Angry at the World - Chapter 24 - Curiouser and Curiouser
Title: Angry at the World
Pairing: Grimmjow x Ichigo
Rating: R (NC-17 overall)
Disclaimer: I don't own the ideas or characters from Bleach, don't make any money from the story and intend no legal trespass. Etc.
Again, sorry for the delay, I hope you enjoy. Special thanks to
tangerine_haze for being an excellent beta. Please read the correction for ch. 23 first.
Chapter 24 - Curiouser and Curiouser
Half-bitten, naturally sharp nails dug into the unfortunate spying Arrancar’s neck through his starched white collar.
“Please, please Grimmjow-sama, please don’t kill me, I was just following orders, please--” The Sixth Espada regarded his capture in slight disgust. When he had planned on scouting which bastards were in charge of his surveillance, he simply hadn’t expected it to be so easy. It was a bit of a killjoy.
“Less begging, more snitching,” Grimmjow informed him, voice hot and caustic. The Arrancar swallowed hard and stared at Grimmjow wide-eyed, frozen like a rabbit. The Espada rolled his eyes and shook him again. “How many others are watching me and which Espada?” He demanded.
“Ah, ah, uhm, lots of lower-level Arrancar are just s-supposed to report on if they see what you’re doing, and, uh, some are scheduled to follow you like me, and uh, uh…” Grimmjow smiled dangerously in encouragement.
“Don’t lose strength now, you just got going,” he offered smoothly. He thought he heard a whimper.
“The… The operation is under Zommari-sama,” he whispered.
No way. That has to be a mistake. Szayel, Ulquiorra, the fucking old man, anybody but the guy with the fucking eyes.
“…Are you sure about that?” Grimmjow asked far too gently.
“Y-yes,” the informant stammered. Grimmjow’s good mood snapped and his lips curled up in a snarl. “You can’t blame me for that!” The Arrancar tried to shout with a cracking voice. How pathetic. He ought to claw the useless minion into pieces. Slowly.
“Shut up!” His blue eyes flashed with a spark of rage, and the spy stilled. “…” Grimmjow looked him up and down, and felt an unexpected, tiny pang of pity for the lackey. Now what the hell is that doing there?
He forced the feeling aside; the unlucky Arrancar didn’t even notice the cero behind his head before it blew him away. Nobody can say Kurosaki’s made me soft.
~
“I’m afraid staying here and looking at me angrily won’t make the gate open any more quickly, Ishida-san,” Urahara said in his usual jovial manner, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Ishida pinned him with a sharp glare, and the blonde, be-hatted man turned to make his way upstairs. “As long as this restriction exists, no one from Hueco Mundo can drop in either, so now is a good time to rest,” he offered airily over his shoulder to the Quincy. Ishida bridled, and the look on anyone else’s face would have been a snarl.
“Rest? Rest? Do you think I’m so stupid that I can’t see at least part of what’s going on?” He waited and received no answer. Ishida could no longer stem the flow of questions. “What is it, Urahara? What do you know? What don’t you know?” The Shopkeeper wasn’t looking at him. Ishida reached under his collar and pulled out the mask he’d taken from Ichigo. “ Can you guess where I found this?” He demanded and threw the Hollow mask to the ground. Did you know this happened last night?” Urahara slowly turned to see; Ishida’s smile turned triumphantly cruel.
“How long? How long did you hide it from us, from Kurosaki himself?” He jeered. He hadn’t thought, hadn’t wanted to think, that any Shinigami would help someone be engulfed by the Hollows. But how could he ignore the picture being painted before him? Yet it isn’t really unlike him at all.
“So what is he? What monster have you hidden from us? What is Danna stuck there with?!” Ishida knew the others watched-knew Renji’s face was the picture of horror, Rukia’s painfully accepting, even Chad’s mouth slightly agape. He knew none of them could see the ever so slight twitch to the blond man’s expression. Rage simmered under his voice, terrible and contained. He wasn’t sure which parts of him were angry for Kurosaki, which for Danna, and which just hated the liar standing in front of him.
“I’m not certain it’s my secret to tell,” Urahara Kisuke said calmly. Ishida stared. Then the fire filled his gaze.
“That’s all you have to say?!”
“I can’t explain all of the events you ascribe to me, Ishida-san. I can only say that I’m trying to do what’s best,” he replied evenly. Uryuu studied his eyes, but he couldn’t find any hint as to what the blond man felt or even what he really thought.
“Ah, what’s best-what’s best for yourself, or maybe the Shinigami? Certainly not us. Not any of us, not even the least of us,” he finished bitterly. Slowly, Urahara’s eyes lost their spark.
“I’m quite certain you won’t like what you would hear, Ishida-san. But you insist…and perhaps it isn’t wise to keep certain secrets any longer,” he admitted slowly.
Ishida thought for a moment he saw something terrible in Urahara Kisuke’s eyes-resigned sadness. But for what? I don’t even know if that’s real. I don’t know if it’s to make me trust him again, to convince me he has a soul.
“Kurosaki-san is something…quite unique. But he isn’t alone in what he is,” Urahara began thoughtfully. His gaze remained pinned on Ishida, growing colder and colder. The Quincy’s chest began to fill with dread. “A Vaizard. A combination of Shinigami and Hollow, a being of unfortunately extraordinary power.” Uryuu’s head buzzed. What are the implications of… “They have learned to control their inner Hollow and extort its power. Once Shinigami, they are now something…quite different indeed.” There were a thousand different directions Uryuu's mind could go, but he chose only one.
“Then that certain reiatsu…screened… Danna,” Ishida’s mouth went dry.
“Also a Vaizard.” Urahara’s voice was like a death sentence. Bastardized monsters, perversions of the Shinigami’s very purpose. A friend, a girl he loved. Ishida was unable to hide his shock from man in front of him.
This is too cruel. What a clever bastard you are. I wonder if that cleverness is going to be the reason I die.
~
Danna Ruby groaned. The pounding pain in her skull was what she woke to, and sticky blood wetting the back of her head. She tried to shift her body carefully, but still her head answered with a particularly painful throb, that drew out another groan
“Ruuuby?” Someone said quietly. Ruby blinked slowly; the little girl? Bracing against the pain, she turned her head to look. “I brought help,” Nel whispered too loud. Another throb.
“Oh, help?” The Vaizard asked in a whisper, eyes closed now. “Good, good…”she murmured. There was silence briefly, before her young companion took charge.
“Pick her up!” Nel commanded.
“We’re goin’, don’ cha’ know?!” the strange, tiki-masked Hollow shouted. His ant-masked fellow merely clicked his pincers and knelt to help pick up the woman. Nel and her help carried Ruby back to their home, or as much of one as they had. It was a lucky over-hang of rock with just enough of a cave carved in for two almost-rooms and a low spring of fresh water. To Nel, Pesche Gatiche and Dondochokka, it was downright luxurious, if not a little obvious.
There just weren’t many formations of big rock just sticking out of the sands, and living in an eyesore meant lots of fleeing on a moments notice.
But it seemed that trouble was away for the moment, and Nel and her strange brothers washed and bandaged the wound on her head.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to wrap it around her whole head, Nel,” Pesche offered as the little girl began wrapping bandage around Danna’s nose. Nel wrinkled her nose in distaste, but unwrapped all the way up to her eyes.
“There, is that better?” She asked him imperiously.
“I think you did a good job, don’cha’ know,” Dondochokka offered. Pesche Gatiche looked to be thinking hard for a moment.
“…Nel, I don’t think you should tell her you used your special healing spit,” he said, holding his hands up as if it were the obvious answer; or as if he had no idea as to what her answer would be. Nel thought, eyes looking off into the distance for a moment.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “Let’s keep it secret. People’re always touchy about that…” Nel twisted her mouth to the side in distaste, wishing there was more appreciation for her abilities.
“Downright ungrateful, don’cha’ know?” The three sat around Danna in a circle, waiting nervously for their new friend to wake.
~
“Something unexpected happened,” Lord Aizen stated calmly to his subordinates, inviting them to explain. A rare bit of tooth showed in Gin’s smile as he stood confidently next to his master’s throne.
Ulquiorra and Szayel stood together in front of their leaders, but they hardly seemed a team. The Cuatro Espada’s eyes didn’t even look at the Octavo Espada as he began his report.
“Aizen-sama, when the prisoner arrived I placed the reiatsu blocks that you requested. However, it seems that there were previously placed barriers on Kurosaki’s power. Very old, powerful barriers.” He stated. When there was no reaction but watching from Gin and Aizen, Szayel bridled and then fought the feeling down. The pink-haired man knew he didn’t have the power to enforce his pride here. “A certain amount of power was trapped between my own blocks and one of the older kind, and it bounced between the two, growing stronger. It bore similarity to an earthquake and the resulting waves, Aizen-sama.”
“Or perhaps like the tides?” Gin asked liltingly. “How peculiar, Aizen-sama.” Grantz tried to keep his fury from coloring his face. He hated that fox’s smirk and his demeaning tone; Szayel wanted to snap and ask just what he was implying. Aizen concealed his mouth behind his hand for a moment, before moving it to speak.
“Keep a close eye on our guest, both of you.” Stuck with the green plague again, Szayel thought with disgust.
“And if sleep is not enough to stop the problem next time, Aizen-sama?” Ulquiorra asked in a clipped voice.
“If you should fail to control the prisoner, bring him outside of Las Noches immediately and gather the Espada,” he said and fixed each of them with a lengthy stare, making it clear that the punishment for failure would be unpleasant.
“Dismissed,” Gin quipped with smile. Szayel waited to sneer until his back was turned.
~
Ichigo entered slowly into wakefulness. I don’t wanna get up, he thought listlessly. Like every other morning, he resisted waking, grabbing his blankets, curling up and shoving his head into his pillows. But he noticed it all sounded different-he sat straight up and looked down at himself. While he was asleep, someone had dressed him in stiff, starched white clothing with black piping.
“…Fucking people always getting me naked without my goddamn permission,” he muttered darkly. Ichigo slid out of his bed to look more closely. In white Las Noches style, a tall standing collar opened to display the real, power-restricting collar he wore underneath. The long jacket didn’t pull together until partway down his chest, a cut he hadn’t liked before and certainly wouldn’t learn to like during his incarceration. At least the pants were loose, and the sandals were similar to the ones he wore as a Shinigami. That didn’t make him much less pissed about being forced to conform, but there were no alternatives; he couldn’t see his Shinigami clothes anywhere.
…But I’m not a Shinigami anymore. I’m nothing. He let himself fall back onto the bed heavily. No power, no Zangetsu…No Hollow. …If someone’d offered this as a cure to that problem, I woulda said no. I can’t bear this, I feel… nothing… His face an unusual picture of pain, he touched his hand to his chest, trying to feel for some trace of himself. But still no power, just an empty vessel. . . . He had never imagined he would miss his Hollow’s taunting voice.
Three steady knocks on the door interrupted his reverie. In a hurry he was up and standing away from the bed, looking arrogant rather than pained.
“Come in,” Ichigo declared. He knew no matter what the guest was going to enter, so he might as assume some power over the situation.
He hadn’t expected Aizen himself to walk in, with his entirely calm and royal demeanor. Ichigo braced himself for the rain of pressure he expected from the master of Las Noches’ and his reiatsu, but it never came. Maybe, the redhead thought cautiously, this isn’t going to be entirely about intimidation.
Aizen smiled.
“Kurosaki Ichigo, it is a pleasure to meet you…again,” he said with a glint in his sharp brown eyes, and bowed his body ever so slightly. Suspicion rang through every nerve in the Vaizard’s body, and he jerked his chin up in an aberration of a greeting.
The taller man chuckled deep in his chest. “How could I forget your manners? Why don’t you sit down,” Aizen offered with a sweep of his arm towards the soft gray couch against the wall, bracketed by a pair of tall-backed chairs.
“I’d rather stand,” Ichigo said in a clipped voice. Aizen nodded, and graciously took a seat in the closest chair. Why did Ichigo suddenly feel that he was the one who had been slighted? He scowled. “What are you here for? Where and how is Inoue? Why did you kidnap me instead of giving me a fair fight?!” Kurosaki demanded. The former Captain met his eyes levelly, giving the outburst more gravity than it needed. Shaming Ichigo. It was hard to keep red from his cheeks. Bastard.
“Inoue Orihime is fine. As well provided for as you are,” he said with a nod to the Shinigami’s accommodations. “Though you have the larger window.” Fury flushed to Ichigo’s face at the mockery, but he held back his temper.
“My other questions,” he said.
“We put you to sleep, Kurosaki-san, because we have no wish to hurt you,” Ichigo snorted, and Aizen smiled ever so slightly. “It’s true. We wish to extend to you an olive branch; we felt we could not do so unless the option of violence was temporarily unavailable to you. As it is, you are here in Hueco Mundo, in our care, indefinitely.”
“Indefinitely?” Ichigo asked, mouth suddenly dry.
“Indefinitely,” Aizen repeated again, as if to drive home, again, that Ichigo was an idiot. “And unless we can trust you, your powers will be just as indefinitely unavailable to you.”
“You can take your olive branch and shove it up your ass,” the teen said brazenly. To try and earn his trust would be a fool’s errand. Aizen’s expression didn’t flicker.
“You certainly are an unknown,” Aizen responded levelly. Ichigo’s temper finally blazed past his reigns.
“Get the hell out, dammit!” Aizen’s gaze sharpened harshly, and the feeling was like a phantom stab to the chest. Ichigo gasped and stumbled, then went down to one knee. It felt like a heart attack caused by a steak knife, and he could barely move. The master of Las Noches stood above him.
“I disdain my temper, Kurosaki-san. It escapes me sometimes.” The pressure on Ichigo’s heart disappeared, but much of the pain remained. Aizen Sosuke took a few steps away, towards the door. “By way of apology, I’ll tell you this. Jeagerjacques did not trick you here of his own volition; it was my orders to have you distracted while we captured Inoue Orihime. Using your…relationship…was painfully easy.” Ichigo’s pulse thudded painfully.
“Wait,” he asked almost desperately, but Aizen walked out the door.
COMMUNITY DISCLAIMER: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this fanfiction (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States state of California, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.