Black-and-Red Conflict - Ch.24
Pairing: Renji and Byakuya
Rating: PG (overall M)
Spoilers: for the end of the SoulSociety arc
Discl.: Bleach and all its characters are (c) to kubotite
Content: Byakuya is an arrogant bastard, says Renji. Abarai is an impertinent nuisance, says Byakuya. Unfortunately for them, opposites attract.
Notes: it might very well be that i contradicted kubo tite in this chapter when it comes to reiatsu and how it works... but let's just say, i had to interpret it like this to make it work for this fic... i apologize...
beta-read by
marinliliz.
also did i do a slight change in the last chapter, Departure, because of the issues there were with bya not being IC... so, if you're interested to see if he now is, you might wanna go back and check it out. the change is pretty small, but at least in my opinion it works now ;)
~~~Twenty-Four~~~
Fragility
“Shit...”Renji cursed as he collapsed against a nearby tree. Through exhaustion and pain his voice sounded strange and distorted, weak and toneless. He sank down slowly, sucking in air through clenched teeth, trying to make out the world around him but finding it emerged in a blurry mass of different shades of red. Blood in his eyes, he realized, but could not move his left arm and dared not let go of the sword in his right to wipe it away. Why he still held onto Zabimaru he didn't know, but at the moment it seemed the only thing that kept him conscious. Concentrating on the familiar feeling of the wrapped hilt in his hand, he managed to keep his head clear enough to assess his situation.
The hollow was dead while Renji himself remained alive. At least for now, though he wasn't sure how long it would last. He strained to turn his head but had to stop as pain seared through him and nausea rose in his throat, bile following it suit. He dropped to his side, spewing and panting. Then, even though the shoulder on which he lay hurt terribly, he didn't have the strength to push himself back up. Guessing from the agonizing throbbing in his left arm, it was broken, probably in more places than one. There were numerous smaller wounds mainly on his torso and one deep, long gash on his right shoulder, steadily oozing out blood.
He felt weak and tired and confused. These weren't wounds to be taken lightly, but in comparison to being shredded apart by Byakuya's Senbonzakura Kageyoshi they seemed like mere scratches. Why weren't they healing? Why wasn't the pain dimming and the blood flow stopping? But the energy that would have made all that possible, that steady current of power which had been so natural to him all his life as shinigami, wasn't there anymore. All that he could feel was an erratic stirring of raw spirit energy not even close to the strength of his own reiatsu. It seemed to come from his body, seemed to seep from his skin and his wounds, but he couldn't grasp it, could not control it. He could not release his sword, though he had been fighting with its shikai just minutes ago. In fact he could hardly feel Zabimaru's call at all.
As the realization slowly penetrated the gooey mass Renji's thoughts had become, one of the last moments of the fight suddenly shone brightly in his memory: There had been a spike on the hollow's elbow, so long and thin the lieutenant had not been able to see it until it had sunk half an inch into the flesh of his arm and even then his attention had been distracted by the curved, razor-sharp, dagger-like claw that had sliced open his shoulder. Renji had stepped forward, deepening and enduring the cut for the sake of penetrating the monster's defense and slicing open its soft belly, killing it. Now, lying on his side in a slowly widening pool of his own blood, Renji remembered that spike with mocking clarity.
He wanted to swear, but the only sound that left his throat was a pathetic gurgling as another wave of nausea crushed down on him. He managed to hold himself back before vomiting this time, but it weakened his concentration enough to force him into half-consciousness.
He immersed into something like a dream state. Pictures and scenes flashed through his head, a whirlwind of color and noise where the only constant thing was the dull pain, which seemed to have seeped through his whole body by now, and the smell of blood. Most frequent were impressions of the just vanquished hollow. Brief glances of a beast not much taller than a man, with limbs thin and hard like an insect's, armor like a beetle's shell, the mask a sleek, elongated triangle. It had moved with the power of a projectile flung from a slingshot and just as fast and forceful, slicing the air and everything in its way with long, curved blades on its hands, forearms, shins. It had screeched with a voice like metal against metal and seemingly vanished into thin air again when it had avoided Renji's attacks just to appear again, above, behind, beside him, shattering his left arm when he had not reacted fast enough.
Then there were images of his childhood and the streets of Rukongai, of days at the academy and his time at 11th squad; of missions in the Living World and of being lieutenant under Kuchiki-taichou. And of course, of being more than just a subordinate to the noble. Anger, joy, pride, excitement, humiliation, lust, pain, affection, need-a myriad of emotions rushed over and through Renji, all at the same time until there was too much to comprehend, to much to take in and he felt himself being pulled back. Reduced to just a spectator, a watcher from the ranks, he followed the constant conflict of those two people, wondering what could ever become of it.
In no way would Renji have been able to guess how long he lay there, in some moments almost completely unconscious, in others strangely clearheaded and awake. Like low and high tide, the darkness advanced and receded in turn and in the last of the waking instants he perceived a change in the atmosphere, something coming closer that was at the same time comfortingly familiar and intimidating. In the next moment he recognized it.
A cool moonlit night, with the darkness velvet and all scents clean and fresh; newly fallen snow on a high and distant mountain range; the feathers of a proud heron, sprinkled with tiny drops of water. It was all of that, but beneath it raged a blizzard.
Byakuya... Renji thought, but then he lost the grip on his mind once again.
This time, the darkness was black and silent.
The tip of the spike embedded in Abarai-fukutaichou's arm, was pulled out to reveal an oddly fragile, extremely thin, transparent tube, not even a millimeter in diameter, like a syringe made from glass. Just a small thing, but carrying with it a poison strong enough to almost kill a lieutenant; it was more than unsettling. An increase in the number of hollows was bad enough, but it could be dealt with. An increase in simple strength was worse, but also still manageable. But the appearance of a hollow like this one, with abilities so dangerous for even high-level shinigami was extremely alarming.
Byakuya gave the tiny thing in his fingers a cold look before he handed it back to Unohana-taichou, then resumed to pace the small room. Now and then he paused to watch the gentle captain of the 4th division as she further examined his lieutenant.
The noble was unable to stand still. He could do nothing to ease the turmoil inside of him, he had to at least move or else he felt he would burst. Rage was what filled him, and anxiety and deep worry, none of which he was allowed to show. For the people around them he was only Renji's captain, nothing more.
The fact that he had gone after his subordinate into the real world, that he had searched for the redhead there even though he had not felt his reiatsu, he could not have been able to explain it with reason. And he dreaded the possibility of anybody asking him about it. But he could have done nothing else, he had simply not been able to imagine Renji dead. And had he not found his lieutenant there, in that area of destruction, he would have resumed his search in all the worlds he knew.
But even now that Renji was here in the clinic of the 4th division and his wounds had been tended to, he still wasn't getting better, he still didn't regain consciousness.
Unohana-taichou's movements were calm and steady, but the shadow that crept over her features didn't bode well. With the stinger removed she had hoped to feel a change in Abarai-kun's condition, a hint at what to do to reverse the effect of the poison, but still there was nothing, still no trace of his reiatsu.
For shinigami, who basically were what they were through their spirit energy, who needed it to control their zanpakutou as well as kidou, the concept of that power simply vanishing without them consciously giving it away-as in the case of Kuchiki Rukia and Kurosaki Ichigo-was alarming. But evidently, exactly that had happened with the red-haired lieutenant. What the healer felt when she tried to detect his spirit energy wasn't the drastic reduction or damage that occurred when a shinigami was almost killed or had utterly exhausted his resources. It wasn't the unconscious sealing that happened automatically when one lost consciousness, either. What it felt like was closer to a human than to a shinigami. Abarai Renji was surrounded by a small, unremarkable amount of raw spirit energy which seemed to originate from his body, but there was no signature to it that would have made it his own, no control over it whatsoever.
For now there was nothing more she could do. She rose, causing the other captain in the room to stop in his tracks and turn towards her.
“He is stable now. His wounds should heal.”
Byakuya eyes narrowed just slightly. “Should? Without his reiatsu? What about that?” He tried to speak in his usual leveled tone of voice, but there was an edge to it, a tremor that told of worry. A doctor like Unohana recognized it, even if it was hidden as well as in this case and even though she had to admit it did surprise her coming from someone like Kuchiki-taichou. She didn't actually know the captain of the 6th very well, but he wasn't commonly known for his compassion concerning his subordinates, or anybody, for that matter.
“I will continue to examine him, be assured of that. But this is a form of poison I haven't seen before. I need more time to analyze it. You should go and take some rest, it won't do you any good, and him either, if you remain here worrying.”
Byakuya's chin moved upwards slightly, as if in surprise. He was disconcerted by the fact that she had seen through him so easily and regarded her coldly, but kept himself from saying anything more. His eyes flickered toward Renji one more time before he nodded at the healer rather curtly and left. Not that he was about to follow her advice. Rest? That was the last thing he needed. He shied away from the very idea of being unoccupied right now, so even though evening was approaching fast, he returned to his office instead.
But once there, it was impossible to keep his thoughts away from Renji. As his mind strayed again and again back to what had happened, he finally gave in and left the forms on his desk untouched. Instead he went through all he knew about what had happened in the Real World and searched. Searched for something that could explain what exactly had occurred there and why Renji had been injured that severely. At first he assumed the redhead had been careless and had ventured into an area that had been specified as being affected by high-level hollows. Had Renji just been imprudent as so many times before? But when Byakuya checked a map with the location Renji and Rikichi had been at, he saw that the dot marking the place was in a zone that should have been completely safe.
But what then? There must have been something. The lieutenant of the 6th squad was too strong, too experienced for just having bad luck. The redhead must have been occupied with something, must have been distracted so he hadn't fought with a clear mind. But then there was only one thing that could have been affecting him strongly enough: Byakuya, and the way he had treated Renji.
The noble sat back slowly and took a deep breath. No. There was no sensible reason the captain should feel guilty for what happened in the Living World.
Was there?
His expression flickered, but then he shook his head resolutely. There was no use pondering something like this. He needed to stay calm. Nothing was decided yet. Nothing. Renji was being cared for. There was no reason to believe the redhead wouldn't recover.
But what if n...
Abruptly, Byakuya straightened on his seat and got to work.
For two days he did not allow himself a minute of rest. He worked until everything he could do in the office was done and then occupied himself with matters concerning his clan. He trained at night and did not sleep for more than one or two hours at a time. He went to the clinic twice, not daring to actually go look at Renji, but to hear from some low-rank shinigami that the lieutenant's condition had still not changed, that Unohana-taichou was still working on it. Afterwards Byakuya went straight back to work.
That tight reign he kept on himself allowed the captain to outwardly continue almost as if nothing had happened, but unconsciously Renji was on the noble's mind all the time. The way the redhead had looked at him before he had left the office: the disappointment, the deep vulnerability, the hurt. In fact, most of Byakuya's energy went into keeping himself from thinking about what would happen if his lieutenant didn't wake up.
It was a precarious balance that held the captain of the 6th upright those days. A flimsy implement made just from paper and string, that didn't need more than a small tremor to render it completely useless.
It was on the morning of the third day and again it was Rikichi who entered Kuchiki-taichou's office in a rush, only stopping as he was already three steps into it, turning a blazing red as he realized his blunder.
“K-Kuchiki-taichou,” he stammered, bowing deeply and keeping his eyes on his feet.
“It's about Renji. Unohana-taichou... she found a way. He-he got his reiatsu back! They say he should wake up soon!”
A chair clattered and before Rikichi could even look up, the captain had walked out of the room briskly. All the boy saw when he lifted his head again was a lonely sheet of paper gliding from the desk to the floor.
With the same urgency with which he had left his office, Byakuya's steps carried him to the hospital and down its corridors towards the room he knew Renji lay in. He entered, only half registering the three people already there, then, two meters from the bed, he stopped.
Pristine white sheets covered the Renji up to his chest, which sank and rose in the steady breaths of sleep. His head was turned slightly to the side and his hair had been bound back into a loose pony tail. Still it fanned out over the small pillow under his head in its usual unruly way. His right shoulder and left arm were bandaged firmly.
“Kuchiki-taichou.” Unohana Retsu's soft, quiet voice sounded from where she stood with Rukia and Ukitake-taichou. She stepped up to Byakuya, but his gaze only flashed toward the healer shortly before it returned to Renji.
She explained how, after a long search, she had finally been able to determine the exact properties of the poison and were and how it had worked in the lieutenant's system, enabling her to act against it. The parts of Renji's brain and body which controlled everything connected to spirit energy had supposedly been paralyzed, 'switched off' in a way, and only through an external burst of reiatsu, comparable to an electric shock, had she succeeded in reactivating them.
Byakuya didn't care.
By the second it became harder to keep control of himself as all his senses were fixed on the man he had thought lost when he could not feel him almost three days ago in the Living World. The man he had thought lost when he had found him after all; collapsed, unconscious, heartbeat hardly there, breathing so shallowly it had been but the idea of a whisper against Byakuya's ear. The man he had thought lost when wounds that should have healed by themselves in just a short time, were threatening to kill. The man he had thought lost before Byakuya could have apologized and admit how much he really wanted and needed Renji.
The redhead stirred. He turned his head and frowned, his fingers twitched, his eyes moved behind their lids and then, slowly, they opened. At the same time, now conscious and awakening, his reiatsu began to fill the room. Not violently, as it had flared so often-a challenge, a battle cry-but softly swelling, like a wave rolling onto a shore, lingering there for a few heartbeats and then receding again. As if taking a deep breath after one had been forced under water for too long and only now realized how wonderful it really was to breathe.
To feel this plain, strong sign of strength and vitality, the final assurance that Renji was alive, was more than Byakuya could take. His eyes locked with the redhead's for a few seconds before finally all the tension that had held the noble straight and kept him going for the last two days left his body. He staggered back, eyes wide open. He almost fell, caught himself, then stumbled again until his back met with the frame of the door and he held himself up against it. In the next moment he clasped one hand before his mouth and the other over his midsection as his guts tightened into a tiny, hard ball.
His name was called by two different voices, but none of them Renji's. A pair of hands reached out for him. Pale, slender hands, he realized. Ukitake's? Unohana's? He backed away. He managed it out of the room and into the hall, then down the corridors, outside, away.
~~~
Rating: PG (overall M)
Spoilers: for the end of the SoulSociety arc
Discl.: Bleach and all its characters are (c) to kubotite
Content: Byakuya is an arrogant bastard, says Renji. Abarai is an impertinent nuisance, says Byakuya. Unfortunately for them, opposites attract.
Notes: it might very well be that i contradicted kubo tite in this chapter when it comes to reiatsu and how it works... but let's just say, i had to interpret it like this to make it work for this fic... i apologize...
beta-read by
marinliliz.
also did i do a slight change in the last chapter, Departure, because of the issues there were with bya not being IC... so, if you're interested to see if he now is, you might wanna go back and check it out. the change is pretty small, but at least in my opinion it works now ;)
~~~Twenty-Four~~~
Fragility
“Shit...”Renji cursed as he collapsed against a nearby tree. Through exhaustion and pain his voice sounded strange and distorted, weak and toneless. He sank down slowly, sucking in air through clenched teeth, trying to make out the world around him but finding it emerged in a blurry mass of different shades of red. Blood in his eyes, he realized, but could not move his left arm and dared not let go of the sword in his right to wipe it away. Why he still held onto Zabimaru he didn't know, but at the moment it seemed the only thing that kept him conscious. Concentrating on the familiar feeling of the wrapped hilt in his hand, he managed to keep his head clear enough to assess his situation.
The hollow was dead while Renji himself remained alive. At least for now, though he wasn't sure how long it would last. He strained to turn his head but had to stop as pain seared through him and nausea rose in his throat, bile following it suit. He dropped to his side, spewing and panting. Then, even though the shoulder on which he lay hurt terribly, he didn't have the strength to push himself back up. Guessing from the agonizing throbbing in his left arm, it was broken, probably in more places than one. There were numerous smaller wounds mainly on his torso and one deep, long gash on his right shoulder, steadily oozing out blood.
He felt weak and tired and confused. These weren't wounds to be taken lightly, but in comparison to being shredded apart by Byakuya's Senbonzakura Kageyoshi they seemed like mere scratches. Why weren't they healing? Why wasn't the pain dimming and the blood flow stopping? But the energy that would have made all that possible, that steady current of power which had been so natural to him all his life as shinigami, wasn't there anymore. All that he could feel was an erratic stirring of raw spirit energy not even close to the strength of his own reiatsu. It seemed to come from his body, seemed to seep from his skin and his wounds, but he couldn't grasp it, could not control it. He could not release his sword, though he had been fighting with its shikai just minutes ago. In fact he could hardly feel Zabimaru's call at all.
As the realization slowly penetrated the gooey mass Renji's thoughts had become, one of the last moments of the fight suddenly shone brightly in his memory: There had been a spike on the hollow's elbow, so long and thin the lieutenant had not been able to see it until it had sunk half an inch into the flesh of his arm and even then his attention had been distracted by the curved, razor-sharp, dagger-like claw that had sliced open his shoulder. Renji had stepped forward, deepening and enduring the cut for the sake of penetrating the monster's defense and slicing open its soft belly, killing it. Now, lying on his side in a slowly widening pool of his own blood, Renji remembered that spike with mocking clarity.
He wanted to swear, but the only sound that left his throat was a pathetic gurgling as another wave of nausea crushed down on him. He managed to hold himself back before vomiting this time, but it weakened his concentration enough to force him into half-consciousness.
He immersed into something like a dream state. Pictures and scenes flashed through his head, a whirlwind of color and noise where the only constant thing was the dull pain, which seemed to have seeped through his whole body by now, and the smell of blood. Most frequent were impressions of the just vanquished hollow. Brief glances of a beast not much taller than a man, with limbs thin and hard like an insect's, armor like a beetle's shell, the mask a sleek, elongated triangle. It had moved with the power of a projectile flung from a slingshot and just as fast and forceful, slicing the air and everything in its way with long, curved blades on its hands, forearms, shins. It had screeched with a voice like metal against metal and seemingly vanished into thin air again when it had avoided Renji's attacks just to appear again, above, behind, beside him, shattering his left arm when he had not reacted fast enough.
Then there were images of his childhood and the streets of Rukongai, of days at the academy and his time at 11th squad; of missions in the Living World and of being lieutenant under Kuchiki-taichou. And of course, of being more than just a subordinate to the noble. Anger, joy, pride, excitement, humiliation, lust, pain, affection, need-a myriad of emotions rushed over and through Renji, all at the same time until there was too much to comprehend, to much to take in and he felt himself being pulled back. Reduced to just a spectator, a watcher from the ranks, he followed the constant conflict of those two people, wondering what could ever become of it.
In no way would Renji have been able to guess how long he lay there, in some moments almost completely unconscious, in others strangely clearheaded and awake. Like low and high tide, the darkness advanced and receded in turn and in the last of the waking instants he perceived a change in the atmosphere, something coming closer that was at the same time comfortingly familiar and intimidating. In the next moment he recognized it.
A cool moonlit night, with the darkness velvet and all scents clean and fresh; newly fallen snow on a high and distant mountain range; the feathers of a proud heron, sprinkled with tiny drops of water. It was all of that, but beneath it raged a blizzard.
Byakuya... Renji thought, but then he lost the grip on his mind once again.
This time, the darkness was black and silent.
The tip of the spike embedded in Abarai-fukutaichou's arm, was pulled out to reveal an oddly fragile, extremely thin, transparent tube, not even a millimeter in diameter, like a syringe made from glass. Just a small thing, but carrying with it a poison strong enough to almost kill a lieutenant; it was more than unsettling. An increase in the number of hollows was bad enough, but it could be dealt with. An increase in simple strength was worse, but also still manageable. But the appearance of a hollow like this one, with abilities so dangerous for even high-level shinigami was extremely alarming.
Byakuya gave the tiny thing in his fingers a cold look before he handed it back to Unohana-taichou, then resumed to pace the small room. Now and then he paused to watch the gentle captain of the 4th division as she further examined his lieutenant.
The noble was unable to stand still. He could do nothing to ease the turmoil inside of him, he had to at least move or else he felt he would burst. Rage was what filled him, and anxiety and deep worry, none of which he was allowed to show. For the people around them he was only Renji's captain, nothing more.
The fact that he had gone after his subordinate into the real world, that he had searched for the redhead there even though he had not felt his reiatsu, he could not have been able to explain it with reason. And he dreaded the possibility of anybody asking him about it. But he could have done nothing else, he had simply not been able to imagine Renji dead. And had he not found his lieutenant there, in that area of destruction, he would have resumed his search in all the worlds he knew.
But even now that Renji was here in the clinic of the 4th division and his wounds had been tended to, he still wasn't getting better, he still didn't regain consciousness.
Unohana-taichou's movements were calm and steady, but the shadow that crept over her features didn't bode well. With the stinger removed she had hoped to feel a change in Abarai-kun's condition, a hint at what to do to reverse the effect of the poison, but still there was nothing, still no trace of his reiatsu.
For shinigami, who basically were what they were through their spirit energy, who needed it to control their zanpakutou as well as kidou, the concept of that power simply vanishing without them consciously giving it away-as in the case of Kuchiki Rukia and Kurosaki Ichigo-was alarming. But evidently, exactly that had happened with the red-haired lieutenant. What the healer felt when she tried to detect his spirit energy wasn't the drastic reduction or damage that occurred when a shinigami was almost killed or had utterly exhausted his resources. It wasn't the unconscious sealing that happened automatically when one lost consciousness, either. What it felt like was closer to a human than to a shinigami. Abarai Renji was surrounded by a small, unremarkable amount of raw spirit energy which seemed to originate from his body, but there was no signature to it that would have made it his own, no control over it whatsoever.
For now there was nothing more she could do. She rose, causing the other captain in the room to stop in his tracks and turn towards her.
“He is stable now. His wounds should heal.”
Byakuya eyes narrowed just slightly. “Should? Without his reiatsu? What about that?” He tried to speak in his usual leveled tone of voice, but there was an edge to it, a tremor that told of worry. A doctor like Unohana recognized it, even if it was hidden as well as in this case and even though she had to admit it did surprise her coming from someone like Kuchiki-taichou. She didn't actually know the captain of the 6th very well, but he wasn't commonly known for his compassion concerning his subordinates, or anybody, for that matter.
“I will continue to examine him, be assured of that. But this is a form of poison I haven't seen before. I need more time to analyze it. You should go and take some rest, it won't do you any good, and him either, if you remain here worrying.”
Byakuya's chin moved upwards slightly, as if in surprise. He was disconcerted by the fact that she had seen through him so easily and regarded her coldly, but kept himself from saying anything more. His eyes flickered toward Renji one more time before he nodded at the healer rather curtly and left. Not that he was about to follow her advice. Rest? That was the last thing he needed. He shied away from the very idea of being unoccupied right now, so even though evening was approaching fast, he returned to his office instead.
But once there, it was impossible to keep his thoughts away from Renji. As his mind strayed again and again back to what had happened, he finally gave in and left the forms on his desk untouched. Instead he went through all he knew about what had happened in the Real World and searched. Searched for something that could explain what exactly had occurred there and why Renji had been injured that severely. At first he assumed the redhead had been careless and had ventured into an area that had been specified as being affected by high-level hollows. Had Renji just been imprudent as so many times before? But when Byakuya checked a map with the location Renji and Rikichi had been at, he saw that the dot marking the place was in a zone that should have been completely safe.
But what then? There must have been something. The lieutenant of the 6th squad was too strong, too experienced for just having bad luck. The redhead must have been occupied with something, must have been distracted so he hadn't fought with a clear mind. But then there was only one thing that could have been affecting him strongly enough: Byakuya, and the way he had treated Renji.
The noble sat back slowly and took a deep breath. No. There was no sensible reason the captain should feel guilty for what happened in the Living World.
Was there?
His expression flickered, but then he shook his head resolutely. There was no use pondering something like this. He needed to stay calm. Nothing was decided yet. Nothing. Renji was being cared for. There was no reason to believe the redhead wouldn't recover.
But what if n...
Abruptly, Byakuya straightened on his seat and got to work.
For two days he did not allow himself a minute of rest. He worked until everything he could do in the office was done and then occupied himself with matters concerning his clan. He trained at night and did not sleep for more than one or two hours at a time. He went to the clinic twice, not daring to actually go look at Renji, but to hear from some low-rank shinigami that the lieutenant's condition had still not changed, that Unohana-taichou was still working on it. Afterwards Byakuya went straight back to work.
That tight reign he kept on himself allowed the captain to outwardly continue almost as if nothing had happened, but unconsciously Renji was on the noble's mind all the time. The way the redhead had looked at him before he had left the office: the disappointment, the deep vulnerability, the hurt. In fact, most of Byakuya's energy went into keeping himself from thinking about what would happen if his lieutenant didn't wake up.
It was a precarious balance that held the captain of the 6th upright those days. A flimsy implement made just from paper and string, that didn't need more than a small tremor to render it completely useless.
It was on the morning of the third day and again it was Rikichi who entered Kuchiki-taichou's office in a rush, only stopping as he was already three steps into it, turning a blazing red as he realized his blunder.
“K-Kuchiki-taichou,” he stammered, bowing deeply and keeping his eyes on his feet.
“It's about Renji. Unohana-taichou... she found a way. He-he got his reiatsu back! They say he should wake up soon!”
A chair clattered and before Rikichi could even look up, the captain had walked out of the room briskly. All the boy saw when he lifted his head again was a lonely sheet of paper gliding from the desk to the floor.
With the same urgency with which he had left his office, Byakuya's steps carried him to the hospital and down its corridors towards the room he knew Renji lay in. He entered, only half registering the three people already there, then, two meters from the bed, he stopped.
Pristine white sheets covered the Renji up to his chest, which sank and rose in the steady breaths of sleep. His head was turned slightly to the side and his hair had been bound back into a loose pony tail. Still it fanned out over the small pillow under his head in its usual unruly way. His right shoulder and left arm were bandaged firmly.
“Kuchiki-taichou.” Unohana Retsu's soft, quiet voice sounded from where she stood with Rukia and Ukitake-taichou. She stepped up to Byakuya, but his gaze only flashed toward the healer shortly before it returned to Renji.
She explained how, after a long search, she had finally been able to determine the exact properties of the poison and were and how it had worked in the lieutenant's system, enabling her to act against it. The parts of Renji's brain and body which controlled everything connected to spirit energy had supposedly been paralyzed, 'switched off' in a way, and only through an external burst of reiatsu, comparable to an electric shock, had she succeeded in reactivating them.
Byakuya didn't care.
By the second it became harder to keep control of himself as all his senses were fixed on the man he had thought lost when he could not feel him almost three days ago in the Living World. The man he had thought lost when he had found him after all; collapsed, unconscious, heartbeat hardly there, breathing so shallowly it had been but the idea of a whisper against Byakuya's ear. The man he had thought lost when wounds that should have healed by themselves in just a short time, were threatening to kill. The man he had thought lost before Byakuya could have apologized and admit how much he really wanted and needed Renji.
The redhead stirred. He turned his head and frowned, his fingers twitched, his eyes moved behind their lids and then, slowly, they opened. At the same time, now conscious and awakening, his reiatsu began to fill the room. Not violently, as it had flared so often-a challenge, a battle cry-but softly swelling, like a wave rolling onto a shore, lingering there for a few heartbeats and then receding again. As if taking a deep breath after one had been forced under water for too long and only now realized how wonderful it really was to breathe.
To feel this plain, strong sign of strength and vitality, the final assurance that Renji was alive, was more than Byakuya could take. His eyes locked with the redhead's for a few seconds before finally all the tension that had held the noble straight and kept him going for the last two days left his body. He staggered back, eyes wide open. He almost fell, caught himself, then stumbled again until his back met with the frame of the door and he held himself up against it. In the next moment he clasped one hand before his mouth and the other over his midsection as his guts tightened into a tiny, hard ball.
His name was called by two different voices, but none of them Renji's. A pair of hands reached out for him. Pale, slender hands, he realized. Ukitake's? Unohana's? He backed away. He managed it out of the room and into the hall, then down the corridors, outside, away.
~~~