Prompters: SillyWQ and xTKx
Prompts: Various
Settings: Various
Dead tomorrow:
Aizen's sudden attack on the Seireitei had caught everyone off guard, but none more so then Ichigo. While the shinigami had been wary and ready for their former Fifth Division member to strike at any moment, the substitute had expected time to train. Time to prepare for a war that might end everything he'd ever known. Time to spend with the man he'd fallen in love with over the past few months.
But there was no time. There was no time, and there was no warning. Aizen swept his way through the half-asleep shinigami in the middle of the night, killing many and capturing few. Among those few were Ichigo and Toushiro themselves, both of them battered and bruised from the fights with the Arrancar they'd gone up against. The fights had been so exhausting that when the higher-ranking Espada came at them both, there was no chance for them to fight back and get away. That was how they found themselves in Hueco Mundo after being dragged, kicking and struggling, through a Garganta. Restraints and power limiters kept either from so much as flaring their Reiatsu, and Ichigo could only grit his teeth and watch as Aizen entered the room they'd been dumped in, an Arrancar with pink hair directly behind him. Moments later, when Grimmjow entered the room with Orihime held captive over one shoulder, Toushiro had to throw himself onto Ichigo to keep the substitute from doing anything rash.
But that all changes in the minutes that follow. Ichigo doesn't hear Aizen's terms; all he hears is Toushiro's surprised grunt as his legs give out beneath him and he crashed to his knees. The pink-haired Arrancar has a smirk on his face as Aizen continues to speak, but Ichigo can't understand the words. It's as if the former Shinigami is speaking another language while Toushiro begins to cough up blood, and Ichigo feels his heart stop. He can't do anything but watch with his hands tied like this, no matter how hard he tries to get free and get to Toushiro's side.
Ichigo isn't screaming, and neither is Toushiro. He doesn't scream. He doesn't cry out or groan in pain. He just curled in on himself, head on the white ground as he coughed, blood dripping from his mouth as he struggled to breathe through the pain. Ichigo can only watch and vaguely hear Orihime screaming before her words puncture his stupor. Lungs. Heart. The killing blow that had to stop or none of them would live to see tomorrow.
"Stop! Just stop it! I'll do what you want!"
"Kurosaki…don't…" Toushiro can't say anything more, too focused on ignoring the pain that had to be sweeping through him to do much more than try to breathe as Ichigo fisted his hands into his hakama and tried to swallow the bile in his throat. Even Grimmjow, holding Orihime back, had a look of disgust on his face as Aizen lazily waved a hand in Syazel's direction to make him stop, but Ichigo only had eyes for Toushiro, still coughing up blood even though the source of the damage had been stopped.
"…I'll do whatever you want. Just…leave him alone." With a smirk, Aizen turned and swept from the room with Syazel right behind him, leaving Orihime to run forward as soon as Grimmjow let her go, her fairies wreathing Toushiro in their light before Ichigo could lift his head to look the tiny captain in the eye. When he finally could, however, it was with more determination than anything.
"Don't even ask. You know I'd let the world die tomorrow before losing you."
Demon:
Things in Junrinan hadn't changed a bit since Toushiro left as a child, and he'd found some part of himself dreading the trip back even if it was to introduce Ichigo to his beloved Grandmother. Ichigo had interpreted the small tension in Toushiro's shoulders as nerves and had given the captain's small hand a squeeze, but even that comfort couldn't shield the shorter man from the scathing comments from the locals, and Ichigo narrowed his eyes as words like "demon" and "monster" made their way into his ears. He'd opened his mouth to say something back when a particularly nasal woman shrieked and made some kind of warding gesture, but the barely perceptible shake of Toushiro's head caused him to snort instead, walking in stony silence to the home his love had shared with his Grandmother.
That meeting went wonderfully, even by their standards, and Ichigo hadn't seen Toushiro as light-hearted as he'd been with his Grandmother in a very long time. After some incrediblely welcoming talks with Ichigo, she'd somehow managed to convince the substitute to stay the night, and he hadn't been able to refuse, especially knowing what awaited the snowy captain in his arms if they left the house. So they retired to bed not long after the old woman, but it wasn't long after she'd fallen asleep that Ichigo spoke up.
"Why didn't you tell me about those people?" Toushiro sighed against the futon, letting Ichigo pull him in closer before he spoke, voice quiet so as to not wake his Grandmother.
"…Because I was worried you might have believed them." Ichigo made a face, then sighed and shook his head, nestling his chin in the snow colored spikes below him with a smile taking the place of that grimace.
"Are you kidding? You're no demon, Toushiro. You're my dragon."
Project: It took months to complete, but the look on Toushiro's face as Ichigo finally handed him the hand-painted portrait of his adoptive family was worth every hair-tearing and teeth gnashing moment the substitute had gone through: for the first time since the fiasco that the final battle with Aizen had been, the icy Captain had finally smiled again.
First off, apologies for the delay. It's been a…rather hectic couple weeks and my writing drive died for a bit there. Hence, this thing. Also, a note to my readers: This is…something you may be seeing a lot of. I may have over 700 words/prompt sets to play off of, but not all of them will get written to full, 1000-plus word chapters. As I mentioned earlier, a good majority of them will end getting joined, such as "Explosion" which was prompted by SillyWQ, and "Bomb", which I had in my lists. Others will end up like this; in mini-drabbles or one-sentence fics that are just too short to stand alone.
All that aside, however, I do promise to get this to at least 100 chapters before I declare this story "complete" by FFN standards. :3 Because really, When is a story ever truly complete?
