Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I might take a teeny-tiny bit of credit for anything you don't, but I make no profit from it.

Triple Point

A Bleach Fanfic

Chapter Three: Stray Dog

His students this year were—well, he hadn't been expecting this, to say the least.

Renji hadn't really thought much about it when one of the names on his roster was 'Ishida.' It wasn't a common name, exactly, but it wasn't all that rare, either. He'd figured it was merely a coincidence that one of the new class one students had the same last name as the Quincy kid from two years ago.

But then he'd actually entered the classroom for the first time, and his eyes had landed on a familiar face.

It was really weird, seeing that guy wearing the Shin'ō uniform. It was going to be even more awkward teaching zanjustu to someone who had technically beaten him in a swordfight. But Renji knew there was a difference between winning a fight and knowing the fundamentals—so it could be worse. It didn't take him long to decide that—strange as all of this was—he could deal with it just fine. He had no idea what a Quincy was doing at Shin'ō, but if he qualified, he qualified; it sure as hell wasn't Renji's job to spend too much time wondering about the repercussions.

Nowadays, nearly half a year into the whole thing, he could safely say that this was the best class he'd ever taught—would probably ever teach.

There was a lot of the same classist bullshit that went on when he was at Shin'ō, but even the nobles recognized that the others were legitimate competition. They all pushed each other hard, directly or otherwise. Ishida, the mouthy Kurosaki twin, and that Sugitani kid with the yakuza tattoos were all excellent—he'd have a lot more to write about this year in his report to the captain than he'd thought.

He stood with his arms crossed, watching them spar with each other. There was a certain kind of enthusiasm for it that he rarely encountered in older shinigami. Whether it was because it was all new and different to them or because they hadn't yet confronted what it really meant to wield a sword, they took on each new lesson with an eagerness usually only seen in the Eleventh. Or maybe occasionally the Seventh. Even those with cooler attitudes absorbed the information like sponges.

The war hung over them, too, he could tell. Especially Ishida. But their spirits didn't seem dampened despite knowing what was ahead.

It was a sharp contrast from the mood that hung over the officers of the Gotei 13, and by extension the rest of them as well. Renji found it at once refreshing and uncomfortable to be around. Refreshing, because it was good not to have to deal with the constant oppressive atmosphere. Uncomfortable… because their progress, and their undiminished determination, reminded him of all the things he hadn't yet accomplished. He'd been like them once, striving forward with a hunger for improvement and acknowledgement—a starvation, almost.

But reality had curbed his appetite.

"All right everyone. That's enough for now. Get set for Jinzen."

"It's been a while since we've been out here."

Renji looked to his right. Rukia picked her way over the debris in the street with a kind of grace that instantly placed her at odds with their surroundings. It was hard to imagine, really, that she'd come from a place like this. Their black shihakushō were stark against the faded browns and washed-out greys of Inuzuri's streets. Everything here was covered in a fine layer of dust—it blew in from the outer districts too often to bother trying to clean off, he remembered.

"Yeah."

Renji wasn't sure what else to say. This had been his idea, but he didn't really know what he was after. Maybe he wanted to prove something, but whether to himself or someone else, he had no idea. He'd just woken up that morning feeling like he had to come here, and then thought maybe Rukia would want to come, too.

Their passage did not go unnoticed. The streets weren't that busy in the middle of the afternoon like this, but vendors pretending to be asleep in their stalls and kids peering out from the shadows of ramshackle buildings tracked their motions all the same. All of them were covered in dust and dirt, too. That's just how it was, here.

He couldn't blame them for the curiosity. Shinigami weren't common out here. Patrols never got so far out, and so for two of them to just show up out of nowhere… they probably wondered if there was a Hollow around or something. Renji knew now why no one really ever came here. Firstly, if a Hollow was brave enough to actually attack in Soul Society, it was ambitious enough to pick an area with a better concentration of reiatsu. Secondly… no one in the Seireitei really gave a shit about the people this far away from the center of things. At least not anyone in the Central 46.

They passed out of the more populated area and reached a familiar dirt road. Renji's feet were on it and carrying him forward by instinct. Rukia followed.

The shack wasn't there anymore. He wasn't surprised by that. It had been in terrible, shitty shape when they were living in it, and things that flimsy always fell down. The tree still stood, though, fruitless and haggard as ever, but a living tree even so.

Rukia smiled at the sight of it, walking over to it hand running her hand up and down the bark. "I remember this," she murmured, then tilted her head up. "I think it's gotten taller."

"Probably," Renji replied, passing up the opportunity to rib her about her height. He wasn't really in the mood.

She hopped easily up into the lowest-hanging branch and sat, letting her legs dangle over the side and kicking them back and forth. She gestured at him, and Renji sighed, walking over to stand underneath. The tree may have gotten taller, but so had he, and his head barely cleared the space under the branch.

"Remember that time I surprised you from up here?" she asked.

Of course he did. He never forgot anything that had happened here—even if he'd tried to, his inner world was too similar to let him. He nodded.

"You said you weren't looking for me, after I ran out."

Renji crossed his arms, leaning his shoulder into the trunk. "I was," he confessed. He'd been worried. He'd worried a lot back then—more than he would have admitted. They were all kids, but he was the oldest one, by his own reckoning. The one who had to protect the rest of them.

He'd made a complete mess of that. And maybe most things since.

"I was glad."

He tilted his head to look up. One of the few times she was taller than him, and it was still only a couple of feet. Renji frowned at her. "You were?"

She nodded. "Of course. It was the first time in my life anyone had ever done that. Ever looked out for me." She braced her hands on either side of her, palms down on the branch.

For just a moment, she was a little girl again, and he was a little boy, and nothing had changed at all. But then his perception shifted, and Renji once again saw her as she was—not who she had been. She was incongruous with the scene now; she didn't belong in it, this dusty world where stray dogs fought for scraps.

Renji dropped his eyes. "Well, that's what I'm here for."

There was a thud on the ground and a gust of air when she landed. Briefly, Rukia put a hand on his arm, just a light touch.

"It's getting late."

Renji expelled a heavy breath.

"Yeah."

The wooden markers that had once stood in the spot had rotted away a long time ago. The graves themselves were smoothed over by time, flat where once they'd been mounds. Even the people buried there were probably all elderly in the living world by now.

He wondered what kind of lives they'd led.

If they were better than life in Inuzuri.

He hoped so.

Rukia had gone back to the Seireitei, but Renji lingered, unable to leave the old neighborhood just yet. His feet had taken him here, to the hill where they'd buried their friends. He stood in front of the spot, staring at the ground and thinking of faded footprints in his inner world.

"Hey guys."

No one was there to hear him.

"I guess, if your lives over there were normal, it won't be too much longer till you'll be back here." Sometimes, the years felt heavy. It was hard to imagine that most humans, and most souls, lived only a handful. Eighty, maybe a hundred, if they were lucky. Renji would live so much longer than that. He almost had, already.

"It'd be kind of strange, me coming here then, when you were somewhere else in Soul Society."

Of course, they didn't remember him anymore now, and they wouldn't then, either. He'd never recognize them. Maybe one of them was already some baby in some house. Or a new arrival, pulled from the living world at middle-age. Renji didn't pretend to understand how that was decided.

"You've all moved on now. If there's any justice in the world, you'll never have to come back to this place." To the dust and the grime and the threadbare patchwork of a life they'd had.

"Rukia's moved on too, you know. I dunno if I ever told you this, but she was adopted into a noble family. The Kuchiki. You don't know who they are—never mattered out here—but they're one of the big names. Right up there, way above the rest of us." He shook his head, crossing his arms.

"Someone finally hung her star in the sky, I guess."

Sighing heavily, he uncrossed his arms and curved one of them back over his neck, feeling the rough scratch of his own calluses over the skin of his nape.

"Everyone's left this place behind but me. You can take the mutt out of Inuzuri, but…" Renji shook his head, trying to jar the thought from it. But it wouldn't leave him, much as he might wish otherwise. Grimacing, he turned from the graves, and stepped into shunpō.

Aside from the divisional training areas, there were a few others, specially set aside for use by captain- and vice-captain-level shinigami. They were designed in the shape of large domes, modeled after a blueprint invented by some captain from a long time ago. The domes were designed to contain the effects of extreme reiatsu pressure and more widespread bankai, like the one Hitsugaya had. Izuru had explained it to him once—the domes were made of sekkiseki layered with other materials to create a dampening effect that would make training harder, but not completely impossible like it would be in the Central Great Underground or the Repentance Cell.

It also had the benefit of being more private than his division's training grounds, and more durable. He didn't have to worry about going all-out in it, and the resistance training, adjustable to several settings, would help increase his ability to output reiatsu.

When nothing else had moved Zabimaru even slightly, Renji had taken to scheduling himself several slots a week in here.

He arrived slightly early for this one—the schedule indicated that Isane was inside, so he waited outside the door. She emerged a few minutes later, the ends of her hair dripping and the collar of her shihakushō damp.

"Abarai-san." She blinked at him. "I'm sorry—was I late leaving?"

Renji shook his head. "Nah. I just got here early is all."

"More bankai training?"

He made an affirmative sound. "What were you doing in there? The same?"

"Oh, no," she put both hands up in front of her, waving them slightly. "Nothing—I'm nowhere near that level yet. I'm just… working on some of Itegumo's shikai abilities, and practicing my offensive kidō." She hesitated, moving her eyes from the door to him and back again.

"I just… I thought about what you said. In the meeting. About how one of us might make a difference. I don't—I don't suppose it would ever be me who brought down Aizen, or anything. But… but it occurred to me that maybe someday I'd have to heal the person who could, in a hostile situation. And so maybe… maybe I should work harder to be able to defend them, too." She cleared her throat. "Sorry. I'm rambling. I'll… I'll just get out of your way, then, shall I?"

She was gone before Renji could point out that she wasn't in his way.

Shaking his head, he pushed the door aside and entered the dome. It had been properly reset, though the ground bore some impressive fissures from whatever Isane had been doing. Kidō, maybe.

Walking to the middle of the ring, Renji warmed himself up with some stretches and a jog. At least teaching first-years was good for reminding himself not to neglect the basics. Once he'd done that, though, he drew his sword.

"Hoero, Zabimaru."

His zanpakutō seemed to have other ideas, however, and Renji took a step back in surprise when the spirit manifested right in front of him, in the outer world. He could do that reliably now, but he hadn't intended to, meaning that Zabimaru had decided for himself that he wanted to appear.

"Why do we even bother with you?" the snake hissed, opening its mouth far enough to bare fangs at him. "You don't understand anything at all."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Renji shot back. He usually tried to be patient with the spirit, but even he had limits. "I've been doing every damn thing you tell me to, and you're never satisfied! I've worked things out with Rukia, I train until I can't walk anymore, and I tolerate your bullshit cryptic hints every damn night in my head! What else could you possibly want?" His hand tightened around the tsuka of the segmented blade—it had released despite the spirit's manifestation.

"Oh, yes. You have, down to the bolts, done everything we have asked. And yet you still do not understand what you are being told!" The snake reared back, swaying dangerously from side to side.

Frankly, he'd almost rather it attacked him than led him around in yet more circles, but that was not to be.

"What are you, Renji Abarai?" the baboon asked, narrowing his eyes at him.

Renji gritted his teeth. "What kind of question is that? What kind of answer could I possibly give you that would make a difference?" He didn't think in abstractions like that, in terms that general, but even he knew there were dozens of true answers, at least.

"What are you, right down in your bones, at the very heart of you?" Zabimaru asked the question almost like he was making an accusation. Both heads were snarling at him.

Renji snarled right back. "Like you don't know!"

Frustrated, he swung the blade at the spirit. If it had manifested itself, it was fair game for a fight. If he'd thought about it, he would have realized that the shikai actually working against the spirit was a bit weird, but it did.

—Or it would have, if he'd landed the hit. In one powerful jump, Zabimaru was away, landing effortlessly a dozen feet to the left. Renji swung again, whipping the blade in a quick viper-stroke. It nicked the very edge of Zabimaru's fur. Anything further was precluded as the spirit once again disappeared and then reappeared elsewhere.

"We know," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean you accept it."

Renji swung for the third time, immediately stepping into shunpō to compensate for the time he'd need to re-lock the segments of his sword together. It was a bit of a temperamental weapon, in that sense. But he knew his shikai's weaknesses well, and had learned how to compensate for them a long time ago.

Zabimaru was consistently fast enough to avoid his strikes, however—fast enough as well to surprise Renji by appearing behind him. A heavy fist slammed into his back, knocking him facefirst into the ground.

Renji tasted blood and dirt. Rolling to the side, he avoided a bite from the snake, pushing himself up one-handed and using the other to swing the blade again. Warmth ran freely from his split lip, dripping off his chin and splashing red onto brown.

"Say it," Zabimaru insisted. "Tell me what you are."

"I'm a shinigami!" Renji roared, bringing his left hand to join the right on the hilt of his sword. With his whole body, he swung, sending the shikai flying as fast as he could.

A crash thundered in his ears, the reverberations from a massive impact vibrating the segmented sword so vigorously he thought it would almost certainly break. Renji retracted it quickly, and it snapped back into place with an echoing clang. Several of the teeth on the front side were bent at odd angles, and when the dust cleared, he saw why.

Zabimaru's manifested spirit was protected by what looked like a giant snake skeleton. Actually, it seemed to be growing out of the baboon half of the spirit the way the snake part usually did, as though it had transformed. It was the flat brow of the skull that had blocked his swing—he could see small scratches in it where he'd hit. Just after the jaw, around the very top of its neck, was a ruff of red fur or something, and the rest of it looked like vertebrae—circular column-pieces held together with reddish reiatsu.

"Wrong," Zabimaru said. "Liar. Coward. Tell me what you are!"

The massive snake skull shot forward—Renji had to scramble out of the way with shunpō. If it could absorb a full-strength blow from his sword like that… he definitely didn't want to get hit by it.

It was all he could do to stay out of its way. The snake skeleton was massive, but moved about as quickly as he did, and Zabimaru seemed almost able to anticipate his maneuvers. Then again… he probably could. How long had they fought together?

"Remind you of anything?" Zabimaru taunted. "When push comes to shove and you stand on your own, you lose, Renji. Just like you lost to the Quincy. To Aizen. Even to that Kuchiki."

"You think I don't know that?" Renji tsked and jumped backwards, the stark-white jaws of the snake's head crashing into the ground where he'd just been. Its fangs punctured the earth, burying deeply into the dirt. He took the opportunity to reposition above it and swing again, this time aiming for the joints further down its back.

Three lashes, three clean cuts. It fell apart at the seams, thudding to the floor like heavy rain.

"You think that was it?" Zabimaru's voice was low, threatening.

Before Renji's eyes, the serpent reassembled itself, reiatsu flaring to life where it patched itself together, and it flew once more for his position, forcing him to get out of the way.

"Run all you want, coward," the spirit snarled at him. "It will never be far enough."

The cat-and-mouse felt like it dragged on forever—Renji was gaining no ground. Zabimaru's new tail seemed completely impervious to anything he was capable of throwing at it, and at every turn, the spirit adjusted for Renji's strategy.

Not that he had much of a strategy, besides trying to hit it harder and not get hit himself.

It got him from the side and threw him to the ground. Unable to break his fall in time, Renji connected with a hard thunk; a series of dull cracks and the exploding pain in his chest clued him in to the fact that he'd broken at least three ribs.

It hurt to breathe; his vision flickered.

Renji rolled to the side, sucking in air despite the burn of it. He couldn't do anything else. He couldn't fight this, whatever Zabimaru was doing. When it came right down to it, he had no hope of winning. His hands grasped for purchase on the ground, enough friction to push him up to his knees.

It was the same as every other time it really mattered.

He'd not been able to protect his friends. They'd died, out there in Inuzuri, never to know anything better. Even though he'd been the oldest. The one who had to keep them safe.

Breathing raggedly, he pulled one of his legs up underneath him, trying to regain his footing.

He'd been too scared to tell Rukia that he wanted her to stay with him, instead of leaving to be adopted into the Kuchiki family. He told himself his silence was for her, so she'd feel no guilt. But it had been for him—so that he could disguise his cowardice as concern. So that someone stronger could protect her before Renji failed.

His foot slipped; Renji caught himself with his hands before he landed on his ribs again.

Even when his oldest friend was about to die, he'd been too afraid to stand up for her. And some kid from the living world had crashed into the Seireitei and stood down all of Soul Society to do it. There was no way he could win against a resolve like that. Not when his own had wavered.

A shuddering breath left his lungs; the one that entered was a fraction steadier, but just as painful.

And then—when he'd finally made up his mind—he couldn't even get her away fast enough to stop Aizen from getting exactly what he wanted. He hadn't been able to protect her then, either; that task had fallen to his captain. Kuchiki had succeeded, once again, where Renji had failed.

"All this time," he muttered, spitting out the blood that welled in his mouth. His arms trembled under his weight. The fingers of his free hand curled into the dirt, leaving shallow furrows. Like shallow footprints on a riverbed. "All this time… I've told myself I was going to be better. A better friend. Someone who could protect my friends, someone they could lean on."

He couldn't wake Momo up, or chase the pain from Izuru's eyes. He couldn't get Hisagi to crack a smile or Rangiku to slow down after her third cup. He was useless to all of them.

Renji blinked; the black spots in his vision faded to the edges. "A better soldier—someone who deserves to stand and be acknowledged." He gritted his teeth, heaving himself upright with the remaining strength in his arms. "Who deserves them."

His captain didn't even feel the need to look at him when they spoke.

The sword was heavy in his hand. Maybe too heavy for him to lift, anymore. Zabimaru was staring at him, though, not attacking him.

"But I'm nothing but a tramp. That's what I am, down in my bones. Just a Rukongai dog, howling at the moon I'll never reach."

Rukia had never belonged in Inuzuri. Renji always would.

"I'm such a fucking coward." Too afraid to even acknowledge the truth. A coward and a liar, just like Zabimaru always said.

The snake's head darted forward again. Renji didn't have the energy to shunpō. There was no choice but to meet the attack head-on. He'd have to give it everything he had if he wanted to survive.

Keeping the sword locked, he whipped it around in his right hand, gripping with his left as well when he swung down. It hit the skull straight on, the impact ricocheting through Renji's whole body, a shake that started in his arms, trembled through his chest, shooting agony into his broken ribcage, and shuddering down to his legs. He pushed back as hard as he could, pressing down with both his physical strength and his reiatsu.

If he couldn't do this—if he couldn't even prove himself worthy of his own bankai—what right did he have to be here? To stand beside his friends, who were all working their hardest for their broken divisions and their broken hearts? He, who knew not a fraction of their pain? How could he call himself their friend, a soldier of the Gotei 13, if he was just going to be a coward with his tail between his legs?

He'd talked a big game about making a difference in the war. How was he going to do that if he was too fucking scared to get any better at the one thing he was any good at? His kidō would be no help; his strategies were useless against someone like Aizen. All he had was this—a moody sword that had been trying to tell him what he needed to do for years now.

Renji bore down with all his strength. He could almost feel his blade bending out of shape, but a crack appeared in the surface of the snake's head. He wanted this. He wanted it with every part of him. He was going to take it—one way or another.

The crack became a splinter, and Renji poured every bit of reiatsu he had left into the struggle. A series of sharp snaps followed, one, then two, then a cascade of them, all at once, and the skull beneath his blade shattered.

He lurched forward, barely keeping his feet, and planted his warped blade against the ground to steady himself. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, Zabimaru stood in front of him, tail returned to normal.

"You know what's good about a stray dog?" the spirit asked.

Renji, too drained to speak, shook his head.

"A stray dog never stops starving. And so it never stops striving. If you quit howling and start reaching, you won't just touch the moon." Zabimaru narrowed his eyes.

"You will swallow it."

Renji shuddered. He could feel his consciousness fading, the spirit's voice softening until he could just barely hear.

"My name… is Sōō Zabimaru."

Term Dictionary:

Itegumo – 凍雲 – "Frozen Cloud." This is Isane's zanpakutō. Its release command is hashire (奔れ), which is the imperative of "to run." Canon doesn't give it any special abilities to speak of, which means I eventually get to have fun inventing those.

Sōō Zabimaru – 双王蛇尾丸 – "Twin Kings Snake Tail." Renji's true bankai. Uh… spoilers if you're not that far in the manga, I guess, but the giant snake thing is not his true bankai. I had him fighting against the snake-skeleton version here as a way of proving to Zabimaru that he was worthy of the true bankai, which Zabimaru decided he is. So that's what he has now. He still has to work with it more to get full power out of it, of course.

So… yeah. There was my attempt to do a decent character study on Renji, as well as to give him a bit more credit for his own achievements than canon ever does. I think, given the other ways the AU diverges from canon, this makes a fair amount of sense.

We've now caught up with the middle of TBP. The next story in the series is Momo-centric (though we may get an alternate POV or two), and takes place mostly after TBP is finished. It's called Plasticity, and if all goes to plan, the first chapter will be up tomorrow.