Hello, readers! Welcome to El Juramento! I'm thekurosakiconundrum, or KC for short.
Before we get started, I just want to explain a few things real quick. First, this story is complete up to chapter 11, so I will be posting a new chapter every couple of days until I get there, and then I'll be moving to updates every other week. It's currently plotted out for 16 chapters though I can't say it won't grow in the process. If you can't wait and want to catch up, you can find me at A03 under the same name.
Second, I want to thank you for reading! It makes me very happy to know people are enjoying my story. If you want to make me extra happy, I really love getting reviews~! Constructive criticism is especially welcome, but also even if you just want to say "I like this story," please, let me know!
Third, a question. I notice that the terms of service say FFN doesn't accept explicit content and it's grounds for banning? I've been an A03 person for a while so I'm not sure how serious they are about that. I have a few smutty one-shots that I could put up here but I don't want to get in trouble, so any longtime users could tell me about this, I would appreciate it. Also this story will eventually contain a lot (i.e. several entire chapters, two of which are much longer than standard chapters because I'm all about that detail) of extremely explicit sex, though I could edit some of it out if I have to, or tone it down, but I really don't want to do that.
Fourth, this story contains NO MPREG. I realized that it might look like it, but I assure you, this story is something a little different than a standard A/B/O or heat concept. (not that I don't like a good A/B/O)
Lastly, a note on this chapter. It's a prologue I added when readers made me aware that they didn't have enough information about the background of the story and the setting. If you find it boring, please give the next chapter a try. *dangles naked Ichigo in front of you as bait* (seriously, naked and all by himself, doing naughty things... also there is a plot! A mystery! Suspense! It's exiting in several ways!) I promise it's less of an info dump.
And now, the story.
"C'mon, Byakuya! Do I really have to go to another fancy reception?"
Ichigo complained. "I hate wearing the formal shihakusho. It never hangs right on me."
"It is simply finer cloth than you are used to," Byakuya replied dismissively, then continued, "Many of the Arrancar like you, Kurosaki, albeit for reasons I have yet to grasp. You will go to the reception. You will be 'on the clock,' as it were—if you waste your time talking to your fellow Shinigami and those among the Arrancar you have already befriended like you did last time, you will answer to me."
Ichigo bristled, biting back a hasty reply—after months cooped up in a starship and then the past three weeks trying to charm and impress their hosts, having Byakuya attempt to punish him for not following orders sounded like a welcome change of pace. He hadn't fought Byakuya in ages… But no, that was just the stuff of idle daydreams. What would he do if he lost, or for that matter, if he won? It was better just to play his part.
"Fine," Ichigo agreed, blowing out an exasperated breath. "Anybody in particular you want me to talk to? How're we doing with support among the Espada, anyway?"
"You should know this, Kurosaki. Please try and keep up in the future," Byakuya said. "But we've got Tres Espada Hallibel of the Education Division, Sexta Espada Jaegerjaques of the Defense Division, Octava Espada Grantz of the Scientific Division, and Noveno Espada Arruruerie of the Financial Division supporting the commencement of peaceful relations between our two peoples and the mutual establishment of embassies, while Quinto Espada Gilga of the Interstellar Mercenary Division and Décimo Espada Llargo of Police Division oppose such a move.
"The Primera, Starrk; Cuatro Espada Cifer of the Intelligence Division, Séptima Espada Rureax of the Colonial Division, and Segunda Espada Louisenbairn of the Homeworld Management Division are undecided, so that's where we need to focus our attention. I suspect the Primera will not take a side until after there is a clear majority, but he is their leader, so we should still attend to him carefully."
Geez, Ichigo was sorry he asked. "Um… those are the little black-and-white one, the one with the facial tattoos, and the old guy, right?"
"…Right," Byakuya agreed, pouring his all of disdain for Ichigo's summation into that single syllable in that way only aristocrats had.
Ichigo wasn't very impressed with his dance card for the evening. He hadn't personally interacted with those guys much, but from what he'd heard, Rureax was super creepy, Louisenbairn was incredibly arrogant and infatuated with his own power, and talking to Cifer was like talking to a depressed robot. The Primera was alright, but Ichigo had no illusions that talking to the leader of the entire planet was going to be his job. Any way he chose, this evening was definitely not going to be fun. But then again, it wasn't supposed to be—it was work, after all, even if it was also a party.
When Ichigo said nothing further, Byakuya continued, "Among the Legislature, opening formal relations has majority support, albeit a small majority—the Democrats, Labor-Liberals, and Future Party are on our side, while the Conservatives, Militarists, and that disturbing little Aizen's Dream party oppose. In the private sector—"
"Okay, okay, enough! I get it! I think that's enough for me to go on tonight!" Ichigo cried, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender (or maybe to ward Byakuya off.) He knew Byakuya hated being interrupted, but that there was only so much information Ichigo could assimilate at once. And anyway, it wasn't like Ichigo exactly went out of his way to avoid irritating him—it was actually a nice bonus.
"Very well," Byakuya said, frowning in disapproval. "Is there anything else?"
"No," Ichigo answered resignedly, shaking his head. "I'll be there, stiff and starched at 1900."
With that, Ichigo left Byakuya's office and headed off to the rec room to find somebody to bitch to. He didn't want to go! He was majorly tired of politicking.
This whole mission had turned out to be nothing but politicking. When the Shinigami had heard enough rumors about the stable, flourishing Arrancar society that they couldn't ignore it anymore, Captain-Commander Kyoraku, working in concert with the Central Forty-Six, had put together a team to go pay their long-lost cousins a visit. They had to be an all purpose group, because they didn't know what they would find, whether they'd end up talking or fighting.
The Special Diplomatic Corps that Byakuya headed was special, alright—on diplomatic missions to their better-known friends and neighbors, the team didn't feature so many of Seireitei's heaviest hitters. Ichigo had thought that was why he'd been instructed to join, to serve as extra muscle if things went pear-shaped. They couldn't spare a third Captain, so they'd sent Ichigo, who had a Captain's strength but not a Captain's administrative duties.
But they hadn't needed fighters after all, and so Byakuya had decided that since Ichigo was here anyway, he ought to try his hand at diplomacy. Renji had explained his boss's decision by pointing to the fact that although Ichigo, as a half-Human from Earth showing up out of nowhere with Captain-level strength and a perpetually insubordinate attitude, had been regarded with much suspicion and hostility when he first arrived on Soul Society, he'd won most of the important people over quite quickly. The hope, apparently, was that that talent would work on Arrancar, too.
And it had, much to his surprise. If he understood the situation correctly, he'd played a major role in gaining the support of two of the Espada, the Arrancar government's powerful executives. There was the Tres, whose respect he'd earned by taking care of her drunken aide—an outstandingly busty teal-haired woman called Nel who had then been a total stranger to him. He and Nel were kind of friends now, which was cool, and the Tres had been more willing to talk with the Shinigami after acquiring evidence that they could be considerate and decent.
He had also gotten to know one of the actual Espada pretty well. That was Grimmjow Jaegerjaques, or rather just Grimmjow, which was how Ichigo referred to him because he couldn't help but mangle that family name whenever he tried to pronounce it. He was the top man in the Arrancar's military, heading the combined planetary and space-borne elements.
The Arrancar Hueco Mundo Defense Division (AKA the HMDD or just Defense for short) was a strict rule of the strong by the strongest, much like the Shinigami military. The only difference was that on Hueco Mundo, personal challenges were the normal way for advancing through the ranks, whereas on Soul Society, that practice was a rarely-used throwback and appointment from above was the norm.
Ichigo had found the Arrancar method baffling when he'd learned of it, because surely that system would result in a whole bunch of guys like Kenpachi Zaraki (the only one of the current Captains to have earned his rank via personal combat) in high positions, which didn't sound entirely healthy for anyone involved.
Apparently, though, you had to have some qualifications in order to issue challenges above a certain rank—certain training courses taken and passed, that sort of thing. Also, one was ordinarily only allowed challenge a direct superior, so there was a limit on how quickly one could advance.
The challenges weren't supposed to be fights to the death like the rarely-used Shinigami Captaincy duel, although he'd heard they could be lethal at times. If the challenger won, the commander would either be bumped down a rank, taking the challenger's now-vacant place, or have to challenge his own superior, unless there was a vacant slot somewhere for him to stay at his same rank.
There was some other way people moved up, too—something about some kind of oath of loyalty? Ichigo didn't really understand it. It seemed like when someone moved up in rank, if some of his or her subordinates had given this oath, they moved up, too, presuming they were competent enough. "Sworn men," he'd heard them called. It seemed strange, but maybe it made sense for people to be able to keep trusted subordinates from their early days with them to help out once they got to more advanced positions.
The other crazy thing about the Arrancar military, Ichigo thought, was that they didn't have an officer/enlisted distinction. Everyone started at the lowest level, although there were different wings of the service, of course. An aptitude test showed whether you were going to start out in the Army, Navy, or Special Combat. The head of the military as a whole had always, apparently with one very famous exception whose name Ichigo couldn't recall, come up through Special Combat.
It was interesting, actually—Earth's forces for combat with other species consisted only of the Marines (who had kept their name despite the fact that the ships that carried them were space vessels) and a Navy (who suffered from same nomenclature problems, but even Ichigo could admit that Astry was a shitty name.) The Shinigami military, on the other hand, was almost entirely organized around a small corps of powerful individuals who could tap into energy and forces that they called "spiritual" and that Earth's best scientists had very little understanding of. So they basically only had, in Arrancar parlance, Special Combat troops.
If the centuries of partnership between Earth and Soul Society ever broke down, there was no telling how things would fall out—individual extra-physical fighting power versus numbers and high-tech weapons was not a showdown Ichigo would like to see. But it was interesting that the Arrancar pursued both strategies, and apparently that diversity made them a force to be reckoned with in this corner of the galactic neighborhood.
The Arrancar were, by design, a strong and militaristic people. But over the past couple centuries, they had calmed down a little and stopped fighting each other, ending over a millennia of what Ichigo could only call feudalism. They had a few (previously unoccupied) colonies in neighboring star systems, but fortunately they hadn't turned expansionist, either. Nowadays, they had figured out a better use for their excess fighting spirit—they hired themselves out as mercenaries to defend the homes and colonies of less martial species.
Apparently, they made a huge profit doing this. And while the individuals who chose that career were well compensated, the mercenary operation as a whole (called the Interstellar Mercenary Division or IMD) was run by the government and the profits were poured into really freaking nice infrastructure and public works, as well as education and scientific development. The amount of resources that the IMD brought to the Arrancar buoyed their standard of living up to a higher level others of similar technological capabilities.
But that was all Ichigo really knew about it. He knew a lot about the HMDD because Grimmjow had explained it to him, but the IMD was a different thing. It was the province of Nnoitra Gilga, the Quinto Espada, who didn't like the newcomers at all and was quite unlikely to explain the practices of his organization to Ichigo over a cerveza.
He'd tried asking Grimmjow about it, but the IMD and the HMDD were rival organizations, and Gilga and Grimmjow were apparently even less cordial than that, their relationship approaching out-and-out enmity. So the only answers that had been forthcoming were sarcastic and—
"Hey, Ichigo!"
Rukia was calling him from back the way he'd come. Ichigo turned to meet her, a small smile on his face for his friend.
"Hey, Rukia," he greeted her. "What's up?"
She tipped her head towards Byakuya's office and asked, "Were you trying to get out of going to the reception?"
"You know me too well," Ichigo admitted sheepishly.
"No! You have to come! I'm not just going to spend all night dodging Arruruerrie by myself," Rukia insisted, holding Ichigo by the shihakusho collar.
"Well, I do have to come, that much is true. Byakuya's orders. But also per your brother, I'm forbidden from spending much time talking to Shinigami, so I won't be able to help much," Ichigo explained. Then he suggested, "Maybe see if Renji can come, he'd be happy to be your protector."
"Yeah, I'll give that a try… But you say you're not allowed to talk to us?" Rukia asked. She raised an eyebrow at him, amused, and added archly, "I guess you'll have to talk to your Arrancar crush to pass the time, then."
"I don't have a crush, Arrancar or otherwise!" Ichigo protested. "But anyway, I can't spend much time talking to anyone who isn't undecided about us. Byakuya says I've got to get out there and work my powers of persuasion."
He'd completely lied to Rukia just now and they both knew it. He did have a crush. He had a big, fat, schoolgirl crush on Grimmjow Jaegerjaques and he absolutely refused to admit it to anyone. If Ichigo had been a woman, the whole thing would have been disastrously cliché; bearing a horrifying resemblance to a popular novel that Ichigo had no desire to live in. He wasn't sure if the fact that he was a man made it better or worse.
Position of power? Check.
Older? Check. (Although he only looked a couple years older than Ichigo, Grimmjow had well over a century on him.)
Bad boy attitude? Check.
Confident bordering on arrogant? Check.
Aggressive and domineering? Check. In a way that would be ten kinds of fun in bed? Also check.
Ridiculously hot? Double check.
Parents wouldn't like him? Triple check. His dad's entire species wouldn't think much of Grimmjow, since he was an Arrancar.
And…'Ridiculously hot' didn't quite cover it, actually, Ichigo thought. How about… Sexy as fuck? That one got all the checks.
See? It was embarrassing. Could you blame him for not wanting to admit it? Maybe it was some kind of delayed rebound thing—Ichigo couldn't think of a single person he'd ever met that was less like Orihime.
Whatever the cause, he had it bad. His heart sped up whenever he was with Grimmjow. He got tongue-tied, tripping over his words. He felt like he was constantly on the verge of making a move, yet couldn't bring himself to do it. He hadn't broken out his digital porn stash in weeks, because imagining stripping Grimmjow out of his that charcoal gray ensemble he wore was more arousing than those videos could ever be. Then, when he saw him the next day or whatever, he couldn't stop replaying those thoughts and would, so help him, blush.
Because Ichigo was not the best at having feelings, all this made him short tempered around Grimmjow. When Ichigo snapped at him, he snapped back, which made their interactions exciting and engaging. And—
"Hello, Soul Society calling Ichigo? Ichigo, are you there?" Rukia sing-songed, smirking at him maliciously. When she'd got his attention, she said, "Here's a hint: Saying you don't have a crush and then completely spacing out thinking about him is not very convincing."
Ichigo hung his head in shame, not even trying to deny that was why he'd become distracted. Rukia laughed at his plight and started teasing him about how he had to be careful not to catch a space STD.
It was going to be a long, weird night, Ichigo thought to himself.
He didn't know the half of it.