Chapter One
Title: The Narcissus
Rating: R / M
Warnings: implausableness, violence, some language, homosexuality, and undetailed sexual scenes (both willing and unwilling)
Setting: The Narcissus is supposed to take place in a fictional corner of the world around the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the golden age of piracy is finally beginning to wane. It centers around three particular countries that are entangled in rocky alliances with each other after a war that left a bad taste in many people's mouths. Mostly because certain people refuse to accept that it's over yet.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hitsugaya or Matsumoto or anything else that I do not own.
~*~
Chapter One
To Port
~*~
“Long, long ago a small island kingdom proudly named Seireitei was ruled by a kind and capable king. This king was a good friend of a renowned pirate captain who willingly protected the surrounding waters with his three great galleons. The island kingdom was small, but it was brimming with natural resources. Because of this, it was a prime target for invasion by the many larger, coastal kingdoms nearby, namely the conquest-hungry country of Hueco Mundo. In order to prevent such a thing from happening, the king and the pirate captain forged a very special key of which each held half. When combined exactly so, it would summon a powerful, god-like guardian beast that could wipe out the invaders in one unavoidable onslaught, obliterating man and ship alike. The beast was not of this world, strong enough to hold the planet hostage, but the king and pirate were not interested in such power, using it only as a last resort in protecting their homeland and the people who lived there. And so, for a time, peace reigned.
“Have you heard of this story before?”
A gaunt man, his ratty clothing covered in a layer of grime and his pale complexion marred by a fair many cuts and bruises, lifted his head just enough to see the friendly figure on the other side of the iron bars. A single brow rose, scattering a few silver strands of hair attached to his skin by a week’s worth of gritty sweat. The figure was another man, slightly older but holding a grace about him that the first man lacked. His brown hair was slicked back regally, and a warm smile was plastered upon his lips. He was flawlessly clean, a rare sight in this day and age, and his clothes were those of high royalty. He was, in short, an absolute contrast to his prisoner.
Chains rattled as the prisoner lifted his shackled wrists to stretch out his arms, leaning back against the cold, hard cell wall with an air of nonchalance unbefitting of his current predicament. “Ya forgot the part where the king conveniently died an’ the captain disappeared just in time fo’ the kingdom ta be over taken. But yeah, I’ve heard’a that story. I do live there, ya know, and what self-respectin’ citizen o’ Seireitei hasn’ heard’a it?”
“You are hardly a citizen of any kingdom, let alone my Seireitei, Captain Gin Ichimaru,” the second man replied steely, stepping forward, “pirate.”
“Ya mean ‘prisoner’, right?” Ichimaru smirked.
“Indeed,” the man returned the gesture. “And I have a proposition for you, prisoner.”
Gin raised a single, silver brow before waving his hand with another iron song courtesy of the hefty chains. “Proposition away.”
“If you answer the following question truthfully, I will open this door and you will be free to leave.” Now Gin was genuinely intrigued. What answer could he provide that would be worth his very life? “Tell me, where have you hidden the key?”
Ichimaru was silent for a moment, soaking in the man’s words. Then he laughed. It was low and quiet at first, a light chuckle, but it escalated in volume, speed, and pitch, evolving and convulsing his lean body until he looked more like a rabid animal than a sentient human being, the maniacal shriek of the truly deranged. The man watching did not flinch throughout the frightening display, instead standing patiently in wait for it to end. Eventually, the demented laughing did die down, but the maddened humor Gin exuded from his every, sweaty pore would not fade away.
“If you refuse to speak, it would be quite easy to hunt down and slaughter every last man of your meager crew.”
His threat was met with a vampire smile the likes of which no one had ever been able to imitate as the chained prisoner lifted his squinting eye lids for the first time, revealing ominous, snake-like, neon green orbs.
“It ain’t the men on my crew ya hafta worry ‘bout, Sousuke Aizen, Yo’ Highness.”
~*~
“Gimme another!”
The gruff bartender pulled his eyes off of the glass he was cleaning and allowed them to travel down toward his most recent, severely intoxicated patron. And she was quite an interesting sight. Clothed in a large traveling cloak with the heavy, Arabian-styled hood pulled down so far that he couldn’t even see her face, she had obviously made a point to be sure almost nothing except for her excessive cleavage and the occasional stray strand of fiery golden hair was visible at all. In fact, the only reasons he could tell she was a woman at all were the two giant bulges protruding from deep within the confines of her loose, black shirt. Because he couldn’t see her facial features, he couldn’t tell exactly how drunk she was, but after taking a glance at the four other empty glasses at her side, he decided that however drunk she was, it was drunk enough.
“I think you’ve had plenty,” he grunted, turning his gaze back to his cleaning.
He didn’t get very far.
A hand reached out and grabbed him by the cuff of his collar, dragging him down to the woman’s eye level. A single, pale eye became visible enough through the shadows for him to see just how frighteningly serious she was. “Did it sound like I was askin’ for your opinion?”
“Er … no, I guess not,” he amended anxiously, filling another glass for her as soon as she let go. Once he felt slightly safer, he added as an afterthought, “As long as you’re paying.”
A bitter laugh exploded from her vocal chords as she snatched the glass from his outstretched hand. “Oh, I can pay. Money is one thing I’m not short on.”
Before he had any time to contemplate what she meant, however, the doors were plowed down and two men stormed purposefully inside. Both were upset, and both looked ready to kill because of it. They took up places on either side of the mysterious woman, ignoring the other customers entirely, grabbed one arm each, and began hustling her to leave. The bartender almost had a mind to punch both of them out, but he thought better of it. Especially after the woman did it just as well on her own.
“I’m not drunk enough yet!” she yelled at them, hitting both on the top of their heads once more, just for good measure.
“But, Captain!” one of the men growled, the tribal-esque tattoos on his brow twitching as he hugged his battered, obnoxiously red cranium. “We have to go now! Captain!”
He received another bonk to the head for his efforts.
“She won’t respond to that title,” the other, slightly calmer man grumbled under his breath, running a hand through his wild, dark hair as he frowned at his companion. “Remember?”
“Of course, I do! I’m trying to make her respond to it! She’s the one he chose, ain’t she?!” he shouted right back, only to be ignored.
“Rangiku, we’ve got trouble,” the second man turned away from the other to once again face the woman. “There’s a whole, damn ship of Loyals entering the port. If they catch us right now, we’re finished.”
“Runnin’ from Loyals, eh?” the bartender finally spoke up, voicing the apprehensive thoughts of all of the other patrons within his tavern. “Then that would make you three … pirates.”
But he, too, was ignored. The woman, Rangiku, was staring down the man beside her with a wide-eyed, animalistic glare prompted by so many emotions that he couldn’t tell which ones they were. At least one, however, was easy enough for him to identify. It was written all over her hidden features. Anger. “Loyals? In a beat-down town like this?” she whispered, her voice surprisingly hoarse as if something were caught in her throat. “Shuuhei, what was the emblem on the mast’s flag?”
The man was hesitant to reply, but the woman’s unblinking stare finally broke him. “The kingdom of Hueco Mundo’s royal crest.”
“Hueco Mundo’s royalty?!” she inhaled so sharply that her words sounded more like a curse than anything else. “You’ve gotta be-! They’re the ones who captured Gin!”
“Sh!” the dark haired man hissed, his finger over his mouth and his muddy-colored eyes darting around as the few others in the bar began whispering amongst themselves. Gin Ichimaru was not a name to be spoken in public.
It was quite clear to the bartender that Rangiku was now stone cold sober. And so was everyone else in the tavern. All it took was one name. Gin Ichimaru. The infamous pirate captain with the infamous bounty to match. The captain of the most legendary pirate crew in existence. The last hope of Seireitei still rebelling against Hueco Mundo’s rule. And she had just said he’d been captured?!
“Ran…” the other man, the one covered in the gaudy, black tattoos, trailed off, a warning expression prominent upon his features. “He won’t be on that ship. They took him away weeks ago. We’re not getting him back.”
Rangiku was silent for a very long time before she met his eyes head on. Her voice was eerily quiet yet somehow held a ferocity about it that made it very clear to her companions that they would not like what she was about to say. And they didn’t. “I know, Renji. He won’t be. But someone will.”
Renji spasmed, choking on who knew what in his shock. The other man, Shuuhei, had just a bit more luck with finding his voice. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, grabbing her arm in his intensity.
A rather deranged smirk found its way to her lips as she eyed his hand, then simply swatted him away and sat back down at her seat, ordering another round of drinks. “That’s ‘What the hell are you talking about, Captain?’ to you, Shuu,” she replied curtly, her unwavering smile resembling that of their former captain. “And my first orders are that we stay right here until those Loyals leave. Then we follow and snag them out at open sea. How does that sound?”
“Like suicide,” Shuuhei grumbled.
“Pretty damn stupid,” Renji supplied.
But despite their words, both men sat down on either side of her and accepted the drinks she had ordered for them.
“You know,” the bar tender managed after a moment, returning to his attempts at cleaning his glassware, “if you’d have told me you were Gin’s, I wouldn’t have charged you for the drinks.”
~*~
“I don’t think I like this idea,” a soft, hesitant voice spoke up. “I don’t think I’ll be any good at it at all.”
“Stop saying ‘I think,’” a second, slightly gruffer voice retorted, “and you’ll do just fine. Leave the thinking to me. Just look important and pretend you know what you’re doing.”
“But…”
“No ‘buts’ either,” the second voice hissed. “This sort of run-down, vigilante port screams pirates so loudly my eardrums are about to burst! But we have no choice; we need to restock. And under these circumstances, this is the best way to ensure the safety of the Sixth Prince of Hueco Mundo. You wouldn’t want Aizen hearing that anything went wrong so soon after such a celebration, would you?”
“N-No…” the first voice gave in altogether too easily. “His Highness would be very … mad.”
“Indeed.” The rougher voice had gone cold at this. “So you understand. Then let’s dock.”
“Y-Yes, sire.”
“Fool. You’re the one who’s supposed to be giving the orders.”
~*~
As soon as the elaborate galleon had set to port, a great deal of uniformed men began to file out in an organized manner. They all had been deigned their specific tasks and would go about completing them as quickly as possible. After all, they were working for royalty. What more incentive did one need? Two figures, however, stood out among the crowd because of the simple fact that they weren’t moving. They didn’t follow orders. They gave them.
One stood to the front of the other, who had shrunk behind and to the right of his companion. Both were young, but the one to the front appeared a few years older. His dark hair was fairly limp around his plain and submissive facial features, but the clothing he wore and the strict posture he held signaled him as the sixth heir to the throne of Hueco Mundo. He was obviously hesitant to give orders to the burly men surrounding him, all much taller, more muscular, and over all much more frightening than those he usually dealt with, and so the one by his side took up the task for him. He was a bit shorter than his comrade, but not exceedingly so. White hair fixed with a fair amount of glues and other products stood atop his head so as to keep it from falling limp into his large, green eyes, and his rough hands suggested that in the past he had done a good bit of work himself, despite his close connection with the man of royal blood that stood before him.
“There,” the younger finally sighed, letting the volume of his voice drop now that he was no longer shouting instructions. “See? We’ll be out of port and on our way in no time.”
“Good,” the hesitant one replied with surprising decisiveness. “I don’t like this place at all, Hitsugaya. Almost everyone looks at me like I’m about to kill them. And the one’s that don’t look like they want to kill me….”
“We won’t be here long,” Hitsugaya huffed, folding his arms across his barely-covered chest. “If it makes you so uncomfortable, you can head back inside, Cowardly Prince.”
“I…” the young prince tried to protest, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything further. With a heavy sigh, he nodded and returned to the innards of the ship, looking utterly downtrodden.
Toushirou Hitsugaya grimaced at his retreating back. How the hell did he expect to be respected as the Sixth Prince of the strongest country in the world when he wouldn’t even talk back to his own, personal servant?! This was never going to work out unless that damn man found himself a backbone. He supposed that was where he’d have to come in. With a weighted sigh to match the prince’s, he glared at the imperial galleon for a few minutes more before giving up and trailing after.
Prince Hanatarou Yamada was turning out to be more trouble than he was worth.
“I hate royalty….”
Rating: R / M
Warnings: implausableness, violence, some language, homosexuality, and undetailed sexual scenes (both willing and unwilling)
Setting: The Narcissus is supposed to take place in a fictional corner of the world around the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the golden age of piracy is finally beginning to wane. It centers around three particular countries that are entangled in rocky alliances with each other after a war that left a bad taste in many people's mouths. Mostly because certain people refuse to accept that it's over yet.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hitsugaya or Matsumoto or anything else that I do not own.
~*~
Chapter One
To Port
~*~
“Long, long ago a small island kingdom proudly named Seireitei was ruled by a kind and capable king. This king was a good friend of a renowned pirate captain who willingly protected the surrounding waters with his three great galleons. The island kingdom was small, but it was brimming with natural resources. Because of this, it was a prime target for invasion by the many larger, coastal kingdoms nearby, namely the conquest-hungry country of Hueco Mundo. In order to prevent such a thing from happening, the king and the pirate captain forged a very special key of which each held half. When combined exactly so, it would summon a powerful, god-like guardian beast that could wipe out the invaders in one unavoidable onslaught, obliterating man and ship alike. The beast was not of this world, strong enough to hold the planet hostage, but the king and pirate were not interested in such power, using it only as a last resort in protecting their homeland and the people who lived there. And so, for a time, peace reigned.
“Have you heard of this story before?”
A gaunt man, his ratty clothing covered in a layer of grime and his pale complexion marred by a fair many cuts and bruises, lifted his head just enough to see the friendly figure on the other side of the iron bars. A single brow rose, scattering a few silver strands of hair attached to his skin by a week’s worth of gritty sweat. The figure was another man, slightly older but holding a grace about him that the first man lacked. His brown hair was slicked back regally, and a warm smile was plastered upon his lips. He was flawlessly clean, a rare sight in this day and age, and his clothes were those of high royalty. He was, in short, an absolute contrast to his prisoner.
Chains rattled as the prisoner lifted his shackled wrists to stretch out his arms, leaning back against the cold, hard cell wall with an air of nonchalance unbefitting of his current predicament. “Ya forgot the part where the king conveniently died an’ the captain disappeared just in time fo’ the kingdom ta be over taken. But yeah, I’ve heard’a that story. I do live there, ya know, and what self-respectin’ citizen o’ Seireitei hasn’ heard’a it?”
“You are hardly a citizen of any kingdom, let alone my Seireitei, Captain Gin Ichimaru,” the second man replied steely, stepping forward, “pirate.”
“Ya mean ‘prisoner’, right?” Ichimaru smirked.
“Indeed,” the man returned the gesture. “And I have a proposition for you, prisoner.”
Gin raised a single, silver brow before waving his hand with another iron song courtesy of the hefty chains. “Proposition away.”
“If you answer the following question truthfully, I will open this door and you will be free to leave.” Now Gin was genuinely intrigued. What answer could he provide that would be worth his very life? “Tell me, where have you hidden the key?”
Ichimaru was silent for a moment, soaking in the man’s words. Then he laughed. It was low and quiet at first, a light chuckle, but it escalated in volume, speed, and pitch, evolving and convulsing his lean body until he looked more like a rabid animal than a sentient human being, the maniacal shriek of the truly deranged. The man watching did not flinch throughout the frightening display, instead standing patiently in wait for it to end. Eventually, the demented laughing did die down, but the maddened humor Gin exuded from his every, sweaty pore would not fade away.
“If you refuse to speak, it would be quite easy to hunt down and slaughter every last man of your meager crew.”
His threat was met with a vampire smile the likes of which no one had ever been able to imitate as the chained prisoner lifted his squinting eye lids for the first time, revealing ominous, snake-like, neon green orbs.
“It ain’t the men on my crew ya hafta worry ‘bout, Sousuke Aizen, Yo’ Highness.”
~*~
“Gimme another!”
The gruff bartender pulled his eyes off of the glass he was cleaning and allowed them to travel down toward his most recent, severely intoxicated patron. And she was quite an interesting sight. Clothed in a large traveling cloak with the heavy, Arabian-styled hood pulled down so far that he couldn’t even see her face, she had obviously made a point to be sure almost nothing except for her excessive cleavage and the occasional stray strand of fiery golden hair was visible at all. In fact, the only reasons he could tell she was a woman at all were the two giant bulges protruding from deep within the confines of her loose, black shirt. Because he couldn’t see her facial features, he couldn’t tell exactly how drunk she was, but after taking a glance at the four other empty glasses at her side, he decided that however drunk she was, it was drunk enough.
“I think you’ve had plenty,” he grunted, turning his gaze back to his cleaning.
He didn’t get very far.
A hand reached out and grabbed him by the cuff of his collar, dragging him down to the woman’s eye level. A single, pale eye became visible enough through the shadows for him to see just how frighteningly serious she was. “Did it sound like I was askin’ for your opinion?”
“Er … no, I guess not,” he amended anxiously, filling another glass for her as soon as she let go. Once he felt slightly safer, he added as an afterthought, “As long as you’re paying.”
A bitter laugh exploded from her vocal chords as she snatched the glass from his outstretched hand. “Oh, I can pay. Money is one thing I’m not short on.”
Before he had any time to contemplate what she meant, however, the doors were plowed down and two men stormed purposefully inside. Both were upset, and both looked ready to kill because of it. They took up places on either side of the mysterious woman, ignoring the other customers entirely, grabbed one arm each, and began hustling her to leave. The bartender almost had a mind to punch both of them out, but he thought better of it. Especially after the woman did it just as well on her own.
“I’m not drunk enough yet!” she yelled at them, hitting both on the top of their heads once more, just for good measure.
“But, Captain!” one of the men growled, the tribal-esque tattoos on his brow twitching as he hugged his battered, obnoxiously red cranium. “We have to go now! Captain!”
He received another bonk to the head for his efforts.
“She won’t respond to that title,” the other, slightly calmer man grumbled under his breath, running a hand through his wild, dark hair as he frowned at his companion. “Remember?”
“Of course, I do! I’m trying to make her respond to it! She’s the one he chose, ain’t she?!” he shouted right back, only to be ignored.
“Rangiku, we’ve got trouble,” the second man turned away from the other to once again face the woman. “There’s a whole, damn ship of Loyals entering the port. If they catch us right now, we’re finished.”
“Runnin’ from Loyals, eh?” the bartender finally spoke up, voicing the apprehensive thoughts of all of the other patrons within his tavern. “Then that would make you three … pirates.”
But he, too, was ignored. The woman, Rangiku, was staring down the man beside her with a wide-eyed, animalistic glare prompted by so many emotions that he couldn’t tell which ones they were. At least one, however, was easy enough for him to identify. It was written all over her hidden features. Anger. “Loyals? In a beat-down town like this?” she whispered, her voice surprisingly hoarse as if something were caught in her throat. “Shuuhei, what was the emblem on the mast’s flag?”
The man was hesitant to reply, but the woman’s unblinking stare finally broke him. “The kingdom of Hueco Mundo’s royal crest.”
“Hueco Mundo’s royalty?!” she inhaled so sharply that her words sounded more like a curse than anything else. “You’ve gotta be-! They’re the ones who captured Gin!”
“Sh!” the dark haired man hissed, his finger over his mouth and his muddy-colored eyes darting around as the few others in the bar began whispering amongst themselves. Gin Ichimaru was not a name to be spoken in public.
It was quite clear to the bartender that Rangiku was now stone cold sober. And so was everyone else in the tavern. All it took was one name. Gin Ichimaru. The infamous pirate captain with the infamous bounty to match. The captain of the most legendary pirate crew in existence. The last hope of Seireitei still rebelling against Hueco Mundo’s rule. And she had just said he’d been captured?!
“Ran…” the other man, the one covered in the gaudy, black tattoos, trailed off, a warning expression prominent upon his features. “He won’t be on that ship. They took him away weeks ago. We’re not getting him back.”
Rangiku was silent for a very long time before she met his eyes head on. Her voice was eerily quiet yet somehow held a ferocity about it that made it very clear to her companions that they would not like what she was about to say. And they didn’t. “I know, Renji. He won’t be. But someone will.”
Renji spasmed, choking on who knew what in his shock. The other man, Shuuhei, had just a bit more luck with finding his voice. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, grabbing her arm in his intensity.
A rather deranged smirk found its way to her lips as she eyed his hand, then simply swatted him away and sat back down at her seat, ordering another round of drinks. “That’s ‘What the hell are you talking about, Captain?’ to you, Shuu,” she replied curtly, her unwavering smile resembling that of their former captain. “And my first orders are that we stay right here until those Loyals leave. Then we follow and snag them out at open sea. How does that sound?”
“Like suicide,” Shuuhei grumbled.
“Pretty damn stupid,” Renji supplied.
But despite their words, both men sat down on either side of her and accepted the drinks she had ordered for them.
“You know,” the bar tender managed after a moment, returning to his attempts at cleaning his glassware, “if you’d have told me you were Gin’s, I wouldn’t have charged you for the drinks.”
~*~
“I don’t think I like this idea,” a soft, hesitant voice spoke up. “I don’t think I’ll be any good at it at all.”
“Stop saying ‘I think,’” a second, slightly gruffer voice retorted, “and you’ll do just fine. Leave the thinking to me. Just look important and pretend you know what you’re doing.”
“But…”
“No ‘buts’ either,” the second voice hissed. “This sort of run-down, vigilante port screams pirates so loudly my eardrums are about to burst! But we have no choice; we need to restock. And under these circumstances, this is the best way to ensure the safety of the Sixth Prince of Hueco Mundo. You wouldn’t want Aizen hearing that anything went wrong so soon after such a celebration, would you?”
“N-No…” the first voice gave in altogether too easily. “His Highness would be very … mad.”
“Indeed.” The rougher voice had gone cold at this. “So you understand. Then let’s dock.”
“Y-Yes, sire.”
“Fool. You’re the one who’s supposed to be giving the orders.”
~*~
As soon as the elaborate galleon had set to port, a great deal of uniformed men began to file out in an organized manner. They all had been deigned their specific tasks and would go about completing them as quickly as possible. After all, they were working for royalty. What more incentive did one need? Two figures, however, stood out among the crowd because of the simple fact that they weren’t moving. They didn’t follow orders. They gave them.
One stood to the front of the other, who had shrunk behind and to the right of his companion. Both were young, but the one to the front appeared a few years older. His dark hair was fairly limp around his plain and submissive facial features, but the clothing he wore and the strict posture he held signaled him as the sixth heir to the throne of Hueco Mundo. He was obviously hesitant to give orders to the burly men surrounding him, all much taller, more muscular, and over all much more frightening than those he usually dealt with, and so the one by his side took up the task for him. He was a bit shorter than his comrade, but not exceedingly so. White hair fixed with a fair amount of glues and other products stood atop his head so as to keep it from falling limp into his large, green eyes, and his rough hands suggested that in the past he had done a good bit of work himself, despite his close connection with the man of royal blood that stood before him.
“There,” the younger finally sighed, letting the volume of his voice drop now that he was no longer shouting instructions. “See? We’ll be out of port and on our way in no time.”
“Good,” the hesitant one replied with surprising decisiveness. “I don’t like this place at all, Hitsugaya. Almost everyone looks at me like I’m about to kill them. And the one’s that don’t look like they want to kill me….”
“We won’t be here long,” Hitsugaya huffed, folding his arms across his barely-covered chest. “If it makes you so uncomfortable, you can head back inside, Cowardly Prince.”
“I…” the young prince tried to protest, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything further. With a heavy sigh, he nodded and returned to the innards of the ship, looking utterly downtrodden.
Toushirou Hitsugaya grimaced at his retreating back. How the hell did he expect to be respected as the Sixth Prince of the strongest country in the world when he wouldn’t even talk back to his own, personal servant?! This was never going to work out unless that damn man found himself a backbone. He supposed that was where he’d have to come in. With a weighted sigh to match the prince’s, he glared at the imperial galleon for a few minutes more before giving up and trailing after.
Prince Hanatarou Yamada was turning out to be more trouble than he was worth.
“I hate royalty….”