Nowe stirred as Renji slumped forward, his eyes opening slowly. He blinked a few times, the fogginess from his vision fading. He winced. Damn, his head still hurt pretty badly. But he was able to see again, at least, and those horrible voices filling his ears were gone. What was left was a slight pressure against him, and when he came to full awareness he realized there was some red hair splayed across his face, sticking to the blood that hadn't dried yet.
"Ren... ji?"
Nowe jolted as he realized what had happened. Renji had collapsed. He didn't want to try moving his friend, since he saw the wounds were so severe, but he spotted Sora standing a few feet away.
"Sora... what happened?"
Damn it... we were so careless!
He had to get up. He couldn't just stay sitting. He very cautiously wormed his way out from beneath Renji (damn, he was heavy) and shifted him so he was slumped against the wall instead. He stood up too fast and swayed, having to catch himself against the wall to keep from falling. His head wound was keeping him from moving too quickly.
"Damn..." Nowe put a hand to his bloody face, grimacing, and he turned to glare down at Renji.
"You idiot, Renji! Why didn't you all just run... that thing was focused on me, you all had your chance to get away... you idiot!" Nowe's fists shook at his sides, and he slammed one into the wall, not caring that it tore some of the skin away from his knuckles. That was the least of his worries.
"We can't move him too much. Even if it wasn't dangerous to move him, I don't think I could carry him for long, if at all, maybe you can, Kuro--" He stopped in mid-sentence, realizing he hadn't seen the orange-haired friend of Renji's since he'd regained consciousness.
"...Sora, where's Kurosaki?" Fear immediately gripped him. There was no way they'd all been stupid enough to... right? Right??
Sora made small assurances in response to the favors Renji asked of him, but he didn't expect the man to do... well, whatever he'd done. All he knew is that the redhead ended up collapsing and then Nowe was suddenly better. It was what he imagined would happen if he tried to cast a Cure spell in this place. It might help whoever he was curing, but he'd end up collapsing.
"I... We..." Breathing hard, Sora tried to gather his thoughts, but the fact that Nowe was so panicked wasn't helping.
"We ran," he explained. "We had no other choice. And now both of you are injured, and he... he's..." He was back there, and that monster was doing who knew what to him.
But he couldn't just stand there shaking. Something had to be done, but what? Renji couldn't move and Nowe was probably still too injured to get very far. "I'll... I'll look for help," he said suddenly. There had to be some other patients nearby, right? They couldn't just give up, as hopeless as things were seeming.
What he liked the least was that he was the only one who hadn't been hurt.
It was strange, just how much everything hurt, and how it all felt. Things hadn't felt like this when he wasn't trapped in a body, when his reiatsu wasn't bound. Pain was still pain, but it had always felt so much more distant, and blood was just blood.
Now, he was keenly aware that blood was, in fact, life. His life, or what passed for it. A steady dribble of it fell from his lips, brought up by every breath.
He wasn't conscious or unconscious; he couldn't see, could barely hear over the ringing in his ears and the sound of the blood (more blood?) rushing through his veins. But somehow, he clung to a sliver of reality with all his will, refusing to be swallowed completely by his injuries.
So he knew that Nowe and Sora were still there. He wanted to scream at them to run, to get moving. That had been the point of this exercise. Get Nowe up so they could move on. Just leave him, like they had left Kurosaki.
That thought escaped his lips as an embarassing, but thankfully quiet, pained moan.
Nowe grimaced. This was an ugly situation. Kurosaki hadn't caught up to them, which meant that he was probably getting beat on pretty badly. He grit his teeth, trying to think through the splitting pain from his skull. His first impulse was to leave Sora with Renji and go back to try and distract the monster away from Kurosaki, but that wouldn't accomplish much since he already had a pretty bad injury. What if Kurosaki couldn't get away? They couldn't leave Renji here alone, that was for sure.
He perked up at Sora's suggestion. What other choice did they have? Sora had some good friends. He seemed like a good judge of character. Maybe someone would be willing to come help them out. He nodded to Sora, trying to calm down, seeing the panic in the other boy's brilliant eyes.
"Yeah... yeah. We don't have another choice. Go ahead and find help, Sora, and take them straight back to Kurosaki if you can. I'll wait here and keep watch over Renji."
He paused, feeling horrible for sending Sora out like this. The rest of his body was screaming that he couldn't, but there was no way he could travel very fast and far with his head the way it was. It was quite possibly the worst situation they could have gotten themselves in.
"And Sora...?" Nowe turned back to his friend again, holding out his hand, pinky out to him.
"For the love of the gods, promise me you'll come back alive. I'll never forgive myself if you don't."
It was settled, then. Sora was glad to know that his two friends, injured as they were, would probably be safe in this room. He didn't want to consider the possibility that something might come in after them. As far as he knew, the monsters didn't usually break down doors to get to patients, so it would probably be fine.
He had been prepared to go, but was forced to stop and turn around. Blinking down at the outstretched finger, Sora smiled and nodded, linking his own with Nowe's. "Don't worry. I won't go down so easily. Besides," he added with a small laugh, "I can run fast if I have to." He'd rather not have to run in the first place, but seeing how bad their situation already was, he had to avoid getting hurt at all costs.
Turning to the door and steeling himself, he exhaled. No matter what, he was going to find someone to help them. He'd beg them if he had to. So he left, making sure to close the door tightly behind him.
Nowe watched Sora leave with a quiet dread. He didn't want the last thing he saw to be the boy's back and the door shutting ominously behind him. He glanced back at Renji, clicking on the flashlight and investigating the man's wounds. His arm he could bandage with the one remaining towel he had, so he pulled that out of his waistband and started tearing it, using his teeth to rip apart the fibers before he could tear the thing into strips.
"You'd better live, Renji..." he murmured, trying to fill the oppressive silence left in Sora's wake. He grit his teeth again and searched out the place where Renji was injured on his arm, wrapping it in the strips of towel, trying to stop the bleeding. It was the least he could do, and there weren't any other tools available to him. He just had to wait and keep his faith in Sora.
That he heard. It was a funny though, considering he wasn't technically alive in the first place.
Then Nowe started bandaging his arm and that fucking well hurt a lot, enough to temporarily draw his attention to whatever horrible things were happening inside his chest.
He tried to swallow down the next moan, and was only partially successful; it made him cough, and that brought up more blood. But he managed to crack his eyes open, at least. "Should... run..." he murmured.
Nowe glared down at Renji. He was surprised the man had actually managed to stay conscious, but that didn't keep the comment from irritating him.
"You shouldn't waste your breath on orders I'm not going to follow," he said sharply. He leaned back against the wall, careful not to put pressure on his head wound. He really could use bandages for that too, but he couldn't do it himself and Renji was certainly in no shape to do it either. He'd just have to be careful not to let it touch anything for now.
"You need to rest. Keep quiet and just try not to strain yourself," he said to Renji.
Nowe was tired. It was probably the blood loss, and he knew he couldn't sleep. Pinching his arm to keep himself awake, he flicked on the flashlight again, taking a look around the room they were in. There were a bunch of comfy-looking chairs and a few low tables. Nothing of interest.
He heard the words, but the didn't really make sense to him. He wanted to be angry that Nowe wasn't leaving, but he just couldn't. It was confusing; layered on top of this room, with Nowe next to him, he thought of another time, another place, waiting for help and bleeding and fearing.
And he'd been injured, terribly, but he still had people to protect. There was still danger. He'd sat, back to the wall, his zanpakuto across his lap...
Shakily, his hand moved up from the world to touch his leg, fingers searching for the familiar, comforting feel of his sword. There was nothing, of course. His confusion deepened, knotting his stomach with nausea and grief at... something he couldn't understand.
"Zabi... maru..." He took in a shuddering breath. "Just... go."
Nowe's bright eyes narrowed as he glared at Renji again. He didn't understand what this "Zabimaru" was, but he understood the last comment, and he shook his head, even though Renji couldn't see it.
"No. I'm not going anywhere, Renji," he said, clutching his flashlight to his chest, "save your breath."
He watched the door, his heart pounding in his chest. He had to keep his faith in Sora. Sora would find help, and he'd come back alive with Kurosaki in tow.
Renji tried to collect his scattered thoughts, but he still drifted between times, trying to unravel just what was going on. He tired to speak again, "Get the... Fourth."
But that wasn't right,in his mind. He reached out slowly, his entirely arm shaking, to touch Nowe's leg. The fabric of his pants wasn't what his fingers had been expecting. That feeling of wrongness was enough to at least bring him back into focus on where he was, when it was. For now, at least. He grabbed a handful of the fabric, his grip surprisingly strong.
"Nowe?" He wheezed. "Want to... lay down." In the back of his mind, he realized that might not be a good idea. All the blood had to be coming from somewhere. But sitting up hurt enough that he thought it might be worth it. "Where's... Sora...?"
Nowe still didn't understand what Renji was going on about. The fourth? The fourth what? He flinched when the man touched his leg, and stared down at it for a moment, trying to understand what Renji was trying to tell him.
"If you want to lay down you'll probably need to let go of me," he said, trying to sound at least a little positive, something that was seemingly impossible given their situation. He had to stay strong, because if he lost it, Renji might give up.
Where could he get a safe hold on Renji? They were both covered with blood, much of it mingled with one another's. It was difficult to tell where Renji was actually wounded and where he'd bled on himself, or where Nowe had bled on him. He used his flashlight to find a spot that looked safe, carefully helping the man to the ground.
"Sora went to get help for Kurosaki. He promised me he'd come back with him."
As he'd suspected, laying down did a lot for the pain. But it made it a lot harder to breathe. He wasn't sure if it was a good trade or not.
Then Nowe dropped the conversational bomb - Sora had left. By himself, obviously. To go back to Kurosaki with help, but what help? They didn't know where anyone was.
And as far as Renji was concerned, if anyone was going to go back for Kurosaki, it would be him. He'd gotten them into that mess, and it was up to him to help out a fellow Shinigami. And he had gotten the kids to safety... until Sora had gone running off, and...
"God... damnit." After having only been on the floor for a moment, Renji start struggling to get back up, fueled by his frustration. "Gonna fucking... kill him."
"Renji!" he snapped, standing up and ignoring the wave of dizziness, putting his hands on the man's shoulders and none-too-gently pushing him back down.
"Stay here. I'm not going to let you go out there and get killed. That wouldn't accomplish a damn thing, would it? Besides, you're so stuck on protecting everyone, so you need to stay alive for that, right?"
He relaxed minimally, though he kept his hands on Renji's shoulders, knees on the floor on either side of the redhead's legs.
"I don't know what it is with you and trying to die all the time, but have some faith in Sora and Kurosaki. They'll come back alive. He promised me. You wouldn't help them anyway. In fact, you'd probably make it worse, because then they'd end up trying to protect you too." He knew he was being blunt. He had to be, or else Renji would keep fighting him the whole way. Nowe sighed wearily, slouching, just barely keeping himself from sitting on his friend's feet.
"Killing him wouldn't be very productive toward keeping him alive, in any case."
Renji struggled gamely, but gravity and the betrayal of his own body was against him. When he was firmly back on the floor, the fight left him. For a moment, he just struggled to drag a few breaths in, his eyes rolling back in his head.
The momentary grasp he'd had on the here and now scattered, and he struggled to put together anything that would make his current position make some sort of sense.
"I don't... remember," he said. "Killing... they killed... killed them all. Traitors. Have to... stop... save her." Suddenly he jerked against Nowe's hands. "Save her!" He stopped, breathing hard, his shoulders twitching. Then a look of confusion crossed his face. He reached up, his hands shaking, and touched Nowe's face with ice cold but otherwise gentle fingers. "Not..."
He swallowed hard, then frowned, his brows drawn together with concentration. "Where's Sora?"
Nowe was relieved when Renji seemed to finally calm and lie back down, though every muscle in his body tensed up again as soon as the redhead started babbling nonsense.
"Renji! Renji, calm down..." he said, but the other kept talking and Nowe was starting to lose his balance. He tightened the grip on the man's shoulders, putting a bit more of his weight into it, but not too much. He didn't want to hurt him. He blinked as he felt Renji's freezing cold fingers touch his face. What was he...?
"Sora left, I told you. He'll come back soon, I swear." He bit his lip, chewing on it and looking again to the door. It was too soon for Sora to come back, but he kept hoping that door would open and the younger boy would come bursting through with that familiar grin on his face.
Nowe stirred as Renji slumped forward, his eyes opening slowly. He blinked a few times, the fogginess from his vision fading. He winced. Damn, his head still hurt pretty badly. But he was able to see again, at least, and those horrible voices filling his ears were gone. What was left was a slight pressure against him, and when he came to full awareness he realized there was some red hair splayed across his face, sticking to the blood that hadn't dried yet.
"Ren... ji?"
Nowe jolted as he realized what had happened. Renji had collapsed. He didn't want to try moving his friend, since he saw the wounds were so severe, but he spotted Sora standing a few feet away.
"Sora... what happened?"
Damn it... we were so careless!
He had to get up. He couldn't just stay sitting. He very cautiously wormed his way out from beneath Renji (damn, he was heavy) and shifted him so he was slumped against the wall instead. He stood up too fast and swayed, having to catch himself against the wall to keep from falling. His head wound was keeping him from moving too quickly.
"Damn..." Nowe put a hand to his bloody face, grimacing, and he turned to glare down at Renji.
"You idiot, Renji! Why didn't you all just run... that thing was focused on me, you all had your chance to get away... you idiot!" Nowe's fists shook at his sides, and he slammed one into the wall, not caring that it tore some of the skin away from his knuckles. That was the least of his worries.
"We can't move him too much. Even if it wasn't dangerous to move him, I don't think I could carry him for long, if at all, maybe you can, Kuro--" He stopped in mid-sentence, realizing he hadn't seen the orange-haired friend of Renji's since he'd regained consciousness.
"...Sora, where's Kurosaki?" Fear immediately gripped him. There was no way they'd all been stupid enough to... right? Right??
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"I... We..." Breathing hard, Sora tried to gather his thoughts, but the fact that Nowe was so panicked wasn't helping.
"We ran," he explained. "We had no other choice. And now both of you are injured, and he... he's..." He was back there, and that monster was doing who knew what to him.
But he couldn't just stand there shaking. Something had to be done, but what? Renji couldn't move and Nowe was probably still too injured to get very far. "I'll... I'll look for help," he said suddenly. There had to be some other patients nearby, right? They couldn't just give up, as hopeless as things were seeming.
What he liked the least was that he was the only one who hadn't been hurt.
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Now, he was keenly aware that blood was, in fact, life. His life, or what passed for it. A steady dribble of it fell from his lips, brought up by every breath.
He wasn't conscious or unconscious; he couldn't see, could barely hear over the ringing in his ears and the sound of the blood (more blood?) rushing through his veins. But somehow, he clung to a sliver of reality with all his will, refusing to be swallowed completely by his injuries.
So he knew that Nowe and Sora were still there. He wanted to scream at them to run, to get moving. That had been the point of this exercise. Get Nowe up so they could move on. Just leave him, like they had left Kurosaki.
That thought escaped his lips as an embarassing, but thankfully quiet, pained moan.
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He perked up at Sora's suggestion. What other choice did they have? Sora had some good friends. He seemed like a good judge of character. Maybe someone would be willing to come help them out. He nodded to Sora, trying to calm down, seeing the panic in the other boy's brilliant eyes.
"Yeah... yeah. We don't have another choice. Go ahead and find help, Sora, and take them straight back to Kurosaki if you can. I'll wait here and keep watch over Renji."
He paused, feeling horrible for sending Sora out like this. The rest of his body was screaming that he couldn't, but there was no way he could travel very fast and far with his head the way it was. It was quite possibly the worst situation they could have gotten themselves in.
"And Sora...?" Nowe turned back to his friend again, holding out his hand, pinky out to him.
"For the love of the gods, promise me you'll come back alive. I'll never forgive myself if you don't."
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He had been prepared to go, but was forced to stop and turn around. Blinking down at the outstretched finger, Sora smiled and nodded, linking his own with Nowe's. "Don't worry. I won't go down so easily. Besides," he added with a small laugh, "I can run fast if I have to." He'd rather not have to run in the first place, but seeing how bad their situation already was, he had to avoid getting hurt at all costs.
Turning to the door and steeling himself, he exhaled. No matter what, he was going to find someone to help them. He'd beg them if he had to. So he left, making sure to close the door tightly behind him.
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"You'd better live, Renji..." he murmured, trying to fill the oppressive silence left in Sora's wake. He grit his teeth again and searched out the place where Renji was injured on his arm, wrapping it in the strips of towel, trying to stop the bleeding. It was the least he could do, and there weren't any other tools available to him. He just had to wait and keep his faith in Sora.
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Then Nowe started bandaging his arm and that fucking well hurt a lot, enough to temporarily draw his attention to whatever horrible things were happening inside his chest.
He tried to swallow down the next moan, and was only partially successful; it made him cough, and that brought up more blood. But he managed to crack his eyes open, at least. "Should... run..." he murmured.
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"You shouldn't waste your breath on orders I'm not going to follow," he said sharply. He leaned back against the wall, careful not to put pressure on his head wound. He really could use bandages for that too, but he couldn't do it himself and Renji was certainly in no shape to do it either. He'd just have to be careful not to let it touch anything for now.
"You need to rest. Keep quiet and just try not to strain yourself," he said to Renji.
Nowe was tired. It was probably the blood loss, and he knew he couldn't sleep. Pinching his arm to keep himself awake, he flicked on the flashlight again, taking a look around the room they were in. There were a bunch of comfy-looking chairs and a few low tables. Nothing of interest.
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And he'd been injured, terribly, but he still had people to protect. There was still danger. He'd sat, back to the wall, his zanpakuto across his lap...
Shakily, his hand moved up from the world to touch his leg, fingers searching for the familiar, comforting feel of his sword. There was nothing, of course. His confusion deepened, knotting his stomach with nausea and grief at... something he couldn't understand.
"Zabi... maru..." He took in a shuddering breath. "Just... go."
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"No. I'm not going anywhere, Renji," he said, clutching his flashlight to his chest, "save your breath."
He watched the door, his heart pounding in his chest. He had to keep his faith in Sora. Sora would find help, and he'd come back alive with Kurosaki in tow.
He had to.
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But that wasn't right,in his mind. He reached out slowly, his entirely arm shaking, to touch Nowe's leg. The fabric of his pants wasn't what his fingers had been expecting. That feeling of wrongness was enough to at least bring him back into focus on where he was, when it was. For now, at least. He grabbed a handful of the fabric, his grip surprisingly strong.
"Nowe?" He wheezed. "Want to... lay down." In the back of his mind, he realized that might not be a good idea. All the blood had to be coming from somewhere. But sitting up hurt enough that he thought it might be worth it. "Where's... Sora...?"
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"If you want to lay down you'll probably need to let go of me," he said, trying to sound at least a little positive, something that was seemingly impossible given their situation. He had to stay strong, because if he lost it, Renji might give up.
Where could he get a safe hold on Renji? They were both covered with blood, much of it mingled with one another's. It was difficult to tell where Renji was actually wounded and where he'd bled on himself, or where Nowe had bled on him. He used his flashlight to find a spot that looked safe, carefully helping the man to the ground.
"Sora went to get help for Kurosaki. He promised me he'd come back with him."
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Then Nowe dropped the conversational bomb - Sora had left. By himself, obviously. To go back to Kurosaki with help, but what help? They didn't know where anyone was.
And as far as Renji was concerned, if anyone was going to go back for Kurosaki, it would be him. He'd gotten them into that mess, and it was up to him to help out a fellow Shinigami. And he had gotten the kids to safety... until Sora had gone running off, and...
"God... damnit." After having only been on the floor for a moment, Renji start struggling to get back up, fueled by his frustration. "Gonna fucking... kill him."
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"Renji!" he snapped, standing up and ignoring the wave of dizziness, putting his hands on the man's shoulders and none-too-gently pushing him back down.
"Stay here. I'm not going to let you go out there and get killed. That wouldn't accomplish a damn thing, would it? Besides, you're so stuck on protecting everyone, so you need to stay alive for that, right?"
He relaxed minimally, though he kept his hands on Renji's shoulders, knees on the floor on either side of the redhead's legs.
"I don't know what it is with you and trying to die all the time, but have some faith in Sora and Kurosaki. They'll come back alive. He promised me. You wouldn't help them anyway. In fact, you'd probably make it worse, because then they'd end up trying to protect you too." He knew he was being blunt. He had to be, or else Renji would keep fighting him the whole way. Nowe sighed wearily, slouching, just barely keeping himself from sitting on his friend's feet.
"Killing him wouldn't be very productive toward keeping him alive, in any case."
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The momentary grasp he'd had on the here and now scattered, and he struggled to put together anything that would make his current position make some sort of sense.
"I don't... remember," he said. "Killing... they killed... killed them all. Traitors. Have to... stop... save her." Suddenly he jerked against Nowe's hands. "Save her!" He stopped, breathing hard, his shoulders twitching. Then a look of confusion crossed his face. He reached up, his hands shaking, and touched Nowe's face with ice cold but otherwise gentle fingers. "Not..."
He swallowed hard, then frowned, his brows drawn together with concentration. "Where's Sora?"
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"Renji! Renji, calm down..." he said, but the other kept talking and Nowe was starting to lose his balance. He tightened the grip on the man's shoulders, putting a bit more of his weight into it, but not too much. He didn't want to hurt him. He blinked as he felt Renji's freezing cold fingers touch his face. What was he...?
"Sora left, I told you. He'll come back soon, I swear." He bit his lip, chewing on it and looking again to the door. It was too soon for Sora to come back, but he kept hoping that door would open and the younger boy would come bursting through with that familiar grin on his face.
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