Author's note: This is dedicated to Your Evil Spleen for writing some awsome UlquiIchi. If you haven't read her stuff, you really should. Now I know the assassin concept is so overdone, but it inspired me, so what can you do? I really don't know where I'm going with this, but I hope you like it.
Just a Number
A light breeze annoyed me, ruffling my hair as I walked down the street, hands shoved deep in my pockets. Though it was spring, a light chill still lingered, making me thankful I had grabbed my jacket before going out to complete this mission. It shouldn't have been difficult, just a car wreck that I was to make look like an accident.
I had done dozens just like this, so it shouldn't have even required my presence, but someone had messed up in the early planning stages, so I wanted to be there to make sure that the problem had been fixed efficiently. If the police noticed that the break wire had been severed completely and not just weakened as I had instructed, I was there to quickly and discreetly plant some evidence to direct all blame away from the Aizen family and, more specifically, me.
Sousuke Aizen, my alleged "father," though I'm not sure by how much blood I'm related to him, gave me this mission, as he had given me missions since I was 16. He was the matriarch of our mockery of a family, me and my brothers and sisters whose numbers fluctuated as we were killed or another one of us came of age. At the moment there were eleven of us; he liked for there to be ten for what I can only assume are aesthetic reasons, but my older brother Starrk had a twin, so he allowed her to be a member of the family as well.
Until you completed your first kill, you were nothing more than a number to him. For example, he called me "fourth" for the first 16 years of my life. I'll never forget him standing over me as I knelt before him in his office, gun still in my hand and shaking from the shock of it, the first time I'd taken a life. Calmly he looked down at me with those lifeless eyes and said, "Stop shaking, Ulquiorra." And so I was named.
Now I had been named for ten years and I hadn't shaken since, nor had I disobeyed any order of any kind. I had killed countless for my "father" as had my brothers and sisters and never once looked back. Some I had watched die, some I had done from farther off like I was doing now. There was no room for regret in the Aizen family, the family who would literally kill for money, and I was part of it. Part of the slimy group of idiots who had been raised to value Aizen's approval over life itself.
Walking down this street, I was surrounded by people who had no idea of the cruelty in the world that I was party to. Idly I glanced at the large clock in the square I was headed towards. Just a few more minutes until the "accident" was scheduled to happen, if everything went according to plan.
Suddenly the loud screeching of tires hit my ears along with the screams of the civilians around me. So they were a bit early? Ah well, as long as Mr. Nameless-Faceless-Victim was dead by the end of the night and there was no evidence that pointed to assassination, that was fine.
"Are you crazy, man? Move!" I distantly heard someone yell before something barreled into my side and my vision was obscured by a cloud of orange. There was a sharp pain in my head, then orange was replaced by blackness and all consciousness was lost.
***
"Of course he may be out for a while and there's the broken arm, but other than that he's stable and should be fine," a gruff voice was saying somewhere overhead. My head was throbbing, as was my arm, and my whole body felt as though it was made of lead.
"What's your relation to him again sir? I hate to ask, but unless you're family, you'll have to leave," a more gentile and feminine voice said. Who was talking, and, more importantly, where was I?
"I'm his brother," said another voice without hesitation. As quickly as it could, my lethargic brain tried to match the voice with one of my many brothers' voices. It couldn't find one.
"Ah, that explains why you ran in front of a moving vehicle for him. Stay as long as you like." Two sets of footsteps grew more and more faint, then there was silence save for a rhythmic beeping somewhere to my left. Okay, now I just had to know what was going on. With a massive struggle I opened my eyes to see I was in a darkened room, laying on my side in a not so comfortable bed. After several more brain-tasking seconds I recognized it as a hospital room and the people walking around outside my door as doctors. So the gruff-voiced man was a doctor? Probably. Then who was my so-called brother?
Mustering all my strength, I rolled onto my back and turned my head to see the person on the other side of the bed. Sitting in a crappy plastic chair was a man with the most orange hair I had ever seen. His eyes were closed and he looked exhausted. Very gradually my battered brain pieced it together. The car's tires screeching, someone yelling, then the cloud of orange. Judging from the bandages covering scrapes on the man's arms and what the doctor had said, he had put himself at great personal risk to save my life. What an idiot.
Throat dry, I coughed a bit to clear it. As soon as he heard the noise, the man's eyes shot open to reveal bright caramel orbs that quickly focused on me.
"You're awake."
"You state the obvious." My voice was hoarse, but the comment lost no effect as I watched look of concern quickly become a scowl.
"You don't have to be rude. I saved you life, you know," he protested.
"You shouldn't have," I responded before I could stop myself. Great., now he would think I was suicidal. All I had meant was that he would have saved a lot more lives in the long run by allowing an assassin to die. Never mind, it was better if he thought I was suicidal.
"What, you want to die?" So predictable.
"No, I just don't think it's wise to go around saving complete strangers. I could be anyone." By now his scowl had transformed into a look of surprise and then a more neutral expression. He was so expressive.
"You're alive, aren't you? Therefore it doesn't matter who you are, you're life was worth saving."
"How poetic." Now the scowl was back. Before he could open his mouth to respond, however, the sound of my phone vibrating from its perch on a pile of my clothes interrupted him. For a moment we both looked at it, then he silently picked it up and handed it to me. The caller id read "Aizen."
"Aizen," I answered it tonelessly. This was not destined to be a pleasant conversation.
"Where are you? That was a simple assignment. You should have been back hours ago." How I wished it was fatherly concern he was showing, but alas, I knew better. He was merely worried that I'd messed up.
"The hospital. I don't know how the mission ended."
"It went fine. When you didn't come back I had Yammy investigate. I didn't call about that, though."
"Why, then?"
"Your brother Aaroniero is dead. He was killed last night by a member of the Soul Society." Ah, the Soul Society. The Aizen clan's mortal enemy, they were constantly thwarting out attempts at murder and trying to kill us in order to protect the innocent or something of that sort. Noble trash.
"The fool."
"Will you be released in enough time to come to the funeral?"
"That depends on a number of things, not the least of which is when the funeral is."
"Saturday. Be there." Then he hung up on me, as he always did. I felt no sorrow for Aaroniero. As far as I was concerned, he wasn't really my family at all and must have been trash to allow himself to be killed by a member of the Soul Society. They weren't clever and they weren't powerful, so he shouldn't have become their victim.
"What was that about?" The orange-haired man next to me asked once I had shoved my phone away. Calmly I considered not responding, then decided it would just be easiest to tell the truth. Besides that, I abhor lies.
"One of my actual brothers is dead," I told him, carefully watching his facial expressing change once again. It was better than television.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Concern was etched all over his features again now, but I decided I liked shock better and wanted to see that one again.
"It doesn't matter. He was a fool." There it was. Now the scowl. That seemed to be his fallback expression.
"Are you really that heartless?"
"Yes." For a moment he sat in silence, mulling something over.
"I'm still glad I saved you," he finally told me, looking dead into my eyes which was something most people avoided doing. I didn't respond, instead choosing to turn away from him and stare straight ahead, letting the throbbing in my head die down. After a moment he spoke again, though, so I turned back to face him.
"Why do you have those lines tattooed on your face?" he asked.
"They're not tattoos, it's just ink that fades after a couple of days."
"That didn't answer my question." Of course I wasn't going to answer his question about the teal tear tracts that made their way down each of my cheeks, not when the answer was so personal and, shall we say, incriminating.
"But it's all you're getting." Now his scowl was paired with a cute pout. Wait, did I just think his pout was cute? Impossible. It must be the drugs they had filled me with.
"You sure are a weird guy." He didn't even know the half of it.
Soon after his rather blunt comment I fell asleep, fully expecting him to be gone and never to see him again after that night. When I awoke the next morning he was indeed gone, but a nurse was there, changing out my iv fluid. After she finished what she was doing she turned to me and noticed I was awake.
"Good morning," she greeted me with a smile. "You're brother just stepped out to get something to eat, but he'll be back soon."
For a moment I looked at her in shock. Did she mean the orange-haired man? She must; if she did, then that meant he had been there all night.
"May I speak to the doctor?" I asked her. Nodding, she quickly left, presumably to find the man from the night before. After a moment she re-entered, white-bearded man in a lab coat in tow.
"Hello there!" the familiar gruff voice exclaimed. "You woke up fast. I was expecting it to be a couple of days, but I guess you weren't as shook up as we thought."
I nodded deftly, hoping this meant I would be free to go by Saturday. I was in no mood to disobey an order.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Fine."
"Well, that's probably due to all the drugs we've got in your system! You're very lucky you're brother was there to shove you out of the way of that car, though, young man. You owe him your life." I hated owing people things, especially my life. Sigh.
"When do you think I'll be able to go?" I asked, wanting him to cut to the chase.
"Well, I'll look you over, but you should be able to leave later today as long as you don't have a concussion. You hit your head pretty hard." I nodded again, and he came forward to "look me over," saying something to the nurse as he did. She nodded and left the room again, returning with a clipboard. Hoping those were my release papers, I allowed him to shine a light in each of my eyes and answered each of his questions.
"When is your mother's birthday?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"You can't remember?" he asked seriously, looking at the nurse.
"No. I never knew my mother."
"Oh. Well, then, your father." His questions progressed in this manner, testing my memory, comprehension, and analytical skills before he was satisfied there was no lasting damage. Finally he backed up a few steps just as the orange-haired man was returning.
"Well, Mr. Aizen, I think you should be alright to go. Ms. Inoue will brief you on how to take care of that arm of yours then put you through discharge and you should be all set."
"Thank you." As the doctor left he stopped at the door to talk to the man for a little while. The nurse immediately started explaining all about what I should do for my arm, but I was barely listening. I had broken bones loads of times, and usually just had one of my multiple siblings set the bone for me. An assassin's threshold for pain is fairly high. Finally she left to go process my paperwork, leaving me and the man alone once again.
"So the doctor said you could go."
"You state the obvious." For the first time I saw him smile and decided that was my favorite of his expressions so far.
"Here. He also said you could change." He handed me the cloths I had been wearing yesterday, a simple outfit of jeans, a button up, and a jacket. There was a bit of blood on it and I wondered vaguely if it was his or mine. The nurse had removed my iv as she talked, but with the cast on it was still difficult to get dressed. The man stood awkwardly, seemingly somewhere in between leaving or asking if I need help.
"Why do you have a four tattooed on your chest? Or is that just ink too?" His tone was slightly teasing, but I could tell he was actually curious too.
"Everyone in my family has one. I think my father had us tattooed so he could tell us apart." The man laughed, but I was serious. That really was my theory as to why he insisted we all be tattooed in order of age when we were eight. It also helped build up our pain tolerance.
"Hey, I didn't know you were an Aizen," he said suddenly. That name did hold some weight, seeing as we were one of the wealthiest families in Japan, though no one knew the real reason why. They simply thought we were a rich family who knew how to invest, which actually wasn't that far from the truth other than were we originally got the money from.
"Yes. Ulquiorra Aizen, fourth child."
"Ichigo Kurosaki." I gave him a stiff nod then twirled my finger around. He got the message and turned around while I put my pants on. "Hey, I think we should be friends."
For the first time in a while I was actually surprised. Who just goes out and says something like that to someone they barely know?
"Excuse me?" Cautiously he turned back around to face me as I scooted to the edge of the bed and got up.
"Whoa there," he said, sweeping forward and steadying me with one hand on my shoulder and the other clasping mine. Once I was steady I gave him my best "don't touch me" look and he backed off a bit.
"Anyway, I think it's only logical that we become friends. I like you." There was that smile again, more like a cocky grin.
"No thank you."
"Oh come on. Can I at least give you a ride home?" Why was this man so bent on taking care of me? Then he said the magic words. "You owe me."
Damn, I did owe him. In fact, in light of the fact that he saved my life, a friendship seemed like a small order. But just because he saved my life didn't mean it was his to control. I could choose my own friends.
"Are you so desperate for companionship?" There was a pause, then he seemed to break.
"Okay, look. I did know who you were, although not until after we go here, so don't think I only saved you for this but…" he paused yet again, seeming to struggle for the words. "My father has a clinic, and it's funded by the Aizens, but since he's not turning a profit, they're going to stop backing us." That did seem like something my father would do; back out on an investment if it wasn't making him any money, no matter how charitable it was.
"If you want to get in good with him by being my friend, it won't do you any good. He doesn't give a damn about his children, let alone who they're friends with." As soon as I said this he looked so disappointed I had to continue. "But I do owe you, so I'll make you a deal. As a return favor for saving me, I'll personally invest in your little clinic."
"You can do that?" His eyes were wide with that shocked expression I deemed my second favorite of his.
"Of course I can. I make my own money and can do what I like with it." That was true. I was allowed to keep a pretty good cut of the commission earned for each hit I completed. Aizen liked to encourage us to form empires of our own to further the Aizen family name and fortune. In a moment Ichigo had my hand in his again and was shaking it.
"Thank you," he said earnestly. I merely ignored him and walked toward the door, saying without even turning around,
"Oh, and I would like a ride home."
