FIC - United Front: Ch. 5 - Anamnesis ~Renji/Ishida ~R
“Ishida… Ishida, wake up. We gotta get goin’. The Arrancar are on the move again and we need to get our squads and prep before we go.” Renji shook him before kissing him on the back of his head.
He was so groggy and tired, Ishida felt as if he must have just fallen asleep, but like most good soldiers he was up and dressed and out the door in less than 2 minutes. At least he made sure to tell Renji he loved him before they parted. All Ishida got for his trouble, though, was a pinch on the butt, Renji’s infamous grin and a, “Take care of that sexy ass for me,” comment. For now, it would definitely suffice.
The battles were vicious, bloody and worst of all - long. Which unfortunately, wasn’t uncommon these days with Aizen creating Arrancar at an alarming rate. They were never as strong as the Espada but they were cunning and in some cases, intelligent. None of the platoons came out of combat unscathed. Even as fast and talented as the Fourth Division was at healing, there were simply not enough of them to patch up all twelve fighting divisions, and inevitably there were deaths with every encounter.
Often during a battle, when Ishida wasn’t commanding the shinigami, he would wonder what the few remaining citizens of Karakura must think of all the damage that seemed to appear randomly about the town on a regular basis. Today however, during the quiet between the storms of skirmishes all Ishida could think of was the previous day and the incredible feelings Renji seemed to effortless draw from him. Fortunately, whenever the confrontation with Ryuuken from yesterday popped up in his mind, it was quickly relegated to the dark recesses in his head where Ishida rarely looked. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Ryuuken’s strange appearance, but Ishida hoped Renji was right. Maybe the old bastard would finally get his head on straight and realized the importance of his participation.
Whenever thoughts of Ryuuken surfaced, Ishida mourned a bit for his childhood. Sighing at his thoughts, Ishida realized that after his grandfather had been killed, he had had little to no interest in emotions of any kind. In fact until very recently, Ishida had been convinced that the only passion he had left in his existence after that life-altering day was his pride in being a Quincy.
Then last year, he’d fought side by side with Renji. It was an odd feeling defending a man, who upon their first meeting had done his damnedest to kill Ishida. Still, he’d come to admire Renji a great deal for his honor, skill, and his ability to adapt.
During their battle with Szayel, Ishida found even more respect for Renji’s intelligence and his ability to think on his feet. That battle had changed Ishida’s life. Sure, they got their butts kicked, and had to be rescued by the only man Ishida hated as much as Aizen.
Wanting to shake off the memory of Mayuri, Ishida realized it was an impossible task, even given all the horrors of the current war. Still, knowing thoughts of that evil scientist would only hinder his fighting ability, Ishida once again tried to blank his mind of the horrors his grandfather had endured. Since Ishida had made his peace with fighting beside Mayuri, the prick, at least through the end of the war, he once again resigned himself to moving forward with no resolution in sight to the rage that burned his guts.
Side stepping the anger tearing at his insides, caused Ishida’s memory to return to the more pleasant image of his fighting in tandem with Renji. Ishida felt the subtle tightening in his stomach that always occurred when he visualized his lover. He was fairly certain he’d been in love with the idiot shinigami since their battle with Szayel. He’d tried to deny it. He’d tried damn hard, but in the end, Renji merely blew by his defenses as if they were tissue paper.
Since that fateful fight, Ishida had fought back to back and beside Renji dozens of times. Each time pounded home, how well they fought together. Ishida’s logic and distance fighting complimented Renji’s flexibility and capacity to move from close to long range at will. Renji’s brute force attacks could weaken an enemy in seconds that Ishida could capitalize on with a few well-placed and well timed arrows, keeping both Renji and himself at the top of their game for many battles.
But it wasn’t his fighting ability, rather the caress of Renji’s fingers against his skin that was the first clue to how Ishida felt about the shinigami. It was nearing the end of a tedious skirmish in which he’d had to use nearly all his reiatsu and Renji caught Ishida in his arms. One calloused hand had held Ishida’s face before laying him gently on the ground. He’d never realized until that moment exactly how much larger Renji was, and how much strength and finesse it took to wield Zabimaru.
Ever since that battle, Ishida had been inexorably drawn to those long, strong, sword-calloused fingers of Renji’s that had made him feel like he was alternately falling in an abyss and being carried to safety. For Ishida, it was a heady feeling every time he saw Renji’s hands. They evoked sensations Ishida had long ago determined he was incapable of feeling.
The euphoria of his reminiscence was suddenly quashed when Ishida remember the events of a few hours ago. Ishida tried to sidestep the shame he felt at his last discussion with Renji. He was still horrified that he’d actually called Renji stupid. Even an ego as strong as Renji’s could be dented with a few callously placed words. The worst part was that it wasn’t even true, Ishida had simply been unnerved and it had made him cruel. His actions reminded Ishida too much of Ryuuken and he swore never to treat someone he loved that way.
The rest of the earlier conversation with Renji wasn’t much better. If discussing feelings had always been difficult, it was insubstantial compared with trying to tell Renji what an uptight virgin he was. Ishida was still mortified at how he’d handled it.
Instead of dwelling on his short comings, Ishida expertly bypassed those memories and wended his way back to the shower interlude. Those memories immediately evoked intense emotions, and Ishida could sense the remnants of Renji’s fingers on his body.
It had been heavenly. Ishida couldn’t ever remember anyone washing his hair, although he supposed someone had to have done it when he was small. It amazed him that someone as rough and rowdy as Renji could be, was also so generous, thoughtful, and gentle. In addition, after being denied sex for three months and still sticking around, Ishida had zero doubts as to Renji’s patience.
As the minor fights that were left, began dying down further, Ishida started to assist in triage and direct a few of his shinigami troops to monitor forward and left flank positions while Renji’s patrols did the same for the right flank and the rear.
There wasn’t much else for Ishida to do at that point but think. Since thinking about the dead and dying men and women he’d ordered into harm’s way was a detriment to his focus, Ishida decided to reflect on the more pleasant experiences from yesterday, namely his first blow job.
Ishida could still remember how relaxed he’d felt when Renji had massaged, cleaned and kneaded him into a practical stupor. Recalling those feelings helped calm Ishida in the present and consequently he attended more efficiently to bandaging the lacerated arm in his hands.
The one thing about the whole shower session that had intrigued Ishida the most was how restrained Renji had been. He’d actually been grateful for the silence, but surprised, especially since Renji rarely stopped talking when they were together. The quiet had let him concentrate on Renji’s beloved hands and the way they caressed and cared for him. It had sent Ishida into a near catatonic state of bliss. He wondered what it would take to talk Renji in to doing that again.
Even as amazing as the sensual attention had felt, it was the intense feeling of Renji’s mouth on him that had knocked Ishida off his feet, literally. It had felt incredible and he’d had no idea. Ishida masturbated when he had no other choice than to take things into his own hands or completely explode from the stress, but he’d never done anything for himself that even came close to the sensations of what Renji had done to him in that shower.
He knew his stamina had been virginal, but Ishida supposed as sharp as Renji was, he had expected that when he started. The memory of heat pooling in his stomach before gathering in his balls, still had the ability to make Ishida light-headed. Ultimately, what set Ishida off was when Renji had gone from the tortuous insistent pressure on his entrance to sliding one soap slicked finger inside. He’d never known anything to feel that fantastic and it had literally collapsed Ishida’s legs.
As the echo of sensations washed through him, Ishida felt a phantom aftershock of the orgasm. Pausing in his stitching of the slashed leg in his hands, Ishida took a deep breath attempting to clear his mind. Instead, the sense memory of having Renji swallow his shaft caused a replay of the white burst of lights behind his eyes. Carefully setting the leg back down Ishida leaned forward struggling for air and resting his forehead on his arm careful not to touch his gloved hands.
When he realized he’d actually short sutured the final stitch, Ishida pushed the unruly and erotic recollection to the back of his mind, and began concentrating on the present more clearly. He finished stitching the next laceration and went to check in again with his sentries and verify there weren’t any holes in the defenses while they were triaging the rest of the wounded. Ishida also wanted to check in with Renji on his casualties and ascertain if they needed any assistance.
He could relive the ecstasy of yesterday at a more opportune time. Despite the fact that even tired, good sex seemed to help Ishida concentrate on the horrifying, without letting the shock and dismay settle into him. While Ishida had to admit that was the fastest and cleanest he’d sewn through the wounded in months, it was probably inappropriate musing on such things while his troops were in such a sorry state. He sighed and stood up as his thinking tried to betray him again.
Images of where the next step in their sexual relationship was headed, kept trying to intrude on the more pleasant memories, but as with all things, anything Ishida didn’t want to deal with, was set aside in a seldom visited corner of his mind for a more appropriate time that may or may not ever appear.
Ishida really needed to check on Renji, too. It’d been a long skirmish and while he could feel his lover’s reiatsu was steady, it felt as bone weary as Ishida’s was. Gathering barely enough reserve energy to form hirenkyaku, Ishida sped across the sky in, what for him, would be termed a lazy arc.
Flying across the sky, Ishida smelled it first. That burnt air stench of ozone, like after a lighting strike. Only this was much more dangerous than lightning. As Ishida was slowing down to check the first set of sentries, he senses lit on fire and a Garganta opened up to his right, directly between Ishida’s and Renji’s forward guard, where at the moment, they were at their weakest. With his reiatsu nearly spent, Ishida wanted to panic. Instead, his training kicked in and Ishida felt the ironic urge to thank Ryuuken for trying so hard to kill him last year. Ishida let his body sink to the ground to conserve as much reiatsu as possible before drawing his bow and firing off single shots into each of the four Arrancar stepping through the portal.
It wasn’t enough. Ishida had been certain it wouldn’t be, but it was also the fastest way to establish the strength and agility of each of the four enemies. Cold sweat ran down Ishida’s spine when he realized exactly how fresh and hardened these particular Arrancar were. He concentrated his fire of arrows on the slowest and most easily dispatched of the Arrancar. The broad, vaguely gorilla-looking one burst into dust after merely a dozen or so hits. Unfortunately, Ishida realized that those initial four shots to gauge his enemy had cost him valuable time and reiatsu he couldn’t spare, and the other three were advancing on him at an alarming rate.
One of his sentries fired a kidou blast to draw the grotesque spider-like Arrancar away from Ishida. Regrettably, the shinigami was his newest recruit and only currently used for sentry and clean up duties, so she was no match for the clearly superior strength of the Arrancar. All Ishida could do was watch as his subordinate fought and fell. Ishida prayed to any gods left that were listening that Ochiai-chan wasn’t dead and could be saved. The lack of any cry however, didn’t bode well for her chances.
Arrow after arrow was deflected and absorbed before Ishida finally managed to find a weakness in the tough outer skin of the ferret-faced Arrancar. Dodging left, Ishida crouched down and skidded underneath the right side plating of the Arrancar, firing one last arrow to kill his opponent. Feeling a brief moment of regret for the souls lost to oblivion, Ishida wondered if watching a hollow die rather than be cleansed would always affect him that way.
Unfortunately, Ishida had no time to mourn, because the spider-like Arrancar was still advancing, and the centaur-like Arrancar was battling one of Renji’s seated officers. Ishida’s head throbbed and every joint seemed to ache in cadence with his hammering heartbeat, his body succumbing to exhaustion from too many fierce battles too close together. He was hitting the spider with everything he had, and it wasn’t even making a dent. Soon the Arrancar would be too close for his bow and he wasn’t sure he had enough reiatsu left for Seele Scheider.
With arms of lead and legs of gelatin, Ishida knew his time was limited. As bone weary as his body was, Ishida’s mind still felt sharp, until he realized he was hesitating on a course of action. Ishida briefly rested his aching arm on his knee, as his glasses slid down his nose. Some days it was dangerous to be half blind. For the thousandth time he vowed to get contacts.
The pain in Ishida’s back pinched his shoulders as he raised his bow to ready an attack on the grotesque apparition advancing on him. He had to take the Arrancar out from a distance, because he already knew in close quarters he would be no match for it.
The drop in reiatsu to his right hammered home how desperate his situation was. Ishida sensed the man to his right finally fall, but despite the significant wounds inflicted by the shinigami, the Arrancar was still able to make a dash for the break in their front lines.
It was a split second decision, but Ishida knew it to be true. Body shaking with the strain to maintain a steady arm, Ishida gathered all the remaining reiatsu he could muster and fired arrow after arrow into the wounded Centaur Arrancar until it dissolved into dust. Ishida pulled Seele Scheider from his waist, used reiatsu from his last remaining portable cylinder, and blocked one of the spider’s legs. He was too slow for the one that followed and it skewered his side. Even through the blood-curdling scream, Ishida managed to stay on his feet and block two more leg strikes. The excruciating pain seemed to close his mind down to any unnecessary thinking, but it didn’t block the smell of ozone, so strong it wiped out the coppery scent of his blood.
Another portal opened off to his left, distracting Ishida at the exact wrong moment and the spider pinned him to the ground through his shoulder. The lack of pain from this new wound was worrying. In fact, the only indication of how badly Ishida was hurt was the crunch of bones and the squelch of flesh tearing. Seele Scheider dropped from his nerveless fingers to the ground. Ishida lay there panting trying to regain his senses and decide what he could do to at least escape and warn his troops, when a wayward thought rammed into him.
Would he get to keep his memories in soul society like his grandfather had, or would he be anonymous and lost to Renji forever?
Ishida felt a drip of liquid hit his cheek. It burned and sizzled its way down his neck and shoulder. The pain from this new wound was faint, more of a tickle than an ache. With difficulty, through seriously fanged teeth, the Arrancar spoke to him. They rarely did that anymore, Ishida realized. Aizen was no longer raising them to intelligence, but simply power and obedience before he hatched them.
This one, however, spoke with a repulsive slobbery lisp. “Wath a human doin’ fighthin’ as a wannabe thinigami?”
He should have had a snappy comeback, but Ishida was fast losing consciousness and he knew he wouldn’t wake up from this fight. It was too bad really, but at least he wouldn’t die a complete virgin.
The spider leg was wrenched from his shoulder. He hadn’t realized how icy his skin was until he felt blood spurt the side of his face in a nearly scalding wash. As Ishida closed his eyes for what he was sure would be the last time, all he thought was, ‘Shit, an artery.’
“Uryuu! Roll left!” Came the sharp order that pierced his brain.
Only instinct, well perhaps instinct and love, gave him the strength to respond to the command, because he was sure he was on the verge of unconsciousness. He opened his eyes scarcely enough to see the leg descending for his face before he rolled left as he was instructed to.
He hadn’t even heard the call for bankai, but he felt Zabimaru’s reiatsu and ruff brush his face as he used the last of his life to move. That was all he remembered before he died.
Chapter 6...