Well I have discovered a new way to get your review count up, fuck up the reupload of a chapter, everyone will let you know. Sorry folks and thanks to those who pointed out that i had uploaded a chapter from a different fic.
You could call it a shameless plug for said other fic weight of the world -)
Here is chapter 11 of silence, i promise, i think.
Chapter 11
Isshin came back the next day after I told him about Ichigo's out of body experience. At first I thought I was kidding myself, but the older man didn't even blink, no doubt on his face whatsoever. He did comment that Ichigo wouldn't be able to do it for long, or ever often as it would tax him too much but in theory it was very possible, and the fact he'd been wearing the same stuff but looked different showed it wasn't just me being hopeful.
Trying to keep yourself positive while not getting your hopes up too far is a hard balance. Outwardly I showed nothing but confidence that he'd be back, mainly for my families sake but also to get me up every day.
Isshin had camped out in our living room for a few nights, in case Ichigo got back in contact and during the day he was drawing circles on a map, trying to determine how far Ichigo could project himself. It was all dependent on the link to the other, how easily they spoke and all that as well as how tired he was and a few other things. He did mention there were a few side effects to it, the mildest being a nose bleed ranging to a brain haemorrhage if he pushed too far.
Night times became a ritual of me sitting up, waiting for him, closing my eyes and thinking at him. I had no idea what I was doing but I wondered if he could "pick me up" if I was broadcasting loud enough. Anything to help him get in contact again I figured was a good idea. The fact that no one knew the stupid things I was trying helped, I had no fear of ridicule.
Day 24 was just coming to an end, three days since he appeared and I was sitting cross legged on my bed thinking of him, focusing on his goofier moments. I had had a bit of a downer that day and was trying to lighten my mood. Remembering him messing with Nel and Kiorra that day he told me about telekinesis, or on the Friday before the week holiday when he pulled me in for a kiss in front of everyone. That led me to remembering that night, where I'd gone down on him after promising my mum we'd behave.
"What is it with you and thinking about me naked? Honestly it's like that's the only thing on your mind!"
My eyes snapped open and he was sitting at the end of my bed; slightly see through this time, I could see my wardrobe vaguely. He had a tired looking smile on his face, still dressed the same, like he hadn't moved since the last time. I leaned in automatically reaching for him when he shook his head, holding his hands away from mine.
"You know it doesn't work like that. This is the best I can do at the moment. How are you?"
"Seriously, you're kidnapped by your psycho uncle and you are asking me how I am?!"
"Well we know I'm fucked and my time is short so I thought we'd skip the obvious. You are looking a bit shit to be honest."
Cheeky shite. "Well excuse me for being worried about you. Yeah things are hell here, your dad is downstairs right now, I'll have to go and get him."
"I might not be here, kinda locked on to you, not your room and if you move I don't know what will happen." His image flickered for a moment, getting even paler.
"No need, I heard him shout at you. Hello Ichigo." Isshin approached the bed, walking quiet as a cat; I hadn't even heard him come in the door.
Ichigo twisted himself round, looking at the man he'd forgotten. He turned back to me, eyes trained to the bed cover to hide his emotions. "If you can find me can you please hurry up? He's trying to find a way to get us out of the country even with the alert out on me. At the moment I think the best option is mailing me in a box. Don't fancy it much to be honest. We moved again and this time it's harder to get here so I'm assuming we're further away."
"Son, can you tell us anything about your location, how he's moving you, what vehicle, even what side of the house the sun comes up on."
"I don't know. It's a house this time, I'm in a bedroom upstairs but the windows are blocked by something. Last time it was a shop that was stripped bare, smelled like coffee so I think it had been a café. I'm usually out cold for the move, he can turn me off like a light if he can get his hands round my head so I don't know what kind of vehicle he's using but we seem to bring stuff with us so it could be a van I suppose."
"Ichigo you have to stop now."
I looked at him, not believing he was going to cut the time short when I really looked at my boyfriend, seeing the trail of pale red fluid trickling down from his near see through nose. "Ichi, you need to not push yourself too far, your dad says you can get hurt. We'll find you."
He looked up at me, and I could see my want to hold him was mutual; he was even leaning towards me slightly. "Ichi, I love you." His eyes widened for a second, before he smiled sweetly, dropping his eyes down again as his image faded from the room. I took a couple of deep breaths, forcing down the emotions that would be the downfall of me.
Isshin left the room without a word, making me wonder if he had emotions to deal with as well, like the fact his long lost kid basically ignored any sort of relationship they had. I followed him downstairs, watching him get his map out.
"Right kid, can you fire up your computer and start looking for cafés that closed recently and houses that have been repossessed or are up for sale empty. If the family are just away and he's squatting we're in trouble but I reckon he'll be picking untraceable places."
I booted my laptop up and opened two tabs on Chrome before searching for them. The café was easy enough to trace, given a limited area. Gina's was a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and it gave us a radius to peg possible locations for this house they are in. outside of a quarter mile but not too far. Unfortunately it was a large residential area but not totally unworkable with enough help.
After ten minutes of arguing we had a workable plan, dead simple: get man power and work the area from the house out to the half mile point. Man power was easy enough, hampered slightly by the hour being so late but my friends were only a call away and even Halibel showed up in trainers, showing she was willing to pound the pavement to help. Mr Urahara brought a couple of reinforcements, namely his partner Ms Shinhoin and his friend Tessai, a large dark skinned man with corn rows in his hair and a large moustache on his face. He seemed to be a nice guy though and it wouldn't hurt to have some more muscle on the team. Nothing I could say would convince my mum to stay home though, but it was amusing to have the argument with her only for her to turn to Lukas and basically repeat what I'd said. The smart mouthed preteen just parroted her responses with a smirk to his face. Lukas was only 11 but had passed five foot five the previous year, still thin as a reed like I had been. He would fill out eventually just like me and his hair was blue just like mine, just a shade or so darker. And it looked like he was getting my smart ass mouth too.
So we set out, my aunt sticking with my mum and brother, my friends staying with their partner while I was teamed with Isshin. Standing at my house, each group having a spoke to try and follow out to the half mile wheel, I felt the urge to head slightly to the left of mine, and I obeyed, not willing to repress my gut feeling. Isshin was silently following me, letting my knowledge of the area guide me through the streets. Checking all of the houses by a quick glance at the windows took a few seconds but the signs of habitation were easy to spot and move on from. Regular updates came through on my phone, just distance markers from the various groups and no news. After the quarter mile mark Urahara sent a possible location and we waited to hear from them as other groups checked in with negatives. Nnoitra and Halibel had hit the half mile in their direction and were heading back towards the house via a different route, one that would head our way to check the outside of the wheel. In a way it was very tedious and repetitive, check house, move on tracking distance, check in; and repeat. Urahara came back with a negative, empty house with no sign of anyone being there recently. I wasn't going to ask how he knew the light bulbs were all stone cold.
Nnoitra came into view some after that and were checking the houses across the street when I felt another pull. I skipped a house, letting Isshin cover for me as I wandered down an alley, a house corner having caught my eye. There was a board on one of the upstairs windows, the ones you got put up if a window was broken before you got it fixed. There was a light on downstairs and I opened the gate, sneaking to the kitchen window. Through an open door I could see a man sitting on an arm chair, thankfully looking in the opposite direction.
You know what would have been really useful before we all went looking for a guy would have been a picture. But of course that didn't happen and all we had to go on was a rough description from Isshin of a man in his late teens, the last time he'd seen the bloke, plus what fuzzy details I could add from the images I'd seen from Ichigo. Now you may wonder why Isshin didn't just project the image into our heads, like Ichigo would, he couldn't, not with images anyway. Words were his limit. Fucking useful.
So the rough guide of a man with greyish hair, tall and slim but that could have changed was as helpful as a toasted bagel at that moment but the man I could see rang alarm bells in my head. The image I'd seen of 'Uncle Kariya' fit this man in the chair. I slowly backed out of the garden, only to bump straight into Isshin who'd come to find me and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Pointing into the house, I grabbed at his hand, pushing it against my wrist to talk to him silently.
"Take a look, I think this is it."
He opened the gate and disappeared in as I went to rally the troops. Stopping Nnoitra I gave him the thumbs up watching him take out his phone I nodded, letting him contact the others. I crept back to the gate, pushing it open slightly, expecting to see Isshin in the garden but there was no sign of him. I snuck up to the window, trying to spot the man but he'd moved from his seat. Two options swam in my mind, one – he'd gone to the loo, two – he'd been taken out by Isshin, three – he was right behind me.
Actually the third option only occurred to me when I saw his reflection in the window, and I whipped round, and landed on my knees as the fucker pulled his voodoo shit on me. I felt the pressure all over my body, more intense than when Isshin had pulled it on me but I guess he hadn't been really trying to hurt me, this fucker didn't care.
The condescending smirk didn't put me in a better mood and when the garden gate swung open and Nnoitra walked in with a foul look on his face before eating dirt at my knees I could tell the mood wasn't going to get any better. Why Halibel wasn't here I didn't know yet but I wasn't going to give the guy licence to drag more of my friends into this mess if I didn't have to. Hopefully Nnoitra got off the text to the rest and they could send in the cavalry or maybe just parade in here one by one to the spider's lair for tea time.
We were quickly hauled up by invisible ropes and dragged into the house. Isshin was out cold on the kitchen floor, out of sight of the window, a lot of use our only super powered guy was. He pulled us past the kitchen into the cosily lit living room, leaving us in the carpet as he took his seat again, smirk still in place.
Now I know I hadn't been injured yet but I'm still putting this next part as the insult that followed the injury, we'll just say my pride was injured when we were caught so damn easily. In true villain style, he laughed, that's right picture all those cartoon baddies who couldn't help themselves and you have the guy in front of my, he might as well steeple his fingers in true Mr Burns style. And like every other idiotic maniacal evil dude, he proceeded to tell us how worthless we are, how could we have thought about coming against him, even with Isshin as back up. He'd kept Ichigo all to himself for ten years and would keep him for ever, like some kind of pet.
"He is my son now, and will go on to have children with abilities and we will never be afraid of lesser beings."
And the prize for the most deluded, stupid ass reason goes to drum roll….
"He is not your son, he will never be." Isshin seemed to have some back to himself, and was upright, well nearly, kinda clutching at the door frame but you get the idea.
"And can I point out that he is gay and most likely won't have children?" What can I say, you can't leave me out of a good argument, or a stupid ass one.
Well actually it turned out to be a really stupid thing to say. The pressure round my body increased and it felt like I was getting squeezed from all sides. When it became hard to breath I felt my body slip to the side, wondering if he'd just crush the life out of me.
Moments that you think will be your last are historically supposed to either be filled with regret, or with images of your happiest moments, I chose to go for the latter, focusing on my whirlwind relationship with the boy that was probably asleep upstairs. Trying to stay away from the images of him naked, seriously his dad was in the room and even though he was a shit telepath I didn't want to risk it, I ended up picturing him standing at the school gates in his leather jacket, bike just parked. Possibly a stupid starting image cause I remembered my fantasy of pinning him to the seat of his bike.
The pressure let up, leaving me spluttering for breath suddenly as I blinked the black spots away. Nnoitra grabbed me, helping me sit up as the force holding us to our knees had let up. Even Isshin was standing easier.
Looking over at our captor, the sight of him wide eyed, staring at his arms like they wouldn't move was very rewarding. He pulled at his hand but it seemed to be stuck to the chair. Then his legs started to jerk, except for below the knee where they were stiff and frozen. I assumed Isshin had pulled on his cape and started to earn his dad stripes but he looked as confused as Kariya when I glanced at him.
The other door into the living room banged open revealing a very pissed off looking Berry. He walked into the room, looking like utter shit by the way. His hair was lank, and quite long, the clothes he'd been wearing for 24 days hung off his too skinny frame. His cheekbones were sticking out further than they had been but his eyes shone like amber, cold and furious as they stared at the man responsible for it all.
He spared me a glance, seeing me lying in Nnoitra's arms only seemed to anger him more but his concentration slipped and Kariya was suddenly up and in front of him. I watched him go down, his arms twisted behind his back as his face hit the floor. I was still free and I surged towards him, managing to brush my hand over his face before I was thrown against the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of me again.
His eyes never left my face and as I landed in a heap they sharpened from amber to a bright gold as he regained his feet. Still bend over I could see the cords standing out on his neck as he fought to regain his arms. Straightening up, face to the ceiling I thought he'd pass out with the effort when he broke free, arms at his sides. He looked powerful and secure, even dressed in my family's cast offs and he turned to his uncle, flattening him once more. Walking up to him he placed hands on either side of the man's face before closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them Kariya's eyes were closed and his face was slack, showing he was out cold.
Ichigo stood, satisfied smirk on his face but as he turned to me I could see the trail of blood flowing from his nose and he slunk to his knees, no external force required. He looked a bit confused for a moment, like he wasn't sure how he'd got there, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he headed south again, this time I had enough or a warning that I caught him, cradling his head to my chest. The worry I felt was mirrored in Isshin's face as he approached us but my panic had dropped a bit, Ichigo was back in my arms.
Please review, tell me what i mucked up this time.
