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Consolation Prize (of Victory)	By : blackfox1 Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 5764 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, any of the characters mentioned here and I'm certainly not in this for the money.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Consolation Prize

Interlude 2: Sex and the Single Soul

In which losing track of time has both interesting and unintended consequences...

This time he’d surprised her with a clay pot, one not too large to hold while trying to dodge the Cleaner on the way back through the Dangai, packed with moist soil and a small spade-full of plants from one of the Southern meadows. He’d located the spot via the coordinates Tsubokura Rin gave him and probably could have found the place by scent alone. Renji replaced last summer’s dried-out mess of a gift with something lush, and given it was now mid-spring, just beginning to bud out. Another week and she’d have a real piece of meadow to keep in whatever hiding place Yoruichi had her band of rebels stationed. He could have sworn a few bees followed him back to the Science Division, lured by the smell of imminent blossoms.

Nel’s explanation as far as bringing things into the protected little barrier proved true. He held the pot in one hand and to be certain that it survived this time, he’d gripped the stems of the plants in the other. The barrier had sizzled its way through him once more and when his vision cleared, he not only found that his sample had survived, but that a small earthworm he’d inadvertently dug up with the roots had made it as well. The trick, it would appear, was to make sure that if he wanted anything to live through the Kido cube’s formation, it would have to be touching anything he was holding, or he’d have to hold it himself. He had about two minutes to determine he still had a 'live' gift in his grasp before the usual pressure change hit him. He’d never considered his eardrums a weak point in his defenses, but after the pain subsided, Renji considered checking into whether or not there might be anything he could do to mitigate the effects of the Kido cube's transition before he lost his hearing.

A pair of hands covered his eyes and he nearly lost his grip on the pot.

“You seem much better than last time, Renji-kun.”

He inhaled and there was that grassy perfume he associated with being in her presence. Balancing the pot, he reached up and took one of her hands. They were certainly smaller than his were, finer boned and yet the pattern of calluses on them matched his own. They were a fighter’s hands. They were also very chilly. The Dangai, if his memory served, wasn’t exactly the balmiest place in the universe. Renji squeezed her fingers lightly and pressed them to his mouth, exhaling to warm them. Then he turned around and moved Nel’s hand to the rough surface of the pot.

“This is what I was trying to give you the last time we met.”

This time he had every confidence he’d done the right thing and her surprised expression, followed by a delighted smile as she took the pot of grasses and flowers, confirmed it.

“Oh! You remembered! It’s beautiful!”

Renji stared down at the top of her skull-like mask as she buried her nose in the greenery, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself.

“Why do you like meadows so much?” he asked.

She inhaled again, and looked up at him with eyes the color of a dust storm. Instead of answering, she turned and walked over to the bed that he’d pushed and shoved into the middle of the room. Nemu had done this the last few times, but she’d neglected to tell him that the damned frame was apparently made of lead. He’d made a vow after placing it properly to build up to bench pressing the thing as a form of physical training.

Today’s dress was pale pink, fell to her calves and seemed to be made of some stretchy, Living World fabric that clung in the most amazing ways to the body beneath it. The sandals were the same as last time, and she still had the little handbag attached to the hilt of her sword, belted around her hips. At that point, she bent over to put the pot down and Renji’s brain decided that it had better things to look at than her choice of clothing.

She must have felt the rush of lust he experienced, because she straightened, her eyes wide. When she came up to face him, her cheeks were bright pink. Nel plucked at her dress, as if unsure about something.

“Yoruichi thought this would look nice on me. I wasn’t sure, since Hiyori-chan kept hitting Kenpachi-san when I tried it on and yelling at him about buying him another eye-patch if he was going to stare. Is there anything wrong with it to you?”

Oh, nothing, save the fact that you look like sin itself in it…or out of it. I’m not picky; Renji thought giddily and then tried and failed to reign in the mixture of anticipation and desire that pooled in his nether regions.

“It looks nice on you,” he managed to croak out.

“Are you getting more sleep?” she inquired, looking away from him and crossing her arms under her breasts, stretching the fabric and doing nothing to help Renji’s sense of decorum or self-control. Some horribly primal part of him wanted to find out just how far that fabric would stretch before it tore.

“As much as the kids will allow, yes. I think I managed to finally get to sleep with the sound of lab equipment running…”

“You sleep in one of Szayel’s labs?”

Her voice held some worry and he hastened to explain about Abisara and his choice in ‘security blankets’, which Nel oddly found funny rather than disturbing.

“They sound like interesting children. You care for them a great deal.”

It was a statement, rather than a question, and Renji figured that she’d plucked that information from him via her Claim. He grinned back at her.

“They’re hard not to like. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they acted more like human children than anything else. To Vindula, everything is something to play with and to her brother, it’s something to study. I guess my job right now is to keep them alive while they go about doing both.”

“So I see… or rather, I feel,” she laughed softly, then bit her lip. “I was worried last time. You were worn down to almost nothing and…”

Renji wasn’t sure where he got the courage to walk up to her and cover her mouth with his own, partly because he didn’t want her fretting over something that he didn’t find all that important at the moment. It might have come from the same place that made him cup her face between his palms and deepen it. For a second, he thought she might resist, or push him away, but then her mouth opened wider and her tongue met his own, sliding against it eagerly. If worse came to worse, he could blame it on the dress and the way it left almost nothing to the imagination despite covering more of her than the simple white sundress she’d worn last time.

Kami, I need to stop listening to Szayel bitch about what’s hanging in his closet. I’m picking up more than a man should know about how clothing is supposed to hang, he told himself. Then he felt her place her hands on his chest and move lower, sliding them beneath his kosode to trace the muscles in his abdomen.

“You’re still too thin. You need to eat more,” she murmured and with a few tugs, she’d pushed his upper garment off, so that it pooled around his waist.

He undid the rest of the ties, then carefully slid Zabimaru from his place at his hip and laid his Zanpakuto at the end of the bed. Behind him, he heard the sound of leather being unbuckled and her un-named weapon joined his, the scabbards nearly touching.

His Zanpakuto’s voice had been surprisingly quiet for the last week, as if the Baboon King and Snake were resigned to the fact that Renji was going to go through this whole enslavement thing once more. Renji, in turn, pointed out to the other half of his soul that keeping up appearances like this was far preferable than letting Szayel Claim him, something both halves of himself agreed would never, ever happen again if either of them had anything to say about it. This time, Renji backed up his argument with a few memories of the last time he’d visited with Nel and the Baboon King, being decidedly male in all things and aspects, kept his fanged mouth shut about the female that had deigned to share a bed with him, even if it was only for an hour. That she was an Arrancar bothered Renji less than the fact that she wasn’t Rukia and Zabimaru’s input, while mumbling about ‘fraternization’ wasn’t nearly as angry-sounding as last time.

The redhead felt the mattress dip when she sat down at the edge of the bed, still mostly dressed. That was something Renji felt he was going to have to rectify. Instead of sitting down next to her, he knelt before her, and then took one of her sandaled feet in his. He knew this script by heart, thanks to Vindula’s preferences in bedtime stories. His reading material consisted of enough silly, princess-centric fairy tales to keep anyone’s blood sugar sky-high for years. He’d stumbled across this little tale while trying to find at least one story to read to his little female charge where she wouldn’t try to substitute the name ‘Yumichika’ for the name of the prince, a development that Renji found deeply disturbing on a number of different levels.

While it hadn’t solved his ‘prince problem’, the picture of the story’s prince kneeling in supplication before the girl he was searching for had given him a few ideas that by all rights ought to have been nowhere near a children’s book. Once he’d read it, he promptly glued the pages for that particular story together, more for his own benefit than for the kids’. Aside from the decidedly salacious spin his libido placed on that drawing, it also made him picture Szayel, quite unwillingly, as an ‘evil stepmother’ surrounded by pumpkin-shaped fraccion sitting in for the evil step-sisters. The unsettling images had stayed with him for a week.

Renji looked up at her from his spot on the floor. She stared back down at him, her curiosity plain.

“I eat when I can. If I sit down for a meal, the kids are finished before I’m halfway done and they’ll have eaten twice as much. I’m more worried about them getting enough than I am about my waistline,” he whispered back. Without further ado, he pulled off her sandal and placed it carefully on the floor. Then he slipped off the other, wrapping his fingers around her ankle.

He ran his hands up long, strong legs made that way, he figured, by simply walking in the sands of Hueco Mundo, as she’d pointed out ten months ago. He hadn’t been prepared for just how hard it would be to trudge through those shifting white drifts when he and Rukia arrived in that dark world, searching for Ichigo’s little party in the vast wasteland. Nel had the kind of muscles, lean and supple, that only came from years of contending with such an environment. In addition, they were covered in warm, creamy, silky skin that seemed to act like a magnet for his hands.

As those hands moved higher, briefly pausing at her knees, the fabric of her dress draped across his forearms and he began to push her thighs a little farther apart.

“Besides, I’m not always starving for food…”

Her breath hitched as his fingers reached and fanned out across her hipbones, his thumbs just out of reach of the heat he could feel between her legs. Nel’s eyes grew wider as she grasped what he intended to do and she let out a breath that she appeared to have been holding. Renji moved his left hand up and placed his palm on her belly, willing her to lean back on her bent arms as he shoved the skirt of her dress out of the way. Kneeling between her spread thighs, he let his eyes roam over everything he planned on touching this time.

Again, he had encountered nothing hiding beneath her clothing, which explained the whole eye patch comment. It also irked him a little, to his surprise. The Zaraki Kenpachi he knew, or thought he’d known, only seemed to get off on bloodshed, be it an opponent’s, his own or anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity at the time a fight started. Violence was supposed to be that madman’s turn-on, not curves and certainly not the curves he was busy exploring.

Whoever this Hiyori was, he hoped she not only found another eye-patch but a damned blindfold for the former Taichou, and maybe a stick with which to beat him.

“Renji-kun, you don’t…”

She swallowed what she was going to say and then let her head fall back as he reached around and pulled her hips forward to meet his waiting mouth, throwing her thighs over his shoulders.

He had almost no idea what the hell he was doing, admitted as much to himself and figured if he messed up too badly she’d stop him if she didn’t like it. He’d dredged around in what pathetically few memories he had of his time in the barracks of the 11th Division, where there were damned few women and more than enough X-rated smack-talk to go around. Renji hadn’t participated in much of the banter, mostly because he had nothing to contribute and what little bragging he could do didn’t involve sexual conquests. Still, he’d listened in enough to pick up a few pointers here and there. Of course, imagining it and actually finding himself in a position to engage in such an act were two different things. This, from what he’d heard, was one surefire way to make a woman absolute putty in his hands. That sounded like a goal worthy of pursuing.

Before he could think twice about it, he dove in and began to lap slowly at her flushed, pink folds, until her outer lips parted and he reached her real core. She tasted tangy, sweet, and a little musky and her hips writhed against his mouth as he worked her over. Renji shifted his hands, supporting her bare bottom and used his thumbs to spread her wider. Then he settled in and began to explore her, with lips and tongue, trying to see what would make her scream in the same way she’d done to him when she’d swallowed him whole that first time. Turnabout, he figured, was fair play here.

The trembling of her legs as her feet tried to find some purchase, perhaps to give her some leverage, let him know that he was on the right track when he speared his tongue and pushed it past the tight outer muscles of her opening. Doing that a few times brought a rush of slippery sweetness that filled his mouth. He gave her no chance to take any kind of control this time and kept at it, refusing to relent as her juices flowed over his lips and down his chin. Her little gasps of pleasure fanned the small flame of pride burning in his chest as well.

Renji heard a sob from somewhere above him and glanced up through his lashes to see Nel’s upper body contorted, her hair fanned out across the bed, her back arched and her shaking hands fisted in the sheets. Her gray eyes were tightly shut and Renji couldn’t have conjured up a more wanton, shameless look for her than what he saw at that moment. Pulling back a little, he lifted her bottom slightly, as one would if preparing to drink from a cup and sought out the small sensitive nub of muscle that might thoroughly undo her with the tip of his tongue.

He wasn’t disappointed. Nel’s strangled cry rang in his ears as her heels finally found a place to rest, digging into his back. He also felt the fingertips of her right hand rake across his scalp, her sharp nails tearing at his headband.

“Oh, please… Renji-kun… please…”

Maybe it was the pleading itself that made him want to just hold her there and torment her for the afternoon, heedless of their time constraints. Just this small amount of power made his head spin and the blood rush to his cock. Nearly ten months had passed and he’d spent that time figuring out exactly what he wanted to do when next he met with this woman. He attacked her core with renewed enthusiasm, the wet sounds his mouth made against her blending in with her pants and moans. She tasted of lemons, sugar, and grass; she was as warm as a summer afternoon and he drank as deeply from her as he could. Suddenly, her other hand was in his hair and had ripped the tie from it. The high tail he normally wore fell around him as she came around his tongue with a shriek. Her legs, her hips, her whole body shook with the force of it and Renji reared back, observing the havoc he’d wrought on her. He couldn’t help the smug smile that stole across his face as he took in his handiwork, or rather, tongue work. The turquoise-haired beauty was busy taking great gulps of air, her still-covered breasts heaving with each lungful and her eyes were wide, as if he’d shocked her with what he’d accomplished.

Then his body was moving, and he realized that he wasn’t the one telling it to do so. Nel’s Claim animated his limbs instead. He found himself fully on the bed, surprised as all hell at not only how quickly he’d ended up there but also how swiftly Nel had pinned him to the mattress. If not for the pillow resting against the head of the bed frame, Renji was sure his head would be smarting from striking its metal bars. She hovered over him on all fours, pulling her now-stained dress the rest of the way off and tossing it behind her. Through the red curtain of his hair, he saw a flash of her bosom before she came eye to eye with him, her pupils shrunk to pinpoint, irises looking like polished platinum. Then she gave him one of the most animalistic, downright hungry looks he’d ever seen on anyone’s face. The redhead knew, then and there, that his clothing wasn’t going to survive this encounter. Sure enough, she bent her head just long enough for her lips to graze his abdomen and he felt her hands grab hold of the white obi that bound his hakama in place.

She ripped it as if the heavy silk was made of rice paper.

“Nel, wait…” he gasped, but choked as her tongue lashed out and traced the line of the tattoo that began on his left shoulder.

Her nails raked lightly along the black fangs that marked the ribs on his right side and he found his body reacting to her touch as her mouth moved lower and her hands scraped their way towards what he hoped was her goal. He tried to reach down and touch her and found his finger caught in her teeth. A tiny trickle of blood from a cut caused by her lower fangs fell, landing on his abdomen. Mesmerized, Renji could only stare in shock as she sucked the digit into her mouth, taking it in almost to the third knuckle before letting it go with a ‘pop’ before resuming her trek southwards with her tongue.

She wasted no time with the black cloth around his hips, sweeping it away from what she wanted. Renji bit down on the inside of his mouth to keep from hissing as she took his painfully hard length in hand. He wasn’t entirely sure if the Claim kept his eyes on her as she teased his slit with her tongue, never breaking eye-contact with him. It simply could have been that he didn’t have the strength to look away. Kami, he’d dreamed about this…

She engulfed him suddenly and Renji’s mind blanked. His hands encountered something cool and metallic and he found himself gripping the vertical bars on the bedstead for dear life as Nel proceeded to pay him back for what he’d just done to her. She had him whining and panting heavily in a matter of minutes. One of her strong, deceptively pretty, calloused hands tightened around the base of his cock, preventing him from finding any relief as she sucked on and swirled her tongue around him.

An old saying about turning tables and geese and ganders suddenly came to mind and promptly blew itself to bits in his head as she increased the suction on him and made a ‘humm’ of what might have been satisfaction deep in her throat. He had a hard time putting a name to it, as she seemed intent on turning his brain to jelly.

“Fuck… Nel, I’m…” he tried to warn her, feeling the tight knot of pressure at the base of his spine start to spin out of control.

Now it was his turn to plead, grasping at the bed frame with white knuckles and numb fingers. She must have taken pity on him, or maybe she’d decided neither of them could take much more, but she chose to pull her mouth away and replace it with a slipperier sort of tight heat, straddling his hips and slowly taking him in, inch by inch.

Her reiatsu crept into him as she impaled herself, little by little, complimenting the sparks that flew up and down his spine. When she finally sat astride him, looking down on him as if she were starving and he was a tasty snack she was about to devour, he couldn’t help the little thrill of fear that crept along his nerves to meld with the foreign reiatsu.

His current position was the result of her control over his person. Try as he might, Renji couldn’t actually feel upset about it, not while enclosed in the closest thing to paradise he’d ever experienced, or might ever experience, given how precarious things were outside of this little temporary sanctuary. He wasn’t the only one affected; he could see a thin drop of sweat trickle between her breasts and his eyes followed it.

“Renji, I need to refresh your Claim now. I… I need…” she began and faltered a little, her throat working. Some of the feral gleam left her eyes as she surveyed the man beneath her. “Renji-kun… are you …?

She always asked for his leave to do this and a part of him knew that she would continue to do so, for as long as they had to meet. He’d just caught a tiny glimpse of the very real, very powerful Vasto Lorde that lurked beneath her sweetly disarming exterior and for some reason he couldn’t fathom, it turned him on more than he could stand. He let go of the metal and pushed himself up, hooking one arm around her waist. Then his mouth found that one salty drop and he lapped it up, following it with a trail of kisses up to her collarbone.

“What do you need, Nel?” he murmured against her overtly heated skin, He felt slender fingers trace the dark marks along his eyebrows, down the sides of his face and trace along his jaw, tilting his head up so that he could look up at her.

“Tell me… tell me you want this…”

He didn’t understand why her voice was so ragged, but maybe it was because his hands had started to move up and down her back, tracing the ink in the shape of a number she’d once worn as a sign of her rank. It could have been because he’d pulled her head down and ferociously attacked her lips at the same time that he bucked his hips upwards into her. He almost forced his tongue into her mouth, daring her to stop him from trying to eat her face off. She countered with a surge of reiatsu that made him feel as if he’d swallowed a bolt of lightning. Renji swore he could see her afterimage seared into the backs of his eyelids as his hands tightened on her waist and pulled on a handful of her glorious hair.

She rode him hard, breathing in each exhalation he made as their combined efforts dragged them closer and closer to the point of no return. He opened his mouth wider, to try to take in as much of her reiatsu as possible, the same way he’d devoured her earlier, until he didn’t think there was any room in his body or his soul for more. It felt too bloody good, filling her and being filled by her in turn and that thought was what kicked him over the edge. The snug, liquid heat around him suddenly tightened to the point of near-painfulness and she swallowed his hoarse shout as he throbbed and spilled himself in her depths. He thought he heard a sharp cry as he rammed her hips down as hard as he could on his, trying to get as deeply into her as possible, to make the sensation last as long as he could. Something within him gave way in the face of her power and he welcomed its loss, as the feeling of her Claim settling on him prolonged his release.

When he regained his senses and the rushing noise in his ears had subsided, he found her curled up in his arms. To his surprised, he was also still lodged deeply within her, her thighs straddling his waist.

Kami, have I been that damned deprived, he wondered.

That had been… insanely, deliciously fantastic. Renji’s mind groped around a bit, trying to get his wits about him, while the one who had brought about his current lassitude lay on his chest, her hair providing a ticklish blanket.

The redhead made a note to add a blanket to the bed for next time, noticing the goose bumps on his arms.

“Renji-kun…” he heard her whisper, and then pushed herself up on one elbow, her long dark lashes fluttering sleepily. They held each other’s gaze, Nel reaching up to trace Renji’s lips with her pinky finger and he, content to fall back and allow his pulse to return to normal.

“That was my instinct getting the better of me. I’m sorry Renji-kun. I…”

“Huh?”

Why she felt she had any need to apologize, he had no idea, unless it was for exercising her Claim during what had turned out to be, at least for him, a truly earth-shattering round of sex. He’d been startled, but the results had been more than worth it. From the tone of her voice, however, it sounded as if she was actually concerned about it.

“Nel-chan, don’t sweat it,” he replied, letting his fingers tuck a strand of hair the color of aquamarines over her shoulder and cupping her face. His grin was wider now as his eyes focused on her lips, remembering how she’d tasted. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does!” she insisted, frowning at him. “I… you don’t have a Hierro. If I hadn’t realized… I could have hurt you!”

“I’m tougher than I look…” Renji laughed softly. “Especially my head. Both of them…” he added, sliding his palms down to cup her bottom and lifting his hips slightly, making her aware of the fact that not only were they still connected, but that Renji’s cock definitely liked where it was and was in no hurry to leave. Those pretty eyes widened a little and her swollen lips parted. He noticed that she’d managed to bite the bottom one.

“An Espada is supposed to be a reasoning creature, better than the mindless beasts that roam the sands, doing nothing but looking for their next meal,” she countered, sounding almost upset. This time, he gritted his teeth and pressed his hips up until her head fell back and she sucked in her breath.

“I’m very familiar with animal instincts, Nel-chan,” he chuckled, “I have two constantly grouching at me from my inner world, day in and day out. The monkey constantly berates me and the serpent…”

He pulled her head down and kissed her, deepening it as she slowly responded.

“…told you to do that?” she finished breathlessly as he planted his feet on the mattress and began to move shallowly in her, holding her lower half steady so he could maintain the languid pace.

“All I know is that right now I’ve got nothing better in this world to do than let that ‘snake’ do the talking,” Renji answered. “We have a little time, right?”

“Y...yesss…” he heard her moan, and that was all the encouragement he felt he needed. If he had to endure another drought, he was at least going to make as much of their hour as he could.

Their second round was smoother, with Renji doing most of the work, though Nel’s Claim had left him feeling boneless and relaxed. In fact, it was honestly the most tranquil he could ever remember being. She was already primed from her first climax and Renji got the satisfaction of bringing her to the brink yet again, kissing Nel as her channel milked him dry, before succumbing himself. Afterwards, she lay with her head pillowed on his chest, fingers tracing the marks on his bicep while he caught his breath.

“I didn’t know that people could do that… just because….”

“Without a Claim being involved?”

Renji smiled up at her, then carefully eased her form off of him and stretched as he sat up. She nodded, and then sat up herself, leaning against his back.

“I’ve heard that people do this sort of thing all of the time, I guess. First time for me though.”

Renji realized that he’d been thinking out loud and inwardly cursed. Nel took his admission with no small amount of surprise.

“You mean you’ve never done… just this… with anyone? I mean, without a Claim?”

The reality of his near-non-existent sex life inadvertently laid bare, Renji decided to forego lying. It wasn’t as if she wouldn’t know he was trying to cover for his lack of experience the second he tried to stretch the truth.

“Yeah. I guess the first time, ever, was with that bastard Szayel and then the second and third times were with you.” The redhead let out a long breath. “But this last was the first time with no other purpose in mind than the fact I’ve got to be one of the luckiest people this side of a Senkaimon, to have someone like you want to help keep me alive for the next ten months.”

Nel giggled at that and he turned around, drawing her up for another kiss before he released her. He heard his jaw pop and reached up to massage it a little ruefully.

“I should have warned you,” she said with some regret.

Renji shrugged, pushing his hair out of the way so that he could look at her.

“So biting someone with a Hierro during the heat of the moment probably isn’t a good idea. I’ll file that away for next time.”

Nel blinked, as if remembering something. She sat up straighter with a look of dismay.

“Oh no… I’ve lost track of time!”

Nel lunged for the foot of the bed and grabbed the handbag, dragging the notebook from last time out of it. Despite feeling guilty about letting his hormones do the thinking for him this time around, Renji couldn’t feel all that bad about it. It wasn’t as if he had much to report this time around. other that what he'd learned from observing two of Barragan's 'household'. Nel threw him off track by lying on her belly, propped up on her elbows while she flipped to an empty page. Her position gave him an amazing view of her backside and he had to kick himself to focus.

First and foremost, he told her about his encounter with Yumichika and Ggio Vega. He told her about Shirogane Mihane and her father and the possibility that there were others like them trying to hide in plain sight. Nel must have understood, from the look on his face as he relayed the tale, what his fears were, because she stopped writing and laid a hand on his arm.

“Don’t worry. If you think it’s too dangerous for Yoruichi to approach her, she won’t, but she will try to see if Shirogane-san’s father is alive. If Ayasegawa-san is right, and those glasses are real, it could be a real help to us. What about Soi Fon-Taichou?”

Renji recounted the odd question the short Arrancar had asked him, and added the warning he’d given the redhead regarding the twins. Nel seemed confused as well as far as the first, but thought that, at the very least, it meant that someone was trying to do something for the woman. Renji hoped that would ease Yoruichi’s mind a little, though he doubted it would help much. However, Nel’s alarm over the second didn’t make him feel very confident about letting the children out of his sight in the near future.

“You can’t let Barragan anywhere near them. He’s … oh, Renji-kun, I can’t tell you how frightening he is! It wasn’t until Aizen overthrew him that I felt it was safe to go near Las Noches.”

“Why would someone as powerful as you be scared of him?”

Renji thought it was a reasonable question, considering the number on her back and the strength of the Claim that surrounded him. He drew her up and into the circle of his arms, on the chance that it might lessen some of the fear he saw in her eyes. One of his hands reached up to trace along the curved horn on her mask and stroked her hair, the same way he would have done if Vindula had come crying to him over a skinned knee.

“What’s wrong Nel-chan?”

He felt her take a few deep breaths, as if to take back control of her emotions and then pushed away from him, until he held her at arm’s length. She gave him a searching look, one full of some sort of expectation.

“Tell me, Renji-kun. When you look at me what do you see?”

A thousand words sprang to mind but he just shook his head, knowing that ‘beautiful’ ‘sexy’ and ‘mouthwatering’ weren’t what she was getting at.

“You’re still a Shinigami,” she prompted, trying to give him a better hint. “You’ve fought Arrancar, killed thousands of us. What do you see that makes me different from all of those you’ve destroyed?”

Her words instantly sobered him. Kami, it was so easy to think she was just another girl, like Orihime or Karin. The mask told a different story, but he wasn’t sure that was what she meant either. Her use of the word ‘destroyed’ threw him as well, though he didn’t really think that he heard any resentment in the comment. Therefore, there was something different about her and he had to guess what that was. He’d just had his hands all over her and she was asking if he could find some clue to the riddle hidden somewhere on her person.

Now what could she be hiding, he wondered, with all of that glorious, nearly unbroken skin? He mentally retraced every second he’d spent touching her and still couldn’t decipher it. In frustration, he drew two fingers down from the hollow of her throat. Renji trailed them down the same path taken by that one salty drop as it trickled towards her navel.

“To think, you spend so much time around two of them and you still can’t recognize a naturally born Arrancar when you see one,” she said sadly, finally giving in and stunning him with the answer. He stared at her, wide-eyed, and then let his eyes rake her up and down, as if looking for confirmation.

It was true. She didn’t have a hole, the place where a Hollow’s Chain of Fate deteriorated, turning a normal soul into a mindless monster. Instead, all he could see was gorgeous flesh. Her mask fit her head like a helmet and beneath the deeply-recessed eyeholes, he could see shaded strands of hair.

“The twins are half-Shinigami, and Ajuga and Diaemus are half-human. None of them have a Hollow hole,” Renji stated with certainty.

He’d seen summaries of the test results on each child, but he’d assumed that the lack of one was because their Chains of Fate were intact, being born instead of created by human regret and suffering upon death. In wonder, he placed his palm on her chest, feeling her heart beat steadily beneath his touch.

“I… I didn’t know that was true for the Arrancar as well.”

“I’ve only got one soul, Renji-kun, the one my parents gave me. That’s why I know what kind of danger those children you care about so much are in when it comes to Barragan,” Nel explained, earnestly clasping his hand in hers. “We’re very rare, and we’re considered ‘desirable’ as mates, especially the females. The more powerful Arrancar will try to seek us out, to take us by force if necessary. My father, once he realized how strong I was, warned me never to go to Barragan’s court. He told me to hide what I was if I could and to never bow to anyone weaker than me.”

“What about your fraccion?” he asked, and then winced. She gave him a sad but understanding look.

“Neither of them was strong enough to Claim me, and they knew it. They weren’t… they were different before Nnoitra tore their masks off… more reasoned, smarter. Still, they agreed to serve me in exchange for protection and gave me a piece of themselves to carry on, should I evolve. When… this happened…” she said quietly, and her fingers briefly touched on the scar across her nose, “they still protected me from any and all that would take advantage of my weakened state. Of course,” and here she laughed, “I was useless at a mate in that form, but there were plenty of lower Hollows that would have simply eaten me to gain what power I had left.”

Nel must have felt the horror that sprang to life in Renji’s gut as she said this, since her grip on his hand tightened. He didn’t want to picture the small, damaged girl she’d been being devoured by some nameless fiend in Adjuchas form.

“That’s why you have to be vigilant! I’m surprised that one of Barragan’s fraccion even said something like that to you. When Aizen granted us all more power, I remember that the Second's servants were very, very loyal and would do anything he asked, no matter how dangerous.”

Renji snorted, thinking of the Arrancar in question. Ggio Vega hadn’t seemed like much of a threat, but looks could be deceiving. What he’d really resembled was a guy who was at a loss as to what to get his girlfriend for her birthday and who was grasping at straws. The redhead had given up trying to suss out what was going on behind the walls of Barragan’s estate, mostly because none of it made sense to him, other than the fact that somehow, Barragan had done something awful to his remaining follower.

He let Nel know this and she hurriedly copied it into her book, letting the issue of her own heritage go for the moment.

“That’s important. If Barragan no longer has anyone who follows him willingly, he’s that much more vulnerable. I’m sure this will help Yoruichi think of something. I’m… I’m just not sure what that is.”

“Me neither. All I know is that the two Shinigami he does have his claws on are treading water at best and there’s nothing I can do to help them,” Renji growled. Nel leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead. “Tell her not to wait too long, okay? They’re alive, but from what I can tell, they’re miserable.”

“You’re helping now, Renji-kun. We might not be able to do anything right now, but Yoruichi-san and Hachi-kun will make use of it when there’s an opportunity.”

He could smell that perfume again, clinging to her skin, as well as the scent of sweat and sex and the heady flowers, this time still living, that he’d brought with him.

“What’s it like, being born as an Arrancar?” he asked suddenly.

Maybe what she knew would help him with understanding Abisara and Vindula a little better. Nel slipped out of his grasp, looked about for her clothing and found it draped over Zabimaru’s hilt. She gingerly took it, shook it out, and shinnied into the thing, pulling the hem, to Renji’s regret, over her hips. It was stained, wrinkled and she still looked like a billion yen in the thing.

“Lonely.”

Her soft reply wasn’t what he was expecting, but when he considered it, life itself in Hueco Mundo wasn’t exactly what he’d call a party.

“It’s hard to tell how long I’ve existed. There are no seasons, no days in Hueco Mundo, no way to really mark time’s passage. I know I was born. I know my parents cared for me and protected me for as long as they could. My mother was the first to disappear, when I was half-grown. She simply never came back. My father stayed until I was old enough to hunt on my own, and then he left as well. After that, it was all I could do to stay away from those who would have… well, you know.”

Renji watched as she reached for the weapon that lay alongside his own, the nearly white scabbard a stark contrast to Zabimaru’s blood-colored sheath. She buckled the belt around her hips, letting her hand rest on the hilt of the weapon, almost as if she was reassuring it that it had been returned to its proper place.

“But I met Pesche and Dondochaka and it wasn’t so cold after that. Then, after a long time, I think, Aizen,Tousen and Gin came to us, promising us power. They promised me the strength to defend myself, to defend my fraccion from those who would hurt them. Aizen seemed so kind, so understanding at first. He even told me that he didn’t need to give me much of his power at all, for me to take the form you see before you. He said he wanted to bring a powerful army together and that he wanted me to serve him.”

He didn’t like the regret that tinged her voice. Crawling to the edge of the bed, Renji pulled her back into his lap, discovering the fabric of her dress was indeed stretchy enough to accommodate her thighs settling on either side of his hips. With part of the bed sheet in the way, unfortunately, he had to settle for the feel of her in his arms.

“Sometimes I wonder... if I’d said no, would I be there now, and would Pesche and Dondochaka still be alive…”

Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, Renji brought her face up, meeting her gray gaze with his own. Then, as if he wasn’t entirely sure he ought to risk it, he ran his thumb a short distance down the scabbard of the weapon at her side. It felt cool to the touch, the same way her mask felt, only smoother and more metallic than not.

“This is Gamuza,” she said, hesitating as he briefly touched the twin moons on the hilt, withdrawing his hand from the weapon a moment later. A vast reservoir of power thrummed there, deep and cold and held back by the slenderest of forms.

“Gamuza…” he said, sounding out each syllable, “It means something both soft and tough at the same time. It suits you perfectly, Nel-chan.”

When he caught her lips this time, he was half-tempted to slide both the sheet and her dress out of the way, wanting to feel her squirm against him just one more time.

“But if I never… agreed… I wouldn’t know Ichigo-kun, or Rukia-chan… or you…” he thought he heard her whisper in between kisses. “I wouldn’t have known… you could do this… without being afraid of a Claim…”

Her words helped Renji cast what was left of his caution aside. His hands reached up beneath her skirt, shoved it up and ripped off the sheet across his lap. Nel gasped as she came in contact with the evidence of his renewed interest. He wasted no time, since he wasn’t sure if they had minutes or just seconds before that damned red warning went off, and with one thrust he was buried in her a third time. Grabbing hold of a length of her hair, he pulled her head back until her throat was exposed, while the fingers of his other hand slid between their bodies to stroke the small bundle of nerves hidden by short, turquoise curls. It didn’t take long for his fingertips, soaked with her juices, to find it and start the circling motions he knew she liked.

Renji let his teeth rake against her throat, her pulse thudding beneath the skin, close enough for him to bite down if he’d actually had Zabimaru’s fangs. Her Hierro prevented that, as he’d already found out, but the action soothed the primitive urge in him to want to mark her in some way.

“Now ride me. I’m gonna send you back while you’re still shaking from me!” he ordered savagely.

He could feel her Claim moving over his skin, but it didn’t freeze him where he sat. Instead, she placed her hands on his shoulders, arched her body and proceeded to do as he asked. It was short, feverish and brutal and he threw his head back and damned near howled when she clamped down on him a third time. Renji flooded her, adding his heat to hers in a series of erratic throbs. She rested her head on his shoulder, breathing harshly. He felt a few small drops of something wet hit his chest. He was sweating himself and in the back of his mind, he knew he’d have to make time for a shower before Nemu gave the twins back to him. The last thing he needed was a bunch of questions that he, as their defender/nanny, had no business trying to explain to them, at least not yet.

His eyes were closed, but when the iridescent barrier around them shifted to that angry, electric crimson he was beginning to hate, he could see the glow through his eyelids. Opening them, he found her staring down at him strangely, an unreadable expression on her face and as he felt around for his wits for a third time in an hour, he noticed that the hand not busy driving her to her own climax had grabbed the hilt of the weapon she’d called Gamuza as he’d reached his peak. Her eyes seemed unfocused as well, until he loosened his grip on the blade. Then she was scrambling off of him, aware she only had seconds to make her escape. She had her sandals on in a flash and before he could even force himself to stand, she’d picked up his gift, cradling it carefully in one arm.

“Nel, wait… that was… “

“Don’t tell anyone about what I am. Those I’m with now know the truth, but I’m the only Espada among them, so it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t be good if… if Nnoitra found out I was still alive, and in this form!”

It almost sounded as if she was pleading with him to keep her secret. He found himself nodding, and then gained his feet just as her hand touched what he thought was the south wall of the cube. The door opened, and the slice of blackness beyond it beckoned to him, as it never had before. Just beyond, lay freedom… the chance to flee with her, to take her hand and get the hell out of the nightmare Aizen had created with his so-called 'victory'. A mere ten steps and he could be gone.

Doing so would leave Szayel without an explanation as to why his ‘pet’ had disappeared.

This would bring down Aizen’s wrath on Szayel and Karin…

…as well as the twins.

It was that knowledge that kept his bare feet rooted on the floor.

“I won’t say anything, if you’ll keep the fact that you’re my… first to yourself as well. I don’t need that jerk Ichigo laughing at me.”

“Ichigo-kun would never do that,” Nel countered, a little crossly, then nodded, her expression softening. “Please, Renji-kun, be careful. I can hardly feel you on the other side. You have to keep yourself safe.”

With that and without another look back, she stepped through the doorway. To Renji, it almost felt as if she was fleeing and he wondered if he’d done something terribly wrong during that last, brilliant (at least from his perspective) bout with her. Then he realized, as the red color surrounding him changed back to white, they had cut things dangerously close. She’d nearly been trapped here.

Almost feels as if you wanted that to happen, you worthless, pussy-whipped roll-over…

Ah, there was the Baboon King, finally making his presence known with an irritable growl in Renji’s head.

What were you going to do with that little ibex, Abarai? Settle down, find a little cottage, maybe put on an apron and…

“Shut the fuck up, chimp!” Renji snapped at the white furred beast that finally appeared in his inner world. The barrier’s time was up, he was stark naked, in dire need of a shower, his obi was toast and the last thing he wanted to have was yet another mental sparring match with his unhappy Zanpakuto.

Sssooo pretty… ssssoooo tasssssty… could ssssswallow her whole…

And… there was the other half of the dynamic duo. Renji swore, blistering the air as he tore a long strip from the bed sheet and used it as a makeshift obi, hitching his hakama back into place. While trying to find his kosode and the undergarment, he found his headband and stared at it for a second. It had fallen with his hair tie and he’d been a little busy at that point, so he hadn’t paid attention.

It had been slashed through, down one side and a few red hairs clung to it, as if they’d been cut with a razor.

Kami… no wonder she was upset.

Figured it out now, idiot? You’re playing with a force that’s just as likely to do you in as save you…

Will you kindly kiss my ass? Do you want to be executed instead, by Aizen?

Might be preferable to baring my throat and letting her ride all over us. Oh, wait, that’s right, you already allowed her to do that, moron! Why don’t you just put a saddle on your back and offer a tour to every…

“BE QUIET YOU DAMNED APE!” Renji roared this out loud, his anger at his blade’s needling finally boiling over. It was at that point that the shrinking wall of Kido slammed into him from behind. When his vision and sense of hearing returned, he found himself only marginally decent, clutching his now useless headband in one hand and Zabimaru in the other.

It also didn’t help that Karin and Szayel stood there, frozen, as if his reappearance had interrupted yet another one of their bickering sessions. For a long minute, no one spoke. Then Szayel sniffed, made a face and covered his nose, while Karin went three shades of scarlet.

“Sweet mother of… you reek! Abarai, you smell like the floorboards of a low-rent cathouse! I forbid you to go anywhere near my children until you’ve had a bath. Or two. Or twelve!”

Karin didn’t exactly meet his eyes while she spoke, though she at least sounded less outraged by his appearance.

“Whoo! Uhm, yeah, your Claim is in place, all right. Go and clean up. Maybe visit a shrine while you’re at it.”

Renji rolled his eyes and would have left everything there but for the small, metallic glint that he saw peeking out from under the top sheet. Then he recognized the golden chain…

Fuck…

He spun on his heel and pulled all of the sheets, the top half of his uniform and one of the stray tabi that he’d lost at some point during the last hour, bundling it all up with an angry growl, to hide the knot of fear that suddenly formed in the pit of his stomach.

“Fine. I’ll take this to the laundry, since it offends your delicate sensibilities so much, Szayel-sama…”

He ladled a little sarcasm over that last bit and was out the door before either could stop him. That didn’t keep Szayel from getting in a parting shot:

“And for Kami’s sake, use some soap! It’s an idea whose time has…”

The door slammed shut behind him. It was just as well. He didn’t have a hand free to punch the scientist anyway.

Shit, shit, shit… he thought, hoping that he could make it back to his assigned room without encountering anyone else.

Fortune, thankfully, decided to smile on him for a change. He saw no one in the corridors and he stalked through his own door, latching it behind him, without incident. Dumping the entire armload on his nearly-never-used bed, the redhead rooted around until he found the pink purse that Nel had brought with her from the Living World. He snapped it open and his heart sank.

The notebook and pen were there.

I am the biggest, most colossal fuck-up ever to exist, he cursed to himself.

No argument there, sssstupid…

I agree with the snake…

Yumichika’s admonition not to engage in espionage, that he had no talent for it drifted back from where he’d stored it a month ago. Here was living proof that he’d put not only himself but also Nel and a lot of other people at risk just by insisting on taking her again. He’d distracted her and now, if anyone found this, he was dead meat. The game would be up and…

The former Fukutaichou sat, took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down before he gave in to panic.

Maybe Nel would be able to remember what small amount of information he’d given her this time, since it had little to do with the Seireitei’s defenses and more to do with the captives. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to try to ask Karin if she could pass it to Yoruichi for him. First, he hadn’t exactly been honest with Karin about feeding information to Nel and second, he didn’t think Karin would let him go unscathed for agreeing to something like that behind her back.

Desssstroy it, quickly… the serpent half of his Zanpakuto urged.

He was inclined to agree and thought about taking it to the incinerators at the lowest level of the Science and Research Division. The sheets, torn to provide him with a little modesty, would be a perfect cover. There was no point washing them. He could hide the pen, the notebook and the purse in them and toss the whole bundle in the flames.

Foolish, to make her forget the real reason she’s here. Selfish, to hold her to the point where she could not return undetected. You truly aren’t thinking, you jackass and if you keep making mistakes like this, more will die as a result! Your desires cloud your judgment! Her Chain of Fate may not be one we can purify, but she’s a danger in other ways, you reckless imbecile!

“Enough!”

Renji raked his hands through his hair and stalked into the bathroom, turning on the shower. The rush of cold water that hit him stole his breath, but it was just as well. He needed to focus and the icy stream that blasted away all traces of the woman he’d spent the last hour blithely fucking helped clarify things for him.

The tiles were just as cold on his forehead as he let it fall with a ‘thud’ against the wall.

His blade was right. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He’d just done something amazingly dumb, committed such a rookie error that it was a wonder he was still alive.

He had to get his priorities straight and fast. This was a damned war and if he didn’t keep his wits about him, it could all be over and in the worst way possible. Fortunately, he could rectify this within the hour and the proof of his ‘treason’ against that thrice-cursed bastard Aizen would go up in smoke.

Why had he done it? It wasn’t as if he was in love with her. It wasn’t as if she was in love with him. Nel was only doing this, he reminded himself, because, in her own words, she was the only one that could help him fly under Aizen’s ‘radar’. Rukia was the one that had always occupied that spot in his heart and that wasn’t going to change. He was acting like some adolescent, mooning about over a beautiful girl when he needed to be on-target.

He had to start, he swore, acting like the officer he’d once been.

With his resolve firmly re-established and his exterior scrubbed and made reasonably presentable in one of his spare uniforms, he took care of the notebook immediately after his shower. Then he went to take the twins to the closest park, to get some fresh air in his lungs. His Zanpakuto gave him at least some grudging respect for a change. By the time Abisara clambered onto one of his knees that evening with a tome on physics and Vindula sat herself on the other, dragging a somewhat-sanitized-for-children version of the Tales of the Genji, Renji felt a little more in control of his thoughts, his mood and his errant libido.

Still, he had his doubts about that when he awoke in the middle of the night, his sleeping kimono clinging to him because he’d broken out in a cold sweat. He’d dreamed about someone that he thought was Nel, but her coloring was off, as was the fact that half of her looked like an armor-clad woman, and her lower half took the shape of a cloven-hoofed beast. She’d stared down coldly at him with gleaming, desolate eyes, to where he lay prostrate in the sand, laid out like a sacrificial offering under Hueco Mundo’s moonless, starless sky. As if she was a painted beast from some old heraldic scroll, the creature reared back and aimed for him with the wickedly sharp lance she held in her gauntleted hand. Before the silvery missile reached him, before the tip pinned him to the ground and his blood reddened the sand, he sat bolt upright and clamped down on the scream that wanted to tear its way out of his throat.

Renji strangled it down just in time. The nightmare filtered away slowly, leaving him wrung out. His charges continued to slumber peacefully in their respective beds, the sound of Abisara’s mini-centrifuge whirring, muffled by blankets. Gradually, his breathing evened out and he lay back, staring at the ceiling for a long time before sleep finally came. He could only guess where he’d pulled that insane image from, but he had a couple of ideas.

In the morning, Vindula’s dog-eared story book of knights, princesses and fairy tales discreetly followed Nel’s notebook and purse into the Division’s furnaces.

To be continued...
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Consolation Prize (of Victory)