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The Suit - Chapter 7 (Bleach, Sado/Ishida)
Title: The Suit, Chapter 7/10
Rating: currently R
Pairing: Sado/Ishida
Warnings: Set in Bleach universe, but the time skip made it A/R. Violence. Some gore in this chapter.
Summary: With less than a year left before Uryuu heads off to university, he'd been certain he'd avoid all the complications and distractions of a high-school romance. His attraction to Chad threatens to throw a wrench in his neatly-laid plans.
A/N: I have made a minor change to this chapter - I've outlined it in the A/N below :)
Chapter 7
Death may come, invisible
Or in a holy wall of fire
The call came in the middle of the night, startling Uryuu out of a fitful sleep. Uryuu shoved his glasses on and forced himself awake as he hurled himself toward the closet, and the Quincy outfit hanging inside.
Uryuu was still groggy when he rushed through his front door, his head muzzy from only an hour or so of sleep. The cold October air peeled away the last layers of sleep, and he frowned as he began a ground-eating jog eastward, trying to recall the last time his assistance had been requested. A year? Maybe a little longer than that, even. Since the end of the Winter War, Hollow activity had decreased drastically, and the shinigami stationed in Karakura could handle it himself, for the most part. Uryuu knew that Ichigo helped out, but even that didn't happen often, from what he'd gathered.
Uryuu frowned and double-checked straps and buckles, upping his speed. He was still almost a mile away, yet the out-lash of clashing energies was enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck.
His eyes went wide when he rounded the last corner. It was utter chaos; perhaps fifty yards to his left, Renji and his bankai soared and swooped in the air, meeting hollows at every turn, herding the beasts toward Ichigo and Rukia. They stood back-to-back at the center of a large, milling herd of the things, picking them off as they came forward. Uryuu scanned the area as he continued on. To his right, there—Inoue Orihime's shields glowed eerily, seeming to absorb the colors in the air.
And there—Uryuu's breath stuck in his throat when he finally caught sight of the last member of their little company; backlit by the red flame of a low-flying Bone Cannon attack, both arms sheathed in power, Chad ripped a Hollow in two, and then turned smoothly to the next attacker. He looked terrible and beautiful, and Uryuu's caught breath came out in a rush that frosted in the night air.
Then movement drew his eye, and Uryuu's stomach sank when he realized what Orihime and Chad were protecting, and why the shinigami were trying to draw the Hollows to the other side of the field. Well over a dozen small forms huddled on the ground in the space between them.
"Ishida-kun!" Orihime called out to him, but they didn't waste time with pleasantries. Chad turned his head to make brief eye-contact, and Uryuu took a deep breath, readied his bow, and cleared a path until he was firmly situated between the two of them.
An insectoid form hurtled toward him, all legs and mandibles and clacking bone, a child whimpered behind him, and Uryuu took aim and fired.
***
Sucking in deep, starved breaths, Uryuu wiped his forehead. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he felt exhausted and thirsty... and exhilarated, and intensely alive. He nocked an arrow—one that went wild of its mark when from the corner of his eye he saw Chad break formation to sprint forward, into the pale horde.
He saw the wayward child, inexplicably several yards away from the safety of the huddled group. He saw the Hollows that threatened the little boy. He saw the airborne beast that swooped in to attack, and was swiftly pierced with an arrow.
He didn't see the ground hugging, centipede-like monster with wicked, scythe-like mandibles until it struck, and Chad dropped to the ground, using his body to protect the screaming child.
Uryuu put an arrow through it, then his eyes widened when he caught sight of Chad's body... minus part of one leg, ripped off just below the knee. Blood pooled under his torso from another wet wound on his side, blackening the dirt.
"No!" he yelled, in unison with Orihime. Swallowing bile, desperately fighting the urge to abandon his post, he leveled a precisely-aimed volley of arrows to drive the Hollows back.
"Inuoe-san, go to him!" he snapped. "I can handle this!"
It was all he could do not to fret over his fallen friend as he took three paces backwards, tightening the perimeter and widening his field of vision.
"Stay behind me, please," he said to the crying children, his voice terse but as calm as he could make it. The familiar glow of Orihime's barriers calmed him further, and he took a deep breath, surveyed the field, and gathered his strength for what had to be the last stand.
***
When it was over, after Rukia, Renji and Ichigo approached, sandwiching the remaining Hollows between themselves and him and summarily destroying them, Uryuu bent at the waist, hands on his knees, and took a few necessary seconds to simply breathe.
"What happened?" Ichigo asked from a distance, and Uryuu's head snapped up.
"The little boy must have been hiding," he heard Orihime explain, her voice hoarse. "He was running this way, and they were after him. Sado-kun went to help, and..."
Confident that Renji and Rukia could handle the children, Uryuu finally allowed himself to go to Chad's side.
And he didn't hear whatever else Orihime and Ichigo had to say, because his stomach seized up in delayed fear at the sight of Chad's battered body. Even this far along into Orihime's treatment, Chad's ribs and internal organs were visible through a thin film of regenerating skin. Uryuu's eyes slid away from the sight of glistening wet intestines, to the severed foot resting in the dirt. From just below the knee to just mid-shin, there was nothing but a pencil-thin bridge of growing bone and a few long filaments of muscle. Uryuu watched, horrified and fascinated, as muscle and bone and flesh slowly knit itself back together.
"Chad." Ichigo dropped to one knee. "You okay?"
Chad's eyes flickered open in his face, skin tinged grey from pain and shock, and he gave a weak thumbs-up. Then he closed his eyes and went limp again.
"Sorry," Ichigo said, and it took Uryuu a heartbeat to realize it was directed at him.
"What?" Uryuu asked, frowning, still watching Chad's face.
"We didn't realize there would be so many."
Now Uryuu turned to frown at Ichigo, and he finally noticed the blood that stained the left half of Ichigo's face, painting his hair dark red and drying sticky against his cheek. "You knew this was going to happen?"
"Well, yeah." Ichigo scowled, red cracking and flaking from his forehead. "A school bus crashed this morning. When I heard about the accident, I figured there would be some Hollow activity. I just didn't know it would be this much."
"A school bus, this many kids—of course there would be a lot of Hollow activity!" Uryuu bit out, trying—and failing—to keep his voice low.
"I told you already, I didn't think it would be this much!" Ichigo clenched his hands into fists, his shoulders shaking. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough, the tightness around his eyes betraying how difficult it was for him to keep it that way. "Shinsou was supposed to be here, and Zennosuke—we thought we had it covered. But something else came up on the other side of town. We called you three as soon as we realized how bad it was!"
Uryuu felt anger twist hot in his chest, felt his hands shaking like they hadn't been throughout the entire engagement. If they had all been involved in the planning, things would have been much easier... if they had all been there from the start, instead of scrambling to make sense of the situation, by this time they'd all be on their way home. In one piece. Uryuu hissed in inarticulate anger.
"Are they all okay?" Chad asked, his voice quiet, stopping Uryuu's rebuttal in its tracks.
Ichigo looked over his shoulder to where Rukia and Renji stood sentinel over the subdued children. "How many you got over there?" he called.
Renji looked down and began counting at the same time Rukia called back, "Twenty-three."
"They're all okay, then," Orihime said quietly, and when Uryuu turned to look at her, a beatific and utterly exhausted smile was spreading over her face. It was matched by the one on Chad's face, now losing its grey tinge.
"Yeah," Ichigo said, then he sighed. "I should..."
Uryuu carefully unclenched his fists. There was still work to be done here tonight, and bickering, no matter how much things might need to be said, would only make it more difficult. "Go help them," Uryuu said, his soft tone offering a tentative olive branch.
Which Ichigo reciprocated. "If I'd known there would be this many," he said, meeting Uryuu's eyes. "I would have called you guys first." He got to his feet and settled his sword on his back, glancing quickly at Orihime. "Next time, I will anyway."
At that, the twisted knot of tension and anger inside Uryuu began to smooth itself out, and he watched Ichigo's retreating back with a thoughtful expression on his face.
The trill of a bird seemed to startle Chad, who jumped, and his wince of pain was so slight that Uryuu almost missed it. Even after all this time he remembered well the feeling of regeneration; it was intense and invasive, and while the pain lessened gradually, it had still been enough to make Uryuu wish he'd had something to bite down on. But Chad's face went still again, peaceful, and the bird was joined by others.
That bright and cheerful birdsong was the accompaniment to the soul burial of twenty-three children, and Uryuu listened to the shinigami do their work—but his eyes never strayed from Chad. He saw the subtle tension fade from his mouth, so subtle he didn't notice it until it was gone. He saw the dawn break across Chad's right cheek, damp from sweat and glowing bronze, and the red of Chad's tattoo, bright in this rosy light, drew Uryuu's eyes. Amore e Morte. Love and Death.
There had been death all around him tonight. Death, and a desire to live that he rarely felt so strongly in his normal life. That desire to live welled up inside him, and he thought that he was not, he was not living, that the routines that made up his life were but a pale imitation, done without passion.
Without love.
He looked down at Chad, slid his fingers into Chad's loosely curled hand and held it. He watched him, watched this brave man, this strong, kind, loyal man as he lay in his own blood, barely conscious, but conscious enough to squeeze Uryuu's hand back.
The shinigami finally fell silent, the last small soul dispatched, their job done.
TBC...
____________________
A/N: I originally had Chad losing his whole leg, from just below the hip. However, I think that was a little too much... sooo, now it got snapped below the knee instead, and the injuries to his torso are not quite as severe, as well. Not a huge change, but enough to make me feel better about it XD
Lyrics (c) Bright Eyes - No One Would Riot For Less
Rating: currently R
Pairing: Sado/Ishida
Warnings: Set in Bleach universe, but the time skip made it A/R. Violence. Some gore in this chapter.
Summary: With less than a year left before Uryuu heads off to university, he'd been certain he'd avoid all the complications and distractions of a high-school romance. His attraction to Chad threatens to throw a wrench in his neatly-laid plans.
A/N: I have made a minor change to this chapter - I've outlined it in the A/N below :)
Chapter 7
Death may come, invisible
Or in a holy wall of fire
The call came in the middle of the night, startling Uryuu out of a fitful sleep. Uryuu shoved his glasses on and forced himself awake as he hurled himself toward the closet, and the Quincy outfit hanging inside.
Uryuu was still groggy when he rushed through his front door, his head muzzy from only an hour or so of sleep. The cold October air peeled away the last layers of sleep, and he frowned as he began a ground-eating jog eastward, trying to recall the last time his assistance had been requested. A year? Maybe a little longer than that, even. Since the end of the Winter War, Hollow activity had decreased drastically, and the shinigami stationed in Karakura could handle it himself, for the most part. Uryuu knew that Ichigo helped out, but even that didn't happen often, from what he'd gathered.
Uryuu frowned and double-checked straps and buckles, upping his speed. He was still almost a mile away, yet the out-lash of clashing energies was enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck.
His eyes went wide when he rounded the last corner. It was utter chaos; perhaps fifty yards to his left, Renji and his bankai soared and swooped in the air, meeting hollows at every turn, herding the beasts toward Ichigo and Rukia. They stood back-to-back at the center of a large, milling herd of the things, picking them off as they came forward. Uryuu scanned the area as he continued on. To his right, there—Inoue Orihime's shields glowed eerily, seeming to absorb the colors in the air.
And there—Uryuu's breath stuck in his throat when he finally caught sight of the last member of their little company; backlit by the red flame of a low-flying Bone Cannon attack, both arms sheathed in power, Chad ripped a Hollow in two, and then turned smoothly to the next attacker. He looked terrible and beautiful, and Uryuu's caught breath came out in a rush that frosted in the night air.
Then movement drew his eye, and Uryuu's stomach sank when he realized what Orihime and Chad were protecting, and why the shinigami were trying to draw the Hollows to the other side of the field. Well over a dozen small forms huddled on the ground in the space between them.
"Ishida-kun!" Orihime called out to him, but they didn't waste time with pleasantries. Chad turned his head to make brief eye-contact, and Uryuu took a deep breath, readied his bow, and cleared a path until he was firmly situated between the two of them.
An insectoid form hurtled toward him, all legs and mandibles and clacking bone, a child whimpered behind him, and Uryuu took aim and fired.
***
Sucking in deep, starved breaths, Uryuu wiped his forehead. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he felt exhausted and thirsty... and exhilarated, and intensely alive. He nocked an arrow—one that went wild of its mark when from the corner of his eye he saw Chad break formation to sprint forward, into the pale horde.
He saw the wayward child, inexplicably several yards away from the safety of the huddled group. He saw the Hollows that threatened the little boy. He saw the airborne beast that swooped in to attack, and was swiftly pierced with an arrow.
He didn't see the ground hugging, centipede-like monster with wicked, scythe-like mandibles until it struck, and Chad dropped to the ground, using his body to protect the screaming child.
Uryuu put an arrow through it, then his eyes widened when he caught sight of Chad's body... minus part of one leg, ripped off just below the knee. Blood pooled under his torso from another wet wound on his side, blackening the dirt.
"No!" he yelled, in unison with Orihime. Swallowing bile, desperately fighting the urge to abandon his post, he leveled a precisely-aimed volley of arrows to drive the Hollows back.
"Inuoe-san, go to him!" he snapped. "I can handle this!"
It was all he could do not to fret over his fallen friend as he took three paces backwards, tightening the perimeter and widening his field of vision.
"Stay behind me, please," he said to the crying children, his voice terse but as calm as he could make it. The familiar glow of Orihime's barriers calmed him further, and he took a deep breath, surveyed the field, and gathered his strength for what had to be the last stand.
***
When it was over, after Rukia, Renji and Ichigo approached, sandwiching the remaining Hollows between themselves and him and summarily destroying them, Uryuu bent at the waist, hands on his knees, and took a few necessary seconds to simply breathe.
"What happened?" Ichigo asked from a distance, and Uryuu's head snapped up.
"The little boy must have been hiding," he heard Orihime explain, her voice hoarse. "He was running this way, and they were after him. Sado-kun went to help, and..."
Confident that Renji and Rukia could handle the children, Uryuu finally allowed himself to go to Chad's side.
And he didn't hear whatever else Orihime and Ichigo had to say, because his stomach seized up in delayed fear at the sight of Chad's battered body. Even this far along into Orihime's treatment, Chad's ribs and internal organs were visible through a thin film of regenerating skin. Uryuu's eyes slid away from the sight of glistening wet intestines, to the severed foot resting in the dirt. From just below the knee to just mid-shin, there was nothing but a pencil-thin bridge of growing bone and a few long filaments of muscle. Uryuu watched, horrified and fascinated, as muscle and bone and flesh slowly knit itself back together.
"Chad." Ichigo dropped to one knee. "You okay?"
Chad's eyes flickered open in his face, skin tinged grey from pain and shock, and he gave a weak thumbs-up. Then he closed his eyes and went limp again.
"Sorry," Ichigo said, and it took Uryuu a heartbeat to realize it was directed at him.
"What?" Uryuu asked, frowning, still watching Chad's face.
"We didn't realize there would be so many."
Now Uryuu turned to frown at Ichigo, and he finally noticed the blood that stained the left half of Ichigo's face, painting his hair dark red and drying sticky against his cheek. "You knew this was going to happen?"
"Well, yeah." Ichigo scowled, red cracking and flaking from his forehead. "A school bus crashed this morning. When I heard about the accident, I figured there would be some Hollow activity. I just didn't know it would be this much."
"A school bus, this many kids—of course there would be a lot of Hollow activity!" Uryuu bit out, trying—and failing—to keep his voice low.
"I told you already, I didn't think it would be this much!" Ichigo clenched his hands into fists, his shoulders shaking. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough, the tightness around his eyes betraying how difficult it was for him to keep it that way. "Shinsou was supposed to be here, and Zennosuke—we thought we had it covered. But something else came up on the other side of town. We called you three as soon as we realized how bad it was!"
Uryuu felt anger twist hot in his chest, felt his hands shaking like they hadn't been throughout the entire engagement. If they had all been involved in the planning, things would have been much easier... if they had all been there from the start, instead of scrambling to make sense of the situation, by this time they'd all be on their way home. In one piece. Uryuu hissed in inarticulate anger.
"Are they all okay?" Chad asked, his voice quiet, stopping Uryuu's rebuttal in its tracks.
Ichigo looked over his shoulder to where Rukia and Renji stood sentinel over the subdued children. "How many you got over there?" he called.
Renji looked down and began counting at the same time Rukia called back, "Twenty-three."
"They're all okay, then," Orihime said quietly, and when Uryuu turned to look at her, a beatific and utterly exhausted smile was spreading over her face. It was matched by the one on Chad's face, now losing its grey tinge.
"Yeah," Ichigo said, then he sighed. "I should..."
Uryuu carefully unclenched his fists. There was still work to be done here tonight, and bickering, no matter how much things might need to be said, would only make it more difficult. "Go help them," Uryuu said, his soft tone offering a tentative olive branch.
Which Ichigo reciprocated. "If I'd known there would be this many," he said, meeting Uryuu's eyes. "I would have called you guys first." He got to his feet and settled his sword on his back, glancing quickly at Orihime. "Next time, I will anyway."
At that, the twisted knot of tension and anger inside Uryuu began to smooth itself out, and he watched Ichigo's retreating back with a thoughtful expression on his face.
The trill of a bird seemed to startle Chad, who jumped, and his wince of pain was so slight that Uryuu almost missed it. Even after all this time he remembered well the feeling of regeneration; it was intense and invasive, and while the pain lessened gradually, it had still been enough to make Uryuu wish he'd had something to bite down on. But Chad's face went still again, peaceful, and the bird was joined by others.
That bright and cheerful birdsong was the accompaniment to the soul burial of twenty-three children, and Uryuu listened to the shinigami do their work—but his eyes never strayed from Chad. He saw the subtle tension fade from his mouth, so subtle he didn't notice it until it was gone. He saw the dawn break across Chad's right cheek, damp from sweat and glowing bronze, and the red of Chad's tattoo, bright in this rosy light, drew Uryuu's eyes. Amore e Morte. Love and Death.
There had been death all around him tonight. Death, and a desire to live that he rarely felt so strongly in his normal life. That desire to live welled up inside him, and he thought that he was not, he was not living, that the routines that made up his life were but a pale imitation, done without passion.
Without love.
He looked down at Chad, slid his fingers into Chad's loosely curled hand and held it. He watched him, watched this brave man, this strong, kind, loyal man as he lay in his own blood, barely conscious, but conscious enough to squeeze Uryuu's hand back.
The shinigami finally fell silent, the last small soul dispatched, their job done.
TBC...
____________________
A/N: I originally had Chad losing his whole leg, from just below the hip. However, I think that was a little too much... sooo, now it got snapped below the knee instead, and the injuries to his torso are not quite as severe, as well. Not a huge change, but enough to make me feel better about it XD
Lyrics (c) Bright Eyes - No One Would Riot For Less
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moonshiro
(Anonymous) 2011-02-07 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)Re: moonshiro
Thank you! I'm probably going to post it today :)