Consolation Prize (of Victory)

Consolation Prize

Interval 1: Revelations (Shock and Denial)



In which deals are made and made again....

Renji hit the button on the remote control, the red one with the two vertical slashes that stopped the disc player hooked up to the screen in front of him. Digital, reishi-laced ‘snow’ filled the screen, replacing the last image on the large monitor with static. The redhead wished that he could also obliterate what he’d just witnessed from his gray matter. But no, there it sat, like an unwanted and unannounced houseguest, daring him to try to evict it.

Grimacing, he tossed the controller onto the tabletop. It bounced a few times before spinning to a stop.

He could have lived a very long time without the knowledge he’d just gained, and yet it filled in more than a few gaps that, for a long time now, had nagged at him as to the ‘why’ of his current position. Worse, it was knowledge that left him conflicted: should he feel guilty, or enraged or just dazed?

The redhead had no idea which one to choose, so he settled on ‘numb’.

Scrubbing his face with the back of one hand, Renji admitted that he also had no one to blame but himself for being here, his ass parked in a chair in one of Szayel’s unused-at-present conference rooms. He’d made the mistake of directing a cutting remark at the scientist while rearranging the tables and cabinets in one of the lower laboratories, in order to make room for a few additional experiments. Granted, the only other people in the room had been Nemu and Karin, and Renji assumed that meant he didn’t have to worry about censoring himself.

He’d assumed wrong.

The trigger had been the beginning of a conversation that, for reasons he didn’t understand, somehow involved Karin. Szayel’s Claim on Nemu, he learned by eavesdropping while he worked, had begun to weaken and Szayel was in the midst of expressing his concern about ‘refreshing’ that Claim to the young human woman. Renji hadn’t been able to suppress the hissed remark that found its way past his lips.

“Ishida-kun would have died before he let you touch him…”

Karin hadn’t even let him finish muttering the sentence before she’d cuffed him on the back of the head, her clenched hand infused with just enough reiatsu to make what might have been an attention-getting slap into something strong enough to feel at the base of his brain. When he’d stopped seeing stars, he found Karin’s fist twisted into the front of his uniform and her face within inches of his own, her expression furious. For one, brief instant, Renji swore that it was Rukia, not Karin, poised to clean his clock. Both apparently had perfected the whole ‘small-but-fierce-enough-to-chew-through-a-cinderblock-wall’ thing.

“I told you… no more sniping and no nasty…”

“Karin-sama… I think it best that Renji see some recordings I salvaged from my old laboratories in Las Noches. They will enlighten him about a few things regarding his dead comrade.”

This had come from Szayel and he’d said it in surprisingly subdued tone. Renji had spared a look at the Espada, and had been startled to see the scientist with his golden eyes downcast, a pensive expression on his face. Nemu, in the time it took for Karin to rattle Renji’s skull, had moved over to Szayel’s side as quickly as her pregnancy-distended belly had allowed and taken one of those hands in hers, while Karin glared at Renji, her narrowed eyes promising another blow to his brain bucket if he so much as opened his mouth again.

“Szayel-sama, are you certain…?”

Szayel nodded at her and she backed down, though Renji didn’t miss the hand-squeeze he’d given her, as if to reassure her of something.

“It will give him some idea of why he’s not keeping company with the head of the Kuchiki clan, serving as a footstool for that bloated imbecile Yammy…” Szayel had replied, and then laughed a little bitterly. “…or moldering under the sands of Hueco Mundo. Please set things up in Room 105-b for him, my dear. I know that door at least has a lock on it. He won’t be disturbed while he’s there.”

The normally placid Nemu had reluctantly nodded as she left the laboratory, an awkward silence trailing in her wake. Szayel lingered a little longer in the room, gathered the compiled data on his latest experiment with the DNA he’d managed to scavenge from the Swarm and made a mumbled apology to Karin about being late for a meeting with a few of his minions. The Espada retreated, refusing to meet Karin’s eyes. If it was an excuse to escape, she chose to let it go. They’d both watched his departure and when the door closed behind him Karin had given him another shake, hard enough that Renji swore he felt a few teeth rattle loose.

“What the hell was that crack about Ishida-san for?”

Baffled, Renji answered truthfully with what he’d thought was a given: that the prideful Quincy he’d known and grudgingly respected as a fighter and as a friend would have never allowed Szayel to touch him, at least, not willingly. He certainly wouldn’t have stooped to let a creature like Szayel Claim him. The cool, collected young man would have chosen death before permitting anyone to keep him as a ‘pet’ and bugger him senseless. He didn’t know how well Karin had been acquainted with Ishida Uryuu as a child, but after fighting next to the boy in the Seireitei and in Hueco Mundo, Renji felt he could at least state that much with confidence.

Thankfully, Nemu had walked back in carrying a small box, which turned out to not only have physical, but Kido-enabled locks safeguarding whatever was inside. The young human woman let him go and then gave him a direct order: watch whatever it was that Szayel wanted Renji to see and when finished, to keep his trap shut about it. She’d emphasized this with a finger in his face, forcing him to look cross-eyed at the tip of it. Fortunately, Nemu had grabbed him by the bicep at that point and hauled him none-too-gently away.

Of course, Karin would have ordered him to do so, knowing that he couldn’t really refuse her, thanks to Nel’s somewhat broadly-defined, Claim-induced command to follow the human’s instructions to the letter. Maybe, he thought tiredly, propping his chin up on his folded arms, Karin might not have told him to do so had she known what was on the disc in the box.

Then again, he didn’t pretend to understand what motivated Kurosaki Ichigo’s little sister when it came to Szayel. Maybe she would have done it anyway. Renji wished he could simply have both the hour of his life he’d spent in front of the DVD player, and his blissful ignorance back. Rukia had always warned him about his tendency to speak first and think later. To his chagrin, he had to agree with his absent friend this time. If he’d only managed to kept his mouth shut...

Freed, finally, from the effects of the order, Renji got up from the chair and stretched his legs and then his back. A number of his vertebrae slid back into place and relieved some of the tension in his shoulders. He discovered that one of the doors along the far wall led to a small washroom and he took the opportunity to turn on the faucet, drinking from his cupped hands. Taking off his headband, he splashed his face, the bracing chill helping clear his head a little. Droplets of water trickled from his skin to fall back into the ceramic basin. Renji watched as each drop joined the liquid gushing from the tap as it swirled down the drain.

Were his memories of his last battle in Hueco Mundo that incomplete? He remembered the majority of the fight and he had the scars to prove it, but things had gotten a little cloudy after Szayel had managed to rupture a few of his internal organs and had broken a number of his bones with that infernal doll he’d made in Renji’s image. Then again, Szayel had bragged, before the fight even began, that he’d been monitoring them both for the entire time they’d wandered through his territory and recoded everything that went on within its walls. The pieces he could recall were all there, in crisp detail despite the reduction of a large chunk of Szayel’s lair to rubble, so he couldn’t really say that everything he’d just seen was a hoax.

Apparently, he’d missed a few things. Important things. Things that left him feeling wrung-out, unable to reconcile his long-standing hatred of the Espada he pretended to serve with the events on the recording.

The fight had gone downhill after Szayel decided to get serious. Both of his Achilles tendons had been snapped in half, and he’d gone down in a heap on the rubble created when both he and the clones the pink freak had created released each one’s Bankai, all at the same time, while trapped under the dome that housed Szayel’s territory. Uryuu’s stomach had been ruptured; the Quincy was on the ground, in pain and trying to hide it. Szayel had been standing in between the two of them and Renji distinctly heard their enemy saying something to the effect that ‘it wouldn’t do to overtly injure such an intriguing and unique specimen before making a… thorough examination of it.”

The Espada had been looking intently at Uryuu at the time. Renji also hadn’t missed the disturbingly salacious way Szayel had uttered those words while he’d looked Uryuu up and down, but after an hour of having to listen to the creature brag about his abilities in the same tone, the redhead thought what the Espada meant involved a jar of formaldehyde and a dissection table. Uryuu, on the other hand, appeared to have taken it a little differently. Renji’s attention had been fixed firmly on the Arrancar, so he’d missed the shocked look on his companion’s face and the red stain that colored the young man’s cheeks. The recording, however, captured it in vivid color and threw Szayel’s words into a completely new light. His own experience over the last decade, or rather, what he’d unfortunately been awake to experience, only reinforced his new understanding of what Szayel had truly intended for Uryuu.

It made a kind of sick sense, if one was willing to look past the whole ‘wrongness’ of it, he thought.

Then again, Renji had to admit that Szayel definitely had a ‘type’ he seemed to prefer. After all, Nemu shared more than a few attributes with his late compatriot: dark hair, good looks, a slender build and a quiet, studious demeanor as well as above-average intelligence. An involuntary shiver ran up and down his spine as he deliberately abandoned that train of thought, not wanting to dwell on it. Instead, he took a few more gulps of cold water.

His own incapacitation had left the two spastic idiots, Pesche and Dondochaka, standing between Renji and Uryuu and Szayel. That fight had had been laughably one-sided and short, but to their credit, the two fraccion had remained on their feet and they had managed to wrestle both of the dolls away from Szayel. At least until Szayel had directed a Cero, not at the two of them, but at the outcrop of rubble above them. The whole thing had collapsed forward, burying them under tons of jagged stone and concrete chunks. Renji’s doll was buried with them, but Uryuu’s went flying out of Pesche’s fingers, landing amid the debris.

That, it turned out, had been what had sealed Uryuu’s fate.

Kurotsuchi-Taichou had chosen that moment to make his appearance, Nemu trailing silently after the painted maniac. The fight then took a decidedly different direction. Kurotsuchi had mocked Szayel’s attempt to use the same doll-creation technique on him, and Szayel had retaliated by immobilizing Nemu in one of his many tentacles. It was also at that point that Renji’s memories of the conflict began to differ slightly from what he’d just witnessed. Of course, he thought, the fact that he’d begun to bleed internally might have had something to do with that. It also didn’t help that Kurotsuchi, after a bit of insane banter with an equally arrogant Szayel, had pulled his Zanpakuto, releasing his Bankai and unleashing Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou in the Espada’s direction. The resulting cloud of poison had engulfed Szayel. Unfortunately, it also hit Uryuu, who had been trying to crawl out of the way as well as Pesche and Dondochaka as they attempted to extricate themselves from the rubble pile. Then Kurotsuchi’s Bankai had simply devoured Szayel, slurping the creature up like a limp udon noodle. 

Grimacing, Renji reached up and turned off the faucet. He grabbed his headband and pulled it back over his forehead, making sure any stray strands of hair were tucked away from his face. Eyes sliding upwards, he met his own gaze in the steel mirror hanging above the sink and winced again at his image in the polished metal.

The Defense Grid had gone up a week ago; he’d only now started to catch up on the sleep he’d missed during the mad dash to get the thing up and running before that fucker, Aizen, decided to start lopping off heads. He looked as if he could use a week of uninterrupted sleep, but damned if he thought he’d actually get to have it.

Hell, he’d be lucky to get to sleep tonight. He was almost, almost tempted to find a sake vendor in the market and medicate the whole lousy business away, at least for one evening. However, his better judgment, honed over the years by being a member of the Eleventh Division and later, Kuchiki-Taichou’s second-in-command, prevented him from giving in to the impulse. He also had no idea if drinking too deeply would affect Nel, or if she would even feel it, given that she was in the Living World. He didn’t want to take any chances, and unfortunately, he already knew that using alcohol to achieve forgetfulness had some unpleasant side effects.

What awareness he’d retained after the reeking cloud had abated came in fits and starts. Gaps full of blackness alternated with images that, now that he’d seen the entire recording, made much more sense. He’d been helpless to prevent the unnecessary slaughter of Nel’s comrades, something that haunted him even more, considering his recent connection to her. The freshly renewed feeling of guilt ate at him, despite the fact that, in reality, there was very little he could have done to help the two. Kurotsuchi-Taichou had stomped over to where her fraccion lay immobilized, dispatching them quickly with his blade before either he or Uryuu could even voice a protest. Watching it again had been wrenching. It turned his stomach to see Kurotsuchi destroy their less-than-successful allies, in sharp unforgiving detail. It also didn’t help that Renji, despite how delirious he’d been at the time, knew exactly what had happened next.

As bad as Pesche and Dondochaka’s demises had been, what followed had given him nightmares for the year after his enslavement. 

Kurotsuchi, without the slightest bit of remorse and ignoring the “Taichou-sama!” that Nemu had gasped while she’d also been unable to intervene, moved to pick up the doll Szayel had created of Uryuu from where it lay in the building’s ruins. He’d tossed it from one palm to the other, as if considering what to do with it, while Uryuu writhed in pain at his feet. His irritated, disdainful expression never changed as he came to a conclusion deep within that twisted brain of his.

“I believe I have all of the data I need from you, Quincy. Between what I gleaned from the last specimen I had in my laboratory and from what I’ve learned from the surveillance bacteria I infected you with during our fight all those months ago, I find that I no longer have any interest or imperative in studying you further.”

If he lived as long as the late Soutaichou Yamamoto, Renji knew that he would never forget the sound of Uryuu’s scream as Kurotsuchi crushed the doll and its contents with one hand. The horrible reverberation echoed off the remaining walls, ending with a strangling cry as blood fountained out of Uryuu’s open mouth. It mixed with Nemu’s growing cries as she’d writhed in agony, still clutched in the grasp of what was left of the uneaten portion of the Espada. The last thing he’d seen was the nightmarish image of something horrible and of a familiar purple shade oozing out of Nemu’s open mouth. He’d slipped into merciful blackness at that point, thanks to his own extensive injuries. Up until an hour ago, that was where his memories of the fight ended.

Renji straightened up and then squared his shoulders, pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead to fend off the headache that the cold water hadn’t been able to deter.

He thought he’d witnessed Uryuu’s death in that terrible moment.

However, the recording he’d watched told him something very different.

Was a Quincy’s pride such a tangible thing that, against all odds, it could keep its owner alive after sustaining such trauma? Renji thought it might be so, now that he’d seen the evidence.

Szayel had come boiling up out of his hiding place in Nemu’s body, having resurrected himself from within her and when he’d reappeared, the Espada was utterly enraged, furious at having lost something he’d very much coveted, courtesy of his opponent. The sheer amount of savagery Szayel displayed as he’d attacked Kurotsuchi-Taichou head-on shocked Renji, seeing it for the first time.

Howling in fury, Szayel had commanded Kurotsuchi’s Bankai to devour its master. The painted loon had about three seconds to open his mouth in surprise before his own Zanpakuto hit him. Then it hit him again and again, until there was little left of the Shinigami Taichou other than a pile of mangled flesh, robes and bone, a shattered headdress and a red puddle spreading out from beneath the mess. The attack only stopped when Konjiki Ashisogi Jizou finally disappeared, signifying that its master had died. The Espada had stood, wild-eyed over the remains, breathing heavily, then lifted his foot and brought it down hard on something within the pile with a loud ‘CRUNCH’. As he’d watched the recording, Renji realized, with more than a little nausea, that Szayel had deliberately crushed the Taichou’s skull.

Satisfied he’d won, Szayel had turned on his heel, pulled his fingers through disheveled pink locks and with a disgusted snort, reverted to his normal ‘state’. A great deal of the madness that he’d displayed, along with the accompanying barbarity, dissipated as well. The anger remained and Szayel’s burning, golden eyes then focused on Nemu’s crumpled, withered, but still-breathing form. Gripping Fornicaras, he’d taken a step towards her…

“S…s..top, Esp…ada!”

Uryuu’s recorded voice, thin, broken, agonized, still held that same imperious tone he usually used when addressing anyone other than his human friends. As faint as it was, it still managed to halt Szayel in his tracks and the Arrancar had done another pivot, staring at the spot where Uryuu lay. Then he blinked and sheathed his weapon in favour of approaching what was left of the boy and kneeling down to peer closely at the Quincy.

“You’re still alive! How extraordinary!”

The pleased look on Szayel’s face faded as he took in the true extent of the damage. Once again, Uryuu’s voice floated up from where he lay and the words he spoke shattered everything Renji had once presumed about Quincy pride.

“I pro…propose a… deal…”

Renji, lacking a hand towel of any kind, used his sleeve to mop up what was left of the moisture on his face and decided that lingering in the washroom wasn’t going to make his frame of mind any better. He let out a long breath and opened the door, only to discover that he was no longer alone in the conference room. Nemu stood by the DVR, one finger poised over the ‘Eject’ button. He knew she had the codes to almost all of the rooms in the Science and Research Division, so he wasn’t surprised that she’d been able to get in. He hadn’t expected her to come back for him so quickly though.

She didn’t turn around as she addressed him. He was actually glad about that for once.

“Have you finished watching this, Renji?”

He stood there for a moment, taking in her rigid spine and stiff posture and then stared at his feet, trying to think of something to say and failing. There were things on the recording that he didn’t want to think about while she was here. Otherwise, his face would take on the same shade as his hair and she’d know what he’d seen. Then he remembered what she’d said when Szayel had first brought up having him watch it and, after a long minute, he settled on “Can I ask you something, Nemu?”

She took almost as long as he had in giving him an answer.

“You can ask. I may or may not have an answer for you.”

Renji made his way back to the conference table and the chair and sat back down, his eyes back on the wood grain of the table as he tried to figure out a way of phrasing what he wanted to know.

“Did you know what was going on?” he finally asked. “I mean, uhm… during the fight and after Kurotsuchi-Taichou’s death.”

Again, she took her time answering.

“I… remember a great deal. If you’re inquiring about whether or not I heard the bargain Ishida Uryuu made with Szayel, the answer is ‘yes’, I was aware he attempted to trade his dying body to Szayel for our lives.”

Nemu pressed the button on the DVD player and took the disc when it popped from its slot. She took great care to place it back in its box, and began the complicated process of restoring its Kido locks. Renji kept quiet until she was satisfied that the thing was secure and placed it to one side. Then she turned her full regard on him and clasped her hands in front of her. Or rather, she tried to. Getting the gesture to work around a nearly nine month’s pregnant midsection wasn’t the easiest thing to pull off. Instead, she placed her palms on the curve of her belly.

“You knew that when he… or I should say, Ishida-san fought my father, back when Kurosaki Ichigo and the rest of his friends arrived to try to liberate Kuchiki Rukia, he damaged my father’s Bankai?”

Nemu broke eye contact with him, preferring to look at her fingers as she laced them together to rest on her pregnant stomach. When he didn’t say anything, she continued.

“While my father managed to augment his Bankai afterwards, it was never really the same. I think, ironically, that the original damage Ishida-san did to it was how Szayel-sama managed to turn it against him in the end. I knew about the surveillance bacteria, but I did not realize that one of my father’s motives for infecting Ishida-san was to exact revenge, despite Yamamoto-Soutaichou’s orders. It’s my belief that he knew exactly when to intervene in your fight with Szayel-sama in order to, as they say in the Living World, ‘kill two birds with one stone’. Szayel-sama would have taken the blame for Ishida’s death, not my father. He would have told me what to report and that would have been that. The then-Octavio did create the means to kill Ishida with his Resurrección, after all. I would not have had a choice in the matter. He would have disposed of me if I objected and simply made another assistant. Tools are not supposed to turn on their masters, after all.”

She said the last with more than a little bitterness, but it didn’t mollify him any.

“And what about my memories, eh? I heard what he said. Hell, I saw what he did…”

Renji growled this, jerked his thumb at his chest, and then paused as Nemu looked down at the table. Something about her expression made him swallow what he’d been about to say as a realization hit him. Her next words confirmed his suspicions and he suddenly felt cold.

“Kurotsuchi-Taichou would have never let you leave the battlefield alive if he thought there was any way you could contradict his official report. He probably would have had me dig through the rubble until he found your doll and he would have done the same thing to you that he did to Ishida-san. Or he would have simply waited until you died of your wounds…had he prevailed, of course.”

The redhead digested that and then closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh. He also took a few minutes to wrestle his emotions back under control. While that clarified a few things and substantiated the extent of the late bastard’s treachery, it wasn’t what he was after. Leaning back in the chair, he tried again.

“Let’s back up here. Why would Ishida-kun even think to make that kind of deal with an enemy, an Espada of all things? Why would he ask for my life? You I can see, but… why include me in that? Moreover, why did your… mate, agree to it? He didn’t have to. He could have just waited and taken it anyway. I don’t get it.”

Nemu didn’t reply to that right away. Instead, she reached down and picked up the box, turning the container with its many locks repeatedly in her hands. Her green eyes followed the movements of the thing as it rotated and even Renji found himself watching it as her fingers moved.

“I think… I think it’s partly because of what he was. He was a Quincy and he was very… chivalrous. Ishida-san once protected me from a blow my father had intended as punishment for moving too slow and being too clumsy during their battle. He was willing to use anything he had to protect those he cared about or who he felt needed it, or felt deserved his allegiance… even if the only weapon he had left to use was his corpse.”

She set the box down, pulled her braid over one shoulder and worried at it a little with her fingers.

“I don’t know why Szayel-sama accepted the deal either, though I’m grateful that he did. Before I was Szayel’s, I had nothing. I was nothing save a device my father created. It was something he told me often enough. Now…” and here, she dropped the braid and moved her hands over her belly, “even with all of the danger, I have more than I ever dreamed possible. Please, Renji-kun… please try to understand.”

She fell silent when the door behind Renji opened once again and straightened up a little. Renji didn’t need to turn around to know who had just walked into the room. He ground his teeth together and managed to keep from scowling as he heard Szayel clear his throat. The Espada casually walked up to his ‘mate’ and laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

“Nemu, I see ‘show and tell’ is over. Go ahead and put that back where I concealed it. When you’ve finished, I have another set of data files from the western section of the Defence Net that require processing and I need the results added to the combined energy-usage tabulations. The results have to be accurate, which is why I would like you to handle this. I’d also like it available for this afternoon’s meeting.”

Nemu nodded, tucked the box under her arm and would have left if Szayel hadn’t stopped her, taking her gently by the elbow and making her look at him. His other hand moved up to tuck a few stray strands of her dark hair behind her ear and Renji didn’t miss the faint blush that crept across her cheeks as his fingertips traced the shell of it.

“I also wish you to eat something. You’re nourishing three and I don’t want your energy levels to fall too far below what we decided was the optimum baseline. Your systems are a marvel of efficiency but I simply don’t wish take chances with your health. You haven’t missed any of the supplement doses that Unohana-Taichou gave you?”

She shook her head, but did give him a faint smile, as if to reassure him.

“No, Szayel-sama. I take them every morning, as she instructed. My reserves are steady at present, but I will do as you ask after I return this to the vaults,” she replied as she held up the locked box. “I’ll process the files after that and have them for you by sixteen hundred. Is that an acceptable time-frame?”

He nodded and then, to Renji’s shock, pressed a quick kiss to her temple before letting her go. Renji watched her close the door behind her before he turned and warily eyed the creature who had taken her place. Neither of them did anything for a few minutes; Szayel simply stood with his arms folded across his chest and Renji waited for him to say something, anything, about what he’d just seen. Finally, the Espada shrugged, grabbed the remote control from its spot on the table, and then turned off the power to both the DVD unit and the television screen.

“I declare, you’re literally the cause of more headaches for me than you’re worth at times.”

Szayel pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, a look of profound irritation clouding his features.

“You do realize that discussing this upsets her, don’t you?” Szayel muttered crossly.

Taken aback, Renji opened his mouth, but closed it when the other held up one hand, palm outward, in a gesture that clearly said ‘shut it.’

“To think, you’ve been Claimed by not one, but two of the Espada and it still hasn’t sunk in that we feel all of the emotions experienced by those we’ve taken as our own. Sometimes I think you have wet cement, or perhaps walnuts for brains.”

The fact that the conversation between he and Nemu had distressed her enough to summon Szayel surprised Renji. Sure, she seemed a little aloof and a little pissed, but he’d thought that was due to his mouthing off. Now, with his newfound knowledge of what had really happened, he realized that assumption had been false and that he’d better not make any more of them.

“Sooo… Nemu and Ishida-kun…” he began hesitantly, before Szayel threw a disgruntled look his way.

“I believe whatever small act of kindness he tossed her way in the past was a first for her. It apparently left an impression. My predecessor here was a complete cretin. He had perfection in his grasp and he couldn’t or wouldn’t appreciate her. Her value as a competent assistant alone, never mind her other sterling qualities and abilities, has been an incalculable asset to me and that lack-wit treated her as if she was…. Argh, I’d resurrect him and destroy him all over again on principle if it were at all possible!”

The Espada said this with no small amount of disgust, but it brought up another issue that the former Fukutaichou had set to the side while he tried to get a definitive answer to his original question. He decided to pull it back into the forefront, more to express the shock at what he’d seen on the tape, after Uryuu had ceased to breathe and Szayel had regained his feet, intent on putting the first part of the deal to bed.

In this case, it had been literal.

“Did you have to Claim her right then and there?” Renji countered angrily, recalling a portion of the recording he truly wished he hadn’t witnessed.

He could feel his cheeks heat up in embarrassment as he remembered the moaning, white and black fabric tearing, and the rhythmic slide of flesh on flesh. It was one of the reasons, he suspected, that Nemu hadn’t really looked at him when she’d come for the disc. Hell, he’d barely maintained eye contact with her either.

“Kami, you dragged her over to that concrete slab and just…”

The Espada rolled his eyes at that and pointed one finger at the dark television screen.

“I did not drag her anywhere. Did you actually watch the recording or was your pea-brain still working on the fact you’d be dead now if not for my Victory over that poor excuse for a scientist?” Szayel sneered and made a show of inspecting his nails. “If you were paying attention, you would know that I clearly explained to her that I’d won her from her former Master, moved her to a slightly more comfortable location and then Claimed her. I did so for entirely practical reasons. I’d consumed most of her reiatsu when I used Fornicaras’s ‘Gabrielle’ technique to recreate myself within her body. Had she been anything other than what she is, she would have died after I extracted myself. When I Claimed her, I poured enough of my reiatsu into her to both halt the deterioration ‘Gabrielle’ causes in the host and to ensure her obedience. It was a temporary measure, until I could get to my laboratory and deal with the problem properly!”

Renji grit his teeth. What grated on his nerves was the fact that the Espada’s explanation made sense, especially now that he’d experienced a Claim he’d willingly undergone. He could feel the warmth of the energy she’d left within him and the amount of it lent credence to Szayel’s account. Of course, that led to a different, but related matter, one he was sure the scientist couldn’t try to deny. Renji all but spat out the accusation.

“You were going to Claim Ishida-kun too, weren’t you?”

This time Szayel pulled out a chair, sat down and went eye-to-eye with the redhead, his expression going from exasperated to deadly serious in a matter of seconds. The change in demeanor gave Renji pause and he edged back a little from the intense look in the Espada’s eyes. Szayel pushed a lock of pink hair away from his face and stabbed the tabletop with one finger for emphasis.

“Oh yes. He was unique, one of the last of his kind, a worthy specimen. I could have spent decades upon decades examining him. He had unusual talents, an intriguing arsenal of weapons I’d never encountered before and to be blunt, Abarai, he was very easy on the eyes. I intended to take him for myself if possible once I’d had him healed. He wouldn’t have been as adverse to it as you think, either. I have other recordings from that time I could show you. His body language whenever he was around that damnable hybrid Kurosaki is quite readable if one knows what to look for.”

He felt his throat close up and he missed a few breaths as this new information rolled over him. The Espada didn’t seem to notice, because he kept going.

“…and despite what you believe, you now have proof that he wasn’t above bargaining with the likes of me for something with his…”

“ENOUGH!” Renji snapped, banging his fist on the tabletop, cutting Szayel off. The piece of furniture shivered and jolted under the impact. “I get it, okay? You’ve made your goddamned point already!”

He hunched over the table, drawing his elbows in, with both hands and his teeth clenched. Szayel watched Renji seethe for a few minutes. He then sighed and pushed himself out of the chair.

“I would like you to refrain from bringing this subject up around Nemu, or myself for that matter, again. She doesn’t need any added mental discomfort during her pregnancy and I don’t need to feel her unhappiness about the issue via my Claim upon her. In addition,” Szayel continued, his tone getting colder “I don’t need the reminder of the last time that odious, makeup-loving snake managed to make a hash of my plans. I have enough problems on my plate presently. I hope that recording…”

“I still have a couple of questions.” Renji’s interruption, delivered in a slightly calmer voice, caused Szayel to lift one eyebrow, more in annoyance than in interest.

“And those would be, what? Hurry up. Some of us have important things to accomplish today.”

“Why did you honor your bargain with Ishida-kun when it came to me and Nemu? You didn’t have to,” Renji pointed out. “I heard Ishida-kun tell you about Nemu and why she would be valuable, but I have a hard time believing that you needed me for anything more than grunt work. Why didn’t you let me die there?”

The pink-haired Espada turned towards the door, folded his arms over his chest and trained his eyes on one of the ceiling tiles, as if he were deciding on exactly how to phrase a topic he found distasteful or irritating. His voice was a little grudging when he gave Renji his reply.

“Humph. There were several reasons, actually. First, it did not escape my notice that you are one of the few Shinigami with a Bankai and if I could not have a Quincy, I could at least study someone who had a Zanpakuto capable of achieving a secondary release state at my disposal. I believe I’ve exhausted that avenue of research, by the way,” Szayel said, when Renji began to glower. “Second, when you and Ishida Uryuu rampaged through my territory, you destroyed almost all of my engineered fraccion…”

“You mean we destroyed the ones that you didn’t eat...” the redhead interjected. Szayel eyes narrowed behind the rims of his mask before Renji sullenly looked away and let him resume speaking.

“…and I needed an immediate replacement for them. You seemed fit enough for manual labor, once Orihime-chan dealt with the worst of your injuries. Third, Yammy arrived shortly after I’d finished… stabilizing’… Nemu-chan, with your ex-Taichou draped over his shoulders and brought me Aizen’s new orders: we were to bring any survivors to the Seireitei. You had yet to expire, so I had that walking temper tantrum bring you back as well. I used you to fill my second Claim slot shortly after that, fulfilling my agreement with your deceased friend to the letter, if not the intended method, of our bargain.”

Szayel paused and then curled his lip a little.

 “Of course, I had a personal, unrelated reason for wanting to exert my Claim over you.”

“…and that was?” Renji probed reluctantly. The Seventh gave him a smirk that managed, somehow, to be devoid of any humor.

“My wardrobe.”

At first, Renji thought he’d misheard and blinked. Then the words truly sank in and he stared up at Szayel, incredulity making his eyes widen.

“What?”

Szayel glared right back at him, then sniffed and put a little more emphasis on each sarcasm-ridden syllable.

“I. Said. My. Wardrobe. You, Ishida Uryuu and Nel’s two-man brain trust ruined all of my extra attire during that little battle. I decided that you could at least make up for the destruction of my treasured clothing with some old-fashioned elbow grease.”

The Shinigami at the table swore he could feel his jaw drop to his lap.

It was rare that Renji found himself at a loss for anything to say. He usually had a few snarky comebacks prepared for any given occasion, even if he withheld the majority of them, depending on the circumstances. This time, all he could do was gape, open-mouthed, at the huffy Espada before him, astounded by the sheer triviality, the pettiness of Szayel’s reasoning.

Then the absurdity of the whole thing hit him. He was alive thanks to a set of unlikely circumstances: a dead friend’s final deal with a monster, good timing, the presence of a job opening he’d inadvertently helped create and the fact he’d been deemed an acceptable substitute, a bloody consolation prize for a formerly well-appointed closet. Renji swore he could feel what was left of his ego crumble to proverbial dust and float away.

A small, pragmatic part of his psyche reminded him that, at the very least, he now had more and better information than he had a mere two hours ago. As much as Szayel’s motives for keeping him amongst the living vexed him, the former Fukutaichou also had to acknowledge that the Espada had kept to the bare bones of his deal with Uryuu and that he was still walking around because of it.

Renji rested his chin on his laced fingers, his weight propped up on his elbows and tried to keep his conflicted emotions in check long enough to pose one final question to the Hollow standing next to the table, impatiently tapping his foot. He wanted to see if what he suspected was true.

“Why keep that disc locked up, other than not wanting to show anyone who stumbles across it a recording of your naked ass?”

The tapping stopped, but the reply took a little longer and it sounded more like Szayel was talking to himself, rather than Renji, which struck the redhead as odd.

“When your little band of trespassers decided to ‘rescue’ Inoue Orihime, Aizen’s original orders to his Espada were to destroy you all, without exception. It wouldn’t do if he found out, even after all this time that I decided to go against those orders on my own. Aizen might construe the bargain I made as a direct betrayal. The last thing I want is to give him another excuse to question my loyalty. I have more to lose these days,” he said and Renji knew that he wasn’t thinking about the contents of his dresser.

“Then why keep it? Why not destroy it, or say that your equipment was damaged?”

Renji thought he’d brought up a valid concern. Aizen’s patience in the last month, especially with Szayel and the delays in the Defence Net had been short, up until the first few demonstrations of the thing’s worth. Sitting on something like this, even under tight security, was a huge risk.

“Nostalgia, I suppose. It’s a reminder of what I’ve lost, but at the same time, it’s also a reminder of what I gained that day, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I desired one thing and yet ended up with something much better when the first became impossible. It seems to be a recurring theme of late, I think, liking one’s consolation prize more than the original trophy. Still” he said, his tone taking a more philosophical turn, “one always wonders about what might have been.”

Szayel also said this with just a hint of melancholy, but it was enough for Renji to turn the chair around to look directly at the Seventh. The other had his eyes closed, his arms still folded across his chest.

“In addition, you have to admit that keeping it served its purpose as far as you are concerned, yes?”

Golden eyes opened and slanted sideways to meet his and Renji again bit down on a retort. Kami, but speaking his mind around the Espada in the future was going to be a tough habit to break, especially if he went ahead with the idea for a compromise that had wormed its way into his thoughts in the last ten minutes. There was one final thing he had to see to, now that he knew the truth and if he wanted to be able to sleep tonight with his newfound understanding, he’d have to bring it up quickly.

Renji swallowed and let his fingers brush against Zabimaru’s hilt. His Zanpakuto had been very, very quiet during the last hour, offering small doses of support but letting him cope with the majority of it on his own. Of course, it had also been a bit sulky since he’d submitted voluntarily to Nel’s Claim, so Renji steeled himself for more of the same, considering what he was about to propose to his former ‘owner’.

Szayel’s pale fingers worked their way over the crack in his glasses and he frowned a little. He seemed to give himself a good internal shake as well. As Renji expected, the first thing out of his mouth was a business-like order.

“As I said, I have things to attend to and Laboratory 4 is still in disarray, thanks to this interruption…”

The Seventh indicated the DVD player, the screen and the rest of the room with a sweep of his hand.

“We’re done here. Go and finish what you were…”

“One more thing.”

Now Szayel turned on the Shinigami, his teeth bared and his patience at an end.

“I’ve no more time for questions and the matter is closed!”

“It’s not a question. It’s a request,” Renji said quietly.

That stopped Szayel in his tracks for a second. Then he tilted back his head and let out a hearty laugh, hands going to his hips.

“If I didn’t know better from experience, I’d say you had a set of brass balls with a cast-iron clapper. What in the name of all of the Realms would lead you to believe you can ask anything of me? Especially right now.”

He supposed that was fair, all things considered. However, Renji didn’t budge from his seat as he continued.

“You’re capable of making a deal and sticking to it. At least, that’s what that disc tells me, even if you’ll do the bare minimum that the deal requires and nothing more.”

Renji took a couple of deep breaths and before Szayel could say anything else, the redhead forged ahead, determined to toss what he wanted out into the open.

“Ishida-kun’s body. I want him properly buried, with dignity, like the human he was.”

The words hung between them. The stunned expression on Szayel’s face told Renji that he’d actually managed to shock the Espada. It obviously wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Szayel’s mouth opened and closed without making a sound and for a second, he reminded Renji of a pink goldfish.

Renji pressed on, speaking quickly.

“He granted you his corpse, in exchange for our lives. I’m sure that you still have his body… stashed, somewhere. I want to make a new deal with you: give him a decent burial in the Living World, and I’ll agree to obey you at all times, public and private. No more cheap shots. No more names, no more jabs at you for all of the shit you did to me, including that damned nine-year nap. I’ll still rip you a new one if you hurt me or use me as a guinea pig for your experiments, but from this point on, I’ll give you my obedience as long as it doesn’t contradict Nel’s rules or Karin’s orders.”

Now Zabimaru chose to chime in and the words his Zanpakuto had for him weren’t exactly flattering, or in any way polite. Renji tried to placate the sword, who let him know, in a voice that could blister paint, what he thought of that plan. In the middle of dealing with the irate portion of his soul, he realized that his attention must have seriously strayed towards his inner world, because Szayel’s voice, shouted inches from his face, brought him sharply back into the present.

“…SAID ‘FINE’!!!” the Espada shrieked and Renji almost fell out of the chair.

Heart thudding, he clutched the front of his kosode, eyes wide. Szayel took a step away, regarded Renji with ‘humph’ and rubbed his temples, his brow furrowed in what could have either been a forming headache or a sign that he simply wanted out of the conference room as quickly as possible.

“I… have no problem with that. I gleaned everything I could from his body long ago, and preserved the boy’s remains in one of the deeper labs. I’ll send a team to handle it in the next few days to cremate him, now that the Net is working. I can arrange for their proper transportation to a suitable cemetery. However, I will keep his weaponry under the same level of security I keep that disc. Will that suffice?”

Yeah, that will work out just fine, Renji mentally agreed.

After a minute or two, during which the redhead managed to get his pulse down to a normal pace and Szayel put his hair back into place and straightened his collar, Renji nodded slowly and let some of the tension he didn’t realize had built up in his frame drain away. It was the result he wanted and nothing more. It was also better than what he’d initially expected, which was a flat-out refusal. He found that curious.

Something told him that Nemu’s pain wasn’t the only thing that Szayel had to contend with where Uryuu had been concerned. Maybe the Espada was ready to let go of the Quincy as well, or at least, what was left of him physically.

“Deal,” he replied.

The scientist sent a thankful look heavenward, made an ‘at last’ gesture and headed for the door. Opening it, he tossed his orders over his shoulder at the Shinigami.

“Now, finish what you were supposed to do in Laboratory 4, sweep out and clean Laboratories 6 and 7, and then see if Nemu has anything for you. Oh, and I suggest you bring a mop for Laboratory 7, several sponges and a lot of disinfectant. You’ll need them.”

With that, he was gone. Renji took some time to finish collecting himself, and then a little more time to gather his thoughts before he went to execute Szayel’s latest instructions.

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting when he’d rolled out of bed this morning. His new-found knowledge wasn’t exactly comforting either, and neither was the fact that he was seriously going to have curb his tongue from now on, thanks to the bargain he’d just made, or at least until circumstances changed. Of course, he couldn’t really count on that happening soon. Something Szayel had said resonated with him, however much he hated to admit it.

Ugh, he grouched inwardly as he finally hauled himself up out of the chair, not looking forward to what he expected he would find in Laboratory 7. It had been much simpler to hate the pink bastard.

At least, Renji thought, he could console himself with the fact that he’d done what he could for what had been left of his friend, even if doing so had required a shift in perspective about the Quincy at whose side he had once fought and the Espada who he’d once battled.

 

To be continued: