Chapter 4: Vamped
Tetsuya emerged from the fog he'd been in and found himself lying on his back in Aizen and Gin's bed, with his slender wrists bound to a metal rail on the headboard. Although he found the situation alarming, he was comforted somewhat by the fact that his yukata seemed to be closed and tied, and he didn't feel anything that suggested he'd been sexually assaulted.
The sound of a running shower told him where his captors likely were and that his time alone was going to be limited.
He shivered, recalling the face he had seen upon awakening the last time.
I hadn't seen that man since I was a prisoner…that scientist who was going to use me in one of his experiments, but Orochi entered the room and yelled at him not to touch me. That scientist looked curious and asked what was so special about me. Orochi looked at him and just said, "He's mine." and he had another prisoner sent. I was so scared, and I know that even if the scientist didn't use me, in the end, he certainly used one of my fellow prisoners. So…if this was Aizen covering his face with an illusion, he was doing horrible things to innocent people. The scientists who came to Itamigiri, knew they didn't have to be kind or answer for their cruelty, so they gave us no quarter. They used us any way they wanted to, and just destroyed the dead bodies of the ones who didn't survive.
I wonder what kind of awful things he did in his experiments. I wonder if he killed any of us. Whatever the case, I can't stay here with such a man. I was stupid to think I could spy on him and get away with it. I have to get out of here.
Luckily for me, there are few bonds that can hold me, because even bound, I can redistribute the water content of my body to slip out of kido bonds. And even with, my powers held back, I can cause my body to become transparent like water. But I can't make any unattached, exterior waterforms. I might be able to slip out of the room, but there's a barrier I sense out there. I will have to find a way past that…
He focused inward, slowly rearranging the cells in his body so a thin layer of water came to the surface and allowed him to slip the bonds. He scrambled off the bed, then froze as he spotted Cherry-chan sitting in front of him, watching him closely.
"Oh…are you guarding me, Cherry-chan?" he asked, frowning.
The white fox's tail waved back and forth and she yipped and wiggled her ears at him.
He knelt in front of her, rubbing her ears and scratching her under the chin, making her whimper happily and thump a little back foot reflexively.
"How can I make you understand?" he whispered to her, "I don't dislike your master. He's been helpful in advising me how to handle myself with Aizen, but I have to get out if here. They'll hurt me, Cherry-chan! At least, Aizen will. You…understand he is dangerous, ne? Please, will you help me escape? I just need to get out to the desert. It's dark out and I can hide there."
He sighed softly.
If I can find a way to break the limiter on my powers…
He stepped past the fox and headed out onto the balcony, thinking carefully.
The limiter won't stop me from becoming nearly invisible, but if I am touched with direct light, I will be seen.
He let his body fade out and heard Cherry-chan give a yip of surprise. She followed his barely visible form out onto the balcony outside the room and tilted her head, watching as he tested the barrier for weaknesses.
What can I do?
I'll surely be found if I stay here.
He looked back at the fox, who sniffed the almost invisible form he was in and licked his hand.
"Any ideas?" he asked ruefully, "I really just want to go home, Cherry-chan. I'm sure my family is worried."
The fox whined and opened her mouth, wrapping it gently around Tetsuya's hand and pulling him to the barrier.
"What? But I can't…"
He made a sound of surprise as, with her guidance, he slipped through an opening she made. It was easy then to climb over the railing and slide down to where he could drop safely to the ground, and with night having fallen, he could keep to the shadows as he started to slink away.
Let's just hope I can find a way into the garganta…
He looked up at Cherry-chan, who gazed down at him from the balcony.
"Thank you!" he whispered gratefully.
He melted into the night, keeping close to the buildings of the fortress and watching the positions of the guards. A little bit of observation revealed an area where hollows seemed to slip in and out of a garganta. He worked his way in that direction, his heart quickening as he sensed Aizen's rising reiatsu back in the master suite.
He's aware I'm gone, but the fact that I'm still wearing the limiter means my radiating reiatsu is very low, so he won't sense me right away, and as long as I'm not in the direct light…
Tetsuya heard a little hissing sound in his mind and, at first, thought he could be reconnecting with his equine counterpart.
"Arashi?" he breathed softly.
Shhhhinigami, a voice that was clearly not his mount's whispered into his mind, sssee me yet?
A chill crept into the young man's insides.
What are you? he asked.
He felt something coming close to him, but could barely make out a thin outline in the darkness.
Sssomething elssse of the darknesss, Ssshinigami. Friendsss?
The chills on Tetsuya's flesh increased as he felt the light brushings of an almost vaporous form.
Oh no!
A hollow vamp?
Their voices can hypnotize, their saliva causes a strange euphoria and their bite brings on irreversible transformation!
He shivered and felt his body begin to go numb as a solidifying arm wrapped around his waist.
Sssleep, Ssshinigami.
Icy sweat broke out on his forehead and fluid concealing his own body leaked away, leaving him fully visible as the hollow vamp's eerily lovely, clouded form appeared in the corner of his visual range.
Sssweet!
A strange excitement overtook him and his quivering body calmed under the slender hands that caressed as the vamp ran her long, wet tongue along his throat and kissed the back of his shoulder. A little voice in the back of his mind flickered in and out, warning him that something was wrong, but his limbs were already frozen, and he couldn't resist turning his head slightly to look directly into the vamp's deep, abyssal eyes. He thought he might have heard some distant barking sounds, but was so far gone that he wasn't even sure where he had heard the sound before. The vamp's lips brushed on the wet skin her tongue had stroked and he sensed that something was about to happen as she bared her sharp, white fangs.
"Well, that won't do at all!" Gin's voice said disapprovingly, "Shoot to kill, Shinsou!"
Tetsuya felt the vamp's body jerk and heard a spine-tingling shriek in his reeling mind as he started to fall, then was swept up into someone's arms.
"Did she bite him?" Aizen's voice asked from behind Gin.
The silver-haired man laid Tetsuya down on the sand, and he examined the area closely, using his reiatsu to banish the remaining droplets of saliva on the young man's throat and shoulder.
"No, she just licked him a bit. She liked to play before feeding. Funny, though…"
"Hmm?"
"He's out of it, but she didn't get him aroused at all."
"Is that so?"
"What would you like me to do with him?" Gin asked.
The two men exchanged amused glances and Cherry-chan yipped and flicked her tail back and forth.
"You banished all of the saliva?"
"Yes."
Gin snickered.
"And he's getting aroused now."
"Is he?" Aizen answered, smirking, "Well, we should take him back inside. The effect will last for several hours, and if he is left under the influence without some…relief, he could actually go permanently insane."
"That has been known to happen," Gin agreed, "and we wouldn't want that."
"Not at all," Aizen said smoothly, "Come Gin."
Gin looked down into Tetsuya's glazed eyes and shook his head.
"Not a wise decision to go wandering, now was it?" he chided the young man.
Tetsuya's pale breast heaved and his mouth opened, revealing the beginnings of fangs.
"Oh dear, that looks dangerous, doesn't it?" he chuckled.
He carried Tetsuya back into the master suite and laid him on his back on the bed. Tetsuya gazed blindly up at the ceiling, moaning softly and shifting uncomfortably as his loins ached and throbbed hungrily. His voice took on an ethereal edge and his blue eyes glowed enchantingly.
"Are you quite sure he wasn't bitten?" Aizen asked, "This is a strong reaction."
The two observers made sounds of surprise as the glow began to radiate more strongly around Tetsuya's affected form, then misty tendrils reached out to tickle their senses.
"Oh, that's so naughty!" Gin giggled, "Poor Tetsu-chan would die of embarrassment if he realized how badly he's behaving."
"Unacceptable," Aizen agreed, "and while indulging might seem unethical, it's also not ethical to just let him go insane, now is it?"
The two were surprised all over again as the touch of the mist made their own reiatsu flicker and swell brightly around them. The amused smiles faded from their faces and they looked more closely at Tetsuya as he climbed onto his hands and knees on the bed, panting and shivering, and his eyes meeting theirs aggressively.
"Sousuke," Gin mused, "this isn't just vamp saliva."
"No," Aizen breathed, his own teeth baring in a chilling smile, "this is resonance."
"He's resonating with both of us?" Gin realized, "How very odd!"
"The threat of the vamp, the nearness of death that was about to thwart fate must have ignited it," Aizen suggested.
"I feel a bit dizzy."
"I do also. This feeling is…"
Aizen moved to the side of the bed, watching through hazy eyes as Tetsuya snapped at the tie at his waist, pulling it free with his teeth. The younger man's glowing blue eyes locked on his, and Aizen stared in fascination as he felt the hogyoku flicker approvingly.
I see.
This is…fate assisting us?
Why is that?
He let his yukata fall open and captured Tetsuya under the chin, guiding the younger man to his alert nether region, while Gin climbed onto the bed and took up a position behind Tetsuya.
Inside the three men's minds, the invading euphoria took over.
Gin dampened his fingers and moved closer to Tetsuya, capturing his attractively wiggling bottom and beginning a slow preparation. Aizen's foggy brown eyes glared hungrily down at the young man who pleasured him, as his fingers sank into the dancing waves of soft black hair and he wrapped his hand around the back of younger man's neck, encouraging his enthusiastic motions. Gin completed his preparations, then he curled an arm around Tetsuya, turning him and bringing the slighter shinigami down on top of him as he laid back on the bed. Aizen climbed onto the bed and moved in behind Tetsuya, holding the younger man's hips as Gin made his entry, then he joined slowly with the two.
It was then that the rapturous euphoria seemed to take over the three of them, causing a heavy flurry of heated undulations. Tetsuya's fingers clawed wildly at Gin's shoulders and chest and his feisty mouth savaged the silver-haired man's roughly. Trapped between the other two men's bodies, he writhed and panted feverishly as their movements brought swirls of fierce, barely controlled reiatsu swells that spun through the room, knocking things over and sending stray papers flying. Across the room from the enraptured men, Cherry-chan sat up, tilting her head as she watched for a moment, then trotted out onto the balcony to avoid the worst of the reiatsu storm.
Inside the room, the three entwined shinigamis continued their passionate movements, moaning loudly and thrashing uncontrollably as they climaxed violently together. Their completion sent a shock wave of energy that spun out of their collapsing bodies and tore through the room, shattering the glass windows and doors, and setting off the fortress alarms. Out on the balcony, Cherry-chan yelped and crouched in a corner, away from the flying glass. A frightened attendant and guard opened the door and looked in to see their leader and his silver-haired lover, entwined with the body of the prisoner they had seen brought in earlier. The two exchanged glances, noting that all involved were still breathing, then they shook their heads and closed the door again.
The frenetic sexual exchanges continued well into the night, ending only as the first light of dawn leaked into the room. After their final joining, the three fell into a deep sleep that lasted through most of the day. As his sleep lightened, Aizen felt the hidden hogyoku throb in his chest and three visions flared in his mind. The first was a repeat of the dream he had had before of the mounted fighter dressed in the livery of the Kuchiki family and wearing the mark of a healer, who fought the electrical hollow. The second was a memory of Aizen, himself, disguised as a scientist and leaning over the body of a black-haired, blue-eyed youth, who looked back at him with a terrified expression.
"He's mine!" a male voice said angrily.
The intruding prison guard shattered the bonds on the blue-eyed prisoner's wrists and pulled him to his feet. He shoved another young man in Aizen's direction.
"You can have that one."
The disguised Aizen looked at Orochi more closely.
"There is something strange about that young man. That's why I chose him. What is he to you?"
"I told you," Orochi spat furiously, "Tetsuya is mine."
The third vision that streamed in from the hogyoku was another distant memory from some years before.
He stepped out into the lovely gardens from the still bustling dining room, relieved to have a more quiet environment. His eyes turned to the sky to enjoy the sight of the moon and stars overhead, but he was distracted by the sounds of soft voices a short distance away. He invoked an illusion to hide himself and moved closer to find Byakuya standing in the gardens, a little away from the house, talking to a young man in a dark colored house guard's uniform.
"Did you pick up on anything I should know about?" Byakuya asked the young man.
A little jolt went through Aizen as the younger man's head turned slightly so that his face was lit by the moon.
Tetsuya…
"The Saito representatives didn't appear to be hiding anything," Tetsuya reported.
He paused, and his head tilted as he considered something more to add.
"Tetsuya?"
"It was my first time meeting Aizen taichou," he commented.
"And what was your impression?" Byakuya asked.
"It was strange," Tetsuya mused softly, "I feel like I've met him before. But that's impossible, right?"
Aizen's brown eyes opened and he glared at Tetsuya's blissfully naked and sleeping body that was curled comfortably into Gin's arms.
Why? he asked the hogyoku, Why did you keep this from me until now? I did meet Tetsuya in the prison and Orochi stole him away, but I also saw Tetsuya at Kuchiki manor…and that's when I learned that there was someone who shadows Byakuya much of the time. An unseen protector, who watches over him, and is only publicly referred to as "Byakuya's right hand." If Tetsuya is here, then he came on Byakuya's behalf.
His cover story was a lie.
He is here to spy on me and to take the information back to Byakuya.
I should kill him right here and now.
He glared icily at Tetsuya's bare back, considering how to end his life. It was then that he noticed Gin's eyes were open and watching him curiously. The silver-haired man's fingertips stroked Tetsuya's hair, and he breathed a soft incantation, loosing a kido spell to keep Tetsuya from waking.
"Well, those are deadly eyes, aren't they?" Gin mused, "Is something wrong?"
"Tetsuya is a spy for Byakuya."
Gin studied Tetsuya's comely face for a moment.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," Aizen affirmed, "I didn't place him before, but I saw him once at Kuchiki Manor. He's Byakuya's bodyguard and healer…the one they call his right hand. There is no reason that Tetsuya would be in Las Noches unless he was spying for Byakuya."
"That is disappointing," Gin sighed, "So, after all of that delicious, wild lovemaking, you're going to kill him? I suppose it's only to be expected, but he was a very sweet and tasty little vamp. You should do it quickly and just get it over with…or do you want me to?"
Aizen's gaze grew a shade deadlier. He drew back his bare hand, aiming at the sleeping shinigami's unprotected chest. But as he began to move, another vision flashed in his mind, freezing him in place.
He found himself wrapped from head to toe in heavy, restrictive bonds, his senses inhibited so that he couldn't even tell where he was. Waking to that was horrid enough, but the situation grew worse as he felt stings and stabbing pains in his body, then heard laughing and mocking voices.
"So, you wanna be king," a drunken male voice said, "How's this for my curtsy, your fucking majesty?"
A deeper pain tore through his core, and with the restrictive bonds, his regeneration occurred painfully slowly, which the men torturing him must have known it would.
"Animals!" he hissed, earning more laughter and another bout of attacks.
The men, he could sense, were keeping their distance and cutting through the slits in his bonds to injure him. He sighed inwardly, knowing that there was nothing to do, and he would heal eventually. After a time, the men went away, and he was left alone with the stinging of his wounds. It may have been a long time, even a day or more, but then he heard light, familiar footsteps approaching.
Tetsuya?
The locks released and some of his bonds fell away, and he found himself looking up into Tetsuya's gentle eyes.
"I am here to heal you," Tetsuya said, showing his healer's mark, "Please do not attack me."
He leaned closer, touching soft fingertips to one of the cuts on the imprisoned Aizen's body, and at the same time, leaned forward slightly so that the prisoner's hand could feel the round bump on his belly.
"Please trust me," Tetsuya said solemnly, "I am only here to heal you. I will watch over you, because once, when you could have killed me, you watched over me instead. Will you trust me?"
Aizen stiffened and stared at Tetusya, the vision still spinning in his mind and a heavy feeling of fate enthralling him.
"Sousuke," Gin said in a serious tone, "are you all right? Did something happen? I thought you were going to kill him."
But will killing him actually thwart the fate in which I am somehow defeated? Or, if I kill him and I am still captured, will I just face more torments and have less of a chance of escape. I suppose if the hogyoku is giving me this information, it suggests that I should not kill this man right now.
"No," Aizen answered, still staring down at Tetsuya, "I have a better use for him."
"Oh?"
"Yes. It seems that Tetsuya is not a normal shinigami, and something very odd has happened."
Gin gave him a crooked smile.
"What do you mean?" he asked curiously.
Aizen took his lover's hand and laid it on Tetsuya's soft, bare belly.
"Do you feel that?" he asked, smirking, "I believe that while the vamp's power was acting on all of us last night, we made a child."