Shattered Hope

The sounds of battle fell into the background, bloodlust a high-pitched ringing behind Renji's consciousness, as he struggled to keep his own body moving.

When he breathed, his ribs screamed, blood viscous inside his veins. F*ck, f*ck, f*ck, Renji all of this screaming through his mind and he felt like a blade of adrenaline as the assassin's taunts, laughter-spiced, laced with sadistic humor, bled into the air like a dark symphony.

He could not afford to slack could not afford a failure now."

A reminder of just how far Renji had come every time the blade swung.

The peaceful life he'd built with his family seemed so far away, the memory almost unbearable.

It wasn't the world he wished for, but it was the world he had to inhabit. For them. For his wife and daughter.

But these days, they faced danger. His past was going to consume everyone around him.

But he lunged forward, knife glinting in the low light of the alley, and narrowly missed the assassin's neck.

The man moved with impossible speed, slipping between Renji's strikes, each blow a heartbeat short of fatal.

Renji felt like his body was on fire, but he was unable to stop. Not yet.

Ayame, the bloody mess beside him, was showing no sign of relent.

Her arm hung at a strange angle, but her grip on her dagger was firm.

She thrust, sweeping the blade toward the killer's heart, but he was gone the first moment she lashed out, the second he vanished.

One more streak of motion, one more swing gone wrong.

"Goddammit," Ayame hissed, her vision in a whirl of anger.

"Where is he? I can't keep up."

Renji didn't answer.

He focused on the people passing, on the shifting shadows, on the feeling of being observed from every direction. He could hear the assassin's breath: labored yet regular.

He was toying with them.

Playing a game Renji did not have to lose.

Sora stood several steps behind them, face pale, blood pouring from his nose.

Using telepathy had taken its toll, and Renji could sense the psychic energy leaking away like sand in an hourglass.

This killer pushed each of them to their breaking point with each attack. He had no time to waste.

"We have to end this," Renji said, his tone tight but determined.

"Sora, any way out?"

Sora shook his head slowly and saw nothing.

"I can barely see… everything's blurry. But I … I think we have one shot. One chance to take him down. But it's risky."

"All we have left, Renji, is risk," he said, bearing down on the sword.

"Tell me what we need to do."

A long pause before Sora replied. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused as hard as he could.

A kind of tension crackled in the air, filled with psychic charge. Renji struggled not to look back at the shadows.

He felt the assassin, sitting still, observing. Waiting for them to slip up.

It was Sora at last, and his voice was a whisper.

"You have to lure him. Make him come for you. He's… obsessed with you, Renji. Nothing else matters to him."

Renji's stomach turned. "Lure him in? "You want me to make a sitting target?"

Ayame, overhearing, glared. "You're not doing this alone.

Together we will get through this, Renji.'

But Renji knew the truth.

They were slowing down.

All of them were bleeding, bruised, and tired.

He was their best bet of bringing this son of a bitch down, and the only way to do that, to get him to the next step, was to make the killer think he had the upper hand.

"I will do it," Renji said, voice firm.

"Stay back."

"No, you"

"Ayame, just trust me."

She froze, jaw set, but nodded.

Nothing left to say.

They had to end this. It was the only way.

Renji took a step forward, letting the sword hang slack by his side.

He kept his eyes on the shadows, senses in overdrive; somehow he could feel the assassin's eyes on him too, even if he couldn't see him.

He could almost feel the man's evil smile on the back of his neck." It had been a matter of waiting for the right moment.

And indeed, the time was coming.

In a blink, the assassin phantom appeared behind him, a being tornado of a man, the atmosphere zingy with mortal intent. Renji's instincts kicked in.

He spun, the blade catching the moonlight, but the assassin had already melted away, too fast for Renji.

"You're slower than I recall," the assassin teased, a lilt in his voice, a spark of sport.

Renji didn't respond. Instead he backpedaled, on one leg as if he'd been hurt, as if the fight had finally caught up with him.

"Now I have you," the assassin hissed with satisfaction.

"You are a shadow of your former self."

Renji smiled through the agony, gasping breaths punctuated by pain.

"That's where you're wrong."

With one movement, Renji was standing, turning, and lifting his edge.

For a moment, the assassin's eyes widened in shock but it was enough.

The assassin ducked, but Renji's sword cut through the air like a flash of lightning, cleaving the assassin in the side.

The assassin staggered, blood pouring from the wound, but the wound began to heal, laughing one that sent ice to Renji's blood.

The meat contorted and reshaped, the injury knitting itself before Renji's very eyes.

"Very impressive," said the assassin, making the words purr, his grin grotesque.

"But you better do better than that."

Renji's heart sank.

The killer was a monster in fact.

His wounds didn't matter. Nothing would stop him.

"Does it ever end with you?" Stepping back into a defensive stance, Renji muttered under his breath.

"No," the assassin said with narrowed eyes.

"Not before one of us is dead."

Steel met steel, and the battle swung to and fro, a lethal tug of war.

Renji's mind was going a mile a minute, trying to buy some time for the assassin.

But even as he was on his way, he felt the pressure of inevitability on him.

Despite her injuries, Warrior already found herself preparing to strike.

The psychic hold he could pull up barely caused the scrapes of Sora's feet to avoid the ground; Sora's psychic smirk sparked weakly in the air.

They were running out of time.

The killer hunted them, his movements smooth, methodical. Renji knew he was on the verge of being overwhelmed but wasn't quitting.

Not now. He had to protect his family.

But then, just as the assassin sprang, there was a thunderous crack splitting the night like lightning.

And then… silence.

Renji froze. The assassin froze, his muscles rigid from disbelief.

And then a figure rose from the fray, tall and swathed in shadow.

The air around them thrummed with something larger, the space itself around them shimmering like nothing but pure potential, so much that even the assassins' deadly aura seemed ludicrously weak by comparison.

The assassin tilted his head, intrigued.

"Well, well. Looks like we got us a new player."

Renji's breath halted as he recognized the character's face familiar, but twisted with age.

Someone from long ago, someone he felt he would never see again.

And just like that, suddenly the game had shifted.