Síntesis Gris

by Saber Girl Jaina/Hyperion Rising

Prologue

The first thing he was aware of was his master's hand stroking his hair. He knew it was his master even before he opened his eyes. The unique sensation of Aizen Sousuke's reitsu, along with his name and his status as master, were among the few things he knew upon becoming aware.

He opened his eyes for the first time and saw a long wide white hall stretching away from him. As his eyes started to focus he was able to differentiate the end of the knee on which his head rested.

Touch. Sight. Hearing? His master's hand made soft sounds as it moved through his hair. Smell? Clean, sweet. His master. Taste? Stale air in his mouth. He opened it and experimentally, almost involuntarily, made a sound.

"Un…"

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Aizen smiled.

"You're awake," he said.

"H- Hai, master," replied the form whose head was resting on his knee. The voice was hoarse from screaming, though its owner would probably attribute the quality of his speech to the newness of his body. And Aizen would, of course, allow him to do so.

The former taichou lifted the head from his laugh and turned the face towards his own. Wide, innocent brown eyes stared up at him, one through the boney plate of a half-mask.

"Master…" the boy said softly.

Aizen smiled down benevolently at the child and stood from his throne, pulling his new servant up with him. He kept a firm but gentle grip on the boy's wrist as he walked towards the door at the end of the hall.

Reaching the other end of the hall was not as easy as one might think. The brown-eyed child kept stumbling, falling to his knees. Walking was new for him. They reached the door eventually, and Aizen led his new servant into the corridor beyond and down it, then into a small room. He turned to his new servant and steadied the boy by his shoulders, withdrawing his hands only when he was sure the child would be able to stand on his own.

"Do you want to know who you are?" Aizen asked.

The boy nodded slightly, obviously afraid of unbalancing himself. "Please, master." Aizen smiled at him.

"You are the Primero Espada," he told the boy, "my strongest warrior. My other servants I made from Hollows, but you I created from nothing." The boy's eyes remained wide and childlike, soaking in all that Aizen said without compunction. "Your name is Síntesis Gris."

Aizen took his servant's shoulders in his hands again and slowly turned the boy around so that he was facing the mirror embedded in the wall next to the door. Slowly, haltingly, the boy walked towards it. Aizen let him.

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Mirror. It was a mirror. It showed him what he looked like. He moved towards it, curious. He had never seen himself before.

He was human shaped, with lightly tanned skin on his arms and face, pale elsewhere. He was completely naked except for the red and white mask that covered half his face. His hair was short, spiky, a bright orange color. An Arabic numeral one was tattooed in perfect black on his chest next to the hole, perhaps six inches in diameter, that went through his body.

The thing that had once been Kurosaki Ichigo turned to its master and smiled.

Chapter One: Capture and Conversion

12 Hours Earlier

By the time he'd gotten through Ulquiorra and to Rukia Renji was already at her side, frantically trying to heal her with his pathetic kidou skills while Ishida and Chad stood guard. Pesshe Gatiishe and Dondo Chakka stood over Renji offering utterly useless advice.

Ichigo didn't have to say a word to Orihime. She said the words as soon as they stopped their frantic sprint:

"Souten Kisshun, I reject!"

Renji was thrown back as the healing field of Orihime's reistu formed over Rukia. It was almost comical. Ishida ran over to kneel beside Orhime.

"Orihime-san! Are you alright? Did they hurt you?"

"Nuh-uh," mumbled Orihime, still intent on Rukia.

"Um, was that 'no, I'm not alright' or 'no, they didn't hurt me?'"

Despite the severity of the situation, or perhaps because of it, Ichigo let out a hoarse laugh.

They'd found Orihime. She hadn't betrayed them. Rukia was going to be okay.

He stopped laughing immediately when he realized he was no longer the only one doing it.

There was total silence in the cavernous chamber shave for the soft crackling sound of Orihime's energy field and the low chuckle that seemed to surround them.

""Who- who is that?" asked Nell in a tremulous voice.

A figure, clad in white, emerged from the shadows.

Aizen Sousuke.

Ichigo jammed his eyes shut, but he knew it was no good. He'd already seen Kyouka Suigetsu's blade.

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One moment Orihime Inoue was concentrating all her power, her thoughts, her illogical guilt as to the situation into healing Kuchiki Rukia. The next she was surrounded by white.

Her first thought was "Am I dead?"

Her second was "Gee, Soul Society sure has changed."

Then she saw Aizen.

"Hello, Orihime-chan," he said, and she panicked. Panicked, and reached within herself for the power that let her defend herself, let her be more than a burden to Kurosaki-kun, and reacted instinctively.

"I REJECT!"

Aizen's eyes widened. He ran towards he, grabbing something-

The white faded to black.

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They hung suspended in a void, pitch black all around them, their faces somehow completely illuminated and free of shadow, oddly two-dimensional. Rukia, partially healed and making soft sounds of wakefulness.

Ishida-kun, still kneeling at her side.

Renji, climbing to his fight.

The three desert brothers, who, after a moment of stunned silence, promptly began making a racket.

Chad, standing tall and apart from the group, speaking now: "Where is Ichigo?"

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White all around him, Aizen Sousuke's heavy reitsu pervading every breath he took. A shout, breaking through, shattering the white blindness.

"I REJECT!"

and then an invisible hand grabs his arm, pulls him towards something, someone, he can barely tell that he's moving but then his captor stops – their reitsus – the brothers, Renji, Ishida, Orihime, Chad, Rukia! – where are they? – and the lights come back on. Go back off. Whatever. The point is, Aizen is holding him by the forearm, focusing his reitsu on him so powerfully that he can barely breath.

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Orihime Inoue can be retrieved. She can be forced back into his service, but she will never again come willingly and never again will Soul Society be willing to completely believe her a traitor, though of course they will always have their doubts as to her loyalty.

Life, and especially war, is the Western game of chess and Aizen has lost his queen. It will be more difficult to keep her once she is taken again, but not even Soul Society will continue for long to throw warriors into a bottomless pit for one woman who's power they do not even understand. In the mean time, Orihime Inoue had served her secondary purpose: bait for the rook.

His frown slowly became a soft smile as he looked down at Kurosaki Ichigo. The young shinigami was struggling against the grasp he could not see, completely in vain. Aizen focused his reitsu on the boy with all of its tremendous force and Kurosaki froze, unable to struggle against both his grip and his spirit power. It took him nearly a full minute to faint.

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Orihime looked around in a panic. "Ku- Kurosaki-kun!?" Reitsus were oddly dulled in this place, maybe he was here somewhere, please let him be here somewhere.

Ishida put his hand on her shoulder and spoke softly. "Orihime-san, he's not here." She knew he was right.

Kuchiki-san gave another groan and pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her eyes grew wide. "Where the hell are we?!"

"Nowhere!" replied Pesshe Gatiishe, glad to be of help.

"What do you mean nowhere?!" yelled Dondo Chakka

"Well it's all black, isn't it? I think it's nowhere!"

The others tuned them out. Orihime looked around. Was she dead this time? Maybe soul society really had redecorated.

A hole opened in the blackness, revealing Urahara Kisuke. He did not look amused.

"All of you get back here. Right now.

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He was drowsy, and he was cold. Rather, his left side was cold and his right side was freezing. What was going on? He couldn't remember…

He cracked one eye, saw a white blur. Looked at his body, saw a flesh-colored blur. He was naked, lying on a cold stone floor. Ichigo came awake all at once.

"W- WHAT!?" He rushed to sit up and cover himself with his hands. The low chuckle from before – he remembered now, where were the others? – returned. Slowly, fearing what he would see, Ichigo turned his head towards the sound.

Aizen Sousuke sat before him on a white throne, looking down at him with his head in one hand and laughing softly. Ichigo's eyes widened with fear.

"Hello, Ichigo-kun."

"Don't talk to me like you know me!"

Aizen laughed again. "Ah, but I do. Wonderwyce, restrain him."

"Yup-yup-yup!" came a childlike voice from behind him.

When did he –

A pair of thin, surprisingly strong arms gripped him around the neck, choking him.

"Not like that, Wonderwyce!"

"Ohhh."

The hands shifted to just below his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides and forcing him to struggle to keep covered.

"I have been waiting a long time for you, Kurosaki Ichigo," said Aizen, rising from his throne and walking slowly towards Ichigo, who had given up trying to cover himself in favor of struggling against the giggling arrancar holding him down.

Aizen knelt so that he was nearly on Ichigo's level and smiled gently at him. "Don't worry, Ichigo-kun. It will hurt, but you won't remember the pain." Then Kyouka Suigetsu was in Aizen's hand and it flashed through the air, opening a deep wound in Ichigo's stomach and sending a torrent of blood spilling onto the floor. Ichigo screamed. He couldn't help it: Aizen's reitsu was pushing on his mind, weakening the defenses that allowed him to ignore pain.

Aizen drew from his sleeve a small orb – the Hougyoku? – and with one swift motion plunged the hand holding it into Ichigo's stomach. Ichigo screamed again. Aizen withdrew his hand, leaving the orb in Ichigo's body.

Ichigo suddenly froze. The… thing inside him was pulsing, throbbing. He groaned. The feeling wasn't exactly painful but it was totally alien in some indescribable way. And then, suddenly, it did hurt.

Ichigo whimpered.

"You may go, Wonderwyce," he heard Aizen say over the pounding in his head.

The arms holding him down disappeared. It didn't matter, he couldn't make himself move. Someone was poking his wound. He let out a pained noise.

"Wonderwyce! Stop that!" Whose voice was that? He should know, but his mind was getting slippery. But there was pain…

Gradually he forgot where he was, who he was, even what he was. But he knew there was pain and he knew, dimly, that he was screaming.

Something inside him changed, slowly, agonizingly. Something else was merging. A mask formed over his face, cracked.

He forgot that he had not always been what he now was. He had long ago lost words.

He lost the meaning of time.

And then time came back, and words came back, but if he could have compared he would have said their meanings, or at least the feelings attached to them, had changed. He was "arrancar." "Master" was the man whose reitsu surrounded him, cradled him, protected him. "Shinigami" was enemy. Eventually, he passed out from the pain, and from the change.

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Aizen Sousuke stood from his throne and walked over to the limp form sprawled on the floor before him. He circled his new servant several times, then finally stopped, nodding in approval. He picked the vulnerable creature up and carried him in his arms to the throne, where he laid the child's head on his lap and began to stroke his hair. It would take him a few hours to wake, but when he did there would be nothing left of Kurosaki Ichigo.