Chapter Nine
Under the Knife
Ichigo had enjoyed both Hisagi and Renji's company. He missed Grimmjow, though, but he understood why he couldn't come home. Of course, he wasn't able to hear the details. He only knew he was working with Urahara to put an end to everything. Renji had said that his friends, like his family, were safe from Ronny. They had decided to stay in Grimmjow's apartment because keeping Ichigo away from the others was safer. Not only that, but he still wasn't in the best shape. His ribs had healed mostly, but he was still very sore.
The night had gone as usual. No surprises, they had dinner, something that Hisagi had thrown together from the grab bag of groceries an officer had brought earlier that day. Ichigo was getting better at eating, and it was a nice change for everyone involved. Renji and Ichigo had just sat down on the sofa to watch a movie when the doorbell rang. Hisagi had been about to text in for the hour, but he put down his phone and looked out the peephole. A hooded figure stood out there, but held up a shinigami badge to the door. Oh, Hisagi said to himself, seeing that it was his friend Izuru Kira. He hated getting his styled hair wet and it had been misting earlier that night.
"Yo, just a minute," he said, opening the door and grinning. "Please tell me you brought something besides ramen and frozen vegetables…"
The impact sent him backward nearly into the sofa Renji and Ichigo were sitting on. They both jumped to their feet and saw that Hisagi had been knocked completely out and a figure stood in the doorway. Ichigo grabbed Renji's arm because he recognized him all too well.
"Ronny," he breathed and felt Renji's arm tighten.
"Baby, why are they hidin' you from me?" he said, stepping into the room and grinning.
His features were even more drawn and sallow than they had been before. His eyes were hollow and bloodshot. Before he even got close, both Ichigo and Renji could smell stale alcohol and ammonia wafting from him.
Renji pushed Ichigo behind him and got between him and Aaroniero. "You need to leave," he said, swallowing the fear that was crawling up his throat. He was a fucking barista. He didn't fight, and this guy was fucking insane looking.
"No, you see, you have my Ichigo. He belongs to me. He's belonged to me from the day he was nine years old and I looked down into those beautiful eyes of his. I should have taken him then, but I still didn't understand how deep my need for him went…" he said, grinning and showing a mouth of pitted, dark teeth.
Renji jerked unconsciously backward, slamming Ichigo into the window. "The fuck, man, you getting off on a kid? You are one sick mother fucker. Bad enough he was fifteen when you went for him…"
"Oh yes, those beautiful eyes. Your eyes aren't bad, red," he said, stepping over the sofa and grabbing Renji's throat.
Ichigo slipped out from behind him and grabbed the lamp. "Ronny, stop, let him go!" he yelled before he threw the lamp at him.
Aaroniero turned and grinned at him. He gripped Renji's throat tighter and swung him around. He flipped him easily over himself and slammed him through the wood coffee table with a crash. Renji cried out in obvious pain before Aaroniero picked him up by the throat again, this time, pulling a scalpel from his coat pocket and sliding it over Renji's cheekbone. Renji grabbed him by the forearm but between the shock of being slammed through a wooden table and lack of air, he couldn't get a decent grip.
"I'll give you the choice, Ichigo, I'll take them," he said, pressing the tip of the scalpel at the corner of Renji's eye. "Or I take you."
Ichigo shook his head, "Leave him, please, just leave him."
"I'll take them from the red head, then from the other one, while you watch, and then I'll kill them. Or, you can come with me, and I'll leave them as they are," he said.
"I'll go, please, just don't hurt them, Ronny," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and trembling.
There was a crash and Ichigo looked up to see that Aaroniero had knocked Renji out with another lamp. He yanked out the cord and tied him up and drug him to one of the bedrooms. Then he came and grabbed the lamp Ichigo had thrown and pulled the cord from that one and bound up Hisagi, dragging him off to the other bedroom. He shut the doors and then came toward Ichigo and grabbed him by his arm in a painful grip.
"Now, you will come with me, it is time we finish things, my dear, sweet, brown eyed love," he whispered and Ichigo felt his blood freeze.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Luna was sitting at the table with the paper when the news caught her attention from the living room where Luppi was watching it.
"Authorities have declined to comment, but from what we understand a building owned by local businessman Sōsuke Aizen was involved in some sort of chemical assault and raid earlier tonight. Residents report waking up in the hospital and being released. They have been told there was a carbon monoxide leak in the building, but it doesn't seem to match up with what the witnesses are saying. Other residents saw black clad figures infiltrate the building from above and from ground level before ambulances started arriving to take people to the hospital…"
Luna frowned and grabbed her phone, dialing Urahara again. "Yes?" came the curt answer.
"I saw the news…have you gotten him?" she asked nervously.
"No, Luna, I am sorry, I'm sending a couple agents over to pick the three of you up right now. It is not safe for you there," he said, the line going dead.
Luna nodded. "Luppi, get an overnight bag for you and Tesla," she said, standing.
"Where are we going?" he asked, frowning as he stood up.
"Just on a little trip to see a friend," she said smiling fondly at him as she headed to her own room to collect a bag.
She sighed, stopping for a second to stare at the photo of her late husband. She wasn't sure exactly what they were running from, but she knew she had to keep Luppi and Tesla safe. A few moments later she came back out just as Luppi came out with a bag on each shoulder.
"Will we be gone long, Luna?" he asked, frowning. "I got that shoe modeling gig, and…"
Luna smiled, patting his head. "We'll make it. We're not leaving town."
She went to where Tesla sat on the chair and kneeled in front of him. "Sweetie," she said, and he looked up with his one eye at her. "We've got to leave the apartment for a while, are you going to be okay with it?"
Luppi nodded. "I'll go with you," he said clearly, surprising Luna. Luna smiled at him and nodded.
They waited a few more minutes until there was a knock at the door and Luna's phone buzzed in her hand. She had a very simple one, but she could still get text messages. It said that the agents should be there now. She opened the door to find two women, or one woman and one very beautiful man, she realized.
"Good evening," the first said, her hair short and cut to frame a very cherubish looking face and bright green. She wore a low cut blouse that showed off her busty figure and a pair of stretch pants. "I'm Mashiro, and we're going to take you to the safe house!" she said cheerily.
"And I'm Rose," the second figure said, his voice almost musical in quality. He had long, light brown hair that flowed down his back in soft waves. He wore a three piece business suit in blue pinstripes, in complete opposition to his flowing hair.
Luna nodded. "I'm Luna, and this is Luppi," she said pointing to the young man beside her. She glanced over at Tesla. "And Tesla is over there at the moment. Allow me to get him," she said, smiling.
Mashiro rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet and looked around at things while Rose stood at the doorway quietly.
After a few moments, Luna and her two wards were headed out of the complex. She paused and grabbed the master keys from the office, though. She was certain that the authorities would want in the apartment that had been Aaroniero's and Ichigo's. The trip was surprisingly short, but they pulled up in front of the Candy Shoppe. Everyone got out and Mashiro skipped along beside Luna as she took them down to the safe house below. Luna found herself smiling at the young woman, despite the situation. She was a breath of fresh air for her in this otherwise dreary, awful situation.
They came into the safe house and Mashiro showed them to one of the bedrooms. "Here you go, Miss Luna. We've got a few others here as well, Ichigo's old friends, so you can socialize as you like. Mister Kisuke wants to talk to you, though, after you get settled. I'll be up in the store with Mister Rose. Bye!" she said, grinning and waving enthusiastically as she skipped out of the room.
Luna got everything situated. The bedroom had two double beds, a television with cable and a DVD player, and two dressers. A couple closets were on one side, and she saw a door to the bathroom on the other one. What an interesting place, she thought. She smiled at Luppi.
"I'll be back, then I'll try and explain what's happened, when I know more," Luna said, patting Luppi on the back.
Luppi smiled and sat on the end of one of the beds and turned on the TV. Tesla had sat on the other and pulled all the covers up and around him as he watched everyone carefully. Luna came out and saw a young man with glasses and dark hair walking out of the room across from her.
"Excuse me, which way is Urahara's office?" she asked.
Uryuu stopped, not realizing that there were others coming to the safe house. "Uh, down and to the left, right near the door that you came in," he said, nodding curtly and heading back down the other way.
Luna followed the directions and found an open door that she could hear voices from the inside. One was Urahara's voice, but the others she didn't know. She knocked on the doorframe gently.
Urahara looked up from where he was standing with his back to the door. "Oh, Luna, come in." She came in and nodded. "I'll introduce you, Luna, this is Renji and Grimmjow, they were taking care of Ichigo. This is Hisagi, one of my agents that was stationed with Ichigo, and this is Yoruichi, my most trusted friend and associate, and this fellow with the white hair is Jushiro. Jushiro is the head of our trauma and abuse team." Luna shook hands politely with everyone and smiled back at them.
"This is Luna, she's the owner of the building that Ichigo was living at," he explained, nodding to them.
"We need to get in there," Grimmjow said, wringing his hands nervously. "We need to find him, Urahara. Fast."
Luna frowned. "Find him? What's happened?"
"Aaroniero broke into Grimmjow's apartment where we were keeping Ichigo. He knocked Renji and Hisagi out, and took Ichigo. We don't know where they are right now," Urahara explained. "I'm about to mobilize a team, and we'd like to ask your permission to enter the apartment."
Luna nodded, digging in her pocket and handing Urahara the master key. "I thought you might want to do that. Please, if it helps find that poor boy."
"Thank you," Urahara said with a smile. "I brought Yoruichi and Jushiro in to help with your boy, Tesla, as well as to be here when we bring in Ichigo. We have a full medical bay here, and we can't chance a hospital unless his condition is critical. So, I'll let you talk to these two, and I'll take Grimmjow and meet the team at your building. Thank you, Luna," he said, bowing out with Grimmjow right behind him.
Renji and Hisagi followed close behind. "I want to go," Renji said.
"You're not in any condition. We can handle this, I've got a full forensics team on their way as well as a couple other captains. Now, please, stay here, rest. Both of you," Urahara said in a tone that brokered no arguments from either.
He quickly led Grimmjow to his SUV and they arrived just as another SUV pulled up. Captain Shunsui Kyōraku from the drugs division and Captain Byakuya Kuchiki from the Homicide division stepped out followed by the forensics team. Shunsui, a man with messy brown hair down to his shoulders and a pink kimono as a jacket, was a very laid back individual, but was very good at his job. Byakuya, however, was in complete opposition. His black hair was neat as a pin, and he wore an immaculate suit with a tie all the time. Byakuya's specialty was serial killers, and he was also the profiler for the shinigami.
With them, they had brought the forensics team, which consisted of Nemu Kurosuchi, the dark haired daughter of Mayuri Kurosuchi. Captain Kurosuchi was waiting to be debriefed from his time undercover. The other two members of the team had also come, Rin Tsubokura, a small and nervous young man who specialized in DNA and genetics, and Akon, a tall thin looking man with dermal implants on his forehead to look like small horns. He wore his black hair short, and had a myriad of piercings and tattoos everywhere else. He was one of the best in the shinigami at evidence collection. He tended to catch things that others missed. He had also, for some reason, changed his name to be Akon, with no other name. He was definitely one of the more unusual figures the shinigami hosted.
Urahara came up and nodded at them. "Everyone, we have a missing person. We need to not only preserve evidence, but we need to find anything that could lead us to this man's whereabouts and his victim. We are on the clock, so we want this fast, but do not sacrifice accuracy for speed. Do this right the first time. It may be the only chance we have."
With that he led everyone up to the apartment. Before he unlocked it, Rin took shoe covers and gloves out of his case and handed them out. Once everyone was ready, Urahara unlocked the door and hit the light.
What surprised everyone was how normal and nice it looked, except Byakuya. Walking into the home of serial killer, people who didn't deal with them often expected some sort of indication right away. There usually wasn't. The place was a very nice one bedroom apartment. Inside the door, it opened to the left with a wide living room. There were plenty of gadgets on the shelves, a big TV, and game systems. The furniture was pristine and pearl white. To the left, the dining room sat with a large formal setting and the door into a neat kitchen. Everything was in its place, and it almost seemed too neat.
"This place has been scrubbed?" Rin asked curiously as he looked around.
Urahara shook his head. "No, this was how it had to be all the time," he said, already getting into the headspace of Ichigo. He tended to empathize and view scenes from the victim's point of view.
He walked into the kitchen, dragging a hand over the counter, closing his eyes for a second. "Ronny is an abuser. He uses the cleanliness of the apartment to retain control of him. Things have to be just right. He's very particular."
Urahara opened the cabinet to see impeccably organized and labeled shelves. Every shelf had a label showing what was supposed to be placed on it. Rin followed, snapping evidence pictures as they went. In the sink there was a single plate and fork, the plate broken.
"Ronny was angry that he wasn't here to do his chores. That's why he left and didn't return. Without him here, this place wasn't complete," Urahara said.
Slowly, they went through the entire apartment, finding much the same things throughout. Rin had taken samples from all the drains in case something had been poured down them. Inside the toilet tank reservoir, they found a bag of crystal meth hidden with a pipe and lighter. It was nearly empty. The last place was the bedroom, and they hoped they would find anything that might tell them where he'd gone.
As they began going over the room, Urahara went in the closet to see if there was anything as Nemu hit the lights after spraying with the luminol and pulling out the UV.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he heard Akon mutter, which was odd, because Akon rarely spoke when on a scene.
Urahara turned around and blinked. "Photograph it all. Strip the bed down to the mattress. Check the walls in the other rooms with the luminol."
Urahara was sick. He had never seen a room light up so much…granted, some of it was seminal fluid, and some could have been a reaction to bleach. Still, the amount was more than he wanted to see. Grimmjow was standing in the corner just staring. After almost three hours, the entire apartment had been gone through, samples taken from almost every room, and every nook and cranny searched. They had found nothing out of place, which of course was in itself unusual.
"He's the Eye Thief. He removes the eyes and takes them as trophies," Byakuya said, standing in the center of the apartment and turning in a slow circle. "He kept Ichigo here, meaning he would have kept his trophies here."
Urahara nodded, frowning himself. It wouldn't make sense for him to keep the trophies elsewhere. Everything was too perfect. Only the broken plate in the sink indicated disorder. Akon was wandering back and forth through the rooms when he stopped and looked up. The ceiling was lowered and had the tiles that could be popped out.
"One of the tiles," he muttered. "That's the only place."
About fifteen minutes of checking every tile led them to frustration. Finally, though, they heard Byakuya from the bedroom. "In here, the closet. Bring me an evidence box."
Urahara grabbed one and folded it together and went in, telling the others to stay out of there. After about fifteen minutes Urahara came out looking rather pale, and Byakuya walked behind him looking stoic as usual. He grabbed the lid and put it on the box. "We need to take this to the Serietei and see if this helps us. We've got jars of eyes, a journal, a photo album, and a scrapbook, along with a few other things. I want to take it to a clean room, however."
Everyone agreed, even though Grimmjow grumbled that he wanted to look at it now, not later. He had to admit, getting the evidence checked in and labeled was important. After what seemed like forever, when it was only an hour, Urahara came out and told Grimmjow he could come back as they looked at what they'd found. The forensics team had already taken swabs, scrapings, and samples of everything.
On the table were all the things they'd brought back from the apartment. Grimmjow grimaced because there were twenty three jars of liquid, most likely formaldehyde, sealed and with each one wrapped with different colored ribbons. Inside each jar was a pair of eyes, except one, which only had one eye in it. Each jar was meticulously labeled with a date, the name of the victim, and a list of properties of the eyes. Each one listed the color, smell, weight, size, and disturbingly enough, taste. Grimmjow shivered.
"This level of organization isn't unusual for serial killers," Byakuya said from where he was standing to the side making notes on a clipboard.
Urahara sighed and handed a photo album to Grimmjow. "I have to warn you, are you sure you want to look at this stuff? It gets very disturbing. Technically, the only reason you're here is you're one of my agents. I should order you to leave."
Grimmjow swallowed. "No, I need to know. I have to find out what's going on with this guy and make some sense out of this."
Urahara nodded and sat down beside him.
First was the photo album. Every picture had the faces scratched out. They were obviously very old photos of what looked like a rich family. As Grimmjow thumbed through it, there were notes, about the people, it seemed, all in ink pen, most likely Aaroniero. There was a family tree toward the end, and Grimmjow frowned.
"Am I looking at a royal family tree, because this fucking family tree is twisted as fuck…cousins marrying cousins, aunts marrying nephews, uncles marrying nieces, what the hell?" Grimmjow muttered.
Urahara handed him perhaps the creepiest scrapbook ever next. There were some photos in it, mostly of what Grimmjow recognized as Ichigo's eyes. They were enlarged and cut out and pasted into it. There were magazine pages with eyes cut out, and several pages of disturbing drawings of eyes. There were also pages where it looked like he'd drawn very technical drawings of eyes, as though he were some sort of eye doctor. Grimmjow shook his head and picked up the leather bound journal.
"Listen to this," Grimmjow said after a few moments. Both Urahara and Byakuya looked up from their own perusing of the other books to listen.
"He told me to take the eyes, so he could see. I don't want to listen to him, but he's always there, in my head, and he says he needs eyes to see by. I don't want to take my baby's eyes. But he wants me to find him so he can have them," Grimmjow said, grimacing as he spoke. "Later on," he said. "Kaien, his name is Kaien, and I have to get him those pretty eyes. He's everything I am not, and I will make him part of me. Kaien will be happy from now on, I just know it, if I can get him those eyes. Then he won't want me to take my baby's eyes." Grimmjow flipped a few pages. "The bastard has my baby! Not only am I going to take his eyes, I'm taking everything he is, and I'm going to have what I want. Now, if he'd shut up and let me sleep."
"He hears a voice," Byakuya noted. "Schizophrenia, perhaps. No surprise looking at the family tree in this book. His parents were cousins, and so were their parents before them. Mental health problems are exacerbated by inbreeding in families. I haven't seen one this bad in a long time."
Grimmjow shook his head and put it down. "How does this help us find Ichigo?" he was getting frustrated. He wanted to go look for him. He wanted to do it now.
"Grimmjow, there may be something in one of these things, a picture, a reference to a place, we can't just go blindly searching everywhere, it will waste more time than we have. The answer is here. We just have to find it," Urahara said with a soft smile. "You don't have to help us, you can go back to the safe house…" he began.
"Fuck you, Urahara. I'm not leaving, I'm going to find that bastard and if he's hurt Ichigo again, I'm going to probably kill him," Grimmjow growled, sitting back in the chair to read every single insanity filled page in this psychotic bastard's journal.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Ichigo was scared, more than ever before. As soon as they'd left Grimmjow's building, Ronny had tied his hands behind his back and then put a blindfold and gag on him before shoving him into the backseat of his car. They drove a long time; Ichigo wasn't sure how long, but he couldn't help but feel tears well now and then. The silence was worse than if Ronny had started screaming and yelling like he usually did when he was angry.
Finally they stopped and Ichigo felt him yank him forcefully out of the back seat and pull him along after him. The air here smelled bad, really bad, and he kept tripping on something hard. Broken concrete perhaps… Finally he felt Ronny untying his hands, but his relief was short lived as he felt cold metal and a snap of a handcuff on his wrist. He yanked his arm over and heard the other snap.
Ronny pulled off the blindfold and the gag and smiled at him. Ichigo blinked at the sudden light exposure and he saw that he was in some sort of warehouse. The room reeked of something Ichigo couldn't identify. There was a dingy cot beside him and a single chair in front of him. Ronny pulled the chair around and had him sit down. Ichigo glanced up and saw that his wrist was chained to a steel pole in the center of the room. There was about six feet of chain between the two pair of handcuffs that connected the chain. There was a blue portapotty sitting within range of that length of chain, as was the cot. He meant for him to stay here, like this…
"Baby, baby, beautiful baby," he said, kneeling down and holding Ichigo's face and smiling at him. "I have never been so scared as when they took you away, I didn't know how much I'd miss you, baby."
Ichigo didn't know what to make of this. He was being kind and gentle. "I'm sorry, I should have protected you better. But I've gotta plan. Don't worry. No one's ever gonna take us apart again, this time, there's no doubt. I'm gonna make sure you're with me forever," he said, grinning, his fetid breath nearly making Ichigo gag. His eyes were watering from the smell.
"Yes, I had to make a new collection, cuz I couldn't go back home if you weren't there, see?" he said, gesturing to a table where there were about thirty jars of liquid with sets of eyes bobbing in them. "I couldn't label 'em right, and I don't like the quality of most of 'em, but they're better than nothing, he shut up once I got more eyes, and that's good, I don't want him bothering us, you know," he said, leaning forward and kissing Ichigo's cheek.
"Wh-what are you planning?" Ichigo stammered, blinking owlishly at him.
"They're gonna keep pulling us apart, we gotta…gotta be one you know, and then he'll shut up too, and quit…quit tellin' me what to do," Ronny said, his eyes wide and completely dilated.
Ichigo licked his lips nervously. "I don't understand."
"See," he said, leaning forward and caressing Ichigo's eyelids. "See, I can't lose my best prize, and we can't…we can't live like this…so I been practicing. I'm gonna take these pretty eyes of yours, and then I'm going to take mine. I'll put them together in a pretty little glass bottle. Then we'll never be apart again. The eyes, the eyes, they aren't the window to the soul, he says…he says they are the soul. That's why…why I gotta put them together. I gotta merge our souls. Then, it doesn't matter what happens to our bodies. Gonna take them and we'll dive off the building together, and once these…these bodies they're dead, then our souls live on forever, baby! My prize, precious, lovely, eyes, souls together…always…" he said, grinning broadly.
Ichigo stared at him for a moment before he started to panic. He was really going to kill them both. He was going to do it.
Suddenly, his face changed and he slapped Ichigo hard enough to send him sprawling out of the chair to the floor. "Your fault, you little fucking brat. If you'd listened to me, this wouldn't have happened. No, you gotta be this way," he said, reaching down and grabbing Ichigo by the hair and pulling him to his feet. He grinned at him, face changing to incredible softeness and his hand that was wrapped in his hair began to caress his head instead. "So before I make our souls one, let's partake of our early pleasures again," he said, pressing his mouth against him.
Ichigo tried to push him away, but instead he found himself flung to the floor. He screamed and then Ronny's face changed again and he punched him square in the mouth, sending blood flying. "Stop, I don't need you alive to fuck you," he growled at him and Ichigo froze. "One last ride, baby," he said he fumbled with Ichigo's clothes.
There was no one to hear Ichigo's pleas. No one at all.
