Wheel of Fate
By Spunky0ne
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In an attempt to save Kuchiki Tetsuya's fading life, Kisuke makes a deal with Aizen to use the also dying hogyoku to revive the soul king. But, having spun the wheel of fate, can they keep Tetsuya alive to bear the new king?...yaoi, mpreg…Aizen/Kisuke/Tetsuya, Byakuya/Toshiro, Bazzbee/Haschwald, Ichigo/Uryu, Grimmjow/Renji
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Chapter 1: Fallen Angels
Lightning flashed across the cloudy sky, and almost on its heels, thunder cracked loudly. Rain poured down in sheets from the nearly black sky that hung over the wreckage of Soul Society. Nothing was left moving on the battlefield. Ichigo laid, collapsed and facedown, caked in mud, with blood leaking from the many wounds he had sustained in the battle with the fallen quincy king. A short distance away, Ywach's body laid in two pieces, grotesquely held together by a last bit of his spine. A short distance away, Renji laid, partially curled and still unconscious, his wounds recently healed. A little farther on the man who had healed him laid on the ground beside the partially healed, but barely unconscious Aizen Sosuke.
More lightning flickered across the sky and a battered group of fighters staggered towards the fallen ones, their weapons drawn and dripping with a mixture of blood and rain. The blonde-haired man in the lead clutched his striped hat to his head and peered into the distance, his heart pounding as he searched for any sign of life in the area ahead of him. Beside him, the leader of the Kuchiki clan gripped his sword and followed the path of the other man's eyes.
"Do you sense anything yet?" Byakuya asked, sounding slightly out of breath.
"Mostly just that bastard, Ywach," Kisuke answered, pushing his hat down firmly and relinquishing his hold so that he could point the direction, "But I do sense small life signs there, there and over there."
"Then, we need to get to them quickly and save whoever we can," said Hitsugaya Toshiro, who stood on Byakuya's other side.
Byakuya nodded.
"Rukia, you and I will search the northeast area."
"I'll go straight on," Kisuke decided.
"The hollow and I will check the northwest," Toshiro decided.
"Huh," Grimmjow added, scowling, "the name's Grimmjow. And I'm not going anywhere with you, Frosty. I do my own thing."
The former espada employed his sonido and disappeared, leaving Toshiro scowling at the place he'd been.
"I guess I get the northwest," he sighed.
"Be careful," Kisuke warned them, "The last communication I got from Tetsuya was that he had found Renji, but there were quincy death squads sweeping the area. It doesn't look like they reached this place, but then, there's a lot of interference from Ywach's reiatsu. Just…watch yourselves."
Kisuke watched as Rukia and Byakuya headed off in one direction, while Grimmjow went the opposite way. The shopkeeper moved ahead, peering into the blackness and reaching out with his senses for any small glimmer of Kuchiki Tetsuya's reiatsu.
"C'mon, where are you?" he muttered unhappily as he scoured the scorched and tumbled ground around him, "I know you were here. Which way did you go?"
He sensed a small shift in the thick reiatsu in front of him, then felt a sharper ripple and heard a muted groan.
"Tetsuya?" he called out urgently, "Ichigo?"
"We found Renji over here!" Rukia shouted from a short distance away, "I don't see Tetsuya, but Renji's been healed recently and Tetsuya's reiatsu is all around the healing wounds."
"All right, so he's gotta be around here somewhere," Kisuke said, looking in the direction of a clump of rocks that seemed to be near where he had heard the groaning before.
He passed the rocks and froze, staring breathlessly as he spotted Aizen Sosuke, crouched in front of him and holding Tetsuya's limp body by the throat.
"Don't make a sound," Aizen warned him, "Say a word or alert the others and I'll kill him."
"Looks like you already did," Kisuke growled, gripping his cane tightly, "That's a pretty crappy way of thanking him for healing your arm. I can sense his reiatsu on you from here. Doesn't look like you even let him finish the job. I know for a fact that Tetsuya wouldn't have attacked you, so what's the deal, Sosuke?"
Aizen shifted slightly, uncovering the torn front of his clothing which revealed a sight that made Kisuke blink and expel a small sound of surprise. In the center of the traitor's bleeding chest, the hogyoku gave off a dull, flickering light, but the orb was noticeably cracked and partially blackened.
"What the…?" the shopkeeper murmured, "That's some battle damage."
"Isn't it?" Aizen agreed darkly, "You know from having tried, that it seemed impossible to shatter or damage the hogyoku in any way. I know you tried hundreds of times at least."
"Try thousands," Kisuke said dryly.
"But, try as you might, you were never able to destroy the hogyoku. However, when I took a hit head on, it struck the orb directly, and the soul within the hogyoku revealed to me…it is dying."
Kisuke gave his former colleague a wry smile.
"That's some bad luck right there, isn't it?"
"Yes," Aizen agreed, "It seems that I have no choice, but to employ some other means of protecting my life, so I offer this. You will open a garganta and as I enter it, I will release Tetsuya. I warn you, he is dying. I'm surprised he was able to heal me as well as he did, considering his injuries, and the damage done to my chest and arm when Ywach attacked me."
"Yeah, he's a real wonder," Kisuke said, frowning, "but there's no way in hell that I'm gonna help you escape. As much as I l…as much as I care about my friend, there, it's not happening."
Aizen's brown eyes narrowed and he tightened his fingers that still held Tetsuya's throat. The restrained shingami's body quivered and Tetsuya made a gurgling sound of distress.
"I can finish him now," Aizen said warningly.
"Then, what?" Kisuke asked, "How far do you think you'll get?"
"The hogyoku is not dead yet," Aizen assured him, "and I think you know you won't be able to imprison me again without losing this young man, so why don't we stop playing games?"
"I'll go with you," Kisuke offered suddenly.
"What?" Aizen mused, his frown deepening, "You will go with me?"
Kisuke nodded.
"Leave Tetsuya there, where he will be found and I'll let you bind me in whatever way you need to. I'll go with you, wherever you're going and we can work on the hogyoku problem together."
Aizen gave him a skeptical look.
"Now, you want to save the hogyoku?" he asked.
"I want to study it," Kisuke corrected him, "I want to understand what struck it exactly and how it is decomposing. I created the hogyoku…the first one, anyway, and it's a pretty big development that you were able to find a way to break it, when I couldn't. I want to go with you and study the hogyoku as whatever happens to it, happens. Just, let Tetsuya go. He shouldn't have to die, after having the heart to care about even a monster like you."
Aizen considered for a moment, studying Kisuke's determined expression, then he gave the shopkeeper a little smirk.
"Tetsuya goes with us," he answered, watching Kisuke carefully for his reaction.
"If he doesn't get medical care fast, he's gonna die."
"Then," Aizen said ominously, "you had better open the garganta quickly if you want him to live."
"Now, why do you want to drag a half-dead shinigami along with us and have him slowing us down and all of that?" Kisuke asked, shaking his head.
"Oh, that's simple," Aizen responded, matter-of-factly, "He's important to you somehow…"
"Tetsuya is a friend."
"Oh, you are usually so much better at lying than this," Aizen chided him, tightening the hand that still held Tetsuya by the throat.
"Don't do that!" Kisuke snapped.
"Open the garganta now, or I will kill him."
"Sosuke…"
"I will not ask again."
For a moment, the two stood, staring into each other's blazing eyes, then Tetsuya gave a little shudder and his body began to shimmer oddly, Aizen's brown eyes narrowed as the shopkeeper's expression became nearly frantic. Sounds of surprise escaped the two as the hogyoku began to glow with white light and Tetsuya's body flashed brightly, then, before their astonished eyes, was drawn into the orb and disappeared.
"Tetsuya," Kisuke whispered, staring in dismay.
"He is alive," Aizen said quietly, "His soul is now trapped within the hogyoku. It is the will of the hogyoku that he should come with us. We must go now or the hogyoku and Tetsuya will be lost when I am recaptured. You know as well as I do that Central 46 will not care he is trapped in there. As soon as they can destroy the hogyoku, they will…and Tetsuya's fate will be the same as the hogyoku's."
Kisuke paused for just a moment longer, assessing the myriad of outcomes, then he gave a shuddering sigh and opened a garganta. Aizen gave him a little smirk and laughed softly.
"I thought you might see things my way," he said, stepping into the darkness.
"For now," Kisuke agreed, "but don't count on that lasting very long."
"Oh, don't worry," Aizen chuckled, "I won't."
Kisuke followed him into the garganta, then the garganta closed behind them.
A short distance away from where they had been, a smudged, cloaked and hooded figure dressed in white, moved carefully amongst the debris and rocks scattered around the battlefield, avoiding the other searchers and honing in on Ichigo's collapsed body. A sigh of relief escaped the person as he spotted Ichigo, collapsed on the ground, and he moved to the shinigami substitute's side and crouched next to him.
"Ichigo," he called softly, drawing back his hood.
He reached down and patted Ichigo's face gently, but urgently.
"Come on, we need to get out of here."
Ichigo groaned and his golden brown eyes opened and struggled to focus.
"Uryu?" Ichigo mumbled.
"It's me," Uryu affirmed, wrapping an arm around him and dragging his friend to his feet, "C'mon, we need to get out of here now. There are shinigamis coming."
"Sh-shinigamis…"
"They might not harm you, but I am still an enemy."
"An enemy? N-nah, you helped me," Ichigo said dazedly.
"Yeah, well, I don't think that's common knowledge, so we should be going. C'mon, Orihime is waiting for us. She'll heal you."
"Eh…uh…ah, okay," Ichigo stammered, leaning heavily against his friend, "B-but, are you sure he's dead?"
Uryu gave Ichigo a perplexed look and turned him so that he could see Ywach's mangled body lying nearby. Ichigo managed a soft laugh.
"He looks pretty dead, doesn't he?" he giggled dizzily.
"You look pretty dead," Uryu scolded him, "Let's go, before I get caught and slaughtered just as badly."
"You j-just look pretty," Ichigo mumbled incoherently, burying his face in Uryu's shoulder as the quincy held him close and prepared to employ his hirenkyaku, "S-smell good too."
"Well, you don't. Shut up, now."
"You're not nice."
"No, I'm not," Uryu said dryly, taking a steadying breath before he and Ichigo disappeared from the battlefield.
Several hundred yards away, Byakuya and Rukia knelt beside Renji as the battered redhead sat up, blinking and shaking his head to clear it.
"Damn, where's Ichigo?" he asked.
"We're still looking for him," Rukia answered, "but Ywach is dead."
"Well, that part's good," Renji said, coughing several times to clear his lungs.
"Are you all right, Abarai?" Byakuya asked in a concerned tone.
"Yeah, never been better," Renji said, coughing again, "Of course, I would've been dead if not for Aizen showing up."
"Aizen Sosuke was here?" Byakuya asked, his grey eyes widening.
"Yeah," Renji affirmed, "He…ah…I dunno why, but he helped us in the battle. I guess he figured Ywach was too much trouble to keep around, y'know?"
"Hmm," Byakuya mused.
"I can't tell you why he did it," Renji went on, "but he took a hit for me that blew a huge hole in his chest and took off his arm."
"But he has regeneration," Byakuya pointed out, "Still, the injuries would have been excruciatingly painful."
"And he didn't have to do a thing for me," Renji added, "You should know that our quincy friend, Uryu, hit Ywach with an arrow that somehow weakened the bastard so that Ichigo could kill him."
"I see."
"So, Taicho, I'm hoping that you'll let everyone know not to kill Uryu on sight."
"He is a quincy, who attacked our forces, including you and Ichigo," Byakuya said sternly.
"But, he helped us when it counted."
"I don't think that the remaining forces here will be lining up to thank him," Byakuya said, glancing at Rukia, "But…perhaps the two of you can ensure that he gets home safely…if you are feeling up to the task, Renji?"
"Oh," Renji said, coughing and wincing as Rukia helped him to his feet, "yeah, I'm fine. Just great. Thanks, Taicho."
Byakuya watched silently as the two flash stepped away. A moment later, Toshiro's urgent voice snapped him back to attention.
"Kuchiki! Over here!"
Byakuya flash stepped in the direction of the other taicho's voice and swiftly arrived at Toshiro's side, where the white-haired taicho stood alongside Grimmjow, who was kneeling and leaning over Juushiro Ukitake's collapsed form. A sadness came into the noble's grey eyes as he looked down at his colleague.
"You know that he cannot be saved," Byakuya said solemnly, "We saw…"
"No," Grimmjow interrupted, "he's been healed."
"What?" Byakuya mused, staring in surprise, "Healed by who?"
Toshiro bent and extended a hand over the unconscious taicho, his eyes filling with wonder.
"I don't believe it," he mused.
"There is no way that Juushiro could be alive, now that Mimihagi has left his body," Byakuya said firmly, "You know that to be true."
"No," Toshiro insisted, "Ukitake has been saved…and the reiatsu all around his body tells me…that he was saved by your cousin."
"That's not possible," Byakuya said disbelievingly, "My cousin couldn't…"
"Ukitake was healed by Kuchiki Tetsuya."
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Tetsuya came out of the haze of unconsciousness, and he found himself curled up on the ground in a lovely, mist enshrouded garden. Unlike the battlefield where he had been, this place was calm and filled with fresh air and vibrant life. Nearby, a waterfall splashed into a large pool of water. And as Tetsuya's blinking and squinting eyes cleared, they found the shape of a white clad man kneeling beside the water. Tetsuya climbed to his feet and walked slowly towards the man, all too aware that he was no longer in possession of his weapon.
"H-hello?" he greeted the man, who turned and shocked Tetsuya with his smile and a pair of wide golden eyes that seemed to freeze him in place, "Who…who are you?"
The man's smile warmed, but Tetsuya felt ice shoot through his veins as he answered.
"You know who I am, Kuchiki Tetsuya. I am the hogyoku."