Gender Bender Chapter 8
“What if I-”
“Don't say it, Renji. Please, don't say it. It won't happen.”
“I have to say it! You don't know what's gonna happen! I don't know what's gonna happen! Even fuckin' Urahara doesn't know what's gonna happen! I could lose everything, Ichigo! I-I...”
“Renji...”
They were sitting outside, resting in the grass behind the shoten, because where else was there to go? What else was there to do but sit and wait for an outcome that neither of them could possibly anticipate.
“I don't know how to be human... I never was one. I don't understand this world, I don't fit here. And I hate this body so much...”
Ichigo took her hands, and she tried not to flinch away from the touch. It was so female to have Ichigo holding her hands like this. But try as she might it was impossible to convince Ichigo to treat her the same as he used to before this happened. When Ichigo was a woman too it was different, it was a shared experience. Now, though, Ichigo just didn't see Renji any more. He saw a woman. And Ichigo's personal honour code, or whatever the hell it was, demanded that girls be treated nicer and more delicately than men. It was hard, so hard, to see Ichigo holding back this way, treating her so different. It made her want to scream at him. I'm still Renji in here! I'm still me! Please, just look at me the way you used to! Punch me, tell me I'm an idiot! Anything!
But Ichigo just frowned at her sympathetically, squeezing her hands gently. “Renji, we'll get through it, okay? Urahara will fix this, he has to.”
She couldn't yell, she couldn't scream at him and swear and hit. Because she wanted to cry. And she would not allow herself to. No. She'd done enough crying, the hormones in her system had already ruined whatever little bit of self control she had. She wouldn't cry on Ichigo like that again. So she pulled her shihakusho around her and pulled her hands away from his.
“I hope you're right. Otherwise I think I might kill myself.” she muttered bitterly.
“Don't say things like that!”
She glared, getting to her feet. “I'll say what I want. Now, I think ya ought t' leave me alone before you say something that pisses me off...”
“Renji...”
“Just go.”
-//-
He knew that Renji didn't mean to hurt him this way. He knew that she was going through a lot, that she was having difficulty dealing. Yes, Ichigo understood what it was like to be trapped in the wrong body, but what Renji was going through now... He couldn't even imagine.
But it hurt, a lot more than he thought it would, to have her push him away like that. He could see the pain in her eyes, could see that she needed something from him, and he'd do anything for her right now. But she wouldn't say what she needed from him.
So he just went to Urahara's small lab, and watched the man work feverishly to try and cure Renji. It had been over a week, and it was becoming more and more difficult for Renji to hold on to the part of her that was a shinigami.
He waited there, watching, not saying anything. Urahara understood that he needed to feel like he knew what was going on, like he could be there when needed, so he didn't tell the young man to leave. This was hard on all of them.
-//-
It was hours later when Renji rushed into the room in a panic.
“Zabimaru! Zabimaru's gone!” she shrieked. “I can't hear! There's nothin'! It's like static! Urahara! No! No! Fuck, no! This isn't happenin'!”she fell to her knees, and her skin was so pale she could've been dead, and her eyes were blank and glassy with deep shock. “No, no, no, no...” she kept repeating, over and over.
Ichigo and Urahara were at her side in moments, Urahara holding onto her shoulders, trying to ask her questions, trying to find out exactly what she was feeling. But he didn't get any answer other then a muffled wail of pain. Renji was holding her stomach like she was in pain, her body shuddering and convulsing. “Gone, gone...” she whispered. “Ripped away... gone, gone...”
“Kurosaki-kun, you need to help me get her to a bed. She's in deep shock.”
Ichigo seemed a little stunned, looking like he wanted to grab Renji and shake her, snap her out of it.
“Kurosaki!” Urahara snapped and Ichigo looked up at him with wide eyes. “If we leave her in this condition she could slip into a coma and die! Now help me!”
The two men sprang into action, taking her carefully and rushing her to a bed, calling on Tessai and pulling blankets over her.
Her skin was so cold, Ichigo thought, panicked. Renji was always warm, to the point of being hot, like a human space heater. But now her skin was clammy and cold and her eyes were blank and she didn't even see him when he looked at her. She kept murmuring to herself, but her voice was getting weaker.
“U-Urahara!” Ichigo said, voice shaky. “Her lips are turning blue!”
“She's not getting enough oxygen, her heart rate must be decreasing.” Urahara said, Tessai had arrived and they were working around the girl, hands glowing with kido Ichigo didn't recognize or understand.
Urahara looked at Ichigo, seeing the lost expression on the boy's suddenly very young face. “Talk to her. She's afraid. A part of her soul was just taken away. She needs support now.”
Ichigo nodded, though he had no idea what to say. He took her hand, squeezing hard, an almost pained expression on his face as he said the first things that came to mind. “Renji, Renji, c'mon, you're tougher than this. You can make it through anything. Zabimaru...” he choked a little. “Zabimaru won't come back to you if he sees you looking all weak like this. You gotta toughen up, show him how strong you are. He'll come back, Renji. He'd never leave you for long. And... And you gotta pull through, because we need you here, and you need to hang on so that Urahara can fix this. And then we'll beat the shit out of him for putting us through all this. So hold on for me, you big, stupid redhead, don't you lose it on me! I've gotten way too used to having you around to let you disappear on me now!”
He kept talking, though he didn't get a response, and Urahara and Tessai kept working. Urahara hooked Renji up to all sorts of weird machines, pulling a small lab into the room to try and mix together something, anything that would help, that would slow down or reverse this horrible transformation. There wasn't time to waste any more, and screw the days he still needed, this cure needed to get made now.
-//-
It was cold, so cold, and dark. Inside Renji's mind, in the jungle where she would normally find Zabimaru. And though she called out to her zanpakuto, she got no answer. She rushed through trees and vines, the tropical world covered in a layer of unnatural frost. Her bare feet slipped and she fell against the frozen ground with a sob.
“Zabimaru!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet, nails digging into the earth, scratching up her hands as she continued to run.
Ichigo's voice seemed to echo in her head, though she couldn't see him. “So hold on for me you big, stupid redhead, don't you lose it on me!”
“Ichigo...” she murmured, her face scratched up and cut as she ran through crumbling branches of once lush trees, feeling blood drip over her face as she struggled through icy briar bushes of thorns. “Ichigo, I can't find Zabimaru! Help me dammit!”
She called and screamed and struggled and hurt and it was so cold, and everything was so hopeless. Because her heart was gone, missing, torn from her chest, and her spirit was crumbling around her in the farthest reaches of her mind. She slipped again, falling, crying out as her leg seemed to crush and snap under her weight. She crawled through the dirt, tears of pain mixing with blood and filth running down her face as she dragged herself with every last ounce of strength she had left.
Strong. Tough. Never give up.
But it was so hard to remember when all she wanted to do was lay down and never wake up from an endless sleep...
-//-
God, I'm cruel. I just had to add more drama. Poor Renji. This chapter makes me feel bad...