Winter War - Nanao, Renji: Tunnel Vision
Title: Winter War - Nanao, Renji: Tunnel Vision
Authors: incandescens
Characters: Nanao, Renji, others
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: And maybe, at the bottom of everything else, there is hope.
Index of Links
[...]
38. Ichigo: No Hiding Place
39. Ensemble: Crossfire
40. Ensemble: Sneaking About
41. Nanao: Prisoners
42. Ukitake: Falling
TUNNEL VISION
Nanao sagged with the release of tension, lowering her hand and letting the force that had been building inside her drain away and dissipate. A little too late, she noticed that Madarame and Yadomaru-sempai were still alert, and she reproached herself for not being as careful as they were.
The creature - she still didn’t want to think of it as Abarai-fukutaichou - let out a long wheezing sigh, relaxing, and curled up on the ground, its hair brushing against Kuchiki-taichou’s feet. Abruptly it was pitiful rather than dangerous.
“Inoue-kun -“ Nanao began, but Kurosaki-kun had already grabbed her arm and was shoving her forward to inspect the - the victim, Nanao decided. That was as close as she could come to wanting to consider what had been done to a man she knew. It was one thing to technically believe that it might be possible. It was entirely different to see Abarai Renji like this.
She didn’t try to join the crowd around the victim, but instead stepped back. She was quite certain that her own kidou wouldn’t be sufficient to untangle a mutilation like this.
And there was something else troubling her. She shouldn’t have been able to hear Suzumushi. She’d handled other people’s zanpakutou before, of course - you could hardly live your entire life in Seireitei and never touch one - but she’d never had one actually intrude on her like that. Common sense urged her to say something about it at once, and to drop the blade, or hand it over to someone else, or drag it behind on a ten-foot rope. Anything that would avoid close contact with it.
“I think -“ Inoue-kun began tentatively. “I think that if I try to heal him -“
But curiosity told Nanao to wait. Curiosity told her that possibly Suzumushi had something useful to contribute. Did she really want to be the one who threw away a Captain’s zanpakutou and let a possible advantage slip out of their fingers, simply because she was afraid?
(Or was she simply deceiving herself by trying to make a heroic drama out of the situation? Or was it something else trying to deceive her?)
The problem with thoughts going round in circles was that it was very difficult to break out of the circle. That had always been one of Kyouraku-taichou’s strengths. He knew when to stop thinking, and when to act.
“How much of your strength will it take?” Hisagi asked Inoue-kun. He looked, Nanao thought remotely, even worse than before. She didn’t know what he had been through. She didn’t want to know what he had been through. It would only distract her.
Inoue-kun put her finger to her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know, but we can’t leave him like this . . .”
Kuchiki-taichou tilted his head a little. “Your strength is important?” he questioned Inoue-kun.
“Could be, sir,” Madarame said. He didn’t look quite as sick as Hisagi did, but he didn’t look happy either. He looked like a man who had just taken a sharp-tasting dose and was waiting for the effects to hit. His face was hollowed out by weariness, shadowed by anger -
That’s not how I think, Nanao said to herself, in the silence of her mind where she could hear it. The corridor lights were bright and dark. She had to master herself. She just needed to think about this for a little while, in peace and quiet, without these constant interruptions . . .
Inoue-kun’s imploring eyes caught her gaze, and she bit her lip and stepped forward. There was no time for this. “Inoue-kun can cause effects that should otherwise be impossible, sir. She managed to assist Kurosaki-kun, and purify Grimmjow -“
“Wimpify,” came a mutter from Grimmjow’s direction.
“-and she was able to negate some pieces of Aizen’s kidou,” Nanao continued, with the practice that came from many years of talking over her Captain’s interjections. “She may be able to reverse whatever has been done to Abarai-fukutaichou.”
“Um... Madoka-san is almost out of sight over here,” Hanatarou put in weakly. “Should we follow her?”
Kuchiki-taichou glanced down at Abarai, and then across at Inoue-kun. Then he looked at Nanao. “Follow that woman and locate any other prisoners, then return to me,” he ordered her. “Inoue will work to restore Renji.”
“I’ll stay too,” Kurosaki-kun said firmly. “You might need help.”
Rather than ask what sort of help Kurosaki-kun could possibly offer, Kuchiki-taichou nodded. “Very good. Hoshibana, you will keep us informed of each others’ movements.”
“Yes, Kuchiki-taichou,” Hoshibana said thickly. His voice wavered on the edge of breaking.
“C’mon,” Madarame said, grabbing Nanao’s arm and pulling her along. His free hand was curled into a fist. “Let’s get this over as fast as we can.”
Nanao ignored the quick glance that Yadomaru-sempai sent her, and let Madarame tug her along. They were a few steps away from the rest, who were strung out in an uneven rabble, with Hisagi and Grimmjow at the beginning, Hanatarou loitering in the middle, apparently not wanting to be at the front or the back, and Ayasegawa and Yadomaru-sempai at the rear. “Listen,” she began quietly.
Madarame turned to glare at her. “Look, I know it may not work, but what if it does? Even if the Inoue girl gets tired, if she can manage it, then we’ve got another man with bankai to throw at Aizen.”
“More than that,” Nanao said softly.
He bit back something that he was about to say, then scrubbed at his head with his hand, wiping away some of the dust. “Yeah. Fuck. It gets too easy to think like that, doesn’t it? You suppose Yamamoto-soutaichou ever thought that way?”
Nanao adjusted her glasses. “Before you all went to the fake Karakura,” she said slowly, “Kyouraku-taichou said that Yamamoto-soutaichou had said that he might need to take the ultimate sanction to stop Aizen. He said that everyone who was included on the mission was aware of that.”
“Yeah,” Madarame said, lowering his voice again. “We all knew. If it all went south and he had to take out the entire place, and us with it -“
“So we all know that, here and now,” Nanao said. “All of us here are aware that we may need to sacrifice everything.” She touched his hand for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean that . . .” The words were difficult. “It doesn’t mean that we can’t hope to save our friends.”
Madarame deliberately ignored her touch, though she felt his muscles shift in what was a kind of acknowledgement. He looked ahead at Madoka. “Yeah,” he said quietly, more gently now. “Point taken.”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Nanao said, keeping her voice at the same conversational level.
He flicked a sideways glance at her. “Is it serious?”
“Either Suzumushi is awake and trying to contact me and control me, or I am hallucinating,” Nanao said. She adjusted her glasses again. “I hope that I’m not hallucinating.”
“I could pinch you,” Madarame said smugly, though his eyes narrowed.
“I would break my captain’s hand if he tried, and you lack his experience,” Nanao said coldly. “And do not take that as a personal challenge.”
“Naah. Gotta tell you, Ise, I like them bouncier than you. Don’t take it as a personal insult.”
Nanao felt her mouth pull into a thin almost-smile. “And about Suzumushi?”
“You’ve had decades of saying no to your captain,” Madarame said. “You’re not like Hisagi. I’m trusting you to know when to tell us if it gets serious.”
The corridor was darker than it had been, but Nanao felt reassured by how simply and straightforwardly he put it. “Thank you,” she said.
“You think it’d help us?” Madarame’s question was a little too careful.
Nanao remembered Tousen-taichou’s face at the Execution Scaffold, that day last year, in the blazing sunlight, and the absolute blankness and refusal in his voice as Komamura-taichou had called out to him. That persistent determination, the sort of thing that could lie hidden for over a hundred years in order to claim a bloody vengeance . . . “I think that Suzumushi understands all about revenge,” she said, her voice just as careful as Madarame’s own. And is it listening to us now? Will it answer?
“You gonna tell Hisagi?”
Nanao blinked. “I can’t see that would help matters,” she said briskly.
“No, me neither.” He sighed, with a long lazy lift and roll of his shoulders. “Shit, why’d they never tell us about any of this stuff before?”
“You mean - zanpakutou stuff?” There were so many things that he could have meant.
“Yeah. Not that I’ve ever had any problems with, you know, my one.” His hand brushed the hilt of his own zanpakutou. “Nice and straightforward, that’s us. Now with you . . .” He let the words trail off, inviting confidences if she chose to give them.
“Mine . . .” Nanao felt the usual unwillingness to discuss something so private. And he asks why they don’t tell us about this. How much do we want to tell anyone else about it? “Has always been remarkably uncommunicative unless I could come up with the right questions.”
“Has it got any opinion on, you know?” He glanced down at Suzumushi.
“I don’t think it wants to get involved,” Nanao said slowly. “But when Hisagi was possessed by his own zanpakutou - you remember, when we found the other zanpakutou? - he seemed actively repulsed by Suzumushi.”
“Yeah.” Madarame thought about that. “But then again, that could be personal.”
“But Hisagi liked Tousen,” Nanao pointed out. “Before, well. You know.”
“Point.” He frowned. “And I’m not getting anything from Hozukimaru. And we don’t have a few hours spare for me to try to reach him.”
“It’d be nice to be able to communicate freely with your zanpakutou all the time,” Nanao said, a little bitterly.
“Wait.” He was suddenly all business. “Madoka’s stopped.”
Nanao broke into flash step, catching up with Madoka as she finished turning to face a door. The woman drew another key from her sash as Madarame joined them. She was inserting the key into the lock as everyone else crowded around.
“Get the fuck back,” Madarame directed crisply. “Same protocol as last time.”
Nanao had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep her face calm and her breathing steady. Yadomaru-fukutaichou was managing to look perfectly calm, but then she had so much more experience. She couldn’t bear to think of it being Kyouraku-taichou in there. She couldn’t bear to think of it not being him in there.
In that moment of weakness, of vacillation, something insinuated itself into her mind, sliding into her thoughts like a pane of glass between her and the outside. It was all black and white, all monochrome, and it sought to distance her from herself, to set her aside and fill her with itself. She looked down a tunnel at the scene around her, and she was a thousand miles away, and . . .
The door swung open.
Kyouraku-taichou sat in the corner of the cell. As with Kuchiki-taichou, his wrists were bound and there was a collar around his neck.
He was fast asleep.
He was leaning against the wall. He was snoring.
He was in plain black. He was scruffy and unkempt and she thought there might even be dust on the hems of his hakama. Stubble showed dark on his cheeks. His hair hung lank down his back, stripped of its usual tie, and there were dark shadows under his eyes.
He was snoring.
Madarame’s hand clamped on Nanao’s arm, but she certainly would not have been so stupid as to just run in there screaming, “Kyouraku-taichou!” and disregard every bit of common sense she possessed. She was mildly offended that he even thought she would do such a thing, in the back of her mind where she still had space for mild offense. The situation came back into bright clear focus, precise and definite.
Yadomaru-sempai bumped against her on the other side, peering over her shoulder as they watched Madoka go through the same set of motions. Kyouraku-taichou continued to snore in a gentlemanly way, apparently so habituated to such visits that they didn’t even wake him.
With an effort, Nanao slowed her breathing. “Same protocol,” she breathed in a whisper. “Let her get out and then we’ll go in there.”
“You figure there’s anyone else besides?” Madarame whispered. It was stupid. They’d spoken loudly enough when they were freeing Kuchiki-taichou. But apparently nobody wanted to wake Kyouraku-taichou from his nap.
“If the rest of you follow Madoka -“
Madoka walked out of the cell. Still calm, still composed, still utterly unseeing, she locked the door. Then she turned to start back the way that she had come.
“Right,” Nanao said, raising her voice a little. “Madarame, if you and -“
“Me, Boy Blue, and Yumichika,” Madarame filled in. “You can keep Hanatarou here, and Hisagi can fill Kyouraku-taichou in on events once you wake him up.”
“I notice you’re not mentioning me,” Yadomaru-sempai put in.
“I’m not stupid,” Madarame said. “And I’m not going to try to talk his own vice-captain out of being there when you wake him up.” He looked smug for a moment, then shot a quick nervous glance at Nanao, obviously having just realised that he might have said something awkward.
Nanao ignored it, and just nodded. “Cover me while I see to the lock,” she said, kneeling down to inspect it. Just the same locking kidou as on Kuchiki-taichou’s cell. This would be straightforward.
Calm, she reminded herself. Stay calm. He’d expect you to be calm.
Her focus was completely on the current situation, and on the lock in front of her, and the man in the cell behind it. Suzumushi and whatever it had been trying to do were unimportant now, disregarded, blocked away; she disregarded it as completely as she would have done an irrelevant piece of paperwork that could be put off till tomorrow. Behind her, there was a rustle as Yadomaru-fukutaichou shifted her weight from one foot to another. She disregarded that as well.
The lock clicked open, and Yadomaru-fukutaichou shoved the door open, striding into the cell. “Time to get up, Kyouraku-taichou,” she said cheerfully, swinging her foot to kick him.
The kick never landed. Without ever quite opening his eyes, Kyouraku-taichou shifted position and swept his leg round to knock her off her feet. She landed on her rear, with a gasp, and he rolled forward to hook his elbow round her neck, dragging her back against his body.
His eyes flickered open. “Sosuke,” he said, as Yadomaru-taichou struggled for breath. “We’ve been through this enough times. I know this is only an illusion.” He smiled thinly, looking at Nanao and Hisagi and Hanatarou as they stood in the doorway, looking through them. “So tell me. Why do you bother?”
---
There is a conflict in his mind.
One He has ordered him to run through these passages and tear apart any who are not permitted to be here. If he does that, if he can tear and cut down and let the light come out of him to blast them away, then there will be ease and it will be quiet and the light will be gentle.
But there is never anyone here. There are no them for him to touch. There is no ending, no place for him to stop.
(Rage, rage says one voice in his mind, and wait says the other, as if from two sides of the same being.)
But the other He is here now, and he has said Renji, and that name is recognised, that name is known, that name is felt in his bones. He could not hate this other He. This other He knows who he is.
His name is Renji.
(Yes, says one voice, and almost says the other voice, and both of them are desperate now, wanting something that is so terribly close and that he cannot quite understand.)
“I’ll try . . .” A hesitating voice. One he knows. “Byakuya-san, please can you stand back a little?”
“That would be inadvisable.” His voice. “Continue.”
The bright figures gather close around him. Light blossoms at two points and wraps around him, and flecks of memory coalesce and flutter into him like snowflakes or butterflies, leaving intelligence and self behind them, forming a net of what Renji is.
And he realises, slowly but utterly, that this is hell, and he screams.
Light pulses from his mouth and breaks the net around him. Someone (Inoue Orihime, his memories confirm) is thrown backwards as the hold of her power is broken, and she goes tumbling like a doll, and someone else (Kurosaki Ichigo, the memories say, all anger and rivalry and friendship) catches her before she hits the wall, and someone else (Ayasegawa Yumichika, a comrade in arms and a drinking friend) draws his blade.
A blow across his chest knocks him down. Kuchiki-taichou is standing there. He has his sword to Renji’s throat. His lank hair ripples in the aftermath of the blast of power. There is death in his eyes.
Renji would welcome that. “Kill me,” he whispers.
“Kill you?” Kuchiki-taichou says tonelessly. “Not unless you forget your duty again. Inoue. Continue.”
“I . . .” The girl’s voice shakes. She’s struggling to remain upright. “Please . . . I will, just let me get my breath, Byakuya-san . . .”
“She’s hurt.” Kurosaki Ichigo is angry. “Dammit, Renji, did you have to do that? She’s not even finished on you yet.”
“She’s not going to be able to.” Yumichika is helping Inoue Orihime sit down. She folds up very small, her back against the corridor wall, her chin on her knees, arms round her legs, red hair hanging loose and bright against her white clothing. “Kuchiki-taichou, if you want Inoue-san to be able to counter anything Aizen can do later, then you have to let her rest now. She’s tired out.”
“I’ll be fine in a moment,” she whispers, but her voice is uncertain and her words are a lie. She can’t even convince herself. Renji can hear it, can smell it.
“Hnh.” Kuchiki-taichou’s snort is familiar. He has not looked away from Renji. “Well. Are you ready for duty, Renji?”
There is a shadow that stands behind Kuchiki-taichou. It is the shadow of his own zanpakutou. It is as clear as the times that he has seen it before: when he named it, when it came to scold him, and when he fought it to reach bankai. It looks down at him, and the two voices together say, Have you not sworn an oath to your own soul?
“Yes,” he whispers.
Kuchiki-taichou moves the point of his blade from Renji’s throat. He seems to find nothing strange in Renji’s current deformities, in the malformations of bone and flesh that twist him from being a shinigami into being a monster. “Then rest,” he says. “We will strike against Aizen shortly.”
Renji curls to one side, pulling himself up into a crouch. He avoids the others’ eyes, not wanting to see his own reflection in them.
He knows that there are questions to ask. What is Ayasegawa doing here, and in white clothing? Why is Kuchiki-taichou here? How will they strike against Aizen?
But for the moment the bone-deep hunger is gone, and he can rest. Ease soaks through him, and even the blinding white of the walls is a little less painful.
And he knows that if Kuchiki-taichou and Kurosaki Ichigo are both here, then one way or another, Rukia is safe. He does not want to ask in what way she can be safe, not when he knows that she was captured and he remembers (that flake of memory burns) being told that she was dead, but now he knows that she is free and safe, she is beyond all this. She is not in hell, even if he is.
That lets him rest.
---
“Kyouraku-taichou,” Yadomaru-sempai croaked, “it is me. I mean, really me.”
“Yes, of course,” Kyouraku-taichou said, in the tone that he had reserved for humouring Nanao when she was ten years old. “I’m sure you’d say that. I have to admire how well you can imitate people’s responses, Sosuke. You must have spent a great deal of time watching us. You voyeur.” It almost sounded like a friendly joke, the sort of casual ribbing he’d give a colleague.
Nanao swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Kyouraku-taichou. This is a genuine rescue. I can prove it by -“ She tried to think of something that would absolutely prove that she was herself and not an illusion of Aizen’s. Something that Aizen couldn’t possibly know about, however much he’d probably wandered around invisibly spying on people.
Hisagi twitched as if someone had jabbed a pin into him. “Katen Kyoukotsu. Your zanpakutou,” he abruptly blurted out. “They’re in her belt. Touch them and you’ll know.”
Yes. Yes, that would work. “He’s right, Kyouraku-taichou,” Nanao said. She drew herself upright and adjusted her glasses. Trying to edge forward to reassure Kyouraku-taichou might be a very bad idea while he had Yadomaru-sempai’s neck in the crook of his arm like that. “Please, sir. Just check.”
His eyes flicked down to where the blades were sheathed in Yadomaru-sempai’s sash.
Nanao wondered what he could be hesitating about. Wasn’t it the obvious thing to do?
“Lisa-chan,” Kyouraku-taichou said, very gently, “I’m going to assume for a moment that you’re not an illusion, and that you are sitting here in my lap -“
Yadomaru-sempai made a choked but indignant noise.
“That’s right. And you’re going to reach down and draw one of my blades, still in its sheath, and pass it up here so that I can lay my hand on it. Slowly and gently, Lisa-chan. Don’t try anything stupid.”
Very carefully, Yadomaru-sempai reached down and tugged the wakizashi from her sash. Her breathing was shallow and ragged as she raised it uncomfortably towards Kyouraku-taichou’s chained hands.
His fingers trembled as they brushed against it. Then his right hand closed around the sheathed blade so firmly that his knuckles showed white. He leaned backwards, raising his elbow to release Yadomaru-sempai and let her roll free.
Nanao rushed forward, stepping over Yadomaru-sempai and falling to her knees beside him. “Sir. Let me see to those bindings. Please.”
“Yes. Of course, Nanao-chan.” He coughed, his voice settling back to its usual dark velvet, and smiled at her. “Unless you and Lisa-chan want to punish me first for being late.”
Nanao snorted. So did Yadomaru-sempai.
“You are clear that we’re real, Kyouraku-taichou?” Hisagi asked. He was staying by the door, with Hanatarou nervously twitching next to him. “We’re not an illusion.”
“My Katen Kyoukotsu is scolding me for being such a fool as to doubt you, Shuuhei-kun,” Kyouraku-taichou said. He leaned back to allow Nanao closer access to his collar. “I should have known better. Even for Aizen, this combination of rescuers would have been unlikely. I don’t suppose anyone has any wine?” he added hopefully.
“Absolutely not,” Nanao said through gritted teeth.
“You must be joking,” Yadomaru-sempai said simultaneously. She had picked herself off the floor and brushed herself off, and now she knelt down next to Kyouraku-taichou on the other side from Nanao. With a little flirt of her hips, she tugged out Kyouraku-taichou’s other zanpakutou and slotted it into his obi. “There you go. Sir.”
“Lisa-chan.” Kyouraku-taichou’s voice caressed the words. “I believe there’s a story I need to hear.”
There was a click as the cuffs came free from Kyouraku-taichou’s wrists, and the collar from round his throat. (Had she been quicker here than she had with Kuchiki-taichou? Nanao wasn’t sure. She mollified her conscience with the thought that she’d had the experience from Kuchiki-taichou’s cuffs, so of course she’d be quicker this time round.)
“Long story,” Yadomaru-sempai said curtly. “Short version: I’m the only one of us down here, unless Hacchi’s locked up somewhere too, and the rest of us . . .” Her mouth tightened. “Aren’t a factor at the moment.”
Nanao realised with a pang of guilt that it was possible nobody had told her about Muguruma-san and the others hiding under Urahara’s shop in Karakura. Certainly she hadn’t. Had anyone else thought to do so? She wasn’t used to feeling that sort of guilt, and it kept her quiet a moment too long.
“Brisk and beautiful,” Kyouraku-taichou admitted. His gaze strayed from Yadomaru-sempai to Nanao, then back to Yadomaru-sempai again, as he slowly straightened up: he brought his hands round to rub his knuckles against the small of his back. “No mattress,” he confided to Hanatarou. “Fortunately I can sleep anywhere.”
His tone was casual, as generous and absent-minded as ever, but his heavy-lidded eyes were keen. “Shuuhei-kun, all in white? I see that you’ve all been infiltrating. Good job.” He brushed one hand over his stubbly jaw. “Nanao-chan, I would kiss you, but firstly my chin would scratch you, and secondly, I fear that you would give me the usual concussion.”
“Nice job, Nanao-chan,” Yadomaru-sempai said, slapping Nanao on the shoulder and making her blush. “I see you’ve got things well in hand.”
Nanao herself wasn’t sure what to say. Common sense told her that she should be weeping with joy that he was alive, and in relatively good health, and still -- sane, the back of her mind called it with unhelpful precision, holding Kuchiki-taichou up as an example. And she was relieved beyond the ability to say so, and happier than she could acknowledge, but at the same time a cool logic kept her anchored to common sense. Perhaps, on some level, she’d never really believed that he could be dead, and that was why it was so unsurprising to find him alive. Or perhaps the situation was such that despite her own emotions, she could still see past them, and continue with her duties, focused on what must be. Perhaps there was little time for joy when on a deeper level she knew that there must be vengeance.
Or perhaps, maybe, conceivably, she was able to be as much of an adult and leader as Yadomaru-sempai, and still be glad that he was alive without having to say it. After all, he knew how much past hope it had been to find him here, and how far she had come to do so. He made casual talk and affection easy. It had never been easy for her.
Hisagi looked somewhere between pleased, relieved, and ill. He shifted nervously. “It’s good to see you, Kyouraku-taichou. Sir, I didn’t know you were a prisoner here . . .”
“When Sousuke locks someone up as deep in a place like this as we are now, Shuuhei-kun, the whole point is that nobody’s supposed to know they’re prisoners here. Or so I suspect. Nanao-chan, are there more of us?”
Direct questions. Intelligent questions. Nanao was so relieved that she could have sat down and hugged his legs, but that would have been inappropriate, and his hakama were rather dirty. Odd, that so white and clean a place should manage to leave its prisoners sitting in their dirt like that. “Yes, Kyouraku-taichou,” she said.
And then she remembered the most important thing, the thing that she should have said first. She kept her voice level. “Ukitake-taichou has been coordinating us. He’s active in Seireitei at the moment. They’re striking against Ichimaru. Urahara-san and Shihouin Yoruichi are holding Karakura. Madarame and I . . .”
She went on, listing the names of the others, and she could see Kyouraku-taichou nodding as he took it all in, as he gave her a proper level of attention, but with all her experience of him, she could also see the deep and desperate relief in his eyes and shoulders, the relaxation as if Ukitake-taichou himself was in the room and ready to stand by him now to fight.
“We should be moving,” Hisagi cut in. “We don’t know what’s happening with Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-kun.”
“Hoshibana will have passed it on,” Yadomaru-sempai said. “That’s if Madarame and the others haven’t already got to them. But I agree, we have to move. We can’t rely on Aizen staying out of this for much longer.”
“Agreed,” Kyouraku-taichou said. He was at the door in a single step and a broad swing of sleeves, and then held it gracefully open for Yadomaru-sempai and Nanao to pass through. “Incidentally, Nanao-chan,” he said softly into her ear as she walked by him, “why do you keep on fondling Suzumushi like that?”
She deliberately and forcefully removed her fingers from the zanpakutou’s hilt. She hadn’t realised that she’d been touching it. “It’s trying to communicate with me, sir.”
He looked at her sidelong, lazy eyes narrowed to slits. “And?”
“And I think that we can use it,” she said firmly. “Sir.”
“My splendid Nanao-chan,” he said, and patted her on the shoulder before turning to follow Hisagi down the corridor.
---
Authors: incandescens
Characters: Nanao, Renji, others
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: And maybe, at the bottom of everything else, there is hope.
Index of Links
[...]
38. Ichigo: No Hiding Place
39. Ensemble: Crossfire
40. Ensemble: Sneaking About
41. Nanao: Prisoners
42. Ukitake: Falling
TUNNEL VISION
Nanao sagged with the release of tension, lowering her hand and letting the force that had been building inside her drain away and dissipate. A little too late, she noticed that Madarame and Yadomaru-sempai were still alert, and she reproached herself for not being as careful as they were.
The creature - she still didn’t want to think of it as Abarai-fukutaichou - let out a long wheezing sigh, relaxing, and curled up on the ground, its hair brushing against Kuchiki-taichou’s feet. Abruptly it was pitiful rather than dangerous.
“Inoue-kun -“ Nanao began, but Kurosaki-kun had already grabbed her arm and was shoving her forward to inspect the - the victim, Nanao decided. That was as close as she could come to wanting to consider what had been done to a man she knew. It was one thing to technically believe that it might be possible. It was entirely different to see Abarai Renji like this.
She didn’t try to join the crowd around the victim, but instead stepped back. She was quite certain that her own kidou wouldn’t be sufficient to untangle a mutilation like this.
And there was something else troubling her. She shouldn’t have been able to hear Suzumushi. She’d handled other people’s zanpakutou before, of course - you could hardly live your entire life in Seireitei and never touch one - but she’d never had one actually intrude on her like that. Common sense urged her to say something about it at once, and to drop the blade, or hand it over to someone else, or drag it behind on a ten-foot rope. Anything that would avoid close contact with it.
“I think -“ Inoue-kun began tentatively. “I think that if I try to heal him -“
But curiosity told Nanao to wait. Curiosity told her that possibly Suzumushi had something useful to contribute. Did she really want to be the one who threw away a Captain’s zanpakutou and let a possible advantage slip out of their fingers, simply because she was afraid?
(Or was she simply deceiving herself by trying to make a heroic drama out of the situation? Or was it something else trying to deceive her?)
The problem with thoughts going round in circles was that it was very difficult to break out of the circle. That had always been one of Kyouraku-taichou’s strengths. He knew when to stop thinking, and when to act.
“How much of your strength will it take?” Hisagi asked Inoue-kun. He looked, Nanao thought remotely, even worse than before. She didn’t know what he had been through. She didn’t want to know what he had been through. It would only distract her.
Inoue-kun put her finger to her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know, but we can’t leave him like this . . .”
Kuchiki-taichou tilted his head a little. “Your strength is important?” he questioned Inoue-kun.
“Could be, sir,” Madarame said. He didn’t look quite as sick as Hisagi did, but he didn’t look happy either. He looked like a man who had just taken a sharp-tasting dose and was waiting for the effects to hit. His face was hollowed out by weariness, shadowed by anger -
That’s not how I think, Nanao said to herself, in the silence of her mind where she could hear it. The corridor lights were bright and dark. She had to master herself. She just needed to think about this for a little while, in peace and quiet, without these constant interruptions . . .
Inoue-kun’s imploring eyes caught her gaze, and she bit her lip and stepped forward. There was no time for this. “Inoue-kun can cause effects that should otherwise be impossible, sir. She managed to assist Kurosaki-kun, and purify Grimmjow -“
“Wimpify,” came a mutter from Grimmjow’s direction.
“-and she was able to negate some pieces of Aizen’s kidou,” Nanao continued, with the practice that came from many years of talking over her Captain’s interjections. “She may be able to reverse whatever has been done to Abarai-fukutaichou.”
“Um... Madoka-san is almost out of sight over here,” Hanatarou put in weakly. “Should we follow her?”
Kuchiki-taichou glanced down at Abarai, and then across at Inoue-kun. Then he looked at Nanao. “Follow that woman and locate any other prisoners, then return to me,” he ordered her. “Inoue will work to restore Renji.”
“I’ll stay too,” Kurosaki-kun said firmly. “You might need help.”
Rather than ask what sort of help Kurosaki-kun could possibly offer, Kuchiki-taichou nodded. “Very good. Hoshibana, you will keep us informed of each others’ movements.”
“Yes, Kuchiki-taichou,” Hoshibana said thickly. His voice wavered on the edge of breaking.
“C’mon,” Madarame said, grabbing Nanao’s arm and pulling her along. His free hand was curled into a fist. “Let’s get this over as fast as we can.”
Nanao ignored the quick glance that Yadomaru-sempai sent her, and let Madarame tug her along. They were a few steps away from the rest, who were strung out in an uneven rabble, with Hisagi and Grimmjow at the beginning, Hanatarou loitering in the middle, apparently not wanting to be at the front or the back, and Ayasegawa and Yadomaru-sempai at the rear. “Listen,” she began quietly.
Madarame turned to glare at her. “Look, I know it may not work, but what if it does? Even if the Inoue girl gets tired, if she can manage it, then we’ve got another man with bankai to throw at Aizen.”
“More than that,” Nanao said softly.
He bit back something that he was about to say, then scrubbed at his head with his hand, wiping away some of the dust. “Yeah. Fuck. It gets too easy to think like that, doesn’t it? You suppose Yamamoto-soutaichou ever thought that way?”
Nanao adjusted her glasses. “Before you all went to the fake Karakura,” she said slowly, “Kyouraku-taichou said that Yamamoto-soutaichou had said that he might need to take the ultimate sanction to stop Aizen. He said that everyone who was included on the mission was aware of that.”
“Yeah,” Madarame said, lowering his voice again. “We all knew. If it all went south and he had to take out the entire place, and us with it -“
“So we all know that, here and now,” Nanao said. “All of us here are aware that we may need to sacrifice everything.” She touched his hand for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean that . . .” The words were difficult. “It doesn’t mean that we can’t hope to save our friends.”
Madarame deliberately ignored her touch, though she felt his muscles shift in what was a kind of acknowledgement. He looked ahead at Madoka. “Yeah,” he said quietly, more gently now. “Point taken.”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Nanao said, keeping her voice at the same conversational level.
He flicked a sideways glance at her. “Is it serious?”
“Either Suzumushi is awake and trying to contact me and control me, or I am hallucinating,” Nanao said. She adjusted her glasses again. “I hope that I’m not hallucinating.”
“I could pinch you,” Madarame said smugly, though his eyes narrowed.
“I would break my captain’s hand if he tried, and you lack his experience,” Nanao said coldly. “And do not take that as a personal challenge.”
“Naah. Gotta tell you, Ise, I like them bouncier than you. Don’t take it as a personal insult.”
Nanao felt her mouth pull into a thin almost-smile. “And about Suzumushi?”
“You’ve had decades of saying no to your captain,” Madarame said. “You’re not like Hisagi. I’m trusting you to know when to tell us if it gets serious.”
The corridor was darker than it had been, but Nanao felt reassured by how simply and straightforwardly he put it. “Thank you,” she said.
“You think it’d help us?” Madarame’s question was a little too careful.
Nanao remembered Tousen-taichou’s face at the Execution Scaffold, that day last year, in the blazing sunlight, and the absolute blankness and refusal in his voice as Komamura-taichou had called out to him. That persistent determination, the sort of thing that could lie hidden for over a hundred years in order to claim a bloody vengeance . . . “I think that Suzumushi understands all about revenge,” she said, her voice just as careful as Madarame’s own. And is it listening to us now? Will it answer?
“You gonna tell Hisagi?”
Nanao blinked. “I can’t see that would help matters,” she said briskly.
“No, me neither.” He sighed, with a long lazy lift and roll of his shoulders. “Shit, why’d they never tell us about any of this stuff before?”
“You mean - zanpakutou stuff?” There were so many things that he could have meant.
“Yeah. Not that I’ve ever had any problems with, you know, my one.” His hand brushed the hilt of his own zanpakutou. “Nice and straightforward, that’s us. Now with you . . .” He let the words trail off, inviting confidences if she chose to give them.
“Mine . . .” Nanao felt the usual unwillingness to discuss something so private. And he asks why they don’t tell us about this. How much do we want to tell anyone else about it? “Has always been remarkably uncommunicative unless I could come up with the right questions.”
“Has it got any opinion on, you know?” He glanced down at Suzumushi.
“I don’t think it wants to get involved,” Nanao said slowly. “But when Hisagi was possessed by his own zanpakutou - you remember, when we found the other zanpakutou? - he seemed actively repulsed by Suzumushi.”
“Yeah.” Madarame thought about that. “But then again, that could be personal.”
“But Hisagi liked Tousen,” Nanao pointed out. “Before, well. You know.”
“Point.” He frowned. “And I’m not getting anything from Hozukimaru. And we don’t have a few hours spare for me to try to reach him.”
“It’d be nice to be able to communicate freely with your zanpakutou all the time,” Nanao said, a little bitterly.
“Wait.” He was suddenly all business. “Madoka’s stopped.”
Nanao broke into flash step, catching up with Madoka as she finished turning to face a door. The woman drew another key from her sash as Madarame joined them. She was inserting the key into the lock as everyone else crowded around.
“Get the fuck back,” Madarame directed crisply. “Same protocol as last time.”
Nanao had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep her face calm and her breathing steady. Yadomaru-fukutaichou was managing to look perfectly calm, but then she had so much more experience. She couldn’t bear to think of it being Kyouraku-taichou in there. She couldn’t bear to think of it not being him in there.
In that moment of weakness, of vacillation, something insinuated itself into her mind, sliding into her thoughts like a pane of glass between her and the outside. It was all black and white, all monochrome, and it sought to distance her from herself, to set her aside and fill her with itself. She looked down a tunnel at the scene around her, and she was a thousand miles away, and . . .
The door swung open.
Kyouraku-taichou sat in the corner of the cell. As with Kuchiki-taichou, his wrists were bound and there was a collar around his neck.
He was fast asleep.
He was leaning against the wall. He was snoring.
He was in plain black. He was scruffy and unkempt and she thought there might even be dust on the hems of his hakama. Stubble showed dark on his cheeks. His hair hung lank down his back, stripped of its usual tie, and there were dark shadows under his eyes.
He was snoring.
Madarame’s hand clamped on Nanao’s arm, but she certainly would not have been so stupid as to just run in there screaming, “Kyouraku-taichou!” and disregard every bit of common sense she possessed. She was mildly offended that he even thought she would do such a thing, in the back of her mind where she still had space for mild offense. The situation came back into bright clear focus, precise and definite.
Yadomaru-sempai bumped against her on the other side, peering over her shoulder as they watched Madoka go through the same set of motions. Kyouraku-taichou continued to snore in a gentlemanly way, apparently so habituated to such visits that they didn’t even wake him.
With an effort, Nanao slowed her breathing. “Same protocol,” she breathed in a whisper. “Let her get out and then we’ll go in there.”
“You figure there’s anyone else besides?” Madarame whispered. It was stupid. They’d spoken loudly enough when they were freeing Kuchiki-taichou. But apparently nobody wanted to wake Kyouraku-taichou from his nap.
“If the rest of you follow Madoka -“
Madoka walked out of the cell. Still calm, still composed, still utterly unseeing, she locked the door. Then she turned to start back the way that she had come.
“Right,” Nanao said, raising her voice a little. “Madarame, if you and -“
“Me, Boy Blue, and Yumichika,” Madarame filled in. “You can keep Hanatarou here, and Hisagi can fill Kyouraku-taichou in on events once you wake him up.”
“I notice you’re not mentioning me,” Yadomaru-sempai put in.
“I’m not stupid,” Madarame said. “And I’m not going to try to talk his own vice-captain out of being there when you wake him up.” He looked smug for a moment, then shot a quick nervous glance at Nanao, obviously having just realised that he might have said something awkward.
Nanao ignored it, and just nodded. “Cover me while I see to the lock,” she said, kneeling down to inspect it. Just the same locking kidou as on Kuchiki-taichou’s cell. This would be straightforward.
Calm, she reminded herself. Stay calm. He’d expect you to be calm.
Her focus was completely on the current situation, and on the lock in front of her, and the man in the cell behind it. Suzumushi and whatever it had been trying to do were unimportant now, disregarded, blocked away; she disregarded it as completely as she would have done an irrelevant piece of paperwork that could be put off till tomorrow. Behind her, there was a rustle as Yadomaru-fukutaichou shifted her weight from one foot to another. She disregarded that as well.
The lock clicked open, and Yadomaru-fukutaichou shoved the door open, striding into the cell. “Time to get up, Kyouraku-taichou,” she said cheerfully, swinging her foot to kick him.
The kick never landed. Without ever quite opening his eyes, Kyouraku-taichou shifted position and swept his leg round to knock her off her feet. She landed on her rear, with a gasp, and he rolled forward to hook his elbow round her neck, dragging her back against his body.
His eyes flickered open. “Sosuke,” he said, as Yadomaru-taichou struggled for breath. “We’ve been through this enough times. I know this is only an illusion.” He smiled thinly, looking at Nanao and Hisagi and Hanatarou as they stood in the doorway, looking through them. “So tell me. Why do you bother?”
---
There is a conflict in his mind.
One He has ordered him to run through these passages and tear apart any who are not permitted to be here. If he does that, if he can tear and cut down and let the light come out of him to blast them away, then there will be ease and it will be quiet and the light will be gentle.
But there is never anyone here. There are no them for him to touch. There is no ending, no place for him to stop.
(Rage, rage says one voice in his mind, and wait says the other, as if from two sides of the same being.)
But the other He is here now, and he has said Renji, and that name is recognised, that name is known, that name is felt in his bones. He could not hate this other He. This other He knows who he is.
His name is Renji.
(Yes, says one voice, and almost says the other voice, and both of them are desperate now, wanting something that is so terribly close and that he cannot quite understand.)
“I’ll try . . .” A hesitating voice. One he knows. “Byakuya-san, please can you stand back a little?”
“That would be inadvisable.” His voice. “Continue.”
The bright figures gather close around him. Light blossoms at two points and wraps around him, and flecks of memory coalesce and flutter into him like snowflakes or butterflies, leaving intelligence and self behind them, forming a net of what Renji is.
And he realises, slowly but utterly, that this is hell, and he screams.
Light pulses from his mouth and breaks the net around him. Someone (Inoue Orihime, his memories confirm) is thrown backwards as the hold of her power is broken, and she goes tumbling like a doll, and someone else (Kurosaki Ichigo, the memories say, all anger and rivalry and friendship) catches her before she hits the wall, and someone else (Ayasegawa Yumichika, a comrade in arms and a drinking friend) draws his blade.
A blow across his chest knocks him down. Kuchiki-taichou is standing there. He has his sword to Renji’s throat. His lank hair ripples in the aftermath of the blast of power. There is death in his eyes.
Renji would welcome that. “Kill me,” he whispers.
“Kill you?” Kuchiki-taichou says tonelessly. “Not unless you forget your duty again. Inoue. Continue.”
“I . . .” The girl’s voice shakes. She’s struggling to remain upright. “Please . . . I will, just let me get my breath, Byakuya-san . . .”
“She’s hurt.” Kurosaki Ichigo is angry. “Dammit, Renji, did you have to do that? She’s not even finished on you yet.”
“She’s not going to be able to.” Yumichika is helping Inoue Orihime sit down. She folds up very small, her back against the corridor wall, her chin on her knees, arms round her legs, red hair hanging loose and bright against her white clothing. “Kuchiki-taichou, if you want Inoue-san to be able to counter anything Aizen can do later, then you have to let her rest now. She’s tired out.”
“I’ll be fine in a moment,” she whispers, but her voice is uncertain and her words are a lie. She can’t even convince herself. Renji can hear it, can smell it.
“Hnh.” Kuchiki-taichou’s snort is familiar. He has not looked away from Renji. “Well. Are you ready for duty, Renji?”
There is a shadow that stands behind Kuchiki-taichou. It is the shadow of his own zanpakutou. It is as clear as the times that he has seen it before: when he named it, when it came to scold him, and when he fought it to reach bankai. It looks down at him, and the two voices together say, Have you not sworn an oath to your own soul?
“Yes,” he whispers.
Kuchiki-taichou moves the point of his blade from Renji’s throat. He seems to find nothing strange in Renji’s current deformities, in the malformations of bone and flesh that twist him from being a shinigami into being a monster. “Then rest,” he says. “We will strike against Aizen shortly.”
Renji curls to one side, pulling himself up into a crouch. He avoids the others’ eyes, not wanting to see his own reflection in them.
He knows that there are questions to ask. What is Ayasegawa doing here, and in white clothing? Why is Kuchiki-taichou here? How will they strike against Aizen?
But for the moment the bone-deep hunger is gone, and he can rest. Ease soaks through him, and even the blinding white of the walls is a little less painful.
And he knows that if Kuchiki-taichou and Kurosaki Ichigo are both here, then one way or another, Rukia is safe. He does not want to ask in what way she can be safe, not when he knows that she was captured and he remembers (that flake of memory burns) being told that she was dead, but now he knows that she is free and safe, she is beyond all this. She is not in hell, even if he is.
That lets him rest.
---
“Kyouraku-taichou,” Yadomaru-sempai croaked, “it is me. I mean, really me.”
“Yes, of course,” Kyouraku-taichou said, in the tone that he had reserved for humouring Nanao when she was ten years old. “I’m sure you’d say that. I have to admire how well you can imitate people’s responses, Sosuke. You must have spent a great deal of time watching us. You voyeur.” It almost sounded like a friendly joke, the sort of casual ribbing he’d give a colleague.
Nanao swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Kyouraku-taichou. This is a genuine rescue. I can prove it by -“ She tried to think of something that would absolutely prove that she was herself and not an illusion of Aizen’s. Something that Aizen couldn’t possibly know about, however much he’d probably wandered around invisibly spying on people.
Hisagi twitched as if someone had jabbed a pin into him. “Katen Kyoukotsu. Your zanpakutou,” he abruptly blurted out. “They’re in her belt. Touch them and you’ll know.”
Yes. Yes, that would work. “He’s right, Kyouraku-taichou,” Nanao said. She drew herself upright and adjusted her glasses. Trying to edge forward to reassure Kyouraku-taichou might be a very bad idea while he had Yadomaru-sempai’s neck in the crook of his arm like that. “Please, sir. Just check.”
His eyes flicked down to where the blades were sheathed in Yadomaru-sempai’s sash.
Nanao wondered what he could be hesitating about. Wasn’t it the obvious thing to do?
“Lisa-chan,” Kyouraku-taichou said, very gently, “I’m going to assume for a moment that you’re not an illusion, and that you are sitting here in my lap -“
Yadomaru-sempai made a choked but indignant noise.
“That’s right. And you’re going to reach down and draw one of my blades, still in its sheath, and pass it up here so that I can lay my hand on it. Slowly and gently, Lisa-chan. Don’t try anything stupid.”
Very carefully, Yadomaru-sempai reached down and tugged the wakizashi from her sash. Her breathing was shallow and ragged as she raised it uncomfortably towards Kyouraku-taichou’s chained hands.
His fingers trembled as they brushed against it. Then his right hand closed around the sheathed blade so firmly that his knuckles showed white. He leaned backwards, raising his elbow to release Yadomaru-sempai and let her roll free.
Nanao rushed forward, stepping over Yadomaru-sempai and falling to her knees beside him. “Sir. Let me see to those bindings. Please.”
“Yes. Of course, Nanao-chan.” He coughed, his voice settling back to its usual dark velvet, and smiled at her. “Unless you and Lisa-chan want to punish me first for being late.”
Nanao snorted. So did Yadomaru-sempai.
“You are clear that we’re real, Kyouraku-taichou?” Hisagi asked. He was staying by the door, with Hanatarou nervously twitching next to him. “We’re not an illusion.”
“My Katen Kyoukotsu is scolding me for being such a fool as to doubt you, Shuuhei-kun,” Kyouraku-taichou said. He leaned back to allow Nanao closer access to his collar. “I should have known better. Even for Aizen, this combination of rescuers would have been unlikely. I don’t suppose anyone has any wine?” he added hopefully.
“Absolutely not,” Nanao said through gritted teeth.
“You must be joking,” Yadomaru-sempai said simultaneously. She had picked herself off the floor and brushed herself off, and now she knelt down next to Kyouraku-taichou on the other side from Nanao. With a little flirt of her hips, she tugged out Kyouraku-taichou’s other zanpakutou and slotted it into his obi. “There you go. Sir.”
“Lisa-chan.” Kyouraku-taichou’s voice caressed the words. “I believe there’s a story I need to hear.”
There was a click as the cuffs came free from Kyouraku-taichou’s wrists, and the collar from round his throat. (Had she been quicker here than she had with Kuchiki-taichou? Nanao wasn’t sure. She mollified her conscience with the thought that she’d had the experience from Kuchiki-taichou’s cuffs, so of course she’d be quicker this time round.)
“Long story,” Yadomaru-sempai said curtly. “Short version: I’m the only one of us down here, unless Hacchi’s locked up somewhere too, and the rest of us . . .” Her mouth tightened. “Aren’t a factor at the moment.”
Nanao realised with a pang of guilt that it was possible nobody had told her about Muguruma-san and the others hiding under Urahara’s shop in Karakura. Certainly she hadn’t. Had anyone else thought to do so? She wasn’t used to feeling that sort of guilt, and it kept her quiet a moment too long.
“Brisk and beautiful,” Kyouraku-taichou admitted. His gaze strayed from Yadomaru-sempai to Nanao, then back to Yadomaru-sempai again, as he slowly straightened up: he brought his hands round to rub his knuckles against the small of his back. “No mattress,” he confided to Hanatarou. “Fortunately I can sleep anywhere.”
His tone was casual, as generous and absent-minded as ever, but his heavy-lidded eyes were keen. “Shuuhei-kun, all in white? I see that you’ve all been infiltrating. Good job.” He brushed one hand over his stubbly jaw. “Nanao-chan, I would kiss you, but firstly my chin would scratch you, and secondly, I fear that you would give me the usual concussion.”
“Nice job, Nanao-chan,” Yadomaru-sempai said, slapping Nanao on the shoulder and making her blush. “I see you’ve got things well in hand.”
Nanao herself wasn’t sure what to say. Common sense told her that she should be weeping with joy that he was alive, and in relatively good health, and still -- sane, the back of her mind called it with unhelpful precision, holding Kuchiki-taichou up as an example. And she was relieved beyond the ability to say so, and happier than she could acknowledge, but at the same time a cool logic kept her anchored to common sense. Perhaps, on some level, she’d never really believed that he could be dead, and that was why it was so unsurprising to find him alive. Or perhaps the situation was such that despite her own emotions, she could still see past them, and continue with her duties, focused on what must be. Perhaps there was little time for joy when on a deeper level she knew that there must be vengeance.
Or perhaps, maybe, conceivably, she was able to be as much of an adult and leader as Yadomaru-sempai, and still be glad that he was alive without having to say it. After all, he knew how much past hope it had been to find him here, and how far she had come to do so. He made casual talk and affection easy. It had never been easy for her.
Hisagi looked somewhere between pleased, relieved, and ill. He shifted nervously. “It’s good to see you, Kyouraku-taichou. Sir, I didn’t know you were a prisoner here . . .”
“When Sousuke locks someone up as deep in a place like this as we are now, Shuuhei-kun, the whole point is that nobody’s supposed to know they’re prisoners here. Or so I suspect. Nanao-chan, are there more of us?”
Direct questions. Intelligent questions. Nanao was so relieved that she could have sat down and hugged his legs, but that would have been inappropriate, and his hakama were rather dirty. Odd, that so white and clean a place should manage to leave its prisoners sitting in their dirt like that. “Yes, Kyouraku-taichou,” she said.
And then she remembered the most important thing, the thing that she should have said first. She kept her voice level. “Ukitake-taichou has been coordinating us. He’s active in Seireitei at the moment. They’re striking against Ichimaru. Urahara-san and Shihouin Yoruichi are holding Karakura. Madarame and I . . .”
She went on, listing the names of the others, and she could see Kyouraku-taichou nodding as he took it all in, as he gave her a proper level of attention, but with all her experience of him, she could also see the deep and desperate relief in his eyes and shoulders, the relaxation as if Ukitake-taichou himself was in the room and ready to stand by him now to fight.
“We should be moving,” Hisagi cut in. “We don’t know what’s happening with Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-kun.”
“Hoshibana will have passed it on,” Yadomaru-sempai said. “That’s if Madarame and the others haven’t already got to them. But I agree, we have to move. We can’t rely on Aizen staying out of this for much longer.”
“Agreed,” Kyouraku-taichou said. He was at the door in a single step and a broad swing of sleeves, and then held it gracefully open for Yadomaru-sempai and Nanao to pass through. “Incidentally, Nanao-chan,” he said softly into her ear as she walked by him, “why do you keep on fondling Suzumushi like that?”
She deliberately and forcefully removed her fingers from the zanpakutou’s hilt. She hadn’t realised that she’d been touching it. “It’s trying to communicate with me, sir.”
He looked at her sidelong, lazy eyes narrowed to slits. “And?”
“And I think that we can use it,” she said firmly. “Sir.”
“My splendid Nanao-chan,” he said, and patted her on the shoulder before turning to follow Hisagi down the corridor.
---