Chapter 12: Little Secret
Two feet marched over marble floors and two were dragged soundlessly. Boots clicked against it as Grimmjow hurried down white halls. He pulled the thin body of Ichigo far into the palace he knew like the back of his hand, deeper and deeper into its many maze like halls, down stairs and narrow corridors until he found himself in a dimly lit area.
There he stopped, looking for the place where he knew keys were kept. Soon finding it, he took the chain that was full of hundreds of steel keys; glistering in the little light there was. He frowned as he looked for the correct key, the one belonging to the cell furthers down the hall. Once finding it, he hoisted the limp body once again over his strong shoulder.
The hall was long here as well, like all the places, as if the designer had been most inspired by the endless white desert outside. The holding cells the Espada passed were all empty and white as everything else, even the steel railings were white.
Once finally at the furthest cell, he loudly unlocked it and placed the shallow breathing boy on the cold ground. He moved a small steel chain that was attached to the wall around Ichigo's skinny ankle and locked him inside. Grimmjow wasn't going to take any risks with Ichigo, as he had seen the kid burst with power unexpectedly just moments before.
The arrancar couldn't help but smile to himself at his find, something he knew his master would be most pleased about. As he headed away from the boy, dragging his feet along the halls once again, he walked past a skinny, pink haired man, an Espada ranked arrancar like himself, but number 8.
"Hey Szayel," He spat at the man, not really liking the other. Szayel turned around slowly, his white upper uniform folding with every move.
"What may you want, Grimmjow?" His smooth voice asked; his expression indifferent.
"I have something that's injured…" Grimmjow mused, knowing how to get the man's full attention. True to that, Szayel was quickly near to listen.
"Is that so? Where can I see this… specimen?" He asked, careful not to talk too loudly, seeing on the other male that it was to be kept secret.
"I will only tell you that if you won't kill it, it has to be kept alive."
"I can yield to that I suppose." Szayel answered, while watching the teal haired man cross his arms.
"You're only going to heal the wounds, not fiddle with organs or anything and no feeding."
"Yes, yes I understand; where is it?" Szayel pressed, eyes shining with interest.
"It's in the holding cell furthers in the back, to the left."
Szayel nodded quickly and turned around; not bothering to say anything more as he could hardly wait to see what Grimmjow had found, since the 6th Espada was not a man full of secrets. What he had found to be this quiet about had to be something worth seeing. But before he had the chance to move away, Grimmjow grabbed his arm, forcing Szayel to look at him again.
"No telling anyone, is that clear? Or I will make sure you're very miserable." He hissed.
"Of course Grimmjow, you can trust me." Szayel answered with a sly smile, prying the others fingers away from his arm and turned around once again and heard the other walk away as well, feet dragging along the ground once more.
Szayel called his subordinates or Fracción as they were also called, low ranked arrancar of all sizes. They scattered eagerly around him and he called the names of the once he wanted, told them to get his kit of necessary materials and items.
He himself hurried down the long halls and stairs, quickly arriving at the furthest holding cell of them all. There he peered through the bars of the cell and darkness, seeing a body carelessly lying limp on the ground.
Szayel bent down over the body; dragging it into a straighter pose with delicate fingers. He looked over the pale and wan body carefully, only briefly lifting a piece of clothing to inspect the condition of the young male.
His gaze lingered long at the mask and he lightly touched it, feeling that it was defiantly made of hard bone and spirit particles, his fingers trailing along the lower jaws stripes, gaining no reaction for the owner of the mask whatsoever.
But as he heard his servants approach, he got up and ordered his subordinates to carefully remove the clothes from the body and watched as the remaining cloth of the black upper wear where cut away while putting on a pair of white tight surgical gloves. Once the body was placed on a thin plastic stretcher and lit by bright lamps, Szayel squatted down and took a closer look at the body Grimmjow had retrieved from the white desert.
Before doing anything drastic, he slid a needle under the pale skin with anaesthetic to knock the boy out further than he already was, to avoid having him wake up in the middle of the examination.
Szayel had already noticed the dislocated shoulder; it stood out too well on the scrawny body not to have been detected, even with untrained eyes. He went over it more carefully now with the bright light, pushing his fingers here and there into the soft flesh. He clearly felt the bone pipes under the skin, nothing was crushed or broken and he easily snapped the shoulder together again with little strength.
He held up the arm, feeling on it further down over the dirty skin to see if was broken elsewhere, which it wasn't. Once he got to the hand it became more interesting; the hand had obviously been removed not too long ago. The new skin was clean and almost unharmed, except for small blue bruises from other fingers that had clenched over it. The fingers were long and thin, but almost a natural length, even if the skeleton could still be seen beneath half transparent skin. But Szayel left it as it was, it was healing fine on its own, no need to do anything about it.
Carrying on, he trailed his index finger along large, thick scars, several of them being over the boy's abdomen, the largest one travelling from the navel to the ribcage. Szayel was surprised that the boy could have healed such a massive wound.
Rough scars formed trails of nails that ran long over the chest muscle, at the place where the boy's heart had once been. Szayel paid little attention to the hole in the boy's chest; it was an average hollow hole, nothing interesting.
The boy's body was emaciated and worn out; ribs all too visible and hip bones were poking out from the sides like rounded horns. Even the skeleton of the elbows and collarbones was clearly visible.
Moving on, he took a better look at the skin itself, cleaning it with a wad of alcohol-filled cotton attached to a peang. He quickly swabbed the skin, noticing several dark places, uneven bumps from swollen areas. Rashes covered most parts of the legs. Other places of the skin were half transparent and red as well, only a thin layer of skin covering what once had been an open wound.
Some were still open and Szayel placed an operating mask over his face, that one of his Fracción handed him, before he carefully started stitching the flesh and skin together. Once it was firmly held together, he could see how the skin tried it's best to heal ever so slowly, even if there was nothing to use, hardly any fat or blood to replace the hole with.
Before finishing up he nicked a pair of hairs from the head of the boy. There were several patches of greying hair and some even missing hair all together, possible from stress as well.
He quickly looked over the body again, wondering if the boy would be consumed with madness when he woke; since the kid most probably did not know how to control the raging hunger for life. Szayel frowned and decided to inject the boy with a stimulating, brightly coloured drug too keep the boy lucid for at least a little while longer.
The Espada rose from the floor, motioning to his subordinates to bandage the arm and frail hand carefully as he removed the gloves from his hands before locking the cell once more and leaving the sleeping kid alone.
As he headed back up the long stairs and through the east wing corridor, heading for the large dining hall that could easily fit more than a hundred arrancar at once, he noticed Grimmjow waiting for him.
Szayel nodded at the blue haired man before correcting his bone glasses - the remains of his once whole mask that lay neatly over the bridge of his nose.
"Where did you find him?" He asked carefully before Grimmjow could say anything, all while being careful not to make others come and listen.
"He was lying sprawled in the sand; north from the main entrance not very far from here, looked like he had been lying unconscious for quite some time, perhaps a day, maybe more. But he woke up pretty quickly when I kicked him. Didn't have much energy left but the little shit still put up a fight…" Grimmjow answered, not giving off any hint that the small struggle had actually hurt him, such shame he would never utter if he didn't have to. Nnoitra, the 5th Espada, would never let him hear the end of it.
"He kept referring himself as 'we' instead of 'I' as if he was two people a lot though, even if no one else was there." Grimmjow burst out as he remembered; his hand waving a bit loosely at the side of his head in circles, to encourage the meaning that the boy had gone wacky. "Must have gotten a pretty severe hit on the head."
"I see… really now?" Szayel answered with a sly smile while eyeing Grimmjow's poorly bandaged arm, but quickly continued on the main subject. "About the crazy part I have no clue, I kept him sedated while I exanimate him… must be something psychological…" The Espada tailed off, mumbling things under his breath.
"The boy was indeed pretty badly beaten up though, but he seems to be the healing type." Szayel suddenly said louder, catching the unease in the other.
Grimmjow raised an eyebrow at the pleased tone of the last part of Szayel's answer; he sure hadn't seen the boy as a healing type, as beaten up as the kid was when he had found him.
"Skilled regeneration based hollows are quiet rare, you know." Szayel stated matter-of-factly as he crossed his arms. "At least the ones that heals almost instantaneously. From my brief observation I'd say he's a very new born hollow. With the speed he seemed to nurse himself back to health with next to no blood, I must say I'm almost a little impressed. And new subjects are of course always a pleasure."
"Heh, no doubt about it…" Grimmjow half mumbled as he looked off in another direction, quickly straightening as his widening eyes met with the sight of his master, Aizen Sousuke. The man was walking down the hall, strong looking but still carrying a soft smile on his lips as he approached his men.
"What is he doing here?" Grimmjow asked Szayel, his eyes narrowing, quickly ending their current conversation.
Szayel's usual smug expression was gone, replace with one that held none. Grimmjow couldn't help but to wonder what his Lord had done to the 8th Espada to keep him on the tight leach like he did with everyone. Probably beat him up to a pulp when no one else could see like he did to the rest, using his illusions that his sword, Kyouka Suigetsu, created that everyone seemed to be unable to escape from.
They both quickly mumbled "Sir." and stood in a tidy line with their back against the wall as the man passed, averting their eyes to the floor. They both exhaled a breath of relief when they were ignored. Grimmjow gave Szayel another look, silently asking the question of what the brown haired man was doing there. The 8th Espada only shrugged silently, not knowing more than that it was most rare for the man to visit his subordinates or eat in the same hall.
"What's the kid doing now?" Grimmjow quickly asked Szayel, just wanting to know what was going on at the moment, to know things where as safe as they could be when keeping important things away from others.
"Sleeping." Was the Espada's swiftly whispered reply.
They didn't continue the conversation any further, afraid that Aizen might have heard. The teal haired Espada grimaced, his lips drawing back into a snarl has he turned away from the pink haired man and walked past him, entering the dinning hall, fists clenched. The mere presence of their master made everyone nervous or angry. He flopped down at an empty table, the frown still strong on his forehead as he wondered if the little secret would be enough to make the ever strangling chains his master held on him loosen once he delivered it.
The once chattering dining hall had become almost completely silent except for some low murmur, every Espada down to the lowest ranked hollows had stopped doing anything else than silently eating when the shinigami had come. No one dared to really talk, everyone unsure if the constantly pleased looking man would be friendly today or not.
Everyone where squirming in their seats and bowing their heads has Aizen walked past tables and chairs, each person afraid that they would be brought away for some reason or another. The man however kept walking to the table where most of the Espada were seated. Grimmjow had the mans back turned to him, leering at Aizen as he himself rose from the table to get some food.
A quick breath of relief and an eased mumble could be heard once the man walked out the dining hall with the 4th Espada following, his most trusted member, Ulquiorra Schiffer. Grimmjow wondered what they were up to, but dismissed it as something boring, something out of his interests and focused on his food.
Ichigo himself woke up to a tick silence, as he did not sleep well for long. Soon the war of nightmares raged in his mind and he trashed and turned as visions plunged into his psyche, frightening his already terrified mind. Sweat clung to his body as his limbs moved as if he was fighting, fighting against the shackles that bound his feet, clattering loudly in the small.
The boy abruptly woke up with a start, yelping as he flung himself into a sitting position. He shook violently; the sweat pickling his skin and his body hurt as if he had been slamming into to a wall. Grunting, he stared at a white ceiling.
Through still frightened, foggy eyes he noticed that he was in a holding cell; thick bars were in front of him. The boy's frown deepened. He didn't recognise his surroundings at first, but soon remembered being knocked out by a certain Espada.
Ichigo sighed as his whole body felt numb. His throat was burning and an intense headache pounded on the inside of his skull. Reaching up to touch his face he felt his mask covering it, something that didn't surprise him this time and rubbed against it. The mask was his face as much as the flesh beneath it. He massaged his weary eyes, rubbed roughly into them, feeling a stinging sensation under his touch.
As he moved in a try at get his stiff limps a little more flexible, he noticed that his dislocated shoulder was back into place and heavily bandaged. Despite it he still felt the numb feeling radiating from his shoulder and he still couldn't feel his fingers, let alone anything of his hand. He grunted again as he pushed the awful though that his hand may never return to the back of his mind. The chain around his leg wasn't hard for him to notice either, the steel grinding into the flesh of his ankle.
His upper clothing was gone, lukewarm air playing and coiling around his exposed skin. At least he still had his torn pants. Bastards; taking away the little that remained of his clothes... Not that he cared if they represented something he tried to forget, something that hunted him like a deer during hunting season. He wanted his clothes, no matter what state they were in or just something to cover himself with, to feel a little more secure.
He clenched his hand into a fist, his eyes wearily scanning for some sort of way out of his prison. He spotted nothing, no worn piece of rock he could smash away with his fist, no rusty part of the fence. His face turned worried beneath the mask, which evil grin never faltered.
Ichigo gritted his teeth and yanked again and again at the chain that bound his leg, the strong steel not yielding in the slightest. Ichigo screamed in annoyance and defeat. How could such a small thing as a chain stop him? He had come here to be free, but only ended up chained to white walls.
End of Chapter