Where Demons Fear to Tread
Alternative Universe – Purgatory
This is a Crossover AU that combines elements and characters from Inuyasha, Bleach, D. Grey Man, and Naruto. This AU has been created by phoenixreal and sapphiretou. Feel free to use the AU we have created for your own stories, but we'd appreciate a link back or a note about our creation. Please see Notes for more information on the AU, and if you are really interested in using it, let us know.
Very much first draft and in development, so many changes forthcoming.
Chapter One
Purgatory
Londinium bustled and writhed with life, even as twilight had been long past. As the biggest, and most industrial city, in Albion, Londinium was always busy. Steam powered factories produced goods at all hours thanks to gas powered lights that brought near daylight to them. The river Thames that ran next to the city provided more than enough water and hydraulic power for the busy city. Clocks ticked, and bells and whistles could be heard all through the night. The smoke and smog seemed perpetual, a low covering blanket on the city at all hours of the day, it seemed. The mixed smells of burning coal and fresh roasted fowl permeated the streets. Self-powered carriages chugged past horse drawn food carts, even in the wee hours of the morning. The populace were indeed industrious, and no one really questioned the decrees of their Queen, for it was apparent she took her job very seriously.
In the alleys, and hidden in places dark and deep, though, an underground thrived, however. Only the most well connected people could even access the goods and services traded on the black market. Of course, considering the state of the world after the Demon Wars, it was no wonder some things were scarce these days. Much of the lands had been scorched as the four demon factions waged war on each other, at the expense of the humans that resided there. It had been nearly a hundred years since the war ended, and Londinium was a testament to human ingenuity and tenacity. Even out of the deepest crater, a city was born. However, in the blood of those that lived there ran a cold hatred that could not easily be quelled.
This animosity was quite apparent as a young man with bright orange hair ran through the streets. He had on a thin shirt and pants, both of which were threadbare and dirty. His feet were bare and beginning to bleed as he took a run up the side of a building, bounding from side to side to get onto the roof to evade his pursuers. He moved with incredible speed and agility, though, and if that wasn't enough, the demonic eye he had marked him for what he was, either a half blood, or a blooded. Either way, the residents stepped aside as he begged someone to help him as he dodged a man with hair a few shades darker than his own, and another one with white hair.
He couldn't get away from them. He heard them like thunder as he dodged and weaved through the alleys of the confounded city. He hadn't expected them here. He hadn't expected them to find him. Honestly, he just wanted to be left alone with his twin. Well, he called him a twin, they weren't really twins. But that was complicated.
"Stop, demon spawn!" he heard behind him as he leaped down the side of a building. He just wanted to find his twin. He needed to find him, and if he did, they could fuse, and then get away. But he lost him…
Ichigo Kurosaki had been born in the normal way of humans, but when he was born, his eyes marked him as demon blooded. His mother and father tried their best to protect him, but neither could understand how it could have happened. Neither of them had any Demons in their lineages, in fact, his mother had been one of the Quincy Clan, a clan of Demon Hunters. They'd moved often, but then after his sisters were born, it became harder. Luckily, Karin and Yuzu were normal. Then, a set of demon hunters had tried to capture him, and in doing so, they murdered his mother. In his grief, his father had run with the girls. Ichigo didn't blame him. The demon hunters knew about him, and they wouldn't stop. He'd run from them. At nine years old, it hadn't been easy for him. Now, almost ten years later, it wasn't much easier to avoid them.
However, when he had been ten years old, something happened that changed him forever. He'd been caught by a pair of sadistic demon hunters that had him pinned in an alley. They had been teasing him, threatening to hurt him. When he was ten, he hadn't known what they meant, but he did now. These "demon hunters" were usually criminals that wanted to have freedom to rape, murder, and otherwise harm others. They could get their hands on demon blooded and half-bloods and claim that they fought and resisted them, so they had to kill them. No one questioned those kills because in most human lands, they were universally hated.
At ten, though, something happened as the man pressed him into the concrete ground and laughed as he cried. The world whited out and the men were dead and he was running with his hand intertwined with a white one. Once they were outside the city he realized what had happened. He was looking at an copy of himself, only pure white. He had one eye like his, black sclera and gold iris, and the other was honey brown. Ichigo's demon eye was the left, and Shiro, as he named him, had his demon eye on the right. Shiro very quickly became the loud, outspoken one of them. He was brash and confrontational. Ichigo was quiet for the most part, but he would defend his twin if he had to without hesitation.
But they had gotten separated when a large group of hunters had found them outside the city. They hadn't been bothering anyone, just had set up camp outside the town together. They'd run, of course, but they'd separated them, knowing that if they were together they could fuse to become one extremely powerful demon.
Now, Ichigo couldn't figure out how to get away from them. They'd got him cornered and before he knew it, he was at a wall. He turned just in time to see one of the men shoot, and the world faded away. He could feel the tears as he fell to the ground. He just wanted Shiro back. He needed him.
Mabashi smirked as he looked over the downed demon spawn at Jin. "Think the others got hold of the white one?"
Jin shook his head. "I bet not, that fucker was the smarter one of the two. Besides, you can't let them touch each other or we're in trouble. But boss wants us to throw this one in Purgatory. He's pretty, he'll fetch a good price. So would the white bitch, but you know, I doubt Ho and Ban caught him. Anyway, let's get him over there before he wakes up and tries to run. Don't want to bruise that pretty face before someone pays to do it," he said and helped Mabashi lift the unconscious boy up.
"He's pretty lucky, would pass for human except that eye," Mabashi said. "Oh well, just another one to get used up," he commented as he tossed the thin body into the back of the van and locked the doors. "Come on, let's get him into the place so we can get something to eat before we go to bed for the night."
In the dark of the building, a young man stood and watched intently. "What are they doing back here…" he muttered as they drove off with the boy. He reached up and ran a hand through his dark hair and his ocular implant spun and focused on the van as it left. "Fuckin' Bounts. That's no good," he muttered as he walked away. He was slightly annoyed that Orochimaru had been right.
Sasuke Uchiha had been living and working as a part of Otogakure, a somewhat safe haven for blooded and half demons loyal to Orochimaru. Orochimaru was a rather infamous, and powerful, half demon that even the Shinigami and the Black Order gave a wide berth to. He had a lot of people under his command, but he also never did anything to warrant interference from the various groups. Orochimaru had sent Sasuke into the city to verify if the Bounts were in town. Anytime they showed up, demon blooded and half demons who weren't hiding ended up disappearing. They were known as "catchers". No one knew where the ones they caught went, but they were never seen again.
He headed back, using the stone that Orochimaru created for him. It was something he had to be wary of, as it was demonic magic that powered it, and if he wasn't careful, he could be caught and jailed. He might have been human, but using demonic items was prohibited.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Ichigo woke up in that way that told him he'd been drugged. It was a slow and sluggish thing that felt like he was swimming up through layers and layers of water. He moaned and rolled over, feeling hard floor underneath him and hearing the clinking of chains. The world came into focus suddenly and he sat up and looked around him, eyes stopping on a figure sitting on a cot nearby. He was a short, petite boy, it looked like. All Ichigo could see was his white head of hair where he clutched his knees to his chest.
"Hey," Ichigo said as he stumbled to his feet, the chain around his left ankle clinking. He looked down and saw it had a demon seal on it. Of course it did. He rubbed his head and moved toward the other occupant.
Other than the several cots that lined the edges of the cell. The walls were clear, but Ichigo knew that it wasn't glass, it was that clear steel that he'd seen the humans making. He thought it was so hypocritical of them to abhor everything from the demons, yet, they used demon magic to create this clear steel. The room was perhaps ten by ten in size, and it sat next to another cell just like it on either side.
"I'm Ichigo," he said as he sat down on the cot next to him.
The boy looked up and Ichigo saw he was blooded or half like him, too. He had white hair, and a long curse mark down his left cheek. His eye was also demonic, Akuma blood, if he didn't miss his guess, and his left arm was covered with some sort of leathery looking skin. He smiled a bit. "Allen," he said in a soft voice.
Ichigo leaned back against the wall behind him. "Any idea where we are?" he asked.
"Purgatory," Allen answered, shivering slightly as he spoke.
"What's Purgatory?" Ichigo asked, frowning.
Allen looked at him. "You don't know what Purgatory is?"
Ichigo shook his head. "I've been running for a while, this is the first time I've been in this place," he said with a shrug.
"You'll regret winding up here," Allen said with a sigh.
Ichigo looked up as the cell next to him opened and two figures were thrown to the floor. The door slammed and he never saw who threw them in there. The cells seemed to be soundproof, but he could see that there were two females. Both of them had cat ears and tails, so he guessed they were Youkai blooded. Shiro had told him how to recognize the various demon bloods because doing so would keep him safe. Ichigo didn't know how Shiro knew so much since they were essentially the same person. There was a muffled sound on the other side and he saw four females being ushered into that cell. He saw they had holes in parts of their bodies, so they were Arrancar. That was impressive, full Arrancar were hard to capture. One had curly purple hair, another had short blonde hair, the third had black pigtails, and the last one was really short with short black hair. Ichigo thought that might have been a guy, but it was hard to tell. A few minutes later another person was pushed into the first cell with the two Youkai Blooded. They seemed to give him a lot of space.
"There's all sorts of blooded here…" he said as he turned back to Allen. "What is this place?"
Allen looked at him. "Hell," he said seriously. "This is a place where we're taken and never seen again. We're used up for human consumption, whatever their desire. The tough ones are sent to the gladiator ring. The ugly ones are sent to the snuff films and death chambers. The unique ones are sent to research. And the pretty ones…we get sent to the brothel."
"We?" Ichigo asked.
Allen nodded. "This is the waiting area, when these cells fill up, they move us all to the Purgatory brothel. If you're here, that's where you go. That's why there's more girls than guys here. Most of them want females up there, but they keep a few boys. I heard that they've run out recently. Of the boys."
"Run out?" Ichigo asked, brows meshing together.
"As in they've died for whatever reason. There's no rules. They pay. They put you chained in a room with them. They do what they want. If you die, they have to pay extra, but that's all," Allen said with a sigh.
Ichigo stared at him. "But you're a kid! You can't be going to a brothel!"
Allen smiled. "I'm not, actually. I'm probably older than you. I'm twenty nine," he said with a sigh. "I just look fifteen."
Ichigo thumped against the wall. "Why the waiting?"
"Because the brothel is shielded, and it takes a lot of power to open it for demons to pass through. Normally a blooded can't get into the place, so they have to do a lot of effort to close the shield long enough to take us through. Best we can hope for is a swift death," Allen said with a sigh.
"How many do they wait for?"
"Six in each cell," Allen said. "I imagine they will need a couple more boys at least. Boys get the roughest treatment," he said with a sigh.
Ichigo went to the wall and put both hands flat on it. "Shiro…" he whispered. "Please come find me."
"Who's Shiro?" Allen said from his seat.
"Um, well, kinda my twin, but not really. We used to be one person, but then we were two…" Ichigo said and turned back around. "I just call him Shiro because he's white colored, skin, hair, all that. He protects me, and I protect him. But, if we touch each other we can become one again, and when we do that we're as powerful as a real demon instead of a blooded. So they separated us from each other, otherwise they wouldn't have caught us. We've run from them too many times to count."
Ichigo sat down on the floor. "Shiro's gonna be so mad," he whispered. "He won't stop until he finds me…he'll kill people, I know it."
Allen looked at him. "Maybe he won't," he said with a shrug. "Does it matter? They're the one that hate us."
Ichigo felt a sudden wave of sadness. He knew that Shiro would stop at nothing to get him back. He also knew that there was no way for Shiro to figure out where he went if he hadn't seen what happened to him. He hoped Shiro was able to keep himself from destroying too much and getting himself killed.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
"Should we show him how we handle things here?"
Bambietta Basterbine smirked as she watched Cang Du and Quilge Opie drug the bound demon spawn into the street. All around them, the humans that lived in their city watched with wide eyes as they moved through the street. No one dared say anything, they simply watched as the four Wandenreich drug their victim toward the town center.
"Come one, come all, and let's punish one of these demon spawn!" yelled Candice Catnipp as she bounded into the area. "What shall it be today?" she said, spinning on her heel and looking at the other four.
Cang held him up on the right, Quilge on the right. "Tie him to the post, use the scourge on him. See how much skin we can rip out before he bleeds to death," Jugram Haschwalth, the Vice General of the Wandenreich said as he walked up, hands tucked neatly behind his back in his pristine white suit. "He's one of the Tailed Spawn. He deserves no better than a long, painful death."
Bambietta smirked as she pulled the scourge from her hip that she carried. "String him up," she said as the two men pulled him toward a tall post with shackles attacked to it in the middle of the square.
The creature between them was beginning to wake up. He already looked bad, dripping blood from cuts and bruised all over his tan colored flesh. He was very obviously a Tailed Beast spawn, he had three tails in bright orange that nearly drug the ground while he was unconscious. He'd been stripped down to a pair of loose pants and nothing else. He was blonde haired with a pair of fox ears on the top of his head instead of human ones. Within minutes he was chained to the pole, hands stretched above his head, on his knees.
"Cane his feet first," Jugram said with a smirk. "Should wake him up."
All around the square, people watched. They knew better than to walk away from public event. To do so would mean to end up whipped there as well, or publicly executed. They knew the horrors that they might soon witness, but their fear kept them where they stood.
Cang Du steppe up, pulling the cane from the thong on his hip. He grinned and pulled it back, slapping across the bottom of the demon spawn's bound feet. He had been unconscious, but when the first strike hit his feet he gasped and yelped. They'd gagged him, but even through the gag, he screamed as he struck him again and again until his feet were both bleeding.
"I think he's awake," Cang said and stepped back, flicking his wrist to get the blood off the cane as he put it back.
"Good," Bambietta said as she stepped up behind the panting demon spawn. "Here, let's see how long before you die," she said as she pulled back the vicious scourge and let it fly at his exposed back.
After fifty strikes, she stepped back panting from her own exertion. He'd finally passed out, strips of skin hanging from his shredded back, and a pool of blood under him. He was breathing still, but thinly and he was limp against the pole.
"What should we do?" Opie said and looked over at Jugram. "Should I kill him?"
"He's dead already, he just doesn't know it yet. Leave him there until morning," Jugram said and turned on his heel and left, followed by the other four chuckling people.
The human residents of the city wandered away slowly, all but a little girl who stood holding a fox stuffed toy in her arms. It was a relic from the days before the demon wars. She hugged it to her chest and waited until everyone had gone. She walked up to the bloody mess that had become of the creature in the center of the square. She stared at his face, watching as his eyes fluttered weakly.
"Mr. Fox demon?" she said quietly.
Bright blue eyes stared at her, and even a young child like her could see the pain he was in. She smiled at him, though. "My mommy gave me this. She said that one day I would see someone who needed it worse than I do. She said that my Daddy left it for me. She said that Daddy said he was magic," she said and she sat the stuffed fox on the ground in the spreading pool of blood under the demon spawn fox. Where the blood touched the toy, it started being sucked up into it, changing the color from orange to deep crimson. The little girl smiled and turned away, leaving it there. After a few moments, the toy fox began to stand on all fours, and blood red tails began to emerge beside the single one it already had. There were soon nine tails.
The toy moved forward haltingly, blood still being pulled from the ground into it. The ground was nearly cleaned of the blood by the time the toy simply walked into the Demon spawn. There was a flash, and he was simply gone. All that remained was a stuffed toy fox and clinking chains.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Naruto hadn't known he was a half demon until his blood matured when he turned fifteen. Then, he knew, but he could hide it. That had been five years ago. This year, the transformation had finished, and he couldn't hide it anymore. The Uzamakis lived in Heiligstadt, capital of the Wandenreich territory, and anything demonic was disposed of, quickly. In fact, anything that was considered impure by Yahweh's decree was destroyed. The people lived in fear, and they had ever since King Yahweh had taken over the area shortly after the Demon War began. At first, the Wandenreich offered protection and kept the demons away, then, something happened, and the very demonic energies they used to protect them from demons began to warp their minds and very souls.
Naruto had been spotted by one of them this morning. His parents had died not long ago, and he couldn't keep inside the house all the time. As the changes became more visible, it became harder to hide them. He had to leave for food. So they had chased him down, beat him, then took him to the center of town to die. The little girl, he hadn't expected that, but he recognized a blood totem when he saw one. He may not have been raised among demons, but his father, his human father, that was, had been a Quincy before he'd hidden his abilities and pretended to be a simple laborer. He'd recognized Naruto for what he was but kept him safe, until the day that Yahweh had sent for him and his mother. They were hung in the center of town for "suspected dissention" which meant that Yahweh had decided that he wanted them dead.
Now, he pushed himself shakily to his feet and looked around him. He was in some sort of forested area, and he was starting to shiver. He still felt blood running from his shredded back and his feet felt like they were on fire. He limped until he fell into a hollowed tree root and just laid there for a long time, panting.
"You look terrible," he heard a voice say. He lifted his head weakly and saw it was another demon spawn like him, but this one had long white hair and a pair of triangular dog ears on his head. He wore a red outfit. "What happened?" he said as he knelt beside him.
"Humans…Wandenreich…where…where am I?" he asked.
"I don't know, I've…been running for days now. I haven't seen another one of o ur kind in a long time," he said as he felt around on the ground and plucked a few plants. "Here, I have some training in medicine," he said as he began trying to do something with the frayed skin of Naruto's back. "What's your name?"
"Naruto," he said with a sigh, trying not to cry out. "You?"
"Inuyasha," he said softly. "I just want to get home, but I don't know how to get there."
Naruto nodded. "I just want to live," he muttered as he found he couldn't even move. "Are there good humans?"
"Yeah," Inuyasha said as he slid down beside Naruto's head. "Not a lot, I've found, but some have helped me."
"Who are you running from?" he asked.
"This woman with long green hair, she reminds me of a snake, but I don't think she's a demon," he said. "There's two of them, and she almost caught me once, said I was pretty enough for Purgatory. I don't know what that means."
"It means, you're mine," came a woman's voice from nearby.
Inuyasha stood up but couldn't tell where it was coming from. "Where are you, you bitch?"
"Ah, I'm not alone, and looks like we get wo pretty boys for the price of one," she said again, and before either could react, the world went black and crashed around them.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Ichigo began to wonder how long they would have to wait. The other cells were full, only their sell had room in it. Allen, he found, wasn't very talkative, and he himself paced more than anything. Food appeared, if it could be called food, but before it showed up, they were gassed to unconsciousness.
Ichigo felt the chain on his ankle tighten and yank him toward the wall. He heard Allen's chain retract, but he was sitting on the cot already. He looked up as a man came toward the cell dragging a figure, and a woman came behind him dragging another. Both were drug into the cell and dropped, and both shackled with the sealing anklet like Ichigo and Allen. The man and woman left, and the chains on Ichigo and Allen loosened.
Ichigo immediately went to check on the two that had been brought in. He knelt by the first, a white-haired boy like Allen, but he had dog ears. Youkai? He shook him gently, and he groaned, turning his eyes on him.
"Huh, where…" he said and sat up, looking around. He looked at Ichigo and Allen. "What…where am I?" he asked.
"On your way to Purgatory," Ichigo said with a sigh.
Ichigo heard the other one groan and then saw that he looked injured. He moved over to him and looked him over. "Hey, you alive?"
Naruto opened his eyes to see a young man over him with one brown eye and one black and gold. "Ah, you're a hollow blood," he said as he sat up and rubbed his head, then rubbed his ass where his tails felt like they'd been yanked.
Ichigo nodded. "I'm Ichigo Kurosaki," he said and glanced over at Allen. "That's Allen Walker."
"Naruto Uzamaki," the blonde said as he sat up.
"Inuyasha," the dog-eared boy said and looked between them. "What is Purgatory?"
Allen sighed. "I told him already. Hell. We're set to go to the Purgatory brothel. It would have be better if we'd gone to the Purgatory Hunts or the Purgatory Ending."
"What are they?" Naruto asked.
Allen looked between them. "The Hunts are where they send the ones that they want to hunt down like animals. The Endings are where they take the ones that aren't good for the brothel or the hunts, and they're used for amusement of humans who want to murder or torture us to death. They do death films too." Allen sighed. "But at least it's over quickly."
Inuyasha looked between them and sighed. "I just want to go home. I want to see my brother even if he hates me still."
"Why would your brother hate you?" Naruto asked, glancing at him.
"I'm half blood, my brother is a full blood youkai. My mother was human, and my father the dog demon. I…I was kidnapped by the hollow army," he said as he glanced at Ichigo. "But when the wars ended, when we became allies, they let me go, but I was far from home."
Naruto nodded. "I didn't even know I was half-blood until I started changing when I turned fifteen," he said with a sigh. But I lived in Heiligstadt, Wandenreich territory, and they found me," he said with a sigh.
Ichigo gave the two new companions his story, and Allen had little to add. They talked on and off over the next few days, but eventually they fell asleep like they usually did for meals. However, this time when they awoke, they were somewhere else. Ichigo crawled to the others and saw that he'd come awake before them. He looked around and found they were in some kind of viewing room. The whole front wall was made from the clear steel, and the other three walls were concrete. Each of their wrists and ankles were bound with a metal cuff marked with the demon seals. There were four kinds of seals, of course, depending on the demon, but these were engraved with all four.
In the room were four cots, and there was an adjoining bath with a small shower/tub. It was about twenty feet wide, and about ten feet in depth across. Ichigo realized that they had all been bathed and changed. He looked down to see he had been put in a yukata type robe. His was black with gold streaks in it. Naruto's was orange and edged in white, Inuyasha's was red, and Allen's was black edged in silver. They'd all been placed on the cots that lined the back of the room away from the clear barrier. Ichigo walked up to the wall and put his hands on the surface. Across the hallway, he saw another room just like it, and he was staring at some of the ones that had been in the cells near them. They were all dressed in similar yukatas. He glanced to his left and right and saw that there were other rooms on either side of the one across the hall. That meant there were at least six of them. Maybe more.
As he watched, a few men and women walked down the hallway. They were well dressed humans. A pair came up to the clear barrier and looked at him. He could hear them faintly.
"New boys?" the woman said with a smirk. She was older, and had her black hair in a high bun. "I shall have to tell the boys."
"I don't think your son will be allowed back, after he killed the other two he bought for the night," the older man, a balding and rather fat man, said beside her.
She shrugged. "We paid the recompense for that incident. Besides, not his fault…" the voices trailed off as they walked away.
Ichigo couldn't believe this. It was true. They had been taken to this place. They were going to used for the perverse desires of these humans… He dropped to his knees, hands pressed to the window. He glanced behind him as Allen and the other two stirred. He needed to find a way to get them out. He didn't have Shiro to help him, so he had to do it alone. He had to protect them, especially Allen. He seemed so sad and had given up.