Greed: Too lazy to do an actual A/N. Just read the damned story. (also too lazy to proofread. I really should get a beta. Haha)
Chapter 9… Points
Ichigo's Point of View: this starts off where he is sitting in the floor right before Shinji finds him.
…
I looked down at my hands resting on the floor. My nails were black. Just like Shiro's nails. What the hell was happening? This wasn't supposed to happen! Nothing was going how it was meant to. Though, I never really had plans for my future, this was not how I would have pictured it.
My little problem was easy to hide, fortunately. It wasn't like my hair was turning starch white. Shit. Actually, I hadn't really looked at my hair lately. Someone would have said something, though. Surely.
It didn't help that Shiro was feeding my negative emotions. I wasn't stupid. I knew he was just trying to throw me off my game. Whispering into the recesses of my mind. Haunting even my dreams. And I couldn't escape him. He was in my mind! HE WAS ME! And there was no getting away from that.
I wrenched my hand through my hair as I sat on the floor.
"What's the matter, strawberry-head?" a familiar voice asked.
My head jerked up to hide my black nails from Shinji. He hadn't seen them, had he? No, he hadn't. His face was full of concern. If he had seen my hand he would have been more confused.
"What's that matter? This whole situation is what's wrong!" I raged. I looked down, trying to hide my sudden irritation. My expression was probably not a pretty one. "My family is god knows where, the people I have trusted for over three years have suddenly turned on me, and I'm struggling to maintain any semblance of sanity! I work well when I have something to hit or slash at, but this! This is not something I ever thought I would have to be put through."
The blond man sighed. "Listen, I went through this. Maybe not in the same way, but I did. All of us did, Ichigo. We want to help you just as much as we want to help ourselves. You just need to have a little faith in us. That may be hard to ask right now, but we're really the only ones that can help. Well, there is Urahara, but we have no idea where he is."
"Just shut up, Shinji. I know all of this. I'm working through all of this! But this is something I do not know how to deal with." Suddenly, the usually cheerful man was serious and he had be pushed up against the wall by my neck. "What are you—" I stopped. My voice wasn't just my voice. It was my hollow's voice. It was our voice.
"Kid, you need to calm the fuck down. This isn't healthy. And isn't that bracelet supposed to suppress your hollow? It doesn't seem to be working very well."
Not working well? Oh, was that the fucking understatement of the century. It seemed to be making it easier for my hollow to pop up whenever he felt the need. "I don't know what's happening!" I shouted at the man holding me to the wall. There was nothing sad within my voice. It was pure anger that colored my words. "I just… I want this all to end!"
"Be careful what you wish for kid," stated a gruff voice from down the hall. Love stepped around the corner. "Shinji, we have problems. I caught sight of two shinigami weaving their way through some buildings. It looks like they're observing, but I don't know how long that will last. We need to move again."
"What!" Shinji yelled, letting me loose to fall to the floor. "Dammit! How did they find us so fast?"
"I'm not sure, but we need to get ready to fight. There is no way we can get away this time without a confrontation," Love advised. "Ichigo, I suggest you get your friends and let them protect you. And don't fight if you don't have to! You've opened your wound too many times for comfort. Hachi won't be happy with you if it happens again."
I glared at the black man, but did as he suggested. "I'll meet with you guys later then."
…
Renji and Rukia were watching the perimeter around us as we moved forward through infiltrated space. Twice, we had happened upon shinigami with their backs to us.
There was a part of me that just wanted to run the wretches through with my sword. That part wasn't really me. It was Shiro. I knew his influence was working more and more lately. The more frustrated I was, the more he came out.
Renji gave the signal that the coast was clear after rounding a corner. Rukia followed the pineapple head then I came out of the alley after her. And then it took all of two seconds for all hell to break loose.
Yumichika jumped out of nowhere to attack Rukia while Ikkaku went for Renji. I was about to help my two friends when I was broadsided by a truck. Alright, it wasn't a truck, but it sure as hell felt like one.
I shook my head and tried to climb to my feet. Kenpachi was towering over me as I attempted to catch my bearings. Yachiru was over his left shoulder. "Hi, Berry-tan! Kenny missed you lots! He wanted to fight you, because everyone else was too weak!"
"Yachiru, quiet down," Kenpachi grumbled at the small girl. "I suggest you get to a place further away so you can watch better."
"Okay, Kenny!" The pink haired terror jumped off the lumbering man's shoulder and basically flew off.
"Kurosaki, you aren't looking so good." The man's smile stretched impossibly wide as he looked down at me. I had finally gotten to my feet, but it really didn't make that big of a difference it seemed. Kenpachi was just that damned tall.
I didn't speak. I just attacked. There was no need for words when everyone knew it would all come down to a battle.
Zangetsu clashed with the Captain's nameless and rugged sword. Sparks flew as we fought to push the other back. A wicked grin fixed itself in seemingly permanent fashion upon my opponent's face. Zaraki was indeed enjoying himself. I was just desperate to beat him back. I wasn't the only one to get stronger in the two years we hadn't seen each other. The 11th division captain was fighting on level with me. Even with his eye patch in place. And I couldn't hollowfy.
I could go into bankai, however.
"Ban—"
And before I could even finish the word, Kenpachi found a way to slice through my left shoulder. My sword went slashing in retaliation. There was no thought, only action. The edge of my cleaver caught the brute on the back of his leg. He didn't flinch, just as I hadn't. However, he did turn and grin insanely at me. Funny thing is, I could feel my face do the same. And it wasn't because I was enjoying myself. Shiro was the cause. He was the cause of me holding the same expression as the battle loving shinigami that I fought.
"Never seen that look on yer face, Kurosaki. Never seen yer eyes black either, though. That yer hollow?" Kenpachi asked.
"That's none of your business, Kenpachi. I thought you were one for fighting, not talking."
The giant captain shrugged his broad shoulders. His sword was out to his side in a careless fashion. I took the obvious opening, but he was expecting that. "Even I have a curious side, boy," he said, emphasizing the last word.
I suppose he was trying to make me angry. It wasn't really working. I was already angry. Angry at myself, the shinigami, the Vizards, and whoever else I could think of. The only thing I wasn't angry at was my family. They were innocents in all of this bullshit. Everything could have been avoided if I had just not used my hollow. If Old man Yamamoto had just let my 'affliction' slide past his notice. I had always been loyal to Soul Society!
"Getsuga Tenshou!" I screamed out my frustrations. There was a slight distortion to my voice. Shiro was getting in my way again and I couldn't even tell. Well, I knew a way to shut him up.
Shiro caught that thought. "King! Don't ya do it! No! I will not be stuffed back into yer mind!"
I did it. I hollowfied.
Shiro screamed within my mind and I echoed him in the real world. But only for a second. When my hands rose to cover my ears, I forced them up to my mask and ripped it off. The bracelet had forced Shiro further back into my mind, causing his influences over me to follow him. I was free from his manipulations for a while longer.
When I looked back to Kenpachi it was with normal eyes. I rotated my head on my shoulders to try and get rid of the lingering echo of pain. "Sorry, Kenpachi. I had to get rid of an unwanted interruption."
The hulking man laughed. "It wouldn't have mattered to me if he had kept interruptin'. I would have been fighting you either way. Just a different you." Then he attacked once again.
I moved and noticed that I had less pain from my stomach wound and the slash on my shoulder. Apparently, the brief moment I hollowfied had healed me to an extent. But that split second of nauseating pain had cost me. I couldn't see well. Everything was blurry. And Kenpachi's blade hit my left leg. Not deep, but damaging all the same. A long gash of red blossom from my skin and soaked my pants.
As our swords clashed, I caught myself falling into thought as I let my reflexes and instincts fight off the monster attaching me.
I just wanted to stop. To stop fighting for those that couldn't fight for themselves. Let them become the strong ones for once. Let others protect them. Stop fighting for people that thought I was disposable. A hindrance. Something to be captured, studied, and then killed. It still didn't make any sense to me why things had ended up like this. This farce made every other mission I had ever gone on seem easy.
You know what could make this easy? I could kill every single one of these idiots that dared to turn on me!
No. that wasn't right. They were just following orders. Stupid, fucked up orders.
But, none of his real friends were here. Surely it was alright to carve up that petite girl with the stinging zanpakuto. And slice down that grinning, made-up man that put this ringing-painful-annoying devise upon my wrist. Oh, and the one that lusted after blood! He was going to kill us! Certainly self-defense was a conceivable reason to kill him. He had already injured us beyond easy repair.
Us. Why was I saying us? And why was I thinking about killing them? It wasn't an easy thing to do. To kill.
Shirosaki's influence was more encompassing than I had first thought. It had thoroughly poisoned every cell within my brain.
A particularly painful slash from Kenpachi stopped my tirade of thoughts. Kenpachi and I were about equal in terms of number of wounds. Sometime during the fray, his eye patch was either taken or torn off. And yet, I had barely started. I had let myself fight merely by going off of experience.
I moved quickly. Going for Kenpachi's throat. I had to end this. I had to get away. What was one death if it meant getting away? That was justifiable, wasn't it?
Not even two inches from the hollow of his throat and I was stopped by a pure white blade. Ice danced from where Zangestu was connect to Sode no Shirayuki. Her ice slide over his blackness. "You can't kill him Ichigo! It'll only incriminate you further!"
"And just what do you expect me to do!" I shouted at her frantically. "Give myself up? Let myself get experimented on day in and day out by Mayuri? And then I'll just eventually be killed off because I'll become too useless to even move." By the end of my speech my voice was desperate. I could not live like that. Hell, I couldn't live like this. I was made to protect the people around me. Not to run and protect myself. Not to run from those I thought were there for me. I didn't want to be murdered by those that I had put my trust into.
"No, no. Of course I don't want you to give yourself up, Ichigo. But, there has to be somethi—"
She stopped talking. Her eyes widened.
"I've had enough of yer mouth, midget."
…
Vanity: Cliffhanger. Yes, we went there. I'm sure you can guess what's happened, though. It isn't that hard.
Greed: Yup. So, review. Or Rukia dies. We could just let her off with severe injuries. It's up to you!
