Warning: This fic contains references to non-con sex and violent situations. Please do not read if you are under the legal age for such things in your country (18 years in USA).
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, & this is not written for profit.
A big "Thank you" goes to WhereSilenceBegins and Spunky0ne - they are the authors of the masterfully woven tales that inspired me.
Carrot orange hair was matted with dirt and blood to the point that it appeared to be a muddy brown color at first glance. The youth did not seem to notice his appearance. He lay slumped in a dingy corner of the cell, just one of the many victims they had located that day. At this point, his rescuers were not sure whether or not it was a good thing that he was the last of the victims; he was also in the worst shape. There was a distinctly dull look to his amber eyes when he turned the haggard face toward the newcomers. It was as though he was not looking at the people entering his cell, but rather through them. From a young man who was always, always, extremely vivacious, it was utterly disturbing.
They would have released him the moment they saw him, but halted their rush at a quiet, subtle signal from Captain Kuchiki. After a different, but equally subtle, signal from the Captain, the rescue party regrouped outside the cell.
"Do not touch him." The Captain's quiet command shocked the party, and for just a moment there was silence. Then the arguments burst forth all at once, each person cutting the other off until only an unintelligible babble remained.
"How can you-!"
"Of course we must-!"
"He's saved our asses, why not-!"
"What do you mean-!"
"How can we not-!"
Again, Byakuya motioned, and silence fell. "If any of you could sense reiatsu patterns beyond your own, you would not argue in this moment. That young man has undergone tortures that it is unlikely that any of us has ever undergone, or ever will undergo. We cannot possibly help him to understand that we are not his tormentors - when we unleash his powers, he will likely turn and use them on us in his desperation for all of this to end. Combined, we are hardly powerful enough to contain his full strength. We are even less equipped to help him to come to grips with what has happened and begin to heal." He glanced sternly at the motley assembly of rescuers that shuffled angrily from foot to foot around him, noting two exceptions from people he had forgotten may be resources in this matter. "So, no. Do not touch him yet."
Renji's heated brown eyes and Rukia's black ones glared into his defiantly as the redhead took a deep breath. "In the Rukongai we have dealt with such situations countless times. Not understand? Bullshit. I know exactly what he's going through. None of us here will be able to help him heal, but between the lot of us we may be able to move him without damaging him further or exposing ourselves to danger." Rukia nodded her silent affirmation of Renji's statement, and the look of steadfast determination in both pairs of eyes settled it for Byakuya.
"Very well. What did you have in mind?"
After the two had explained, the Captain nodded his assent. The plan would suffice for moving the shinigami, even if it would do little to nothing to help him heal in the long run.
Carefully, so slowly that they inched into the chamber, Rukia and Renji approached the substitute shinigami. As expected, he still flinched and lashed out the moment Renji's hand passed the edge of a boundary visible only to Ichigo. The two survivors of the Rukongai glanced at each other, nodded once, and then clapped their hands together, forming a kido shield between the orange-haired shinigami and themselves.
Ichigo relaxed such a minute amount that only the two next to him could tell.
Rukia extended a hand toward, but not a hair beyond, the shield and called softly to her friend, "Ichigo? Ichi? They are dead. They cannot ever hurt you again. Ichi, can you come back to us?"
The amber eyes widened impossibly and the whites turned black. Dry lips that cracked and oozed sluggish red fluid parted in an insane parody of a smile. A wispy voice answered, "The King ain't here right now - leave a message and maybe I'll tell him someday!" A crazy cackle echoed through the small cell just before the restraints on the redhead's power flexed and unguided reiatsu slammed into the shield, causing it to shudder and tremble with the force of the attack.
Byakuya, watching, sighed softly in regret as he and the others of the rescue party collectively used their reiatsu to force the substitute shinigami's still-restricted powers into submission. Then the Kuchiki clan leader flash stepped forward and slipped a hand into the barrier too quickly for the thing possessing Ichigo to respond. A quick kido spell caused the young man to slump backwards in a boneless heap, the crazed eyes closing and the smile transforming into the barest trace of a grimace.
Obviously, none of the shinigami from Soul Society could help the young man at this point. Now, the best thing they could do was to transport the carrot-head to Karakura Town at top speed. They could only hope that the unusual former captain would be able to provide more in the way of healing than any of those in the rescue party had to offer.
...
He blearily blinked his way into wakefulness. It seemed to be a weekend afternoon like any other, him still lying abed and half-dozing before his noisy idiot dad came crashing through the doorway. He paused, listening, waiting to hear the telltale thuds of his dad's footsteps.
There were none.
That, in and of itself, was odd. Steeling himself, he peered around the room through half-lidded eyes, but only calming, yellow-colored walls and gently flapping white curtains greeted him. That was odd as well. He thought back to the last thing he could remember, which was lying down to sleep before going on a mission to Hueco Mundo. Strangely, though, the time between that moment and this one was an achingly blank canvas that nearly blinded him with pain when he tried to probe for memories from the time lapse.
It made little to no sense, and so he pushed further, willing himself to push through the pain, to no avail. When he moved, though, he felt the pull of newly-healed muscles and felt a flash of mind-numbing terror when he found his feet tangled in the sheets. That made no sense, either.
For one more moment, everything was still fine - aside from him not knowing precisely where he was - and then he remembered. And his world came crashing in on him.
...
Urahara Kisuke was making his way towards the room he had provided for the substitute shinigami with a tray of breakfast when he felt the subtle tremors of the sleeper's reiatsu begin to stir and then start awake. He half-smiled as he felt the primarily normal, if slightly stiff, patterns of the reiatsu. It seemed that Ichigo was handling the trauma with extraordinary poise.
When the patterns flashed with pain and agitation before completely freezing was the moment he realized how wrong he was about how Ichigo was handling the trauma. What he had sensed was the initial stage of shock.
Now he was feeling the youth's devastation through the flare and then sudden absence of reiatsu from the guest room.
Inwardly, he heaved a quiet sigh as he moved toward the door. At least the young man was not lashing out with spirit energy, as he so easily could have. Kisuke could deal with such things, of course, but it could have left the merchandise downstairs in shambles.
After pausing a moment to read more of the details of the orange-head's condition in what little reiatsu he could detect, he sighed again and turned back toward the kitchen. Ichigo needed a moment to reorient himself once more - to re-convince himself that he was in the after not in the during - and Kisuke needed a moment to prepare a less substantial meal than he had intended to feed the young man.
He was not certain about the exact details of what Ichigo had been forced to submit to, but it did not matter. Based on the reiatsu reading, Ichigo was not likely going to be anything resembling his "normal self" for a long time. Which might include food, boundaries, and any number of seemingly incongruous details often taken for granted. Well, they would just have to take things one step at a time. Quickly, for he did not want to mistakenly leave Ichigo isolated in a new place for too long, he slung together a secondary option for breakfast and took both back toward the guest room.
He set the tray on a convenient hall table near the door and gently rapped on the portal. He received no response. Slowly, and more noisily than usual, he edged the door open and poked his head around to peer at the orange-headed young man sitting on the bed.
It was no better than he had expected, and possibly worse.
Ichigo was pressed against the headboard of the bed with the sheets a tangled mess at the far end. Hair that used to be healthy and bright orange seemed lackluster and hung limply about his face, having grown a couple of inches during his ordeal. His normally bright golden eyes were maelstroms of devastation, anger, anguish, and other emotions that flickered and died too quickly for identification. He had drawn his knees to his chest and clutched them to him as though the world might end if he let go.
From his perspective, the world he knew might have ended already.
When Kisuke rapped again before stepping through the doorway into the room, Ichigo's eyes snapped to focus on him. As the older man took a tentative step toward him, the substitute shinigami broke into a litany of "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..." which continued, rising in pitch when he took another step. After a third step into the room, the young man shouted, "NO!" and released his knees in favor of trying to scramble backwards.
Kisuke stopped. "Ichigo?" He queried, "Ichigo, it's me, Urahara. You remember me? Ichigo, can you hear me?" The younger man continued his attempts to back into a solid wall. "Ichi!" he shouted, not knowing if he was helping or hurting the traumatized youth.
The frenzied scramble paused. A glint of recognition flashed in the brazen eyes.
"...Urahara-san...?" The normally brash and bold voice sounded as though the young man's vocal chords had been scraped raw.
"Yes." Inwardly, Kisuke sighed in relief and winced at the same time. At least he wasn't being attacked or actively feared at the moment, but that voice spoke tomes about the treatment of its owner. "Ichigo -"
"Why?" The question was quiet, but it effectively sliced through the quiet of the room. Then he screamed "Why!" and the golden eyes snapped with sudden and unseeing fury. Whips of pure reiatsu began to flare and lash into being beginning at the crumpled youth and lashing outwards in a fiery display of anger.
Kisuke responded by triggering the kido shield he had prepared in advance. He knew that Ichigo needed the release, but at the same time he wanted to protect the majority of the room, the rest of the house and the shop from utter destruction. Tongues of uncontrolled energy licked hungrily at the shield, glancing off along it and making the sphere of protection look like a large-scale plasma ball.
To Be Continued...
AN: This is a WiP.
Also: Sorry Ichi! Blame the evil plot bunnies. :(