Chapter 2: Smiling Child (Emiko)
(Thanks so much to everyone reading and reviewing! This one's off to a great start! Thanks to 'Guest' (Yeah, I enjoy Renji/Tetsuya because they're so playful together, and I'm really enjoying Bya with Ichigo too! That one took me by surprise, but I'm really channeling it now.), Castiel4life (I'm definitely keeping on top of this one. It's turning out very well, so far!), AngelaMaeAnauzio (Actually, Bya was trying to warn Ichigo that he could get pregnant. Renji is very happily with Tetsuya in this one. Sorry for the confusion.), Geecee (Oh heck yes! You will have a heaping helping of protective TopIchigo in this one. Bya's going to be a mess, and need lots of 'comforting!'), Shenigmatic (Awww, thanks so much! :) I'm having a great time with this one already.), Yomi Love Akisuma (You've got it! The chapters will keep rolling on!), Yaya (Yup, I will stay On Top of it!), TomyAllen (Yes, despite the early on sex, the relationship will be slowed by Byakuya's recovery. But, it will heat up to red hot eventually! Can't wait for that!), Yaoilifesnecessity (Yup, and more and more! :) Enjoy!), ctofi1 (I am so glad you love this one! :) Enjoy the new chapter!), Tderwes24 (Ah yes, there will explanations...eventually. But first, some very sweet hurt/comfort, Ichigo/Bya style!), MissLilly2012 (Bya's story will unravel slowly, but there will be lots of sparks between Ichigo and Bya very soon.), Yonaka Kyoki (Lovely, lovely poetry! Thanks so much! I hope you feel better soon!), and Clobojojo (lol, Just in time to save your sanity! Here's more, and more is coming along soon!), Enjoy all!)
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Why do I feel, not so much as though I am warm as that the icy cold has finally abated? I cannot remember what happened before. Only that I was cold, and in pain, and that another soul was with me, but did nothing to ease my suffering.
Yes.
He was the reason for my suffering.
But somehow, I escaped that dark presence that had coiled itself so tightly around me. I ran with all of my strength...ran, even until I could not stand. And then, I fell down onto icy, black sand and I waited to die.
But I am still alive.
I can feel my heart beating. I feel warmth on my skin. I feel the soft rise and fall of my breathing.
Yes, I am alive.
And there are other souls around mine now. Not dark souls, but rich, bright and loving ones. They talk to my senseless body as though I was someone dear to them. They wrap me in warmth and whisper encouragement into my ears. I feel their fingers touch my hands and caress my face and hair, and I want to cry. Why do they do this? Who am I to them? And if this is where I belong, why did I leave them?
Or did that dark soul steal me away?
And if he did take me from them, won't he just come back for me?
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"Michio-san," Rukia said softly, so as not to wake her sleeping brother, "What have you learned? Is Nii-sama going to be all right?"
The clan healer sighed and closed his eyes for a moment,, then looked back at the four who awaited his answer, the four who had steadfastly refused to leave Kuchiki Byakuya's side since he had reappeared.
"I cannot tell you exactly what has happened to him," he admitted quietly, "But, I can tell you that he has been under intense stress for an extended period of time. Judging from the signs I see, he must have been held in captivity for the time that he was missing. And while with his captors, he was treated with disregard and neglect."
"But," Renji said, a little breathlessly, "He's going to come out of it, and he'll be all right, ne?"
Michio met his gaze with troubled eyes.
"He is in very poor condition. Let me show you what I mean."
The four moved in close, watching closely as the healer gently opened Byakuya's yukata, and leaned over him.
"You see the general thinness of his body, and that he shows traces of past injuries," Michio said, pointing out the places as he referred to them, "They seem to have avoided striking his face, but you see the bruises and light markings on his arms and legs from past beatings. There are more on his chest and back as well. The marking that goes here, around his throat, is from a leather collar, most likely a reiatsu suppressing collar that held back his powers. You will notice that I placed a limiter on him. Although no reiatsu is flowing through his spirit centers, if his powers return suddenly, his spirit centers could be overwhelmed and damaged."
"Gomen nasai," Tetsuya said, frowning, "But, did you say that no reiatsu was flowing through his spirit centers? Even now that he is only under a limiter?"
"Hai," said the healer, "He has had some sort of physical episode that incapacitated them."
"What?" Ichigo gasped, staring, "Well, can you heal them?"
Michio sighed sadly.
"I cannot. And whether he regain his powers will depend on the type of episode or occurrence that incapacitated them."
"But, what could have caused that?" Ichigo asked, "Was this from the beatings?"
"No," said the healer, "Affecting all of the spirit centers would mean that either the core spirit center was breached and shut down intentionally, or something systemic, such as a heavy shock of some kind...an electrical or strong kido strike...or perhaps shock brought on by injury, or the miscarriage of a male pregnancy."
"What?" the four gasped together.
"Do you think that Nii-sama could have been...impregnated by his captors?" Rukia asked, her face paling.
"I will not show you, but I will tell you," the healer explained, "His body shows signs of repeated, violent sexual assaults. His wrists and ankles have friction markings from having been bound. There are signs of both defensive and entry wounds And I detected the presence of a fading reiatsu chamber within him, meaning that he was pregnant until recently, and that the child was lost."
"Oh my kami..." breathed Tetsuya, seeking Renji's hand, "You say that he was...?"
"Yes. I do not know how the child was lost...whether he miscarried naturally, or if it was the result of accident, illness or assault. It could have been any of those things."
"Okay," Renji said, bracing himself, "We can see that he's a mess. But...he will get better, right?"
"He will improve with rest and care," Michio assured them, "And I fully expect that, at some point, he will wake. But...I will have to assess him completely, once he is conscious and fully aware to formulate a full prognosis. It is, unfortunately, a time when we must wait and care for him as best we can. I have healed his physical injuries, and have started periodic reiatsu and feeding infusions to stabilize his systems. Once everything is in balance, he should wake."
"Well, that's good, anyway," said Ichigo.
"But," Tetsuya said, meeting Rukia, Renji and Ichigo's eyes solemnly, "It is not just his injuries that we must worry about. When I assessed the area in which he was found by Ichigo-san, the signs pointed very strongly to an escape. And if he escaped his captors, then they may come to reclaim him."
"What? You think they'd dare to come here?" Renji asked, looking surprised, "What makes you think that?"
Tetsuya lowered his eyes to gaze quietly at Byakuya as he went on.
"You all know that I was once incarcerated in the noble's prison, Itamigiri. It was shut down after Byakuya-sama's raid, but rumors have reached us on occasion, of other such illegal prisons. It could be something of that nature, or it could be something else entirely. Ichigo-san, tell me, once again, exactly what happened when you last saw Byakuya-sama."
"Well," Ichigo said, his mind fixing suddenly on their impromptu coupling on the deserted battlefield, "I, uh...I was lying on the ground where the rescue team eventually found me, and my wounds were bleeding badly. I was fading in and out, and I wondered out loud if Byakuya was still alive. That's when he spoke up. He asked me if I thought that he would lose a second time to that quincy, As Nodt. We talked a little, and he stopped the bleeding and healed me some. At some point, I faded out. And when I woke up again, Byakuya was gone. And everything, the haori that he'd covered us with, the pack he'd been carrying, everything was gone too."
"Are you sure?" asked Tetsuya, "I took my team out to the area, and our conclusion differed from that of the second division investigation team."
"Oh?"
"We found one item that carried a trace of his reiatsu. A sake bottle. Do you remember him having such an item in his possession at the time you were together?" Tetsuya asked.
Ichigo bit his lips gently, remembering.
Hmmm," Byakuya mused, sitting up again and looking through the pack he had been carrying, "I still have a few provisions...one of them a small bottle of sake. Renji's doing, I suppose."
"Heh, that could take the edge off so I can sleep," Ichigo agreed.
He watched quietly as Byakuya poured a measure of the sake into a small cup, then handed it to him. Ichigo flinched as he swallowed it, then accepted another serving. His senses dulled slightly, and he made a sound of surprise at seeing Byakuya swallow a cup of the sake, himself.
"You hurting too?" he laughed.
"A bit," the noble admitted, putting the bottle away and settling down at Ichigo's side again, "Now, try to rest."
"Yeah," Ichigo said, nodding, "He took a sake bottle out of the pack he was carrying. He gave it to me to dull my senses, so that I would be able to rest without hurting so much. I was hurting like hell."
"Then, that pretty much proves he was really there, right?" concluded Renji.
"It does," agreed Tetsuya, "And it told me something more. The sake bottle looked as though it had been dropped or kicked, perhaps accidentally, and had rolled away from where you were. It rolled under the edge of a jutting rock, and was missed by the second division team."
"Did you tell Kyouraku soutaichou?" asked Renji.
"I did," confirmed Tetsuya, "I told him also that the area had the feel of having been carefully 'cleaned' of what traces I would have expected to see when Ichigo-san was found."
"And what did he have to say about that?" asked Ichigo, "Sometimes the Gotei can be..."
"Kyouraku soutaichou said that he wished that he could follow up on it, but with the sporadic attacks going on at the time, he hadn't the manpower. And he was right in his thinking. The quincy war was devastating in the number of casualties. They really had their hands full, as Rukia-chan and Renji would likely agree."
"Right," Rukia and Renji affirmed.
"After the war, we did return to the site several times, and conducted searches meant to pick out a trail or direction Byakuya-sama's captors might have taken, who they might have been, or where they might have gone. All came back empty-handed. All we ever found that indicated he had been there, was that sake bottle."
"And you think that if his captors went to such an effort to hide that fact that they took him, they wouldn't be so quick to just let him go," posited Rukia, "They would come after him."
"It depends on why, for what purpose he was taken," explained Tetsuya, "It could have been a group of the scattered quincies, hoping to use him as a bargaining chip, to secure their safety, or to win concessions from Soul Society. It could have been a rogue group, but they wouldn't necessarily have been so careful in removing their traces. The quincies, at least, had reason for that."
"That makes sense," agreed Ichigo.
"Another possibility is that it was someone unrelated to the war, who took advantage of the situation and abducted him. Whoever it was, they kept him alive for an extended time. Now, he was beaten and sexually assaulted, but he was not killed. The only evidence we have beyond that of the beatings and assaults he suffered, are the signs of recent pregnancy. It is not clear if those were the unintentional result of the assaults, or if they were the point of the assaults."
"Huh? You mean, someone meant to get him pregnant?" Ichigo asked, looking alarmed.
"It is possible," Tetsuya said quietly.
"But, why would they do that?" Renji asked, frowning and looking back at Byakuya, "Why would someone take him and knock him up? Granted, they'd be cute and probably damned powerful babies, but..."
"They would be possible heirs to his leadership in the clan," concluded Tetsuya, "And that leads me to conclude that if he was taken with the intent of making a noble heir, then he would have been taken by either a rival clan, or a powerful enemy of the soul king."
"Did you investigate which clan might have been involved in something like that?" Rukia asked.
"I did," Tetsuya answered, nodding, "I could find no clear evidence of a clan planning or carrying out such a thing. But that does not mean that one of them didn't. It just means that, if they did, they did a good job of covering it up."
"So, if it's not a clan that did it," Ichigo mused, "Then, who would be considered 'an enemy of the soul king,' who would be powerful enough, not just to overpower Byakuya, but to hide him and keep him under those awful conditions for five years? Aizen is still in Central 46, and Juha Bach is gone for another thousand years, at least. "Do you think it could be someone who worked with one of them?"
"Possibly," Tetsuya agreed, "Or...it could possibly have been a spirit demon who crossed over into Hueco Mundo. That happens, from time to time."
"Man, it seems like there are so many damned questions to answer," Renji sighed, shaking his head, "And the guy with the answers is still out cold. We really need him to wake up."
"And we need to keep him safe until he does. I think that we should work in teams to look after him, never leaving him without at least one of us being here," suggested Tetsuya.
"He needs constant monitoring anyway," Michio added, "And I need to be informed immediately when he wakes, so that I can assess him fully and decide how best to assist him."
"We will work in groups of two, with one of the two resting in the attendant's recess, while the other is at Byakuya-sama's side. Renji and I will be one team, attendants Torio-san and Koji-san will be another, and Ichigo-san and Rukia-chan could be a third. That way, he will always have protectors, and all of us can stay rested as we watch over him."
"That sounds good to me," Ichigo said, nodding.
The others all added their agreements.
"Then, it is decided."
"Rukia and I are probably the best rested," said Ichigo, "So, why don't we take the first watch."
The others quickly agreed, and the watch was set.
"Now, let the house guards know immediately if you see, hear, or otherwise sense anything being 'off' tonight," Tetsuya warned them, "And watch out for each other."
"We will," Rukia and Ichigo promised.
The two watched as the others left, then Ichigo nodded in the direction of the attendant's recess.
"I'll take the first," he offered, "You go and get some rest over there."
"Are you sure?" Rukia asked, "Because I'm really not that tired..."
"Go on," Ichigo said, nudging her in the direction of the bed, "I've got this."
"Thanks, Ichigo," Rukia said, yawning and moving to stretch out in the servant's area bed.
Ichigo sat down at Byakuya's side, slipping a hand into the clan leader's and caressing his fingers gently as he studied Byakuya's troubled sleeping face, and the sad reminders of what he had endured.
"I'm sorry you suffered like that," he said, very softly, "You didn't deserve to be held against your will, or to be hurt that way. I wish that we could have found you sooner. You must have wondered if we had forgotten you. But...you should know that we didn't. We looked and looked for you. We tried...so hard to find you. But, we just couldn't. I'm sorry, Byakuya...really sorry."
Ichigo went quiet as Byakuya winced, then moaned softly.
"Hey," he whispered, squeezing the noble's hand gently, "I'm here with you. You're not alone, and you're not with those bastards who took you anymore. You're safe now, and you're going to be fine. Rest now, okay?"
"E-e...Emi...ko..." Byakuya moaned incoherently.
"What's that?"
Byakuya took a panting breath and shivered.
"Wh-where is...E...Emi...ko?"
"Where's who?" Ichigo asked, frowning and leaning over Byakuya, then touching his face.
Byakuya's eyelids fluttered fitfully, then his dark eyes opened and tried to fix on Ichigo's face.
"Emiko?" he whispered dazedly, lifting a trembling hand.
"No, it's me. It's Ichigo."
"Emiko?" Byakuya whispered, his voice fading into senselessness again, "Where are you, Emiko?"
"Ichigo?" said Rukia, sliding out of the bed and joining him at Byakuya's side, "Was he...talking?"
"Yeah," Ichigo confirmed, "A little. But, I don't know what he was talking about. He was looking at me, but he was calling for someone named Emiko."
"Emiko?" Rukia repeated, frowning, "I don't think he knows an Emiko."
"It may be someone that he knew wherever he was kept, or something."
"Maybe," Rukia said thoughtfully, "We should tell the healer in the morning."
"Are you sure it should wait?" Ichigo asked, "He was talking."
"It was in his sleep, right?" said Rukia, "And he's gone unconscious again. Look."
"Right," Ichigo said in a disappointed tone.
"Ichigo, it will be okay," Rukia assured him, "Nii-sama will wake up. And he'll be all right. I know he will."
"Right," Ichigo agreed, gazing intently down at the clan leader's face as a single tear broke free and rolled down Byakuya's cheek.
He waited as Rukia moved back to the attendant's recess, then leaned forward and wiped it away.
"It's okay," he whispered, "We're going to take good care of you. And we'll find the bastards who did this to you and make them pay, Byakuya. You have my word."
Emiko, he said.
Who is that?
