Authors Note: Warning this will be a dark fic but despite how it seems at first this is NOT a Dark Ichigo fic. Expect to have one or more of your favorite characters die or start the story dead. If this bothers you please don't read it. I have placed the rating at T but it may shade into M. There will be some bad language and graphic parts but no lemons. On another note, I am a kleptomaniac Idea thief. Half the time I don't even realize I've stolen something. I read so much fiction that ideas are constantly getting stuck in my head. If I take something that you feel is yours I have only done it because I thought the idea was cool. So let me know and I'll either give you credit for the concept or try and remove it from my story.
As far as timeline goes, pretty much everything up to the Fake Karakura town arc. This story goes AU at that point.
Also, I do not own Bleach or much of anything else.
Now on with the story.
Prologue:
Betrayal….
It truly is a powerful sentiment. One mention of it and immediately your mind is filled with dark images and emotions. You are reminded of the burning ache and shock you receive from even the simplest violations of your trust.
Each and every single time it happens it's like a little piece of your heart is torn from you leaving you bleeding and with a corresponding amount of your life force sucked away never to return. Whether it's something as simple as a close friend revealing a conversation you thought would be kept private, or as heart wrenching as your mate cheating on you, it always seems to come as a surprise. I mean of course it does, none of us would open ourselves up to others if we didn't feel that they were worthy of it.
I have become something of an expert on the subject. I have recently been privileged enough to be exposed to betrayal after betrayal. People I thought of as allies have been revealed as enemies. My friends have been murdered or their minds and hearts shattered. The government I once fought for has been revealed to be a group of murdering bastards. Even my family has been lying to me.
All of these I could have lived with. I could have avenged my friends, toppled the government and forgiven my family. In time I could have rebuilt my life and moved on if it weren't for the greatest betrayal of them all. The one that causes me to look in the mirror everyday wondering if today will be the day I have enough courage to end my life just to make the pain go away.
I don't know what pains you suffer through. I can tell you that all the agony you may have felt in your life from physical or emotional pain, it cannot compare to what I live with everyday. I haven't learned much in my life, there hasn't been much time to learn anything. But what I have learned has been earned with tears, pain, blood, and death. So I can tell you with certainty what the greatest betrayal of all is.
My name is Kurosaki Ichigo.
And the greatest betrayal of all is when YOU are the one who has betrayed everything you stand for and hold dear…….
Chapter One: Trust Betrayed
The first betrayal didn't really affect me much. I mean sure, Aizen Sosuke and his cronies betrayal of soul society did bring about a series of events that nearly caused my death, or the death of my nakama on many occasions. However it wasn't really a betrayal of me, after all I didn't know the guy. Yeah I hate the bastard for what he's done, and I would whistle a happy tune while shoving a flaming poker into his guts, but he's always been my enemy. There was never a time when I knew him as anything other than the slime he revealed himself to be. I will never forgive him, yet everything he's done has been the work of an enemy. You expect him to be evil and sadistic. It even makes it easier to be resolved in standing against him.
The second betrayal was far, far worse.
The second time it was personal. After all the time spent protecting Karakura as a substitue Shinigami, saving Soul Society's collective asses from the Bount, and fighting alongside many different Shinigami in that assault on Hueco Mundo to save Orihime, I had started to develop ties and friendships with different ones in the spirit world. So this time the betrayal hit me just as hard as it did everyone else.
EVERYTHING WAS FOR NOTHING!! All our battles against hollows, Espada, Shinigami, or whatever they were all meaningless. Us losing powers, regaining powers, the struggle to get stronger. It all was MEANINGLESS!!!
Why you ask?
Because Aizen was never a traitor! Or at least he was following orders the whole time. There was someone else behind all the suffering, all the pain wasn't Scumsuke. And we didn't find out until it was too late to do anything but suffer.
Guess who it was. Go on guess. You'll never imagine it. It was himself, Lord High and Mighty, The Great "Burn All Creation to Ash!", General Yamamoto.
Everything we did. Everything! Was just to give him a chance to figure out which of us had to die and who would be willing to join him or knuckle under. None of us saw it coming. In a way I almost envy everyone who died in the first round of purges. They never had to see the chaos that descended upon Soul Society and the Living World. They won't ever have to know the list of those sworn friends who in reality were poisonous vipers. They aren't burdened by the list of those they failed to protect the dead, the dying or the tortured.
That list runs through my mind every second of every day. And the irony of it is that the one person who might actually enjoy the way things are now was the first one to go. The one man who would have fought those bastards laughing every step of the way, and he never even got the chance to draw his sword. If justice is ever served on those sacks of putrid diseased filth, I hope they get dealt some extra vengeance for the fact that of all the people they murdered the very first one to go was Zaraki Kenpachi.
