On Blade's Edge

This is an alternative universe fanfiction. Characters are placed in a world of my own creation. In some cases, the characters and their personalities have been altered to fit the situation.

Warnings

This is a hardcore yaoi fanfiction. This is rated MA. This contains explicit sexual content. This story includes humiliation, non-consensual slavery, forced bondage, sexual torture and rape. This story also contains graphic violence, depictions of human trafficking, drug use and sale, and physical/mental torture. This story is not intended to be read by individuals under the age of 18. Mind the Tags please.

Disclaimer

I do not claim ownership of any part of the Bleach universe or of the Bleach characters. Tite Kubo owns this amazing world; I am simply playing within it. Original elements do belong to me. There is no copyright infringement intended and I in no way make money from writing or posting this work of fanfiction.

Tags

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hurt Ichigo, BAMF Kenpachi, Kidnapping, Healing, Aftermath of Torture, Rape Aftermath, Past Torture, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Abuse, Blood and Torture Mental Breakdown, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Parent/Child Incest, Psychological Trauma, Organized Crime, Drug Dealing, Human Trafficking, Assassins & Hitmen, Blackmail, Forced Prostitution, Non-Consensual, Non-Consensual Violence, Non-Consensual Body Modification (Piercings, Genital Piercing, Nipple Piercings), Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Non-Consensual Bondage (Sexual Slavery, Master/Slave, Leashes, Collars, Cock Cages, Gags, Sadism, Beating, Flogging, Forced Orgasm, Cock & Ball Torture, Pain, Rope Bondage, Gangbang, Double Anal Penetration, Object Insertion)

Chapter One

Undercover Work

Present

Sunday May 18, 2014 – 4:30 am

Warehouse District, Rukongai, Japan

Small Coastal City along the Ojiga-hama Coast

He hated undercover work. It was, without a doubt, the thing he hated the most. Unfortunately, he was uniquely able to do undercover work of the long term sort. Most people weren't his size and most people weren't as capable of taking care of themselves as he was. At a hulking six foot seven in height, and the fighting skills to go with it, he made a good undercover agent. Of course, with his unique visage, he was not suited to posing as multiple figures. No, he had one persona that had become integrated in the places it was needed. Ken Trent. It was a deceptively simple name, to go with a not so simple appearance. Ken was a beast. And he was, at the current time, the only member of the government agency known as the Shinigami to infiltrate the ranks of the Espada organization. No one else had survived initiation.

The Espada were into everything. This agent, Kenpachi Zaraki of the Shinigami Agency, was currently trying to bust wide their human trafficking section. Under the purview of Nnoitra Gilga, a man that was actually taller than Zaraki by a couple inches but half his width, the human trafficking run by the Espada was perhaps the most prolific in all of the country. So here he was, being led down into the underground section of the holding cells where they kept the 'merchandise'. There was a transponder embedded into a false molar on the left side of his jaw. Once he confirmed that the location was hot, he'd activated it, and his team would bust the entire place wide open. No one else had been able to get in this deep, and it had taken Zaraki almost three long years to do it. Tonight was the culmination of those three years. When this was over, he would get to go back home and take care of his little sister himself instead of leaving her with his aunt.

The place was crawling with gun toting guards, most with M16s or AK-47s he noted, as he descended down the stairs into the darkness below. He knew what to expect, after all, they'd raided empty buildings after they'd cleared out before. He'd been to a few under heavy disguise to keep his identity as one of the Shinigami a secret from prying eyes. Of course, he'd also seen the scene photos for all of them. But it still didn't prepare him. Zaraki wasn't the most emotional of men, as a matter of fact, he preferred to beat the shit out of someone than talk, but there were certain things that were wrong on a primal level. However, this…this was one of them.

The smell hit him first, a mixture of a metallic tang and hospital grade cleansers. That smell alone was enough to rock most people on their heels. The sounds were next, and only his extremely sharp senses picked up the subtle sounds in the otherwise quiet room. The slight rattle of chains, the sniffing and hiccupping of those trying desperately not to weep, and the rapid breathing associated with the opening of the door were louder than he would have liked. He clenched his jaw so tight that he heard the teeth scrape together, the ball in his tongue piercing rolling against the back of his teeth with a sharp click. If it weren't for the goddamned piercing he'd gotten five months ago with this tall freaky bastard he wouldn't be here now.

He'd done a lot in this line of duty; he'd done a lot to get here at this moment, moving through a meat market full of half starved, abused people set to be sold off to the highest bidder. As horrible and terrible as it was to admit it, this room was why he was here. This was why he had given up three years of his life. This is what he'd been working toward. He estimated there had to be at least two hundred cages in this warehouse. Yes, this was exactly where he needed to be.

Three fucking years it had taken to get to this place. Three years of sacrifice and hard work, three years of being "busted" by the cops for show, three years of being a heavy for smaller gangs and beating the crap out of kids who didn't deserve it. Three long fucking years of seeing his little sister once a week if he was lucky, less if he wasn't. Three years for someone of his unique ability and look to get noticed by Aizen. It was a testament to how goddamned picky he was about the people in the highest levels of power in his organization that it took three years for him to even come onto Aizen's radar, and then it was only through his "friendship" with the perverse bastard that ran the human trafficking ring that he got here.

"Well, Ken-chan, so here we are, your job is discipline among the product. Anyone gets out of line, ya put 'em back. Don't care how ya do it, try not to kill them, though. I try but sometimes accidents happen. And feel free to sample the product, anytime you want, all the boys do," Nnoitra said with a wink. "The only ones you can't touch are the ones marked V. Those are the high dollar bitches who've never been fucked, so don't touch them or I'll have ya fuckin' balls, man. We only have three, all girls right now. We had a couple boys…" He grinned. "Ah but I can't resist 'em, 'sides, the demand for virgins is for the females anyway. Nobody who wants the boys gives a fuck if they've had a cock up their ass or not. Half of them don't live long after they're bought anyway to matter."

Zaraki felt his stomach turn. So far, they'd been unable to recover many alive from the Espada's human trafficking ring. The ones they had found dead were in sorry shape. Nnoitra was known as a sadistic pervert, and took out his twisted desires on any of the people that displeased them enough to be thrown aside. He was twisted in some of the worst ways from what he'd found since getting into the organization. He winced at the cages that lined the room; each one had two to three males or females chained to cots inside. That meant there were several hundred people in this warehouse, and most likely, this was all their stock. He couldn't believe the state most of them were in. All were nearly naked, and most of them looked like they'd been beaten at least once or twice recently.

Nnoitra opened a door to an office and led him into the room and had him sit down. The office was small, dominated by a large desk in the middle with a comfortable looking computer chair. On the desk was a plain black laptop. The walls were blank, and the only other furnishing was a small metal folding chair beside the desk.

"Now, we are a careful organization. Everything on my part is here," he said, indicating the laptop on the desk. "If there is a raid while you're down here, open it and when it asks for a password, you put in 'raid' and it deletes everything on the hard drive and sets off an explosive charge inside the case, rendering the thing useless. Don't be holding the goddamned thing when it goes off, either, fucker'll take off yer hands. Now, the password to get in safely is 'suckmycock' all one word. I know, not original, but you know. They told me to make a password, and I told them to suck my cock, and well, that became the password. So anyway, any questions?"

Zaraki shook his head. "Nah, I got this shit. You leaving?"

Nnoitra smiled and nodded. "Yeah, got a meet up with a bastard wanting seven boy-toys. I gotta make sure the shit is legit, because I've had some of our product dead because of bastards who want to pull shit on us. Anyway, just chill in here. I'll send in a favorite flavor to keep ya company. Ya like boys or girls or do ya care?"

Zaraki felt his stomach churn again, more because of what he had to do to keep in his uncover persona than anything else. "Don't matter man, a hole is a hole, right?"

Nnoitra grinned broader and Zaraki wanted to break his face so much right that moment. "You are a man after my fuckin' heart, Ken-chan. Definitely send you my baby boy, then. He's a sweet one, trained all the fucking tears outta him already. And can suck a cock like no one else, but he's got a fine cunt too. My favorite kind. Can't sell him, so I get to play with him instead."

Zaraki sat down and opened the laptop, typing in the password and looking it over with a grin. This was exactly what they were looking for. It might even be enough to nail Nnoitra even if he wasn't here during the bust. He looked up as one of the guards armed with an AK opened the door and threw in a young man who fell to floor in a heap and the sound of jingling chains. Zaraki couldn't see much of him except he had a glaring bright head of orange hair.

"Boss said to drop off his boy. Here ya go. Watch it, he's got a tendency to try and run when yer distracted. Nnoitra already had to whip him twice this week for that shit, but you know he gets beat for less than that too. But he's a good little whore either way, just give the leash a tug if you need to, man, trust me on that one," the man said, shutting the door and Zaraki groaned.

He supposed it was better than some screaming female. He couldn't stand that crap on his best days. He looked over the desk to see he was an incredibly thin young man, not quite a boy, but not quite a man. His best guess he was maybe twenty. He was breathing heavily, and was simply lying on his side where he'd been dropped. He, like the rest of the 'merchandise', was wearing a dirty looking makeshift set of clothes. The t-shirt he was in looked like an old undershirt for someone twice his size, and he was wearing something that looked like a beige skirt or kilt looking thing. His eyes were closed tightly and he was breathing carefully, Zaraki realized and frowned. He was obviously in pain of some sort and trying very hard not to show it.

"Hey, what's your name?" Zaraki said finally, and frowned to see the shudder that went through the boy's body at the sound of his voice.

The boy cracked his eyes open slowly and then just stared at him where he leaned across the desk for a long moment before he swallowed hard and Zaraki could see the trembling in his arms and hands become more pronounced. He sighed. Well, of course he would be scared of him. He wasn't as tall as Nnoitra, but he was a damn sight bigger than him. And obviously he wasn't supposed to talk because he was almost frozen at the mere mention of telling him anything.

Zaraki shook his head and shut the laptop and popped the cap off the false tooth with his tongue to activate the transponder. Within fifteen, the place would be swarming with agents. But until then, he had to do something with the one they dropped in here with him. He couldn't very well send him back out there to his cage, especially not if he was injured like he thought. He sighed again. This was not what he was trained to do; this was his team's department, not his.

"Come here," he said, pushing away from the desk and motioning for him to come over to him.

He looked up and blinked big brown eyes at him and maneuvered to his hands and knees and crawled over to him. He then sat back on his heels, hands in his lap, and stared at the floor with is head bowed. Both wrists and ankles were adorned with thick leather cuffs with rings set in them, and there was a similar thick leather collar around his neck. There was a chain in front of his shirt that ended with a leather handle and another chain that seemed to go down into the shirt he was wearing. Zaraki cringed because he could already see that all the restraints were too tight on him because the flesh at the edges was puffed and red.

Zaraki had seen it many times. The look of someone who'd given up on ever getting away, who'd had the idea of escape beaten out of them. Most of the "merchandise" out in the larger room had that same look. And he wasn't even sure how long this one had been here. He'd been here long enough to become Nnoitra's favorite, it seemed. He wondered what he meant by the statement that he couldn't sell him. He knew that the bastard had one or two that he preferred that never came to be sold off. Unfortunately, Zaraki quickly found that a lot of the dead they'd recovered had been Nnoitra's playthings. Most of them had died due to consistent abuse. And looking at the people in these cages, he understood why.

Nnoitra's "playthings" though were special, he'd found out in the last week. They were the ones that were mutilated and tortured to death. He'd come to find out that the sadistic bastard took a great deal of pleasure in disposing of the "unsalable" merchandise. This amounted to a great deal of sadistic shit when he got them in his backroom that even to Zaraki looked more like a torture chamber. From what he'd discovered, the deaths weren't exactly intentional, but ended up happening when he lost control.

There was a knock and Zaraki saw the flinch in the boy kneeling before him. He looked up. "What?"

"Um, Mr. Trent, there's been an increase in activity in the airspace around this location. Should we start transfer protocols?" he said, looking between him and the orange haired boy on the floor near his knees. "Sorry to interrupt…"

"Whatever, don't move anyone yet, but go ahead and send men to the perimeter, keep minimal guards inside, and lock down between here and the upstairs. Probably nothing, don't want my first night on the job to be a cock up because of paranoia," Zaraki said. "Now, leave me the fuck alone unless they're knocking on the fuckin' door."

The guard grinned and nodded. "Yes, sir. Enjoy yourself, sir. He's a pretty good one, too. Nnoi's let me have a go at him more than once."

The door closed and Zaraki rubbed his temples. "God damn this is fucked up shit," he muttered.

He looked down at the boy. He was definitely an attractive boy, frail and fragile as he looked at the moment. He had long sinewy limbs, and probably could fight pretty well based on the size of the muscles in his arms and legs. Granted, those muscles were no doubt somewhat atrophied after being in captivity for however long he'd been held. Now that he was closer, he could see the varying degrees of bruises on his arms and legs, and the obvious marks of a whip on the backs of his calves. Zaraki leaned forward and reached up and pulled his face upward. The oragnette gasped at the touch and his eyes were wild when he locked onto Zaraki's one dark eye. There was a spark in those eyes though, hidden deep within the depths. Zaraki smiled to himself and nodded. He wasn't dead inside yet, he thought. Not like some of the ones they'd recovered from other human trafficking rings that never recovered from the abuses they'd suffered.

Nnoitra had a pain fetish, so he had piercings all over him as well as tattoos. He saw that he had taken his fetish of inflicting pain out on this boy. He had several facial piercings. There was one in each cheek set with a silver captured ball ring in each. Both sides of his nose had small silver studs in them, and his eyebrows each had a row of what looked like ten or more rings going across them on each side. His lower lip and upper lip were both pierced in the middle and on each side with rather thick looking rings, and Zaraki could assume that they were more than cosmetic in function. Both ears were a mess to be honest. There was nothing artistic or attractive about the piercings. It simply looked like Nnoitra had decided to see how many times he could put metal through his ears. Long thin bars ran through the lobe in several places and he had a pair of gauged rings in either lobe, neither very large, but both were incredibly red, and more than one piercing looked infected. He saw several places in his ear and face where it looked like something had been ripped out, including one barely healed space on the left side of his bottom lip. He couldn't see anything further and didn't have time to investigate what other chunks of metal the fucker had stuck in the kid.

"Listen to me, you are gonna do whatever the fuck I say, and you're going to do it when I say it, okay?" he said sternly.

He nodded almost unperceptively and swallowed. Zaraki could feel the muscles of his throat work under his finger where it was hooked under his jawbone. "First thing, I'm not gonna hurt you, provided you do what I say. Second thing, no matter what happens in the next couple hours, do not leave my side, got it?"

Again, a slight nod and his lip quivered. "I know you're frightened, but you are gonna have to trust me here, okay? You do that and you'll be okay."

He just stared at him for a long moment and Zaraki sighed and let go of his chin, letting him go back to staring at the floor. He wondered how long it would take before he or the rest of them would come around after this hell they'd lived in? There was a loud booming sound a few minutes later and Zaraki grinned. He picked up the laptop and dropped it into a bag beside the desk and looked around for anything else useful. He grabbed a few files that were out and then looked down to see that the boy was watching him from under hooded eyes.

"Stand up," Zaraki said with a curt nod.

He stood up slowly, using the desk to get to his feet but immediately fell to his knees again with a grimace. Zaraki frowned and reached down to pull his legs out from under him and realized that the ankle on the right was badly twisted and purplish. Well, that would complicate matters, but not too much. He was more than capable of carrying such a waifish boy. He sighed and secured the bag on his back and swept him up into his arms quickly, feeling him tremble violently under his touch.

"Come on, look, we're leaving, okay?" he said with a nod and he seemed to relax a bit in his grip, or at least he quit fighting his hold.

The door banged open. "Sir! We're being raided! Should we set the charges on the product room?"

Zaraki frowned at the guard and shook his head. "Nah," he said, and struck out with his right foot, slamming the guard across the hallway with a sick crack. He slid down the wall leaving a bloody trail behind him. He realized the boy in his arms had held onto him even tighter, fingernails digging into his arm and back. Zaraki headed down into the room with the cages and looked around inside them for a moment. Every cage had a charge set at the top of it. Dammit. He had to make sure no one set them off or they'd have a huge body count on their hands. He took off at a jog toward the door between the product basement and the upstairs and heard gunfire. He opened the door and saw three guards standing at the doorway.

"Sir!" the first said. "We were waiting for you before we set the charges. Protocol seven!" he called, but it was the last thing he did. Zaraki had shifted the boy he was holding to one hand and sliced the throat of the two guards in front of him with one deft stroke of a knife he'd drawn from his waist. The third one stared and gaped but he didn't have long before he was gasping for breath and falling to the floor. He saw the controls beside the door and nodded. Nothing had been activated. There was yelling and he looked up to see a familiar face.

"Captain!" shouted the dark haired man as he ran toward him. "You did it, captain, did we get them all?" He flicked his black hair over his shoulder and stroked at the feathered barrette over his temple.

"Nnoitra's gone, but I've taken out four guards. Get someone down and get them out, all the cages are set with charges. I'm afraid there may be remote detonation; once Nnoitra finds out he's been raided he could try and blow the place, so get everyone out as fast as possible and clear of the place. They're all in rough shape, most of them have had the shit beat out of them, and Nnoitra said that everyone was free to 'sample the merchandise', so I have no idea how bad. You got Ikkaku with you?" he said, looking behind him and seeing the bald headed man running up.

"Yeah, he was clearing up a few stragglers. Seems my services are needed immediately, Ikkaku, love, go get the bomb squad, and get the rest of the team to meet us at the hospital in our wing," the dark haired man said with a smile.

"Yumi, be careful, they said there's a lot of explosives…don't touch them until I get down there," Ikkaku said with a frown, glancing at the controls beside the doorway.

He waved. "Sweetie, when am I not?"

He turned and flounced down the steps past Zaraki. "Is Unohana out front?" Zaraki said to Ikkaku.

"She is; this one in need of immediate?" he said, looking over the body Zaraki had clutched to him. He'd curled into Zaraki and buried his face into his chest, and was panting hard by this point.

"I think so, sounds like he has trouble breathing and his ankle's fucked," Zaraki said moving to walk toward the entrance. Ikkaku came along with him to watch his back in case they missed anyone.

"Where'd he come from, boss?" Ikkaku asked.

"Nnoitra wanted to 'entertain' me, so he had them bring me his 'boy' as he called it," Zaraki said, unable to keep the venom out of his voice. "I don't know, said he couldn't sell him so he got to play with him instead. You should see his fucking face, if Nnoitra didn't already have enough piercings to set off a metal detector I'd want to give him more. I wish that fucker was still here, I'd gladly rip his throat out with my bare fuckin' hands. Bastard…all those fuckin' bodies…"

Ikkaku frowned. "What do you mean?"

Zaraki sighed as they headed toward the flashing lights outside. He was trying not to move too fast in case the boy had broken ribs that were pressing into his lungs. "They were Nnoitra's 'flavors', at least the ones in the worst shape. Called them 'unsalable' merchandise, so he had to 'dispose' of them. I guess he breaks them and throws them away when he's done, the fucking bastard, I ever get to have my chance, I'm gonna break his fuckin' neck."

By this point they'd reached a large bus that was actually a mobile medical unit. Ikkaku knocked on the door and it was opened by the long haired woman that scared the pants off everyone in the unit. She was by far scarier than Kenpachi Zaraki.

"Zaraki," she said, stepping back and letting him in. Zaraki went in and moved toward the back where the beds were set up.

"Can you check him out? Might have some ribs broken. He's breathing badly," he said.

"Of course, set him down here," she said and Zaraki found the boy didn't want to let go of him. He frowned.

"Hey, come on, let me put ya down, she's fine, trust me, okay?" he said, staring down at the top of his orange head. He didn't say anything only gripped him tighter. "Um, yeah, Retsu?" he said, looking up at the dark haired woman.

"Zaraki, sit down yourself, I'll check him over like this," she said. "If he's got broken ribs, I don't want you to try and force him to let go, you might hurt him. You don't know your own strength sometimes, Ken."

Zaraki nodded and sat on the bed which groaned under the weight. Zaraki was not a light man. He set about trying to shift the body in his lap a bit and managed to get him somewhat seated, if still with his face hidden in his chest. Zaraki looked up and saw Ikkaku and Yumichika returning looking tired already.

"Boss, we got everyone out, but there's a few who are gonna need some medical attention, nothing immediate, so if you want to ride with the med bus back to the hospital, we can take care of them there…" Yumichika said, glancing at the boy clinging to Zaraki. "It seems you're not going anywhere."

Zaraki looked down, adjusting his grip. "So it seems, don't get it. I mean, I'm a fucking beast, gotta be nastier lookin' than anyone he's seen before, what the hell he's stuck to me for I don't know…"

Yumichika rolled his eyes expressively. "You're so dense, Captain. You don't remember any of the training we went through? You were thinking about beating up people instead of how to deal with victims, weren't you?"

Zaraki snorted. "Get the fuck out and ride with the others to the hospital. Yumi, take an inventory, try and get names and see if we can get locations and try to find families for these people. Have we got a head count yet?"

"Got it, boss, and yeah, we're looking at four hundred twenty three, four with him, total. Biggest bust yet, boss," Yumichika said with a shrug and grabbed Ikkaku by the hand and drug him out.

"I swear, those two…" Zaraki mumbled. "I see they finally got together while I was gone," he said to Unohana as she got ready to draw blood from the boy.

She smiled. "Yes, it seems that Ikkaku came to terms with the fact he loves him. He swears he's not gay; he's just in love with Yumichika. I told him that is quite possible."

Zaraki snorted. "I don't get why everyone's so hung up on gay, straight or whatever. You get with someone you want to get with, what does it matter if they got a cock or a pussy?"

Unohana smiled. "Not many people think that way, Ken. Now, let's see if we can't figure out what's going on here," she said, and tugged experimentally on the boy's shirt. He still didn't look up from where he'd hidden his face.

"Okay, I'm going to take this off you, okay?" she said gently, grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting the t-shirt material away from his back.

She frowned deeply at the lashes across his back where he'd been whipped recently and some strange puncture looking marks in the flesh of his back. She recognized the signs of long term abuse easily. The bleeding wounds were piled on top of scars. There was little doubt in her mind the boy had been systematically abused.

"Can you tell me your name?" she asked, taking an antiseptic and beginning to clean the wounds. He was still silent and winced as she cleaned the bright red rips in his skin.

She then bandaged them after applying an ointment to them and then started listening to his lungs. She nodded. "Not punctured, but I'm guessing his ribs might be fractured, bruised at the best. I'll tape his ankle until we can get back to the hospital," she said, moving around and grabbing the tape to do that. "I really need you to lie down," she told him. He shook his head into Zaraki's shoulder. She sighed and looked up at Zaraki. "I'm going to take some blood now," she said and tied off his arm and took samples. Then she quickly administered a sedative and they watched as he slumped into unconsciousness, his grip finally releasing Zaraki. The bigger man was sure he was going to have bruises from his fingers, which in itself was an accomplishment.

He laid him out on his back finally as Unohana draped a sheet over him, tossing the remains of the dirty skirt to the side as she stripped it. "I think you should stay nearby when he wakes, Ken," she said, beginning a more thorough exam. "He seems to have attached you to semblance of safety. Most likely you're the first person to help him in a long time."

Zaraki was too tired to argue as he sat down beside the exam table. "What can you tell?"

She shifted the sheet and went over his wounds. She unbuckled the collar and cuffs and winced at the deep red lines left in the flesh in all places. She took a glance over the piercings in his face and ears then pulled down the sheet to go over the rest of his body. In a few minutes she covered him back up, leaving most the exam for the hospital. She wasn't touching the piercings on a moving bus.

"He's in his early twenties, definitely been held for a while, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a couple years at least. Severe malnutrition, dehydration, long term abuse, physical and sexual. And that's just from my initial looking over him. I can't tell the extent of any of it without x-rays. You said he was Nnoitra's…ah…boy? We've known from your reports and the other reports he tended to favor a male or two from among the victims. They were the ones that we found afterward, weren't they?"

Zaraki nodded. "He said he was his 'boy'. Don't know for how long."

"Well, even if his abuse by Nnoitra was recent, it wasn't the only abuse he received, if I don't miss my guess. He's currently got two fractured ribs and some severe bruising on his back and pelvis. He may have a fractured pelvic bone; I'll have to do the x-rays to be sure of it. I know we've found other bodies that he's pierced repeatedly like this, but most of them weren't this severe. He's got piercings in almost every place possible, and none of them look to have been done properly or professionally. His face is terrible, and his nipples and genitals have multiple piercings as well, and that's not counting the multiple surface piercings he's had put into him. You saw on his face and ears where some had been ripped out. Some of these I'm not sure will ever heal over without appropriate skin grafts to replace the lost skin. How did he act?" she said, covering him up once more and putting a pillow under his head.

"Defeated," he said, looking up. "Like he had no real reason to try anymore. Stared at the floor. Started shaking at my voice. That's why I was surprised he didn't want to let go of me."

Unohana patted his back. "You rescued him. And you're a huge man, the kind he's used being hurt by, and you helped him instead of hurt him. Like it or not, you're going to have to be involved with this one. You can't abandon him now that he's gained an attachment to you."

Zaraki looked over at him, face slack with sleep and thought that he couldn't have abandoned him even if he hadn't attached to him. Everyone teased him about the fact he had a white knight syndrome and liked to save people. He nodded. There was something there, something in that fragile body that he wanted to see. There was a spark in his eyes, just a dull one, but it was there, a sign of a person that hadn't given in or given up entirely. If he could relight that spark…he wondered what he would find.

Sunday May 18, 2014 – 5:00 am

Red Light District, Rukongai

Espada Safehouse

"What the fuck do ya mean, we were raided?" Nnoitra almost screamed into the phone. "That safe house had our entire inventory. How could we be raided and have no fucking one notice it was coming? Who the fuck dropped the ball? Where's fucking Trent?"

He'd been gone for less than an hour and had stopped off at the safe house to pick up Grimmjow as backup on the meet at six am. He was trying to avoid going alone because the last time he'd done this sort of meeting with these assholes, he'd ended up with a bullet in his shoulder and three of his boys dead. Grimmjow was imposing and more than capable with a gun. Nnoitra didn't use them.

"Sir, we're not sure, but from the footage from the cameras, Trent sent guards to the perimeter, as he should, and locked down the interior when there was an increase in air traffic nearby. After that the cameras go out, and all we know is everything is gone, including Trent. No bodies, no trace, the place is cleaned out. It doesn't look like the charges were set off, though."

Nnoitra frowned and took a steadying breath. "But he's gone too? My baby boy?"

There was a long pause. "Um, yes sir, everyone…"

"Listen to me you fucking ignorant fucks, you best find out what the goddamned hell happened and find my boy pretty damn quickly. He's worth a helluva lot more than just a fucktoy, goddammit, he's fuckin' leverage! I have to have that orange haired brat back or Aizen will fuckin' lose his entire hold over his fuckin' father and uncle! Do you want to tell Aizen that he's gone? No? Neither do I! Now, find the fucker that took him, and bring me his goddamned heart on a platter, bonus points if you bring his eyes too, and bring me my fuckin' baby boy in one piece."

He slammed the cell down on the counter hard enough to crack the screen. He didn't care; it was a burn phone anyway. He'd ditch it before the night was done. "Nnoi, what's wrong?" came Zommari's voice from the next room. Zommari always sounded stoned. Of course, he usually was.

"Fucking raided my safe-house, and my entire inventory is gone," he groused.

"And the kid?" came Ulquiorra's voice as he stood next to the taller dark skinned man, making quite the contrast with his perfectly white skin and short stature.

"Gone too. Fuck! If Aizen finds out I've fuckin' lost the kid, I'm done," he said, running a hand over his black hair and groaning.

Grimmjow leaned against the doorframe then. "Got past all my toys? Damn. Whoever they are, they're good to get through all my explosives without blowing the place to kingdom come."

Grimmjow was the security man, of course. He handled explosives on a daily basis and ran the security features for all their warehouses. He'd been the one to rig the crates with the explosives. The thought that he was rigging those cages to explode and kill people that were housed in them made him sick, to be honest. What could he do, however? It wasn't up to him. He had to do what the boss said. Or else. He glanced over where his boys were playing cards in the next room with some of the others that weren't on the top level with him and the other leaders of Aizen's gang. None of them went anywhere without their entourage to be honest.

Nnoitra pushed past him into the next room and flopped into his seat at the poker table. Starrk was lazily shuffling the cards and watching everything. Starrk looked lazy, but he had sharper eyes than anyone ever gave him credit for. The truth was, barely anything got past the sleepy eyed man. His opposite, the lecherous Barragan was sipping at his drink slowly and watching with his two girls, Menoly and Loly, fawning over him. Neither girl wore much in the way of clothes, nor looked completely sober. Barragan was the oldest in the ranks of the Espada Organization. He was almost into his sixth decade, and unfortunately as virile as ever considering the amount of illegitimate children he had to "take care of" all the time.

The Espada's leaders were ten in number. And each one ran a branch of the organization. Starrk handled guns, Barragan prostitution, Nnoitra human trafficking, Grimmjow security and explosives, and Zommari drugs. Ulquiorra handled enforcement. Missing were Tier who handled the business aspect and investments, Yammy, who ran underground fighting, Szayel who manufactured synthetic drugs, and "A" who dealt with gambling. Everyone called him A because his name was Aaroniero Arruruerie and honestly unpronounceable by all but Aizen. He didn't care. As long as he got his money he was happy.

"So what are ya gonna do?" Grimmjow asked, resuming his seat. He was currently winning by quite a bit.

"Fuck if I know," he muttered. "Deal with it tomorrow. Ante up, bastards," he said, dropping his chips into the center of the table.

Sunday May 18, 2014 – 5:45 am

Rukongai Hospital

"Ichigo Kurosaki," Ikkaku said as he entered the hospital room where Zaraki sat at a desk filling out paperwork. Zaraki looked up.

"Kid's name. And you're not gonna believe this shit."

Zaraki took the file and opened it and blinked. "You're fuckin kidding me."

Ikkaku shook his head. "We're under strict orders from the Old man himself to make sure he's got at least two of us on him at all times, and he wants you to stay on point with him. He's already preparing the Seireitei Safe-House for you to take him to immediately."

Zaraki leaned back, his head thumping into the wall. "So, I fuckin' got handed the son of one of the only men to ever try and turn evidence against Sōsuke Aizen, who up and disappeared seven years ago without a trace along with his brother in law, who was Aizen's partner and the only person who knows what the man looks like and how to bring him down, and Aizen's only family left."

"You realize this means that the reason they disappeared was probably because Aizen had his son?" Ikkaku said, looking at the boy who was still sedated.

"Shit, you're right. Seven years? With that sick fuck?" Zaraki said with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. "Old man say if I can have Yachiru come join us?"

Ikkaku nodded. "Already sent for her. She's going to meet us when we get there. She's beside herself to see her big brother."

Zaraki sighed. "Be good to see the brat. Maybe she can help me with this one, too damn old to deal with this," he muttered.

"Zaraki, you aren't that old. You turned twenty six this year," came Unohana's voice from the doorway.

"Well I fuckin' feel like ninety after this goddamned case," he muttered, rolling his eyes.

"I would hope so," said another voice. He looked up to see someone that he really hadn't wanted to see today of all days. "You've been three years working it; at least it yielded some fruit, if not the one we were hoping for."

Zaraki sighed and looked up. "Byakuya," he said to the stoic man. "I did what I could. I had the opportunity to rescue the vics so I took it. I just wish I knew what the hell was going on with this kid."

"He's not so much a 'kid' anymore, maybe when he was kidnapped seven years ago, but you realize he's twenty three now," the dark haired man said, moving over toward where he lay. "He's smaller than normal, obviously from lack of nutrition. He's what, five eight?"

"Five nine," Unohana said, looking over his chart. "But he's far underweight for his age and height. And we honestly do not know what he's gone through other than what we see on the surface; he hasn't said a word since Zaraki came into contact with him."

Byakuya sighed. "Alright, prepare the transport, perhaps you should leave him sedated until we get him to the Seireitei. I really don't want him flipping out on the drivers. Zaraki, your sister is already installed at Seireitei and decorating her room. You know the layout. So far, it will be you, your sister, and the rotating guards. Remember, don't lose the keycard or you can't get into the facility."

With that Byakuya turned and left. Zaraki growled. "I hate that man."

"Yes, Zaraki, you always have. Now, anything I should know about you? Been six months since you went in deep undercover this time. Any new injuries?" Unohana asked, pulling out a clipboard.

"Yeah, got a few more for ya, and this pretty," he said sticking out his tongue showing off the tongue piercing that had a black ball with a skull etched in white on it. "Think I'll keep it, what do you think?" he said with a shrug. She shook her head. He grinned at her and detailed all his injuries to her.

Soon, they came and transported the unconscious boy to the new house. He went along on the ambulance transport. Great. What was supposed to be a simple thing had turned into something horribly complex.

As soon as he entered the windowless room he was leaped upon by a pink haired whirlwind. "Oh my god, I thought you were never coming back, Kenny!" she squealed.

"Ah, come on, I always come back. Now, did they tell you why we were here?" he asked the fifteen year old spitfire that he'd raised since she was two.

He may have been thirteen at the time, but without parents, he'd had no choice. Taking care of Yachiru is why he felt so old some days. At thirteen he'd started with the gangs, making money hand over fist as an enforcer because at thirteen he could take on just about anyone in a fight. He was already six foot tall at that point. But he'd taken care of his sister. And when the Old Man came to him and offered him legal work, he'd taken that at sixteen. And since then, he'd done a lot of things, both legal and illegal in the service of the shinigami. He didn't care, as long as Yachiru was taken care of, and as long as his "aunt" was fine, he was happy. He called her his aunt, but she wasn't really related to them. Isane was a dear friend who wasn't much older than he was but who had helped them out a lot along the years and adored taking care of Yachiru when Zaraki was gone for a while. It helped that her little sister was about Yachiru's age.

"Yeah, you gotta protect the guy you brought out," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, you got it brat. He's a little messed up, okay, so you gotta be nice to him, okay? Help him feel better if you can," he said with a nod. "And he's a little clingy on me, since I got him out, so don't get jealous."

"That's okay Kenny. As long as you're okay with it, I don't care. I got plenty to do. So why's he asleep? They brought him in on a bed a while ago," she said, looking toward the door where he had been placed.

"He's a little nervous and scared, so we wanted to keep him asleep for the trip. But he's gonna be waking up soon, they took him off the medicine to make him sleep, so we should go in there and be there when he wakes up so he's not too scared and alone," he said with a nod toward the room.

Yachiru nodded and ran off and opened the door, to be followed by Zaraki who sat down in the chair beside the bed. It was comfortably furnished, at least, if windowless. These places were always strange, a house built inside a warehouse, basically. Windowless and locked down tighter than a drum. Finally, the kid seemed to be coming around. Zaraki leaned over, brushing his own spiky black hair out of his face. Yachiru was perched at the foot of the bed and waited. It looked like they'd removed all the piercings from his ears and face from what he could tell, at least for the time being. He was assuming they'd ask him if he wanted to keep any of them. For all Zaraki knew, he'd want to keep some of the piercings. He was keeping the tongue ring, after all.

His waking wasn't a subtle thing. One moment he was asleep the next he was wide awake and clutching at the sheets on the bed and looking around frantically to see where he was.

"Hey, settle down," Zaraki said and the boy turned and fixed his wild brown eyes on him and then he was scrambling off the bed and into the chair with Zaraki. Zaraki frowned and let himself be clutched. He put a hand on his back, now clad in a set of blue pajamas and let him pant harshly against him. "Okay, okay, you're fine, you're fine. It's okay, Ichigo."

As soon as he said his name, the boy sat back and stared at him with wide eyes again, and Zaraki realized tears were gathering at the corners of them quickly. Oh, shit, he thought, what'd he do wrong? He stared for a minute and then tipped his head to the side and whispered, "Ich…Ichi…go…" and Zaraki realized he probably hadn't heard his name very often in the seven years he'd been gone. "I…Ichi…go…" he said, his breath heaving.

"Oh god," Zaraki said softly. "You haven't been called by your name much since they took you, have you?"

His tears spilled over and he took a shuddering breath and buried his face in his shirt again. Zaraki felt the spreading wetness and just rubbed his back slowly and Yachiru watched, her face twisted into a look of sorrow and confusion.

"He was kidnapped seven years ago," Zaraki explained quietly as he could. "He would have been not much older than you. They've had him ever since…"

Finally, he sat back and rubbed his eyes but didn't move to get away from Zaraki at all; he sat there, on his lap staring at the wet blotches on Zaraki's shirt and then touched them gently. Zaraki kept his hands on his hips to keep him from sliding backward onto the floor. He looked up suddenly. "Sorry," he said, his voice hoarse and obviously not having been used often. "Sorry…sorry…" he muttered, shaking his head. "Sorry sorry…"

Zaraki sighed and moved one hand to his head to stop him from shaking his head. "Hey, stop, okay, you're free now. We got you out and we're in a safe house, safe from them, and no one here will hurt you, okay?"

He stared at Zaraki for a long time. "Now, this is your bed, and your room, and no one can come in here without your say so, okay? Of course, unless you are hurt or sick, or something. And you can do whatever you want as long as you stay here because we don't want them to take you back."

He shuddered at the words and shook his head suddenly. Zaraki nodded. "Nnoitra isn't going to come here. He's not going to get to you. He doesn't know where you are."

Ichigo nodded slowly but then realized that there was someone else in the room and he clenched his fists into Zaraki's shirt and pulled himself against him as he turned his head to stare at the other presence. "Ichigo, this is Yachiru, my little sister," he said. "I take care of her, have for a long time, thirteen years, now," he said. "She's going to be here with us."

He swallowed and looked between them before he closed his eyes and ducked his head into Zaraki's shirt again. Zaraki sighed. "This is a safe place for you?" he asked gently, trying to keep the natural growl out of his voice. He remembered vaguely in dealing with victims about helping them find their safe place. Wonderful. Apparently his safe place was in Zaraki's lap.

"Okay, safe place, when you need it," he said, recalling his various training meetings on dealing with victims of human trafficking rings. He should know it by now, he'd only busted three so far. But he was never one on one with the victims; that was Yumichika's part. He was the trained rape/trauma counselor.

"Listen, seven years is a long time, and we're going to have to know what happened during that time," he said finally.

He hated to bring it up. They would have to know; otherwise they could never deal with what he'd gone through. All they knew was that seven years ago the vibrant and popular teenage boy named Ichigo Kurosaki had disappeared during his sister's soccer game. His friends reported that a blue haired man had drug him into a black windowless van without plates. He fought him, but an accomplice had a syringe and stabbed the boy in the neck. His friends had watched as the fight went out of him immediately. No one reached him in time, and he was gone before his father even knew something was wrong.

Since that day, the boy hadn't been seen. Less than a week afterward, Isshin Kurosaki, his twin sisters Karin and Yuzu, and his uncle Kisuke Urahara disappeared. Kisuke Urahara had been Sōsuke Aizen's half-brother, and Isshin had been the illegitimate half-brother of Kisuke Urahara, sharing his mother. Kurosaki and Urahara had been about to turn evidence on Aizen, head of the Espada organization, a then small cartel that ran every kind of illegal enterprise that existed. The case had fallen apart, and since then, Aizen had been untouchable, as had all ten of his Espada that ran the cartel.

The strike at Nnoitra's human trafficking branch had been purposeful to put a dent on their income flow. The human trafficking brought in more money than all the other branches combined, and if they could stop it, even for a short time, the other branches would suffer.

Now, though, the Shinigami had Isshin's son. So the question was, where were the Kurosakis and how could they get the word to them that they had rescued his son? And after seven years of captivity and who knew what kind of torture and conditioning, would he ever really get his son back?