Summary- "A flowers true perfume can only be found when it is crushed; and what a pretty flower we have found this time, Gin." ~ AU! High school. In a town where perverted or bloodthirsty predators loom around every corner, and the streets are filled with gang warfare, Shiro has one weakness- his brother Ichigo. YAOI, ShiroIchi- Incest, UKE! Ichigo.
Disclaimer- I do not own bleach.
A/N- Hello again! Thank you to those who reviewed, and a special thanks to StrawberryX3 who got me off my but to finally update this. I don't have much to say really, besides telling you again, for the thousandth time, how FUCKING CUTE MY CAT IS. I LOVE YOU MITTEN-SHOUTOUTIHEARTYOU4EVAMYILLITERATEFELINE.
"I promise everything will be okay. I'll fix it all. Just hang in there, Ichi-kun." Ichigo began to panic when he felt Shiro's body go limp in his arms. His heartbeat increased and his tears escaped in waves. He wanted to scream, 'don't go! Don't leave me here with him!' but even his mouth was paralyzed in fear.
A figure in his peripheral vision moved closer, and he wrapped his arms tighter around Shiro's body to protect him. He hunched over his twins pale frame and scrunched his eyes shut. Hands grabbed at his back and neck, attempting to drag him off. When that didn't work they turned to blows.
A kick to his side that made him gasp, a hand digging into his spinal column hard enough to cripple, and a blow to the back of the head that brought dizziness. In his haze of pain Shiro was dragged from his arms and he was hauled to his feet.
He looked up to meet Aizen's eyes. The man stood regally at the door. He hadn't moved an inch. The brunette frowned down at them, but saved his breath as he turned to lead them away.
Ichigo's fear grew as he was dragged along behind the troupe. The journey was long and foreboding, and he kept his eyes on Shiro's lifeless head as it hung in the arms of the man carrying him.
Aizen led them to a wealthy, furnished room. Shiro was brought in and chained to the four corners of the bed as Ichigo was held at bay in the corner. There was a sweaty hand over his mouth and he wanted to bite it and scream. He wanted to warn Shiro of his predicament but all he could do was struggle and sob.
Shiro's clothes were cut from his body like some kind of surgical operation with Aizen looming as overseer. The albino groaned and shifted in his shackles as consciousness graced him once again. Golden eyes blinked blearily before he snarled upon realizing his situation.
He immediately began to struggle and swear. Ichigo sobbed louder, attempting to catch his brother's attention from the dark corner. Shiro's eyes landed on him with fear. He snarled at Aizen like a threatened beast and struggled harder.
The brunette advanced, armed with another syringe he swiftly injected into the albino's struggling body. All fighting immediately ceased as the teen's pupils dilated, swallowing up the golden iris and almost touching his black sclera.
Ichigo was terrified. His body tense and sweaty, the situation settled in his gut like a ball of lead. He couldn't breath through the hand in his mouth and he couldn't yell for his brother. He kicked out and flailed his arms but it felt like he was encased in arms of brick.
"None of this would have happened if not for you, Ichigo." Aizen tsked, his eyes filling with fake sorrow as he turned on the albino.
"Don't listen to him…" Shiro mumbled, half coherently, before he was gagged with a steel ball gag.
"When have you ever done anything but drag your brother down? If he didn't have you clinging at his sleeves like a helpless child he could be so much more."
The words cut deep, despite knowing that Aizen was only using them to upset him. He knew Shiro would tell him the opposite, but he still felt as if there was some truth in Aizen's taunting.
"How many times has he gotten hurt for you? And yet you can do nothing for him in return." Aizen leisurely loosened the bottom half of his kimono, his back to the orangette as he spread Shiro's legs and positioned himself between them.
"Isn't it true that your brother has come to aid and protect you every time you are in trouble? Now would be the perfect time to show your gratitude, Ichigo." Aizen turned to smirk at him, watching amused as Ichigo's struggles increased.
The teen fought and clawed and cried until his breath was spent. But he couldn't escape from his human binds.
"You are weak and useless. " it was a verbal punch in the stomach. "Shiro doesn't need to carry around dead weight like you."
Then he took Shiro rough and dry, grunting at the Albino's screams and smiling with pleasure. It physically hurt to watch, but Ichigo couldn't drag his eyes away from his brothers pained face, couldn't shut out his screams. It was his fault after all. He deserved to watch. He deserved this pain.
When Aizen had come and Shiro's noises had died down into dull acceptance of the torture, Ichigo's breath came to him again. He'd thought it was over, That Aizen would turn to him now, and that was a relief. But his stomach dropped once more when Aizen pulled out a sex toy bigger than anything he'd seen before.
A thick, long, hard toy cock made from inhuman proportions.
And when he used it, the deadening screams started again. All Ichigo could do was scream with him. Try to drown out the sounds with his own hoarse noise.
"Love is such an exploitable weakness…" Aizen whispered in his ear before he left. Shiro grit his teeth and welded his eyes shut. He wouldn't look, sure that a single meeting of the eyes would kill him. The shame was so thick in his gut he couldn't breathe until the room had been cleared. Until all the judgemental eyes had turned away. Until Ichigo's eyes had been dragged away.
Then he allowed himself to breathe, and see again, stewing in the mind numbing pain that encased his lower regions. He thought about what would have been in Ichigo's eyes had he the guts to meet with them. Hatred? Disgust? Sorrow? Despair? All the possibilities sickened him.
He did it for Ichigo's sake, he told himself. He could have fought harder, even through the disorientating drugs, but what then, would they do with Ichigo? It wasn't like he had any chastity or honour to protect. All he had was Ichigo. He'd do anything for the orangette. Anything at all.
One person to protect and he couldn't even do that much. What a failure of a human he was. Just a pathetic waste of space. How much had it hurt Ichigo to watch that? It likely hurt the teen more than it hurt himself.
Ichigo would be so much better off without him. He was a mistake. He was never supposed to be born. How much suffering had Ichigo undergone because of him? More than he could imagine.
If he hadn't been born their mother mightn't have died, Ichigo mightn't have been bullied, and he surely never would have been dragged into all of this underworld business. Ichigo would certainly be better off without a useless brother like him. He'd have a clear shot at finding happiness.
A single drop of liquid landed on his collarbone, and he noticed with shock that it was a tear. Hadn't he done enough crying already? Shiro snarled through his blurry eyes, angry at his own weakness.
Why could he do nothing to fix their situation? Why was he so powerless when it really mattered?
Surely he'd shed enough tears for the both of them by now? So why hadn't his eyes dried up yet?
There was a brief knock at the door, and Shiro hurried to wipe his face on the sheets. Why did he even bother? Aizen had stolen all traces of his pride, so why did it matter if somebody saw him crying now?
Despite his slitted eyes, Gin noticed the teen's puffy cheeks and red eyes straight away. "Shiro-chan! There's no need to hide ya tears from little ol' me" Gin chuckled, "Ya know wha' they say; A mermaid has no tears, therefore she suffers so much more."
What the fuck? Mermaids? Why was Gin so infuriating? He snarled at the retainer like a threatened beast, and backed himself into the headboard of his bed.
"Its human to cry, Shiro-chan." Gin chuckled at his animalistic behaviour and approached wearily. He sat down and wiped the tears off Shiro's face with a smile.
"Why are you here?" Shiro asked, turning his face to the side and away from Gin's mocking smile.
"I'm here ta make sure ya don't try anything Ichi-chan'd regret." Gin answered, touching him almost lovingly.
It took a moment or two before it clicked. They thought he was going to commit suicide. And truth be told he hadn't quite thought of that yet, but it was bound to occur to him sooner or later. In fact his previous train of thought was probably just about to lead him there, and Aizen had been one step ahead of him. Or perhaps he just overestimated Shiro's thinking capacity.
He scoffed, as if the thought was amusing, but now that it had been planted in his mind, he found himself honestly considering it.
Committing suicide was only running away from his problems in the end, yet it was the only sure way of being free. He'd tried it before; with the iron in the fire, after Aizen had revealed himself and taken Ichigo. But Grimmjow had stopped him.
Which reminded him, what would happen to Ichigo if he died now? And what had become of Grimmjow and Ulquiorra? He hoped that all his friends had the sense to flee. Run away before they were dragged down with him.
He couldn't run away as long as Ichigo was still locked down here. He'd sworn to free him after all.
"What does Aizen want with me? Why is he doing all this?" Shiro found himself asking. The question perturbed him. He could make no sense of the man's actions and had yet to discern a motive and goal.
"Who knows?" Gin sighed. "You're a microscopic part of his catastrophic plan, arranged and directed by his red right hand. " Gin threw his arms up to the sky, as if asking a higher deity or god.
Another vague answer that inspired more questions than it answered. Was Gin just trying to be mysterious and poetic? Because it was working.
The silver haired retained chatted idly with him as he cleaned Shiro up and left him. Sleep didn't come easy, Shiro's mind was riddled with worries for his brother. He knew they'd done something to him; harmed him in some way. He could see it in those doe brown eyes. A deep scar that tarnished the soul. The thought made him snarl as he curled in on himself.
What he had, couldn't be called sleep in the slightest, It was restless and weary, filled with displeased noises he made in light dreams. Shiro woke as soon as his door was opened, but he was immediately on guard.
The door slammed open, someone stumbled into his room, leaning on the wall for support as they desperately searched for a light. It wasn't a servant sent to clothe him in the night, it was someone who wasn't supposed to be there.
He knew it wasn't Ichigo, and what other allies did he have in this labyrinth of evil? None.
He moved slowly, testing his freedom in the chains. They'd been loosened slightly, but not enough for him to reach anything that might have use as a weapon. The person in his room startled at the sound of slinking chains.
"Hello?" They questioned quietly, voice hoarse and frightened. Shiro stilled at the sound. That voice rested on the tip of his tongue, echoed in his mind. He knew it. But catching it was like trying to grasp flies.
The person fumbled harder for the switch to the light; intent on discovering what kind of chained beast they shared the room with. Shiro searched for a weapon, but all he could grasp were sheets. He tried kicking his legs free, breaking the iron of his bedpost, but it appeared breaking iron was beyond his human capabilities.
The light turned on, and the sight of each other shocked both parties.
Long, spiky golden tresses, voluptuous curves, smooth dark skin and striking ocean green eyes. Was he dreaming? Was he dying!-? if so, why would Hallibel be the angel sent to collect his soul?
"Shiro!" She gasped in surprise, and took two hesitant steps towards him. She appeared just as surprise as he. Hallibel had vanished from school for weeks after their 'talk.' In fact she'd vanished from life and no one had thought it strange. What was she doing wandering around Aizen's labyrinth of a fortress in the night?
"H-Hallibel?" He dared taste her name on his tongue; hesitant to believe it was really her. It was like a nightmare.
"Sh-Shiro I've missed you so much…" She quietly admitted, hurrying up to his side and laying her reverent hands over his exposed body. He flinched as she cupped his face, forcing him to look deep into her panicked eyes, laced with thick golden lashes, and stinging him like citrus.
The sight scared him slightly. He'd never seen her this worked up before; this energetic. Even if the world was ending, he never thought the day would come that he'd see this degree of emotion in her green eyes.
But on closer examination it was barely emotion he saw. It was fear and madness. Her fingers were hot on his face, twitching as they grasped him. Her eyes were pleading and apologetic, as if something was tearing her apart from the inside. He couldn't quite place the emotion in them as they dilated, darkness expanding and contracting like waves in the ocean. They twitched to the side. Up. Down his body. Her breathing came in quick pants as she climbed on top of him, and sweat dribbled down her dark brow.
Shiro narrowed his eyes at her out of character behaviour. "What are you doing here?" he asked suspiciously, wanting more so to know what was causing her fidgety behaviour. What's wrong with you? He thought.
She continued touching him, completely ignoring his question. Shiro almost smiled; it was the first 'in-character' action she had made so far. But they were wasting time, so he repeated his question more firmly.
"I don't know…" She furrowed her blonde brows. "I remember…" She trailed off with insecurity.
"Please tell me what happened, Hallibel. Its important." He tried to ask as nicely as he could. Aware that all was not as it seemed inside her head.
"Well… A man came to me when I was… out of sorts. The day we had our discussion." She explained, her green eyes staring dazedly off into the distance behind him. "He came out of nowhere, with the appearance of the devil. " She subtly began rocking her hips over his, her hands stretching over the hard planes of his chest. "He lead me to a lovely warm place, and offered me peace of mind." She sighed in bliss at the memory alone.
"Peace of mind…?" He questioned carefully. Attempting to inch away from her quietly.
"It was beautiful. 'Hogyoku' he called it. Heaven in the form of a liquid. For an instant I felt the world crumbling around me, but then it was being rebuilt; the very fabric of reality adhering to my desires. " She spread her arms wide and spilled tinkling laughter into the air. "This world I see now is all a figment of my imagination! Hogyoku materialises what I wish for, and creates the world according to my whims." She pinned him with a tender look, as she stroked his rigid jaw. "And you too, dearest Shiro, are nothing but another illusion specifically for my amusement."
She smiled, placing a kiss on his nose as she rocked her hips harder and faster. Shiro wasn't afraid to admit that he was scared. He never thought he'd be scared of another human being, save Aizen, but that man barely counted as human.
This was a friend; a woman he had gone through high school with. The girl he'd teased and flirted with endlessly, stealing kisses at every chance or pinching her cute buttocks as she walked past in the halls. The girl he'd made cry as he confronted his own feeling about her and his brother; the girl he hadn't chased after.
"Did you know, that means I desired for you to appear? But for what reason would I wish for you?" Her hand snuck around his manhood, as she leaned leisurely over his chest, draping herself as she twirled his snow-white hair between her fingers. "Perhaps I am angry at you; in which case you are here to be my punching bag. I never thought I'd desire to hit you though." Her keen eyes regarded him.
"Hallibel, This isn't an Illusion. I don't know what you're on but-" He tried to plead with her, but was cut off by a stinging slap to the cheek. She'd hit him. Shy, quiet and pacifistic Tia had slapped him like a little bitch. He was too shocked to do more than spit bloody saliva to the floor, as she rubbed her own hand.
"That felt better than I thought it would…" She mumbled. "But I don't think that's why you're here."
"Listen to me!" He snarled, angered. "I'm not a fucking illusion." His breath caught in his throat as she griped his limp cock harshly, squeezing it painfully with her sharp nails.
"Or maybe you're here so I can cry on your shoulder… You make me feel like crying, you know." She continued unhurriedly. "I've fantasised a little about being able to cry on your shoulder, and you'd drag your hands along my back and whisper endearments." Her voice broke slightly on the last word, and Shiro was scared and amazed by how quickly her mood had shifted from angry and threatening, to tears spilling from her eyes.
She buried her head underneath his collarbone, drawing in his scent through her nose as her tears trickled onto his bare, heaving chest. He held his breath as she lay like that for some time.
"We could have been together…" She murmured. "We would have been beautiful together."
He felt sadness rolling off her in waves, drowning him in her tears. He'd never had a woman cry all over him before, but he knew now how horrible it felt. Especially knowing he was the cause of her distress. She was someone he cared about; someone close to him, and there was nothing he could do to make her feel better. He couldn't even reach out and touch her, thanks to the shackles on his wrists, nor could he whisper the things she wanted to hear.
"Tia…" He called uncomfortably. "Can you do me a favour?" She looked up at him with tear stained eyes. "Can you find the key's to these and let me free?" He rattled his wrists for her to see. Whether it was a good decision or a bad one, to show his situation remained uncertain, as she seemed to notice the cuffs for the first time. Her brows furrowed in confusion, before straightening out in dull acceptance.
"So this is the only way you will stay with me? If you are chained down like an animal?" She ran her fingers over the cuffs, toying with them. "If I let you go you will escape from me again. Is there no other way we can be together?" Despair overcame her again, as solitary tears dripped over her lashes.
"No, that's not why I'm chained Tia!" He argued. "It was Aizen, he did this. If you let me go we can be together."
But she wasn't listening anymore. She would only hear the things she wanted to hear. Again, he grew fearful as he watched her countenance shift from sad to angry in the blink of an eye.
"Why will you not stay with me by your own choice? Why am I not good enough, to be anything to you but a game? Why wont you love me?" She growled her questions harshly, her hand tightening around his limp manhood.
"If you will not give yourself to me, I will take you by force." Her angered eyes cut him down, growing cold and distant, as her fevered hands tried to harden his slack length. Shiro shut his eyes, and tried to breathe even. He'd honestly had enough of being raped.
"Tia, please stop. This isn't an illusion. I know you're going to regret this when you snap out of it, so please stop!" he was silenced by another slap. She pulled her white underwear to the side, and awkwardly pushed him into herself. She sat down over his hips, as his face shifted into a grotesque snarl and his eyes tried to shut out the world. He listened to his own breathing and attempted to drown himself in oxygen.
She was still for a moment, her arms hung limp at her sides as she admired the ceiling above them, before more tears trickled down her face. "This is not how its supposed to go." She whispered. "In my illusions, you are attracted to me, and I to you. You cannot get enough of me. But now I cannot even make you rise."
He opened one eye, only to see more of her tears stabbing him with guilt.
"Why would I desire this? This isn't what I want." She decided, looking down on him with horror etched into her face. As if she had only just realized that he was not a figment of her imagination. Her world crumbled as she fell off him, backing away slowly as her hands rose to tear at her own face.
"Tia, wait!" he pleaded. "Don't freak out. We can pretend none of this ever happened. Just find the key and I will get you out of here." His voice came out scarily even, in the face of what had just occurred. It irked him that he was able to forgive her so easily.
She laughed at him with a broken voice, slumping against the opposite wall. "Pretend it never happened? But it did, and you will never forgive me. At the moment you are too concerned with freeing yourself to hate me, but you will later."
Was she right? Perhaps. If anyone knew him better than himself, and maybe Ichigo, it was her.
"Hogyoku." She spat the name this time. "It means crumbling sphere, and now I see why. I feel as if the earth is shattering around me. There is no way I can live with this shame."
She stood up and searched the lone cabinet in the room. Laying out an array of items that included bondage tools, sex toys, syringes, pills, a pistol and a set of keys. She regarded them each with great thought, as if she was deciding which to use.
As she stood motionless, Shiro felt a great uncertainty growing in his chest. He became nervous and frightened by instinct, not entirely sure why. "Tia." He ordered. "The keys; just take them and we can get out of here."
Her eyes didn't flicker for a second. She reached out and instead she took the gun. In slow motion, she turned to him, as his heartbeat sped up, his eyes wide and pleading. She raised it to her lips, and spread her mouth wide to push the barrel between her teeth.
"No…" He commanded softly. "Don't do that. Things can still go back! Its not a big deal Tia. I'll be with you forever, just don't pull that trigger." He could hardly believe himself, as his chest heaved with panic. He was ready to promise anything at all to keep her alive and with him. She was a friend, and he didn't have many of those.
But he could hardly live with himself if she wasn't alive, If she couldn't move on from this, or from him. He couldn't stand to watch her do this, right in front of him, as he was chained and unable to take action. "I- I love you Tia, I'll never leave you, I promise." Tears began to trickle down his own cheeks, as her hands began trembling with emotion.
Slowly, she withdrew the gun from her mouth, and relief flooded him only briefly. "I love you, Shiro." She confessed, before shoving the barrel back into her mouth and pulling the trigger.
He screamed, hoarse and broken as she fell to the ground, blood and gore splattered the wall behind her, dripping down it like thick acid. He sobbed into the empty air and struggled in his cuffs.
"Tia!-?" He yelled, unable to peer over the bed and see her unmoving body. Somehow, if he couldn't see her he couldn't entirely accept that she was dead. "TIA!" He yelled again, and received no response.
He sobbed louder, and collapsed back onto the bed. He shut his eyes and stewed in his frustration. He hated these restraints more than anything else he'd ever encountered; yet the man who'd put them on him was hated like no other.
Aizen was on a completely different level now. It was Aizen's fault Hallibel had been so upset. How dare he mess with her to such a degree. Shiro swore his endless oath again, for what must have been the millionth time. He would destroy Aizen Sosuke.
As if to give his resolve the thunderous applause it deserved, the entire world shuddered around him. The walls shook and rumbled, the ceiling caved and quaked, and his bed slid across the floor, destroying anything in its path until he was brutally smashed against the other wall. An earthquake of monstrous proportions destroyed his room, and his bed was victim to the fray.
He tasted blood on his cheek, and a gash on his shoulder, but what he immediately focused on was the keys sliding across the floor towards him. He reached out, with his limited movement to try and snatch them as they went past.
They jumped a little closer as the tremors picked up. Shaking him harder and faster as if he was in a blender. Concrete began falling from the ceiling. Shiro worried that it would collapse on him before he could reach the key.
It slid his way again, and just as the shiny silver was at the tips of his outstretched fingers, dust blanketed them. He coughed as it kept on falling, yet blindly continued reaching for the key.
A huge chunk of concrete fell down onto one corner of his bed, simultaneously freeing one of his arms and sending him skidding across the room again, away from the key. That chunk of concrete was followed by another, and Shiro was forced to forget about the key and curl himself into a ball in the corner, sheltered by the remains of his bedpost as the ceiling collapsed around him.
After awhile of desperate huddling, he peeked out, only to find the tip of a spinning drill piercing through the ceiling. It kept coming, utterly obliterating anything in its path until its drill was halfway into the earth beneath them, and its cabin adjacent to his hiding spot.
The world slowly settled around him, the dust produced by moving a thousand tonnes of earth settled amongst the rubble around him. Shiro wearily stayed where he was, waiting for the sounds of human activity to pick up around him.
This was his chance to escape. A giant hole up to the surface had just materialized above him; albeit not without its due chaos and destruction. The only thing that mattered now was who would get out of the cabin of the machine?
Friend or foe?
What could he possibly do against foe, with one arm out of order and the other chained to a mangled bed post.
"Shit, There's blood everywhere in here!" Someone yelled, as they swung a door open and stepped down into what used to be a rather nice room. "Are you sure we didn't land on anybody?"
Someone else stepped down behind the first. "I was pretty sure there were no living specimens at our destination." The voice of a man mused.
"Was, were!-? That's past tense! Just look at all this blood; there's no way someone didn't die here." The first was panicking.
"Maybe they were already dead." The second replied. "Putting that aside, I don't think this is Aizen's office, which means we are some hundred metres off target."
Shiro quickly grew impatient with quietly overhearing. He took a chance, and peeked around the corner of the bed that caved in around him. His golden eyes widened as they took in the two familiar blondes standing in the centre of the chaos.
The two blondes, with keen eyes, noticed even a small movement such as his. They drew guns in a split second, ready to shoot at anything that moved. Shiro ducked behind his wall again, hugging his knees to his chest and holding in his breath as he heard them edging closer to his hiding spot.
"Come out with your hands up, or well shoot." Ordered the first person he had heard speak. He panicked at the order; knowing that he was unable to complete it with one hand chained behind him. Would they shoot before he could get words out to explain himself?
His breath came in short pants, and he chocked on the words he needed to say. "I- I Can't!" he gasped, as dust chocked him.
"Don't mess with us. We will shoot!" Came another order, along with a warning shot that bounced off the wall next to his head.
"NO, I- I really cant. My hand is stuck." He tried to explain. "I don't have a weapon, and my other hand is chained." To demonstrate, he stuck his free hand out behind the bed, in clear range of their bullets. He realised as he looked at it, that his bandages had fallen off and it was freely bleeding again.
But with noticing the blood, came the pain he hadn't known was there.
They asked his name, to which he begrudgingly replied through the stinging pain.
"Fuck, its that kid! He's still alive." one exclaimed, and one blonde head peered into his corner to take in his situation. "We'll get you out in just a sec."
They kept true to their word, cutting off his last chain with a large chainsaw, and soon he was seated on the wheel of the great machine they'd arrived in, with the blonde shopkeeper treating his wounds. Shiro was irked that he couldn't remember their names, though he remembered meeting them both not so long ago.
The blonde with the piano smile, who had driven the taxi to Stark's house. The other was a paler blonde, with messy hair and stubble who had owned the store Stark had taught him to shoot in. They were Starks friends. He felt a pang in his chest at the thought.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" He snarled as the man put antiseptic on his bared flesh. His question received a light chuckle in response.
"That's a complicated question to answer…" The man chuckled. "We're doing many things, including but not limited to retrieving you."
The man stood him up and herded him towards the machines door. "Come, we're running out of time. We'll take you up to the surface before this place is swarmed. " He gestured to the taxi driver, who was watching the remains of the door for signs of the enemy.
"Here they come…" He suddenly muttered, bracing a large machine gun on his shoulder as he grit his teeth and fired around the corner. Shiro was shocked by the resounding noise. He fell to the ground, covering his ears at the shaking that resumed, as the pale blonde continued to hurry him into the machine.
He felt dazed, and confused, The mans words didn't quite register until he was at the door that would take him to safety.
"No!" He suddenly exclaimed, and gripped the frame, digging his heels in. "I'm not leaving yet, I've still got things I have to do."
"What on earth could you have to do down here? Hurry up or we'll be dead!" The other blonde was behind him, protecting their back from the incoming gunfire.
"I've got to find my brother! And finish some business with Aizen." He growled, a fire lighting in his eyes once again. The two stared at him in surprise, before sharing a knowing glance.
"You're insane, kid." The Taxi driver muttered, as he shoved his gun into the albino's hands and pushed past him. "Go get 'em."
"Wait!" Shiro exclaimed. "I need to know, are there more people like you? What's going to happen from here on out?"
"Yes. We are a faction dedicated to opposing Aizen. We consist almost entirely of police officers and skilled civilians, like yours truly" They tried to explain quickly, but Shiro had never been a fast leaner.
"I thought the police was Aizen's!-?"
"He may own Sixty percent, but that isn't a hundred, and as long as there is still even one person fighting, Aizen will never rule." The two met him with such seriousness, and conviction, that he felt a growing respect bloom.
He stared at them for a few more seconds as they started their machine.
"It was you that triggered this you know. When you and your brother were taken, there were two kids who came to us and asked for help. They made such a convincing argument in favour of a mass surprise attack, that now here we are. The entire organisation putting everything on the line to end things. We don't have time to explain the plan now, so try not to die."
"What are you're names?" He asked as his final question as he backed out of the rumbling vehicle.
"Urahara Kisuke, and Shinji Hirako." Said the pale blonde as he shut the door. The vehicle turned, its huge mass cracking and pulverising the earth as it left him shaking in its wake, fighting to stay standing.
The roar would not fade from his ears, as he looked at the huge weapon in his hands. It was big, and would no doubt be a bitch to aim, but he knew he could fire it. Although, despite everything that had happened, he had never shot at a person before. He didn't think he'd killed anyone before. Nnoitra and the other man had only fallen unconscious at his hands.
He felt like he was in a dream, or inside some unrealistic video game. It was only the constant pain that reminded him this was reality, albeit an unexpected one. His injured arm was freshly bandaged, after Shinji and Urahara had been kind enough to give him some pants and painkillers. He felt slightly rejuvenated, despite the many gashes and scrapes that littered his body.
He took a final breath of immobility, cold eyes scanning the debris for the battered body of his friend. He found a single, female hand outstretched, reaching from underneath a large piece of concrete, fingers tensed to grasp something that wasn't there. He didn't dare lift the concrete up.
He bent down, and touched her hand, grasping it softly in his own. Tears prickled at his eyes, but he held them back. To repeatedly cry over such things was only weakness. If he was going to make it all the way across the complex, in the midst of a war, he would need to seriously toughen up. Ichigo was waiting for him on the other side.
Despite how much he wished she were still here with him, he fought to accept that she was gone. He felt her pulse, searching for any last signs. Nothing. Her arm was as still as stone, and as lifeless as a doll.
"We really could have been beautiful together, Tia Hallibel." He murmured, unsure of what else to say, to find the closure he was looking for. He wasn't going to apologise for his actions; he had done what he had to do. And if he could return, he'd probably do the same thing again.
Instead he blamed her death entirely on Aizen. It was Aizen's fault for bringing her here and toying with her. It was his fault she had died; he had killed her.
His head felt clearer than it had in longer than he could remember. He felt strong and capable, his goals and intentions crystal clear to himself. The impossibility of his situation only made him laugh. He had always laughed in the face of unlikely odds; it was an old habit that chose the perfect time to resurface. Laughing made him feel like himself again.
With fresh resolve and burning determination igniting each step, he checked his gun was fully loaded, before stepping out and returning the fire that had droned in the background of his thoughts.
A/N- So, yeah, we went to visit my grandma and her new kitten, and of course we took my cat mitten along. It was insane how attached he got to this tiny little kitten. They just bonded. He followed it around and got worried when it was out of his sight, and put up with its playful clawing at his face & tail, climbing up his mountain of fat, jumping on him from high places. He even bathed it, and portioned their food out appropriately and they SLEPT TOGETHER all curled up and circular.
CATS. Please review.