Ok. Sorry about how long the update took. I need to let you all know that this chapter may have some triggers for some people. I do strongly insinuate rape. I don't get into details, but I did want to make sure there was a trigger warning put up here.

Thank you to everyone that has followed, favorited, or given a review. I really appreciate it! You really help to remind me that I have people reading my story and are waiting for the next chapter to come out.

3!

Erin came to slowly, feeling as weak as she had when she had woken up after touching Kenpachi's eye patch. It was warm, but she could feel a light breeze on her skin. She went to move her hand and found it to be strapped down. She fully woke up to take in her surroundings to find that she was naked and strapped down on a table at her ankles, thighs, waist, neck, wrists and upper arms. Even weakened, she tried to reach out to her magic, but found that she couldn't bring anything forth, being as weak as she was. There was nothing else in the room besides some surgical tools. She tried listening and sniffing to get her bearings.

She inhaled deeply and could smell the dryness in the air along with the distinct scent of sand. She exhaled and inhaled again and caught the scents of what she assumed were various people, but no one she had ever met. She could hear footsteps and voices so she strained to hear.

"No, no, no. Don't worry about it. She was conscious long enough to see my banki, so she'll see you and hear you as Zaraki. Play it out as much as you can, but at the end of the day, I don't care what you do to her so long as she's still alive."

The door opened and someone who looked like Zaraki stepped in. "Here you are, baby, I've been looking all over Hueco Mundo for you. What have they been doing to you?" Erin stayed quiet, and took a deep pull of the air. The person before her smelled more animal then person. "What? Aren't you happy to see me?" She could see him hardening and felt a moment of fear. "Keep breathing deeply baby, you're making me hard." He walked over to the table she was strapped to and started kissing her and feeling her up. She bit him as hard as she could, drawing blood. He screamed out and struck her as hard as he could across the face. "Bitch! I come all this way to find you and you bite me?! I'm going to take my reward whether you like it or not!" Normally, Erin would have healed quickly from the strike, but she lost conscious and was only aware of a thrusting movement before passing out.

When she woke up again a man with pink hair stood next to her. She was in a lot of pain, not just in her face, but in her body making her think he must have punched her repeatedly while she was out of it.

"Tell me, human, how did you know that wasn't your lover?" He had a surgical tool in his hands that he was fiddling with.

"Go to hell." She spat out spraying blood.

"Oh no, that won't do at all. Have you noticed how weak you are?" Erin stayed silent. "You have, excellent. When we saw how Zaraki's eye patch affected you, we made something similar but with less power. Just enough to keep you awake, but leave you weak. Do you like it?" Erin strained against the restraints to no avail. "You shouldn't tire yourself out. Let's see, I remember hearing that your senses were stronger, maybe you heard something you shouldn't have or smelled something. I can take care of that." For the next several hours her ears and nose were opened up and implants were put in without any form of pain killer or sedation. She whimpered and screamed during the procedure, unable to hold the pain in. She realized she wasn't healing quickly so the pain lingered on. He did use a device to heal the areas of the implants and when she tried listening or smelling again was met with a bunch of white noise, making it difficult to hear clearly unless someone was in the room with her and every time she breathed in, all she could smell was carrion.

From that moment on, she was not allowed to fall asleep or be unconscious long before someone came in used something to wake her up. After two days, she was exhausted and confused. She had even believed it was Kenpachi coming to save her a couple times, but quickly learned that it was always faked. By the third day she was a mass of bruises and cuts and just stayed quiet when anyone came in to the room. She no longer believed anything she saw and every time a "Zaraki" entered the room, she silently cried, knowing she was to be abused again.

She was unsure of how long she had been there, but her back and limbs ached from being in the same position for so long and the rest of her body was in just as much pain. She wondered if she had any broken bones. The door opened and someone who looked like Renji Abara looked in and then looked away quickly.

"Captain Zaraki, I've found her!" He called out.

Great, he's changed the game by bringing in other people I've met. If I ever get out of here I'm going to kill him myself.

She watched as a "Zaraki" rushed in with his captain's jacket and uniform top off and cuts all over his chest and arms. As soon as he saw her, he stopped to take in her condition. His eyes softened and he looked regretful, but she didn't understand why. Must not want to do this. Maybe there's someone quasi-decent in this hell hole after all.

"Abara, take off your top. I need something to cover her with and all I have left are my pants." Renji shrugged out of his top and handed it to the large captain while keeping his back to the girl. "Do you have the bag of bandages and ointments Unahana left us? I never expected to find her in this condition. What the hell did he do to her?" She looked away from the two men, tired of this new game already. Aizen wasn't going to fool her no matter what he did. Renji handed him a bag and Zaraki laid the top over Erin. They began undoing all the straps holding her down and Renji looked away while Zaraki uncovered parts of her and began rubbing ointments on her skin and bandaging her up.

He was working on an area near a rib and Erin cried out in pain. He felt around the rib and realized it was broken. "Erin, I need to set this rib. It's not aligned and it's going to hurt. Then I need to sit you up and bind it and that will probably hurt too, but will feel better in the long run. Are you ready?" She didn't respond to him so he kept talking as she twitched away from his hands at every turn. He set the rib which caused her to scream in pain. He waited a few moments for her breathing to even out and then slowly sat her up and bound up the rib while tears ran down her face and she whimpered in pain. He went to wipe a tear from her face and she quickly turned her head and bit him as hard as she could, drawing blood.

He placed his other hand on her face and made her look at him. "Erin, let go. Why are you doing this?" Renji was surprised at the captain's restraint, but Unahana had warned him that there was no telling what she had been through and he needed to keep his temper no matter what. He eventually had to pry her jaw from his hand with Renji's help. "I'm trying to help you, Erin. Don't bite me again." He applied an ointment to his hand and wrapped it to keep it clean. "Is anything else broken, Erin?" She glared at him so he held her face so she couldn't try to bite him again with one hand and checked the rest of her body for breaks. He was happy that he didn't find anymore.

"Why are you being nice to me? Just do what you came here for and leave. There is nothing you can do to make me think you are the real Kenpachi. You'll just have to report your failure to Aizen." Erin finally said as Kenpachi was putting Renji's top on her properly.

"I am Kenpachi and I'm taking you out of here." He lifted her up into his arms and left with Renji to find the others and get out of Hueco Mundo. The entire time, Erin trembled in his hands.

"She looks so thin, Captain Zaraki. Did you see the funnel next to the jug of water?"

"Have they been feeding you, Erin?"

"You should know, arancar. I'm sure Aizen gave all of you plenty of instructions for his sick games." She replied.

"Have they been forcing you to drink water with that funnel?" He asked.

"You should know the answer to that too." Her voice broke, telling him that it was how she had been kept hydrated.

"It's ok to rest. I won't let anything bad happen to you, Erin."

He keeps on using my name. The others always used pet names. I can't let him fool me. I can't let myself hope. I haven't slept in days. Every time I let myself try to sleep, they would force me to stay awake. Is he trying to lure me to relax so he can just terrorize me like Aizen wants? She fought to stay awake, not wanting to trust him, but eventually passed out regardless. He waited while Kurosutchi collected the rest of his samples with the rest of the team that was sent. She twitched in her sleep frequently, making him believe she was having nightmares. He did his best to soothe her and she seemed to quiet as he rubbed her shoulder and arm.

Eventually he was able to bring her back to his home and sent a message to Captain Unahana. It was some time before she arrived and she looked tired when she arrived.

"Gin and Tosen are dead and Aizen was captured. I see you found Erin. Is she awake?"

He shook his head. "She wouldn't believe that I'm me. She's convinced it's all an illusion of Aizen's. I don't know what to do." He confided. He was at a complete loss as to how to help her.

"Just be there for her. She'll figure out that she's safe and that you are you. Any idea of what he did to her other than mess with her mind?"

"I don't think they fed her at all, but I think they were making her drink water by using a funnel. Why would they have to do that?"

"I don't know, Zaraki. Let me examine her."

"She's in my room." He led her there and watched as Unahana went over all of the wounds, cleaning them, reapplying the ointments, and redressing the wounds.

"Her wounds haven't been healing. Either they abused her constantly or they found a way to weaken her to a point she couldn't heal herself. The lack of food probably helped in keeping her weak. I'm going to inject her with some sugar water. It will give her a little bit of the nutrition she needs, but she needs to eat as soon as she wakes up. This won't sustain her."

"I'll try, but getting her to eat enough was always difficult."

"With the threat gone, you should be able to take her back home as soon as she's better mentally." Zaraki nodded and when Unahana left, shut the door behind her. Yachiru had taken herself home as soon as they had gotten back, wanting to give him and Erin whatever time they needed. She had come to like Erin, so seeing her acting so strangely made Yachiru feel weird around her. Zaraki went back to his room, changed for bed, and got in next to Erin.

The next morning Kenpachi woke up to find that Erin was still asleep. He checked her bandages and saw that she was beginning to heal. He wrinkled his nose. It appeared that they didn't bathe her while she was there and the thought of her strapped to that table for that long made him sad. He got up and quickly took a shower as he hadn't the night before and was feeling pretty funky himself. When he was done, he turned on the water for the bath and found a pleasant temperature. He only put on a set of uniform pants and went back for Erin. She was still asleep and twitching horribly in her sleep. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead, which started to calm her. He removed her clothing and the bandages and walked her back to the bathroom and eased her into the tub.

He scrubbed her, being careful around the wounds that were still open and the rib that was still broken. He had an arm in his hands and was scrubbing it when Erin woke up with a start and began thrashing.

"Easy, Erin. I'm just giving you a bath."

She pulled her arm free from his grasp and glared at him. "Didn't want sloppy 13ths?" She curled her legs up and covered herself the best she could with her hands.

"If you are up to cleaning yourself, I only had that arm, your back and your bottom left. I don't understand why you can't see that I'm Kenpachi. He didn't take your sense of smell did he? There's no way he could have copied what you can smell."

"How low down the pole are you to not know? Or are you still trying to make me believe you are the real Kenpachi? That pink haired bastard put implants in my nose and ears so I can't hear much unless it's in the same room and nearby and all I can smell is rotten meat."

Kenpachi's face took on a scary aspect as he growled at the news. "That fucking bastard. Do you need help finishing getting clean?"

Erin shook her head as she finished getting clean. "Why are you watching me bathe?"

"I'm ensuring you don't do something stupid like try to commit suicide by drowning yourself."

"I wouldn't. I have faith that Kenpachi will find me."

"He has found you. I just wish you could see that." She had finished cleaning herself. "Can you get up?" He held a towel out to her ready to wrap her up in it as he had done to Yachiru when she was younger.

Erin tried getting up and she was finally able to shakily stand. Kenpachi wrapped the towel around her and lifted her out of the bath. He started drying her off and considering she was having a hard time just standing, she let him. Some of the wounds reopened, so he directed her back to his room where he had left the ointments and bindings and redressed her wounds.

"How are your ribs?" He asked her.

"Still tender."

He nodded. "I'm going to bind them back up. It may hurt a little." His hands were gentle which surprised Erin.

"You've been nice to me. If it turns out you aren't the real Kenpachi, I'll ask him to not kill you. How will I know which one you are?"

"By this." He pulled out the necklace and pendant the other world's Kenpachi had given her from a nearby drawer and put it around her neck for her. "I had it engraved with the Division 11 motto on the back. Do you know what it is?"

"Fight." He nodded. Tears started to roll down her cheeks as she desperately wanted to believe she was safe, but couldn't trust anymore. She had been fooled too many times.

"Keep fighting, Erin. I'll get you some clean clothes and then we'll go see Unahana. Hopefully she'll be able to remove those implants and you can know you're safe." He came back shortly with a complete change of clothing, including shoes and socks. "Do you need help or do you think you can dress yourself?"

"I'll do it." He nodded and turned his back, granting her some privacy but to be close if she ended up needing help. It took a long time, but she finally said that she was dressed.

"Do you think you can eat anything? You look like they haven't fed you a bite since you were taken." She wrinkled her nose. "Can't get past the smell?" She nodded. "I understand. We'll have Unahana inject you with some more sugar water. It won't sustain you, but once those implants are out of you and you know I am who I say I am, we can get you home." She looked up at him and he could see the despair warring with the hope. "Do you have enough energy to hold on to me while I run, or do I need to carry you?"

"I used up my strength getting dressed." He nodded and picked her up. He couldn't help kissing her forehead as he moved and she shuddered in his hands. She held herself stiffly despite him telling her to relax. It took a while, with multiple wrong turns, but they finally arrived at the Division 4 hospital. One of the seated officers met them near the entrance and ushered them into a room to wait for the captain.

He laid her down on the examining table. "Go ahead and rest. I want you awake when we talk to Unahana." He sat next to her as she went into her meditative rest.

It was another half hour or so before Unahana entered the room. "How is she, Zaraki?" She asked as she entered.

"Weakened. They put some kind of implants in her nose and ears. They make it so that she can't hear properly and all she's allowed to smell is rotten meat. Can you do anything?"

"I don't know. I'll need to run some scans. If I can't do it, Korusutchi can."

"I'd rather we didn't involve him if we can help it. She didn't have the greatest of dealings with him in the other world." He reached over and touched Erin to wake her up and she started awake. "Unahana needs to look you over and run some scans to make sure she can remove the implants." She nodded and looked at Unahana apprehensively.

Retsu spoke lowly and calmly the entire time, telling her what she was doing. When she was done she smiled, "I have good news. I should be able to remove them myself without any help from Korusutchi. The only thing is that I need you healing at close to your normal rate, Erin. I'm going to inject you with some more sugar water fortified with some extra vitamins. That should help you recoup a little faster. If you are ready, we can do this in a couple hours. Like I said, I want you to have as much vitality as I can before the procedure."

She touched the pendant she was wearing, rubbing it between her fingers. She looked over to Kenpachi and then back to Unahana. "I don't think there is much worse you can do to me. I am ready to do this today."

Unahana nodded and brought out the syringes of sugar water and gave Erin the injections. "Give me two hours to prepare. Every half hour I'm going to have my lieutenant come in and give you more of these injections. I'll be back to take you to the operating room for the implant removal surgery." Erin nodded and Unahana left. Her lieutenant came in three times to give Erin the injections and the last was done by Unahana right before leading them to another room.

"I have a gas that should keep you knocked out for the procedure."

Kenpachi laid her down on the table. "I'll be here the entire time." He couldn't quite read her expression. It seemed a mix of a bunch of different emotions, masked with her trying to leave her face unreadable. She was failing miserably at it, but it did muddle her expressions.

Unahana was able to keep her knocked out for the entire procedure which took several hours. The injections had helped her with her healing. Incisions took a few minutes to close, but they were closing. She was injected several more times with the sugar water during the procedure whenever her healing started to flag.

Unahana looked over to Kenpachi while holding a small implant half the size of a poppy seed in a pair of tweezers. "This was the last one….I think. We'll know for sure when she wakes up." He nodded and continued to watch Erin as he had from his seat next to her for the entire procedure. She dropped the implant into a dish holding a surprising number of the tiny devices.

As the last wound healed, she opened her eyes. "Erin, take a deep breath and tell me what you smell, please." Unahana asked.

She took a tentative sniff, expecting the same smell she'd been stuck with for the last several days. She smiled and took a deep breath. "I smell…everything."

"No trace of rot? I want to make sure I got them all."

"No rot." She replied.

"Take another deep breath and make sure." She did so and continued to smile. "Ok, how about the hearing?"

Erin took on a look of concentration. After a few minutes she replied, "It's all back to normal."

Zaraki stood and leaned over Erin who cowered a little on the table. "Smell me, Erin." He leaned in close so that his neck was near her nose. She inhaled deeply and then shakingly put her hands up to his neck and shoulders. He could feel her shaking so he looked down at her and saw that she was crying.

"How long has it been you?" She finally got out.

"Since Renji found you." He replied. She looked over to the hand she had bitten and took it into her hands. She held it to her lips and kissed it while Kenpachi gathered her into his arms. "It's ok. You were fighting back the best you could. You are going to tell me everything, though." He sat on the edge of the table with Erin in his arms and tightened his grip as she continued to shake with sobs. Unahana quietly left the room.

After a little while, he picked her up and headed towards his home. "We're gunna go to my place and you're going to try to eat. After that, I need to check on my men. Then we'll come back for dinner. Sometime during all this, you will tell me everything that happened to you since I saw you last and we will head back to your house tomorrow morning." He kissed her temple and she nodded weakly as she buried her head into his chest.

Back at his house he made a quick lunch and they ate together quietly. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She leaned into him as she ate and he kept his arm around her, knowing she needed the contact. After lunch she shakily walked with him to the training grounds. He kept an arm around her in case she needed the support while they walked, which she did. She sat and watched the goings on and many of the men stopped by to wish her good health and to express their happiness that she was back with their captain.

"He was impossible to be around while you had been taken." Yumichika confided to her. "I'm glad you're back, but you're too skinny and need to eat more. You're nothing but skin and bones and that's not beautiful at all."

Ikkaku sat down next to her and asked, "Why did they take you, anyway? I understand why they took Orihime, but why you?"

"I was bait. We were both bait. By taking Orihime, he made it so that he wouldn't have to fight Ichigo or Captain Kuchiki. By taking me, he ensured he didn't have to fight Kenpachi."

"Why Captain Kuchiki? Orihime is nothing to him." He replied.

"Where Ichigo goes, so does his adoptive sister and where she goes, Captain Kuchiki will go."

"I guess I didn't think of that." He replied

"How did the fight go? Did you catch the traitors? Did any of the arancar survive?"

"I don't know if you knew, but a replica of the town had been created here in the Soul Society and Urahara was able to do some kind of area change so that the area was switched out and the people would be safe even if the buildings became damaged. Sometime toward the end of the fight, the traitors left the battle and went to the real town here. Ichigo was able to defeat Aizen, he was captured and has already had a trial for his crimes. The others were killed during the fighting. I think there may be a few arancar that survived, but I don't know for sure." He saw that Erin seemed to tighten when he said that Aizen had been captured so continued, "Aizen will never be able to get out of where they put him, Erin." She nodded and rested her head on her knees that were curled up to her chest. He patted her arm and left to go help train the new recruits.

Kenpachi eventually called a halt for the day and collected Erin to take back to his home. She was able to walk by herself, but the going was slow. They ate together with Yachiru who was happy to have Erin back to normal. Yachiru kept on trying to get Erin to eat more and more, even pulling out some sweet buns she had grabbed, remembering that Erin liked them. She ate a bun to Yachiru's delight. He eventually walked Yachiru home and came back to take care of the dishes.

In all this time, she hadn't told him about her time as a captive, so as he was drying his hands, he turned to her and said, "I've been patient, but I need to know what happened to you."

It was hard to start talking, but once she did it was cathartic for her. She told him about the darts they used to take her from his courtyard, and how she had begun to regain consciousness while Aizen was boasting of his plan to lure Kenpachi to Hueco Mundo and ruin the captain's chance at happiness with a human girl. How they had "woken her up" and had to watch Aizen's banki and the version of his eye patch they used to keep her weakened. How it didn't knock her out, but left her so that she couldn't use her magic or heal quickly. How she was used as the arancar's plaything and the surgery where the implants were put in place. How she wasn't allowed to sleep for long before being woken up to further weaken her and make it easier for her to believe the fakes. How she had felt when she thought that he was just another fake and her confusion with the way he had treated her.

When she finally finished, she had her head down, not wanting to see how he would react to everything; afraid he would end up rejecting her after hearing how many times they had been able to fool her in the beginning, before she had decided to believe nothing that was told to her by anyone wearing Kenpachi's face.

She had not heard him move to be squatting in front of her. She felt his hand lift her chin so that she would look him in the eye. He leaned over and placed his lips on hers, kissing her gently. Tears leaked down her cheeks. He kissed them away as he saw the tears streaking down.

She started shaking so he stopped kissing her and gathered her up in a hug. "It's ok, Erin. Will you come to bed with me?" He rubbed her back soothingly. She nodded as she buried her face into his neck, breathing his scent deeply. He wrapped her legs around his hips so that he could carry her better. Her arms wrapped around his neck as he put his hands under her rear to support her insignificant weight. He set her on his bed and as he pulled away from her, he rubbed her cheek. "I'm going to grab your sleeping clothes. As much as I would like to sleep with you naked, I don't think you're quite ready." Her hands lingered on his as he stepped away. "I'll only be gone a moment." He rubbed the last tear from her eye and quickly left to grab her clothing. When he came back she looked up sharply with fear in her eyes which quickly left as he walked towards her, his scent preceding him which had calmed her down.

He helped her to change when she needed it, but mostly let her undress and dress herself. He dressed himself for bed and got in next to her after turning off the lights. She curled up to him as she had before the abduction, but he could tell that she didn't sleep. Instead she went into her meditative rest. He rubbed her back for a little bit and then fell asleep himself. He couldn't begrudge her for not wanting to let her guard completely down.