It’s a wonder she comes back at all!

Renji opened his mouth to snap out something scathing and the paw swatted him again, harder this time. When his head cleared, he was nose to nose with the beast.

She cried out another man’s name once. You did it every time you coupled. Who is more in the wrong here?

Uncomfortable with this thought, Renji went on the offensive.

Weren’t you two the ones that were bellyaching to me about enslaving myself to her? How much crap did I have to put up with from the both of you about it, just so we wouldn’t have to lie down and let that pink-haired freak with a clothing fetish fill us through the ass with his reiatsu? Sorry, once was enough! Now you’re whining about me having second thoughts about this. Make up your damned minds!

It isn’t OUR minds that need making up.

Thisss grasss iss sstill green… sssort of…

She’s not human, nor Shinigami. The things you want don’t apply to her. Still, it was she who came to comfort you, not the Kuchiki girl. That’s worth something, I suppose.

The great beast that was Zabimaru then crossed his hairy arms and assumed what Renji could only describe as a sulky position in the middle of the courtyard, blue butt firmly planted in the sand and turned away. The redhead wasn’t going to let things go that easily, however.

Nel’s only doing this on Yoruichi’s orders, to hide me, because she needs me to feed her information.

Zabimaru shrugged.

Maybe. I don’t know what she feels. Maybe you should ask her what she thinks or maybe, what she wants.

This grasss is ssstill here. Ssso maybe you should asssk yourssself why that issss…

The snake sent a reproachful look his way and Renji decided it was probably best to leave before he lost his temper. Since that day, he’d been back and forth with Zabimaru, usually ending in the same place, at an impasse over what the presence of something that had come to represent Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck’s influence over him in his inner world meant.

Finally, a few days before the attack on the children, the Baboon King had thrown something at him, a rock that Renji barely dodged before it disappeared in the undergrowth and roared out an observation that Renji, for all of his anger and his seething at coming in behind Kurosaki Ichigo yet again, couldn’t deny.

The Kuchiki girl never affected your inner sanctuary like this! You never let her get that far in, never let her change things in here! Not the way your little single-souled Hollow has done.

If the sssand and grasss ssstay or go… that’sss for you to decide.

Which meant Renji was back to square one as he tried to figure out the mess his personal life, if one could call an absent female Espada he’d let run from him in tears and a depressed serpent combined with a large irate white and black-furred baboon a ‘social life’.

At the moment, it felt like a travesty.

To be honest, when he’d needed his Bankai to shield the kids, Renji wasn’t entirely sure if his Zanpakuto would manifest for him. That it decided to show up meant that their relationship over this whole business hadn’t suffered as much as he suspected it had. However, it wasn’t entirely on firm footing either. The former Fukutaichou thought that maybe Zabimaru also missed the thrill of combat, of stretching muscles and abilities long neglected and even if his blade was angry with him, the chance to kick some Arrancar ass had been too good to pass up.

He hadn’t considered how his normal schedule, even with the physical labor and training he’d tried to build into it over the last five years, left little room for his Zanpakuto to get any ‘fresh air’. Renji reluctantly admitted that being hauled back from oblivion and then locked up with no enemies to fight and nothing to do other than talk to Renji might have left Zabimaru not only lonely, but also a little stir-crazy.

One would have to be stir-crazy to lie down in the middle of something that symbolized another’s power of life or death over one and sunbathe. If, of course, that was what it really was.

Renji was starting to think it was something else and that thought frightened him more than submitting to Nel’s Claim and subjecting himself to another’s control ever had.

It meant abandoning everything he’d thought he’d wanted, everything on which he’d spent decades of emotional time and energy.

It required the closing of a door that, in all truthfulness, had never been his to walk through in the first place. It meant he was bound for a different destination and that scared the living shit out of him, because he had no idea how to handle it.



Moreover, he wasn’t sure if he hadn’t already fucked things up with Nel beyond all repairing.

A week after Zabimaru’s stone-flinging move made him decide to take a short sabbatical from communing with his Zanpakuto, at least until he could come to terms with what he thought was going on in his brain, Karin showed up at the Science Division, pulling him into an empty storeroom, wanting to know what was wrong with him. He’d given her a puzzled look and she gave him the same ‘don’t mess with me’ glare that Nemu occasionally brought out when the twins were being a little more rambunctious than even he could manage.

Perhaps it was a side effect of motherhood, something that didn’t kick in until one had forced a very large object out of one’s body, usually accompanied by a great deal of pain and death threats. Renji wisely backed down from it.

“Szayel’s concerned.”

Now that had to be the joke of a lifetime and he couldn’t help the bitter half-laugh, half-growl at that statement. If Szayel was worried about his mental state, then there was nothing stopping the pink git from asking about it. If there was a good reason his inner turmoil ought to be Karin’s problem, it escaped Renji and he fell back on his usual method for getting rid of unwanted scrutiny.

“I’m fine. If you’ll excuse me, Karin-sama, I have a lab to mop and maybe one of Szayel’s staff to pull from the wreckage. Last time this happened, all we found was a lab coat and a pair of sandals.”

“This isn’t about what happened a few days ago, is it?”

Renji pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.

“Look, I don’t see how this is any of your business…”

“I could order you to tell me.”

This time Renji, at his limit with the whole fucking muddle, gave Karin a furious snarl and looked daggers at the young human woman. Karin actually took a step back, startled at the anger directed her way.

“Then I won’t be responsible for how hurt you get with what I have to say, though I’m curious to find out if your ‘mate’ will come and gut me, for what it will do to you.”

His retort seemed to lead Karin to a conclusion he really, really didn’t want to answer. 

“Something happened to Ichigo, didn’t it?”

Yes, he did what I never had the guts to do and proposed to someone he doesn’t deserve.

Renji guessed she was expecting bad news and the way Nel’s Claim tightened around him made him wonder what kind of answer she wanted or maybe expected from him. He figured it would be in his best interest at least to address the sudden fear he heard in her voice, before Grimmjow really did show up and kick his teeth in.

“Your brother is fine, from what I hear.”

With as much reassurance as he could pour into his reply, Renji also tried to keep it as vague as possible. He truly did not want to hurt Karin, even if she was treading in an area where he didn’t need anyone else meddling. There were far too many people involved as it was.

“Karin-sama, it really is something you don’t want to hear, but it has more to do with me than with… Ichigo, okay? Just, let me deal with it, alright?”

They’d looked at one another for a minute or two. Nel’s Claim on him fluctuated between excruciatingly tight and uncomfortably snug. Then Karin’s shoulders drooped a bit and she turned with a sigh, placing her hand on the door knob.

“Something’s been eating at you for months, Renji. You pulled your Bankai out. I know why you did it, as does Szayel, but that could have earned you a punishment that some salve and bandages couldn’t have fixed. Thankfully, Harribel-san figured out what went down when she saw the kids with you, but just drawing your Zanpakuto without Szayel's permission…”

Renji’s voice dropped down to a harsh whisper, even as his hand slammed down on an empty storage shelf next to him. The contents of a few of the boxes above him rattled.

“Szayel gave me permission, on the day he handed them over to me, to use any means available to protect them. To me, that means activating my Bankai and letting those two jack-offs know I meant business! It means using my back as a substitute for one of theirs if it ever came up, which it did.”

Karin stared at him with wide eyes, her pupils enlarged in the gloom of the darkened, windowless storeroom as Renji went on.

“If Aizen wants to punish me for enforcing his damn rules, then there’s not much I can do to stop the sadistic fuck, now is there? If he won’t follow his own laws, why should anyone else see fit to follow them? I’m surprised that the twins have been left alone this long, when the Arrancars’ ‘glorious leader’ can abuse his subjects whenever and wherever he wants.”

“You need to keep your bloody mouth shut, Abarai! Do you want those words to get back to Aizen if someone overhears?”

Renji let out a low, angry-sounding noise in response.

“You’ve got a daughter, Karin. If you’d given Ajuga-chan to me to care for in the same way that Szayel and Nemu gave me the twins, I’d have still pulled out Zabimaru’s full potential to protect her, because she doesn’t deserve what those molesters would have had planned for her, what they’d planned for Vindula! I’ll tell you, it was nice beating the crap out of them. It’s been too long. Maybe, I just miss being relevant for something other than clean-up and pack-mule duty…”

… Or relevant for something other than the information I can pass on, even though it might not even be useful. I wanted to be relevant to someone other than the twins, because someday they aren’t going to need me to protect them.

Maybe I just wanted something other than an hour-long convenience fuck out of the one woman I’ve ever gotten close enough to taste, to touch…

… I wanted her to want me back…

Renji hung his head as he abandoned what he was going to say next, staring at the thin slice of light coming from under the door as his thoughts took a different path.

I wanted her to love me back.

“Abarai?”

He wasn’t sure if the ‘her’ in his mind's eye was Rukia or Nel.

Maybe it didn’t matter, since one was forever beyond his reach and the other…

“Abarai!”

The other had flung herself at him, begging for someone to want her…

Shit.

What have I done?

A pair of hands, reaching up to his shoulders to shake him brought him back round to the present.

“Yeah?” he replied, looking anywhere but at Karin. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t get a glimpse of the expression on his face and figure out more was wrong than he’d originally let on.

“Ichigo’s really okay?”

Renji sighed and reached back to tug on the length of red hair that spilled from his top knot.

“He’s just peachy.”

Karin gave him one more searching look before opening the door and leaving him there to stew in his own deliberations for the rest of the day, which was just as well.

He had a great deal to consider.

What he wasn’t prepared for was Grimmjow’s appearance in the Science Division’s foyer, an hour before sunset. He heard Szayel summon him over the intercom as he was busy pulling the covers up over Abisara’s shoulders. He’d only just managed to get Vindula into bed with an extra chapter from a storybook that thankfully didn’t feature princes.

“Ji-ji, that was cool the other day.”

Renji froze, hands still on Abisara’s bedding, as he realized what the boy referenced. Then he gave his charge a deep frown.

“I thought I told you not to look. Children aren’t supposed to have to see that kind of thing.”

“Otou-san says that if we were in Hueco Mundo, we’d already be training.”

Renji set aside the ugly images that conjured up, put a serious expression on his face and knelt next to Abisara’s bed. The boy peeked at him over the lump that was the mini-centrifuge, concealed beneath the covers.

“Well, we’re not in Hueco Mundo. We’re in the Seireitei and you have me to beat the snot out of anyone who tries to hurt either of you. Now go to sleep.”

“But… I need t’get bigger if I’m ever going to keep ‘dula out of trouble!”

Now Renji let out a heavy sigh. The redhead reached over and ruffled the boy’s sakura-petal-colored hair.

“Sometimes it isn’t about being bigger or stronger, Abisara. It’s about being smarter and I’ll let you in on a secret…”

He leaned over and whispered in the boy’s ear.

“You’re much, much smarter than me.”

With that, he rose and turned out the light next to the bed.

“G’night Ji-ji.”

Renji nodded as he paused in the doorway, then stepped out into the hall and quietly shut the door. What the hell could Szayel want now? It was hard enough to get the twins to bed during the long sunlit summer evenings. He hoped it wasn’t another chemical spill. Lab 7 had been a foaming mess when he arrived with mop and bucket earlier in the day.

He made his way to the Division’s reception area only to find Szayel and the Sixth Espada engaged in a somewhat tense conversation.

“…work off some steam.”

“I keep him busy enough that he shouldn’t have steam to burn.”

“Karin seems to think otherwise. It ain’t about being ‘busy’, Seventh.”

Crap, Renji thought, as he entered the room, this doesn’t bode well.

“This is breaking the rules, Grimmjow!”

“Did you forget? I own your sorry butt for now and that means I can borrow the guy if I want to borrow the guy. I’ll give him back in one piece. Unless he’s really out of shape.”

“What do you want with me?” Renji asked out loud, ignoring Szayel and looking the Sixth in the eye.

Nel’s Claim constricted a little, which surprised him, but it didn’t impede him from staring at the blue-haired Espada. Grimmjow gave him a grin that would have made Zaraki Kenpachi proud and for some reason, he felt his own lips curl back into a partial snarl, partial smile.

Karin’s mate saw it and laughed.

“About two hours of your time. Follow me, if you’re done being a nursemaid for the night.”

Now Nel’s Claim really clamped down, which told Renji one very important thing: the illusion of Szayel’s Claim over him was currently threatened. Grimmjow did an about-face and motioned absently for Renji to follow. The redhead stifled a gasp when he felt one foot lift, followed by another as his body moved to obey. He, Szayel and Grimmjow weren't the only ones in the foyer; the night staff was busy with their desk duties, so Renji assumed the Claim was trying to keep the other Division Members from noticing anything was amiss.

He gave Szayel a glance and saw the pink-haired scientist’s lips thin. Szayel wasn’t happy about this, but he wasn’t frantic or trying to plead with the guy either. Whatever Grimmjow wanted probably wouldn’t involve anything Karin might not like.

That didn’t necessarily mean that Renji would be okay with it and Szayel wasn’t in a position to stop it. Only the words ‘return him in one piece’ gave him some hope he’d walk away from it.

The Sixth led him past the gates of the Seireitei’s high walls, past the vast city beyond and well into the countryside. By the time they reached an area that appeared uninhabited, without farm or cottager anywhere nearby, a sickle-shaped moon had risen to the east and hung midway from the horizon in the deep blue sky. If he looked back, he could still see the lights from the great city, the glow to the south a reminder of just how far away Grimmjow had traveled. They were beyond the perimeter of the Defense Net as well.

“This ought to be far enough…” he heard the Espada say with some satisfaction as he surveyed the area.

“Far enough for what?” Renji asked warily, the hairs pricking up on the back of his neck, and goose bumps forming on his arms.

“That was an interesting stunt you pulled the other day, Red,” Grimmjow said as he reached up and stretched out one side. “Might have earned you an execution if Szayel’s young hadn’t been with you.”

“Your mate said something similar today.”

Grimmjow let out a breath and stared up at the moon. Then he turned those electric-blue eyes towards a very confused Renji and his grin got wider.

“Karin said somethin’ isn’t sitting right with you and it’s buggin’ Szayel and since I need Szayel’s brain workin’ right when it comes to my kid, I’m here to set your head straight, got it?”

“For what, protecting the kids?”

Renji wasn’t entirely sure where he got the nerve to toss off a question like that. Grimmjow seemed a little surprised as well, but shrugged.

“The cocksuckers Harribel dragged in? Nah, Aizen took care of ‘em. What’s left is hanging off the side of So�kyoku Hill. Between Harribel and that squirt she Claimed, they didn’t have much of a defense.”

“Oh.”

Maybe Grimmjow expected more out of him than that, because the Espada’s eyes narrowed.

“What digs at Szayel ends up bothering Karin and that bothers me. If you have some itch under your skin, out with it. Or…” and here the Sixth’s smile got a little malevolent “I’ll have to smack it out of you with Pantera. It’s been too fucking peaceful with that Net in place, in my opinion.”

The Claim didn’t tug at him to answer this time and Renji decided that meant Grimmjow really was giving him a choice.

“Funny. I’d been thinking the same thing,” the redhead replied, and his hand dropped to Zabimaru. Grimmjow’s expression practically lit up and his own hand dropped to Pantera’s hilt. An almost unholy glee seemed to kindle in the Arrancar’s eyes, making them gleam blue the moonlight.

Nel had given him the same, hungry, instinct-driven look.

This time, instead of a fuck, an Arrancar wanted a fight.

Was there any difference to a Hollow? He wasn’t sure anymore.

Renji grit his teeth and he could hear Zabimaru begging to be released.

“Now that’s what I want to see!” Grimmjow crowed, tossing his head back and laughing in that maniacal way Renji remembered. “I like that look on you!”

The uneasiness he’d felt on the way here turned into anticipation. Szayel’s Claimer obviously wanted violence of some sort and Renji was ready to start dishing some out.

“I ain’t gonna kill ya and you can’t kill me, but sometimes women just don’t get it when a guy’s got to work something out. All they want to do is talk, talk, talk. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to go at someone with a decent Bankai and if I can’t spar with that bastard Kurosaki…”

Renji’s eyes went wide as he heard the comparison and then he saw red as his reiatsu flared in all directions, taking Grimmjow off-guard. Zabimaru was out and brandished and once the Espada saw it, he practically cackled with excitement.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Come and get me if you can, nanny-boy!”

Renji lowered his head and charged…

 

---

Dawn saw two exhausted figures sitting a few yards apart, parked on two different boulders in a clearing on the last hill before their intended route took them down into the Rukongai suburbs. One, with mussed blue hair and the remnants of a charred, white uniform clinging to his torso and some conspicuous burn marks let his eyes fall closed as the first sun rays burst into the eastern sky. The morning light nicely accentuated some nasty-looking cuts on his shoulders, chest and one on his left thigh. The other individual, busy tying up the sorry remains of his kosode and minus a sandal and tabi, his hair a tangled red mess, mumbled darkly about missing the kids’ breakfast. He debated on using the rags of the upper portion of his uniform to wrap his blistering foot.

“Shut up, Abarai. Szayel’s mate can take care of her spawn for a change.”

The redhead gave the blue-haired Arrancar a narrow-eyed look, and then huffed. Rather, he tried to, and then grimaced as one of two suspected cracked ribs shifted.

“You said ‘one piece’, Grimmjow-sama.”

The first made a rude guffaw, with a similar sounding, muffled exclamation indicating, to Renji’s satisfaction, that he’d hurt the Sixth somewhere important.

“You’re not missing anything. Stop your bitching.”

A quick inventory revealed that indeed, Renji had all of his limbs, fingers, toes and assorted body parts, as bad and as mangled as some of them felt after a six-hour all-out, no-holds-barred fight.

“You said ‘two hours’…”

Grimmjow shrugged, which was also accompanied by a slight hiss of pain.

“I lied. When you walked in after Szayel called, you were spoiling for somethin’. Hell, I could smell it on ya. Two hours can’t really cut it.”

He was bone tired, drained of reiatsu, much of his body felt as if an elephant had trampled on it and for some reason he felt better than he had in months.

“Karin asked you to fight me?”

“Nah. Your little Bankai display was a dead giveaway. Though, I can see why you’d use it the way you did,” Grimmjow conceded, a little grudgingly in Renji’s opinion. “That and now I know why that slacker Yylfordt snuffed it when you two fought. How’s that bruise on your backside?”

“How’s the concussion?” Renji muttered back.

He gave up on the kosode, dragged the black tatters of his upper-garment over his bare foot instead and started wrapping it up with what was left of his outer white tie. Grimmjow had given the rest of his uniform the equivalent of air conditioning; the number of holes in his hakama gave Renji some concern about whether or not it would remain on his frame, or fall off on the way home.

“Hmmph,” the other grunted and rubbed the back of his head.

Grimmjow, with eyes sporting pupils of two different sizes, gave Renji a sneer. Then he seemed to sober up and took a good look at the blood caking his nails, acquired from a point in the fight where Renji had failed to evade the Espada’s claws. Luckily, all they’d done was graze his chest, but the strike had drawn blood.

“I don’t think you’re going to have any problems for a while with the lower Numeros going after the kids. At least until what Aizen hung up as a warning rots away.”

Well, that was a less-than-pleasant thought. Renji’s wince caught the other’s one, non-blackened eye. The sight didn’t make him particularly proud, since he was sporting two shiners of his own.

“It isn’t the lower Numeros I’m concerned about,” the Shinigami muttered. “It’s only going to get worse as Abisara and Vindula get older.”

Neither of them spoke about the possible threat to their respective children from someone higher up the food chain, since Renji had the feeling they were thinking about the same couple of assholes. Finally, the Espada shrugged, made a ‘tch’ sound and gingerly crossed his arms. The redhead was privately pleased to see the cuff of Grimmjow’s toasted right sleeve disintegrate into bits of ash that the breeze bore away as the other moved. Zabimaru’s bone cannon had been in top form during the wee hours of the morning.

“You come to me when you feel the need to scrap with that Bankai of yours. That’s an order. Last thing I need is prissy-pants upset because his Claim on his pet is letting him know you’re in a shitty mood.”

Renji’s hands stopped in the middle of tying the singed ends of his kosode tie around his ankle. He stared down as what Grimmjow’s words implied sank in and he silently added one more piece to the strange, incomplete puzzle that was Kurosaki’s sister.

Karin’s mate never would have said this if he’d known what was going on in the cavern below Szayel’s Division.

That meant that Karin hadn’t told him about Reni’s true Claimer, choosing to hide his, Szayel’s and her own part in it from her mate. That led him to wonder why. Was he that loyal to Aizen that he would turn his mate in to the tyrant for punishment if he knew? No, that wasn’t it. The two were close in a way that only a willing Claim could manage.

Unfortunately, that thought brought him back to the only other unresolved thing lurking around in his head, as the need to cut loose and throw all of his combat skills behind an attempt to bludgeon another living being to death had been soothed for the moment. Renji stared at the ground between his feet, until he felt a hand painfully grab a handful of his long hair and pull his head back.

Brown eyes met pissed-off blue ones and Renji suddenly had feeling that things were about to go awry.

“Well, you’re as surly as Kurosaki ever was. You still got something wrong upstairs, Red?”

“Ow.”

“Suck it up! I order you to tell me what the fuck is up with your broody ass!”

The Claim that both tormented and sustained him nearly strangled him as it compelled him to reveal, out loud, the source of the worst of his inner pain. At the same time, an equally compelling counter-order tried to keep him from answering, to follow the edict to protect his self and to keep the truth about Szayel’s non-involvement with his Claim a secret. The response his brain settled on in a matter of seconds surprised Renji with its creativity as well as the naked truth that lay behind the makeshift explanation.

“I’m in love with the Third Espada!” he gasped.

Grimmjow’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. The hand in his hair let go abruptly and the Arrancar backed up a little, and then found the closest thing to lean against while he lost himself in riotous, if painful-sounding laughter. The tree trunk vibrated a bit with the force the Sixth put behind it. The redhead had to wonder where he managed to find the energy, because he was certainly tapped out.

“Holy…ow…shit…haHAHA…fuck…HAHAHA…ow…damn…aHHAAAHAAHAHAA…fuck…”

This went on for a minute or two, as the sun slowly climbed into the sky, until Grimmjow turned around and sat back down on the boulder to stare at him, wiping tears from his eyes.

“I can’t…ow… decide if you’re crazy or suicidal or… oof… maybe a little a’ both.”

When Renji didn’t say anything, the Sixth groaned and rubbed his forehead, then remembered the first-degree burn there that his Hierro hadn’t entirely deflected. Hissing, he put his hands down and for lack of anything better to do, he leaned forward and dangled them between his knees.

“Harribel would eat you alive and then toss the scraps to her girls. I’ve seen what happens to the men that go sniffing around any of them. It ain’t pretty. Besides, I think the one she’s already got Claimed would turn you and your manhood into an icicle before you could ever whip it out to try to impress her.”

Renji gave Grimmjow an ugly scowl, partly to cover the relief he felt at the other drawing a spectacularly-wrong, but convenient-for-him conclusion.

“Though, I can’t fault your taste. Starting at the top isn’t all that bad a strategy, though the Aspect of Sacrifice is cursed to my way of thinking.”

“Cursed?” he croaked.

“Yeah. The one who sat in that chair before Aizen elevated Harribel and that little band of fishwives she keeps around her met a bad end, at least for a while.”

Renji held his breath, though Grimmjow didn’t seem to notice. Instead, his attention seemed focused somewhere else, something down in the city, since the Espada’s head was turned in that direction.

“Now she was someone I’d have banged in a heartbeat if I could have only gotten close enough, but she was way too powerful. She was real skittish too, and damned if Nnoitra wasn’t ten times the prick to her as he is to Harribel. When she wouldn’t give him the time of day, he got to hating her, picking fights with her and then one day, she up and disappeared. Next thing I know, Aizen’s gone out and found himself another Third and presents us with Harribel.”

“He killed her?”

He felt as if he was poised on the edge of a knife, where one wrong move could bring everything he’d been so careful to conceal down around him, as well as Karin. Renji prayed that the Sixth wasn’t being too observant, or he’d notice the tiny drops of perspiration starting to form on his forehead and temple, and the fact that he'd clenched his jaw when he heard Grimmjow's description of Nel.

Grimmjow let out another snort and shook his head.

“Nah. From what I saw when I dragged the princess to heal Kurosaki up so that I could kill him properly, Nnoitra cracked her mask, just like what happened to your ‘master’ and she reverted to a child. You remember that raggedy kid with the turquoise hair you and your buddies picked up while you were fumbling around outside of Las Noches?”

Monosyllabic answers seemed like the safest thing to Renji at the moment.

“Yeah.”

“That was her, or what was left of her at the time. Someone went back and fixed her up I think. She’s still clutching at Kurosaki, last I saw.”

Renji tried not to make a face and give it all away. The Sixth closed his mouth and instead, seemed to be finished with the story.

“What is it that female Arrancar want?”

Grimmjow rolled his eyes, as if he found the question idiotic and pulled a face.

“Hell if I know. Some are just plain psycho if you asked me. Menoly and Loly were great examples of that shit. They kept trying to get into Aizen’s trousers, if that tells you anything. Then again, they aren’t about all of the crap that human and Shinigami women seem to want.”

Perhaps Renji was feeling both curious and suicidal at the moment, or maybe a decent fight had made Grimmjow talkative. He doubted he’d have another chance to ask such a question either, since Szayel was hardly what he’d consider an objective source of information.

“Like what?”

The Sixth stared up at some of the pink and gold tinged clouds in the sky.

“Man, it’s much less fucking complicated with a Hollow female. It’s all about power and desire, whether or not a male can snag a female with their own strength, by chasing them down and making them yours. The stronger the female, the stronger you have to be, but the reward is children that are more likely to survive in Hueco Mundo past their first year or two.”

What had Nel said before running from him?

“He has a mask…I thought…I thought he could return a Claim… he’s so strong… but he doesn’t want me.”

“What do female Arrancar look for when they Claim someone?”

Grimmjow stood up, made a pained noise and Renji figured the Espada’s muscles were starting to let him know they weren’t pleased with him. Renji’s weren’t too happy with him either and as much as he wanted an answer to the question, things might get ugly if they took their time getting back to the Seireitei.

“Weren’t you listening? Maybe I hit your sorry head a little too hard, Abarai. I think I shook something loose in there.”

Renji got to his feet, making a few sounds that made Grimmjow’s smirk a little smugger. Who knew that the Sixth’s Resurrección had so much volatile energy to it?

“Power. Got it. So Harribel picked out Hitsugaya-Taichou for his power?”

The Sixth made a non-committal sound.

“Well, she treats him better than a lot of masters treat their pets and I don’t see him moaning too much about things, especially now that her girls aren’t all over him like some puppy. I can see why you might want something like that. Getting shagged by the Third instead of Szayel is probably not a bad trade-up.”

He tried very hard to keep a neutral expression as Grimmjow said this, preferring to look away and let the guy come to another wrong conclusion, the one Renji wanted him to assume.

“Here’s some free advice: do yourself a favor and forget about her, or keep your fantasies between you and your hand. I doubt either Harribel or her current pet are keen on sharing, from what I’ve seen.”

“Was power what attracted you to Karin?”

A hand with very sharp nails wrapped around one bruised bicep and Grimmjow again pulled him so that narrow, blue eyes bored into his.

“She ain’t up for discussion.”

Renji quickly nodded and Grimmjow let go of him as swiftly as he’d nabbed him.

“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say our women want both power and someone who won’t abuse the Claim, or make ‘em miserable all of the time with it. Course, any male who’s lucky enough to get a powerful female to lay back and wrap their legs around his waist, to let a female like that Claim ‘em shouldn’t complain too fucking much about it. She’s practically begging for a Mating Claim at that point.”

He could only give Grimmjow a blank look, though his face reddened at the image.

“Mating Claim? I thought…”

Now the Espada was downright dismissive.

“Pfft. Don’t worry about it. You’re not capable of casting one anyway. From what I’ve seen, you’re not Harribel’s type either. Of course, take a look at her options. It’s no wonder she picked who she did for a pet. Starrk would be the best out of the bunch, if he could stay awake long enough. That’s about it though.”

Renji stared hard at Grimmjow, a little stunned at just how low the standards seemed to be for Arrancar females, Toshiro notwithstanding. Kami, that wasn’t a list of must-haves for any woman, human, Arrancar or Shinigami. That wasn’t even a list in Renji’s opinion. It barely qualified as a starting point. Then again, from what he’d seen of the savagery of male Hollows, holding the majority of them to any kind of standards was probably a losing battle.

“Let’s go, nanny-boy. I’m not on duty today, so no one’s gonna to miss me on patrol. No one’s gonna miss you at Szayel’s den either. Like I said, his mate can look after her own spawn today.”

Renji might have wanted to argue with him about that, but he was too tired, in too much pain and the rocks he could feel through the fabric covering the sole of his foot, despite the slapdash binding he’d made, were reason enough to keep silent.

They made their way down the hill, alternating between using Sonido and Shunpo respectively and walking when that got too tiring. The outskirts of the Rukongai flew by, since Renji still had a few reserves to burn, but once those were gone, he had to go on foot. That got him another smug grin from the Sixth, but at that point, they were nearing the Northern Gate and Renji noticed the other looked just as tired as he felt and had a bit of a limp.

“I think I’ll let the 4th Division fix you up. Wouldn’t want to break my word to your ‘master’ about your condition, right?”

Renji thought about giving a death glare to the Espada as they sauntered into the inner city, but stopped short when it occurred to him that Grimmjow would have to accompany him in to explain to the staff that they were allowed to use healing Kido on him, that the injuries weren’t the result of one of Aizen’s disciplinary sessions. The last time he’d been here the members of the 4th Division seemed more upset than he was about the fact that they couldn’t really do anything significant for him other than stitches and first aid.

It would also mean that same staff would probably insist on fixing up the both of them as well, without Grimmjow having to stoop to asking for help or pain relief. Renji spared a thought or two to silently congratulate the sneaky bastard with a mental ‘well-played, sir, well-played’.

From the moment that they’d sauntered back into the more populated areas, they’d drawn more and more attention. It was nearing midday and they’d almost reached the 4th Division when Grimmjow stiffened and stopped. Renji kept going a couple of steps and again, the Espada reached out and halted him, this time by grabbing the remnants of Renji’s sleeve, the pieces of which were knotted on the top of one shoulder.

“We’re fucked,” Grimmjow proclaimed.

“Wha?”

“Karin’s waiting for us with Szayel in front of the main doors.”

Grimmjow actually sounded nervous, and for the life of him, Renji swore he saw the Sixth hesitate going forward. The guy looked more like a anxious housecat at the moment than the animalistic predator he’d battled with for hours on end. Renji could sympathize. Kurosakis had that effect on people, especially when they were ticked off.

“We could run and hide…,” he suggested, but Grimmjow shook his head and worriedly fingered Pantera’s hilt.

“Won’t work. She’ll find us. Best get the worst part done. Remember what I said about the Bankai. You got lucky this time. You wanna scrap, I’ll let you mess around with that sword of yours until I and Pantera get tired of it and school you. Until then, let the corpses on the hill do the talking.”

“Fine. Thanks for the advice.”

“Whatever. It’s more of a warning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

‘Good.”

“You’re stalling.”

“I’m trying to come up with a decent story.”

“Any luck?”

“No. Fuck…”

“Let me guess. She’s coming this way.”

“Yeah.”

“Been nice fighting with you.”

“Likewise…”



 

---

Later, Renji lay on one of the better hospital beds, listening to the dulcet tones of Karin's voice as she chewed Grimmjow a new one for going so far out, overnight, past the protection of the Defence Net and going at Renji in an all-out clash that included both his Resurrección and Renji’s Bankai. Unohana had seen to the worst of his injuries, after asking both he and Szayel a few pointed questions. After he assured the healer, who probably didn’t need this kind of thing showing up on her doorstep, that he’d been quite willing to spar with the Sixth in the same manner that the old 11th Division was willing to go at one another over a bottle of sake, she let one of her seated officers handle the rest.

It turned out that Renji had gotten the worst of it, but that didn’t surprise him. He was just happy that he’d delivered enough hurt to the Sixth that the guy felt it all the way home, even though his Hierro had deflected a lot of the lesser blows.

Szayel had taken one look at him, thrown his hands up in the air, told the follow-up healer to Unohana-Taichou that his ‘pet’ needed to be in working condition by tomorrow at the latest, then asked Renji if he’d been forced to do anything he didn’t want to.

Renji assured him that the fight was exactly what he needed. Szayel proceeded to close his eyes, seemingly to pray for patience and let Renji know he would be back to collect him the following morning. He left shortly thereafter, grousing about the fact that he’d been up all night waiting and muttering about what a lack of sleep could do to his good looks.

Once Szayel took his fussy self out of the room, Renji picked up the train of thought he’d had to abandon when Karin marched up to them, gripped an ear each on he and Grimmjow and dragged them through the doors of the 4th Division.

He’d shouted out his confession for the Sixth Espada and for all he knew, the rest of the Seireitei to hear and it was no less true, even if Grimmjow thought he was speaking of a different woman. Zabimaru, as tired as he was, chortled in the back of his brain when Renji passed a hand over his Zanpakuto’s sheath.

You finally understand. Now stop agonizing about it and do something this time.

At leassst sssay you’re sssorry! Sssorry is a good ssstart…

As the healer began working on the slash that Grimmjow had delivered to his thigh and to the black and blue marks on his ass, created when the Espada had propelled him into a tree, backside-first, Renji gave himself over to her ministrations and closed his eyes. Despite his best efforts, the worn out redhead finally gave in to his fatigue.

Yes, 'sorry' would be a good start, but there was no guarantee Nel would feel the same way.

He didn’t even know if she’d show up the next time they were supposed to meet and that was the worry he dragged into an afternoon’s uneasy slumber.





To be concluded...

 

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Author's Note: For some reason, I see Renji's inner world as something similar to the ruined temple frequented by King Louie, the orangutan, from the Walt Disney version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, minus the surplus of monkeys and slightly darker in tone. More ruin, less Louis Armstrong and far less jazz.