Chapter 28: Spore
There was a dream, or something vividly close to it. At least, there had been. However, it was quickly slipping out of memory as auburn eyes opened, a moving shadow waking Ichigo.
The teen leered out of the slits of his eyes, a yawn forcing his jaw open. However a sharp, sudden pain in the side made the still groggy boy jolt awake with a startled yelp.
It quickly turned into an angry growl and Ichigo glared to see no other than a member of the Execution Squad. Getting up to kick back at the man, Ichigo's snarl quickly morphed into a scream of shock as excruciating pain ignited around his throat. The torture collar had been turned on.
His neck stiffened, unable to move as the hollows within the collar sprang to life, eating anything they could reach as fast as they could. Quickly it scorched through every nerve, making the boy fall back onto the sand as everything was put on fire with hot, burning pain. Twisting and turning in the sands was no longer an act of joy - quiet the contrary.
His scream seemed never-ending, even when his mouth filled with white froth that ran down the sides of his cheeks. He gasped loudly, air whooshing into him though his chest and tried to stabilize himself, to stop his fingers and entire body from cramping. But he couldn't, the spirit energy within him being drained too fast.
Suddenly a rough hand grabbed his ankle and the boy was pulled through the sands. Ichigo tried to kick himself free, but the torture collar had no mercy, draining all energy out of him. His face twisted in pain, tears of blood pushing out of his eyes and his head bumped painfully into the sand as he was dragged onward. Where was he being taken?
To Aizen? Back to the man that thought he was a God himself? Ichigo didn't know, but with a throaty moan his agonised body was released.
Words were spoken, but Ichigo couldn't make it out over the distinct ringing in his ears or the gurgling sound of his cramping throat. However, as suddenly as the pain had started it stopped. Abruptly Ichigo's convulsing body went limp on the ground, small twitches racking it from time to time.
Squinting up through sweaty hair Ichigo wondered what he had done to deserve such a stubborn grudge as the squad seemed to have for him. His upper body was lifted from the sand, two pair of strong arms holding both of his.
A lanky-looking figure kneed in front of Ichigo and, to his worsened fear, pulled his upper uniform open by the zipper, fully exposing his chest. Ichigo tried to wrench himself free when some sort of elastic ruler was placed upon it. He tried to stutter out something about letting him go, but the words did not want to form in his foam-filled mouth.
"15 centimetre!" The figure's sharp voice barked, the numbers being the diameter of the hole in his chest.
Ichigo didn't like it. What was going on? Was the execution squad living up their name now? Where they going to execute him?
As soon as the thought struck him, Ichigo wrenched free from the arms holding him, fear strengthening him. Quickly he spun around, his ever so skinny legs leaping into the air, jumping and sprinting away. But as soon as he was airborne an angry shout was heard. The collar around his neck ignited once more and Ichigo plummeted back into the ground.
He didn't get the change to get up as he was already forced to sit on his knees and saw something that didn't seem to predict much good. Long, white and massive three branches from the trees that grew in the depths of the Menos Forest were sticking out from the sand. They were sleek and smooth, the odd crystal material the branches were made of glimmering in the moonlight. But the beautiful glitter did not bring any comfort to Ichigo, especially not when several men were standing around one, as if examining it.
A yell about something that probably answered the shout about his chest from before was heard. Ichigo could feel the grip on his arm tightened and he was pulled towards the branch.
"Hey…" Ichigo slurred out. "What are you doin'…?" As he was dragged nearer and nearer he put two and two together. They needed to know how big Ichigo's hole was to see if the branch could fit? What the hell were they planning to do?
"Oh no, no, no you don't!" Ichigo dug is legs into the ground, pulled with his shoulders to get loose and screamed. But the men that held him kept their hold. Ichigo twisted like a worm in their grip to get away, tried to wriggle his way out.
"Let me go!" Ichigo screamed, his eyes widening as he realised they were still making their way toward the now horrifying tree. Panicking, Ichigo flared with his spirit-energy.
That proved to be a mistake because as soon as his blue tinted energy burst out of him to effectively knock the two masked men holding him away, the cursed collar around his neck was once more activated. With a fresh scream and bewildered eyes Ichigo once again fought against harsh pain.
Unable to do anything else than wriggle with a scream caught in his throat, Ichigo's body was lifted with little care. It wasn't long until the destination was reach, Ichigo vaguely seeing the silhouette of the towering branch as if it was guillotine ready to fall.
Being carried up higher, his body still twitching from infuriating pain, Ichigo felt the tree impale him, right through his chest. No more screams left the boy, wide eyes staring empty into white sand. Fingers twitched and toes cramped. Ichigo couldn't really comprehend what had really happened before he lost consciousness.
Coming to sometime later, not knowing how or when, Ichigo lashed out at anything he could reach without seeing and tried to get away, but gravity had a firm grip on him, thus he couldn't do much in his position. He jerked his head back and forth, trying to comprehend what had and was happening.
His mouth was wide open and teeth barred as he tried to suck in air, tried to breathe. But it was so hard, the little space left in his lungs from where the massive branch impaled him not doing a good job of giving his body oxygen.
Ichigo coughed and wheezed. He tried to lift his legs, his arm and head, but it was all too hard. Moaning, his head hung back and his eyes didn't want to stay open. His body hurt terribly, even if there was no torn skin or bleeding veins. His lungs were cramped, feeling like they wanted to explode. For the first time ever Ichigo wished the hole in his ribcage was larger, large enough for his body to slide down and hit the sand. But he was stuck in the middle and could hardly move at all.
What kind of sick way was this to torture someone? Why the crude method? Impaled through the chest and left to rot? Was he to hang there until he went mad with hunger, until he was a shell doomed to wither away in silent desert winds?
What of the others? They were not around; no one was here to accompany him in his morbid crucifixion. Was he all alone, lost to a bitter cause?
The thought slipped through his mind, spiralling down a current of fuming anger. Why was he punished? He had done nothing wrong! Hell, he had been dragged to the place by force! It was not his fault!
Where were the others! Why did no screams of pain from tortured souls fill his ears? Was he the only one? Was he once more the weak link? The one to blame? Anger flared.
Why was he punished without any reason! Did the Espada blame the idea on him? Did they put Ichigo as the guilty so the Espada did not have to suffer? Anger roared.
Ichigo's body twitched and cramped as hate coiled in every nerve. Spirit energy gushed out of his pores, blasting and zapping the hated world around him. It yanked and bit at the sand below him, snarled and hissed at the burning sun it could not reach. Ichigo screamed.
However as his lungs worked to push the roar out of the boy and air back in, his chest rose, his ribcage extending in size as Ichigo drew for breath. When he did, he slipped further down the pillar.
The scream of rage was cut off short, no more air able to fill Ichigo's lungs. Lashing out, the boy twisted and turned like a stranded fish. With a jolt the anger turned into fear. Fear meshed into panic.
Can't breath, can't breath! Can'tbreath!
His thoughts became a jumble as he fought for air and tried to get a grip on the branch with his working arm. But it only twitched vigorously at his side until the gurgling sounds in his throat died away. Quickly Ichigo was taken over by darkness as he fainted.
The darkness was thick and impenetrable even when Ichigo once again came to. His mind was groggy and slow. He felt like he was inside a small coffin that was filled with water from his black sea of despair that always drowned him.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Ichigo held back a wail when it felt like the coffin rocked to the side as a massive wave of water slammed into it and it toppled over. With a harsh tug and a spasm, air filled his lungs. Instantly Ichigo's eyes wrenched open, the imaginary world of water disappearing and reality taking its place.
The feeling in his limbs returned and he felt sand scrape against skin. Coughing hard and inhaling deep breaths, Ichigo coiled like a maggot. He tried to get up from the ground; to crawl away from what he knew was the Execution squad that had taken him down. It couldn't be anyone else. Struggling, Ichigo tried to get to his feet.
His legs slid in under his body and with a shaky groan Ichigo rose to his feet. He wobbled uncontrollably and attempted to take a shaky step forward. His movement was erratic, sluggish and he had no chance to come to his senses before his arms were grabbed. Crude fingers dug into his biceps and pulled him along. Gurgling, Ichigo tried to pull free. He would not be taken again! With another violent twitch Ichigo jerked and lashed out, the anger he had felt before resurfacing. It bubbled into his body, fuelling it and giving it strength.
Clawing out, his fingers cut through flesh. Before his claws were out of the person's body, he pushed away and leaped in the momentum he got to get away. In his rush he felt his hand twitch and a Bala was fired from his hand, ripping through air and hitting one of two arrancar that had come to assist with holding Ichigo down square in the head, obliterating it. The second one he pushed past with an elbow to his gut and leaped over the dead, headless body.
Ichigo saw his chance and ran for it, since he knew better than to stay and fight. Running away meant surviving and surviving was the only thing that mattered. His legs moved erratically and he fell many times, fear of getting taken again growing inside and stopping him from slowing down.
He ran aimlessly, something he had done many times before, but even so it did make him feel a bit uneasy because it was hard to have any sense of direction. A sense of time was out of the question with the constant moon as well. He was so tired too and eventually he had to stop, when he decided it was safe enough. He didn't seem to be followed. Ichigo collapsed to the sand. He was tired, so very tired. But he didn't rest for long, feeling uneasy still that Aizen's personal killing squad might be looking for him. Getting up again, Ichigo kept going.
Dragging himself thought the sand Hueco Mundo, Ichigo squinted through a sand storm, cursing as it whirled all around. The sand was everywhere, between his teeth, in his hair, in his pants and lungs.
Ichigo fell again, the sand that tried to swallowing him beginning to get harder and harder to walk through when the sandstorm got the better of him. Cursing, Ichigo crawled up to what seemed to be a large branch from the crystal trees and tried to hide behind it. Holding his clawed and in front of his mouth and breathing through the gap between his fingers, he waited to for the sandstorm to die down.
It seems to last for at least twenty minutes and Ichigo wondered if he would be able to find his way back again at all once it was over. The traces in the sand after his steps would be gone, but he knew he had gone in a straight line. Well, he hoped he had at least. So maybe he could go back if he needed to. When it finally was over, Ichigo carefully got up and peer out from behind the tree. The sand dunes had changed, the strong wind forming it after its desires.
What made him surprised however that was there now was an odd smell in the air and Ichigo couldn't decide if it was a pleasant or bad one. It must have been carried with the wind. Whatever it was, it filled his nostrils, moved into his lungs and consumed his being. Much like a soul would when he was near. Instantly something inside flared and the urge to hunt the origin of the smell down was unstoppable. He started sprinting through the deep sand again.
His tried body cramped and he tried to regain his breath before he started running again. It must have been a few hours, at least, since he started searching; and he still hadn't found it, and the realization made him slightly desperate. He had to find what it was, no matter how exhausted he became, even when something screamed in the back of his mind that it couldn't be a lonely soul because they didn't exist here. At least not the ones that weren't broken and hollow like him. And they did not smell like this.
What was that strange smell?, Ichigo wondered when he almost fell again and moved clumsily through the sand, trying to find the origin of the scent. But after heaving himself up over what felt like the hundredth sand dune he saw something. A faint silhouette among all the white, something hunched, lying down. Something dead.
Brown eyes narrowed suspiciously as he gazed over the desert, but nonetheless he started walking down the dune he was upon, getting closer by the minute. The sand seemed to get thicker, more compact when he was almost next to what he realised was a body. A humanoid looking body.
Slowing down Ichigo stopped a few meters away from it. It was an arrancar. Had to be. But that was not what was troubling him enough to resist the massive urge to run up to the corpse and sink his teeth into it. It was what seemed to be all over the corpse.
Some sort of… Ichigo couldn't put his finger on it, but it looked as if something had grown all over the former man or woman. The skin looked rotten and it was covered in tight veins or roots of some sort. Parts of it seemed to leave the body and root itself into the sand, as if keeping the body put. Was it preventing it from dissolving…?
Ever so slowly Ichigo was lured closer, squatting down next to it. He had to cover his mouth with his hand to block out the smell. There was no way in hell he was going fall for his instincts and quench his agonised hole by eating this. But he eventually had to look away and close his eyes, taking deep breaths through the slits between his fingers to steady himself. He was in control. Not the raging monster. He was in control…
His hand moved away from his jaw, ever so slowly yielding to the urge to touch. If was as if the corpse, or maybe the growth all over it, was a magnetic field and he was a metal object that had no choice but to get sucked in. He touched it.
Slowly, with unsteady breaths, his claws carefully moved over the odd, rotten skin and travelled along the strange vein-like things. Approaching the neck of the once humanoid being, the boy noticed the skin seemed to have swelled there, as if the glands had grown and contorted. The skin seemed thin and fragile. Little by little Ichigo moved his finger over it, his claw pushing unintentionally hard at it.
Without any warning the boil opened up and instantly Ichigo drew back. But even so he was too late to not have breathed the spore that seemed to come out of it. It wasn't little either. The yellow dust seemed to cling to his entire face, in his hair and throat. Even inside his open lungs.
Horrified, Ichigo crawled backwards on the sand the best he could, away from the body. His eyes were wide, his face panic-stricken. He twisted around, quickly getting up on his feet and running off, more than afraid to be near the infected body. He did his best to smear the yellow spores away, but it seemed determined to stick to his face.
He ran far, not daring to stop even when he couldn't breathe, his throat feeling like it was going to clog and suffocate him. Froth moved up and he wiped it away quickly, his eyes still wide with terror.
Dizziness overcame him and he felt hot, his skin becoming damp with sweat. The choking feeling didn't let him go as Ichigo tried to escape the fear that had gripped him. Ichigo did his best to get the yellow smeary substance and foam off his hand by moving it against his pants. When considering it clean enough he pushed his hand inside in chest, trying to scrape the spore that he knew was there away.
But in all his frustration and panic, it only hurt. It hurt enough for him to scream and pull his hand out with a bit of difficultly, as it got stuck at the rim of his hole. He didn't try to push his hand inside again.
He started coughing, froth once more coating the sides of his mouth. He inhaled sharply, desperately trying to slow his breath, trying to force the respiratory distress away. Closing his eyes, his hand formed into a first as he sat down in the sand. The harsh coughing didn't seem to want to stop, even if it did slow down.
Ichigo tried to breathe through his nose and wipe his eyes clean from the blood that had suddenly started to form pour out of them. He had no water to clear his eyes with, so being the only liquid he had in his body, blood had to do. His eyes stung, and Ichigo furiously blinked. If he had sand in them it was too hard to get out with his clawed fingers, even if he couldn't feel any grains in any of them, and the blood didn't do a good job of washing it out either. It was too thick and clung to his eyelashes.
His fingering only seemed to make the pain in his eyes worse, as if he had added more dirt. Stopping, Ichigo settled with closing them, hoping the blood still would wash whatever it was away if he waited long enough. But even as he waited the pain and coughing didn't seem to fully disappear, even it had already ebbed away dramatically after he had sat down. The boy did his best to squint through bloody eyes.
What was he going to do? This couldn't be something good he had inhaled. The instant reaction it had caused had been horrible. Hell, he still couldn't breathe or see properly from it.
Damn it, he was at a loss on what to do.
'Che,' Shirosaki suddenly scoffed in his head, before his bright voice escalated into a very annoyed scream. 'Idiot!'
"Hollow!" Ichigo burst out; he had almost forgotten the demon inside still existed. He had been quiet for so long.
'What the hell's wrong with you, ya dumb fuck!' Ichigo's eyebrows twitched at the harsh yell. 'Here I go trying to get out of the damn rain, and look what you do! Run into some fuckin' trap!'
"Wha-"
'Don't you go 'what are you talking about?' on me! You know what!' The hollow told Ichigo off. 'That wasn't just some stupid flower's spore that you got sprayed in the face!'
"What are you talking about?" Ichigo still echoed, fear swelling large after hearing the hollow's cryptic message. "It's inside?"
'Well, there's something here! And I sure haven't seen it before!' The small hint of desperation was well hidden.
"Shitshitshitshit..." Ichigo quickly cursed, as his mind reeled as visions of a dying city flashed in front of his eyes and his imagination fuelled his fear. "What the Hell are we supposed to do! We have to get it out!" Ichigo slurred, pulling at his hair and his eyes widened.
'Think! It's not like you can get it out yourself!'
"W-we have to go back to Las Notches," Ichigo said more to himself than the hollow.
He didn't really want to go back, but he realised it was the best thing to do. He needed help with this. He had no idea what had gotten into him, because he found it pretty obvious that he had been infected by something evil.
How stupid had he been? Falling into such an obvious a trap. He had gone into the nest of that odd thing just like any fly does with a spider's web. Gritting his teeth he cursed his foolishness that never seemed to do him any good ever.
Slowly, Ichigo started to stumble toward the way he came from, backtracking his steps and hoping he would find his way back before his condition grew worse. It couldn't that bad, he tried to reassure himself. It was just a cough and watering eyes. But the knowledge that his hollow had seen it too, inside his very soul, still clogged the empty space of his chest and made it even harder to breath.
His legs heaved themselves over the sand as Ichigo ran as fast as he dared to find the massive white palace. He did, however have to come to a full stop every so often because of another coughing fit, or because of his eyes blurred up so much he couldn't see where he was going and he couldn't help but to scratch at them with the back of his hand, red smearing all over it.
Finally, after what felt like long, tedious hours, he saw a white speck far off in the desert. His breath wheezed as he glared through his sweaty hair. Taking a deep breath and trying not to choke on it, Ichigo sped up, getting closer with every second. Eventually he was at the massive front doors, opening them with a bit of difficulty as they were more than a little heavy.
Stumbling inside Ichigo slammed into hot, dry air like it was a wall. It made his head spin, the sudden change from cool air to stifling desert heat. He was forced to stop, his face crumbling together as his entire body did its best to breath. Silently Ichigo wondered why he had to breath so badly now and not when he was impaled with by a massive spear-like branch. Maybe fear was the only thing that actually did cramp his throat and stopped him from breathing.
He was till coughing, even if it was much lighter now and longer between the fits, Ichigo tried to keep it that way he kept going through the long halls. After taking a couple of rights and lefts, he finally found himself at the hospital wing.
He was met with a sight that he hadn't expected. The room was cramped with people, who all moaned or uttered sounds of pain Ichigo had heard even before he had set foot within it. Everyone was seated on the beds or on the floor, holding over the place where an arm was supposed to have been or things alike. The smell of puss and other disgusting odours were strong in the room and Ichigo held back the urge to gag.
What the hell was this…? Ichigo stared at everyone as he stepped further inside, the door closing behind him and Ichigo pushed himself against the wall at its side. His clawed hand covered his mouth as the watched the people, shocked. Had everyone been tortured for their deception? His blurry gaze travelled over the many arrancar in the room and to the far left he recognized one of them. That was Grimmjow wasn't it?
Slowly Ichigo left the walls, heading for the Espada through the maze of people sitting on most of the open spaces in the room. To his dismay he saw one arrancar, or maybe it was a fracción, simply sitting on the ground, mouthing opening and closing as he stared emptily at his scorched hands, no skin remaining on them whatsoever. No wonder the room smelled like it was filled with bile.
Ichigo stopped when he came into hearing range of the loudly barking man, who seemed to have lost both of his arms as they lay in his lap, some sort of disgusting grease coming out of the ends and his shoulders. The Espada did not, seem to be in too much pain, or the 6tha was doing his best at not letting it show, probably focusing on whining very loudly instead.
"Fucking assholes!" Grimmjow burst out, sounding like he had said it quiet a few times already. Then he wrenched his head to the left fast enough for Ichigo to think Grimmjow was going to get a whiplash in order to stare angrily at someone. "You should have watched my back, Ulquiorra!"
"Were you not the one bragging about taking them all on your own?" came the simple answer from Ulquiorra who was sitting with his eyes closed, the eyelids sinking inwards as if there was nothing behind them.
Deciding against approaching the two bickering males, Ichigo turned around; trying to spot the flaming pink hair he knew would be in here somewhere. He spotted the Espada, standing dressed in green scrubs and yellow, tight gloves. The hair was put away in a thin pale green hat of sorts, blocking its bright colour.
"Um, err… excuse me?" Ichigo mumbled after walking over, not really sure if his matters were so bad now when he watched the Espada stitch a leg back onto a much agonised looking woman. Obviously busy and very stressed, the scientist let out a frustrated sigh as he turned around.
"If you need a limb re-attached get in line, if not, get out!" Szayel spit, obviously agitated.
Being a bit taken aback by the snappy response, the orange haired teen took an uncertain step backward, almost bumping into a Fracción running past with a stretcher.
"Um, we don't. But we inhaled something in the desert." Ichigo didn't exactly know what to say, uncertain if this was the right time to tell - if he should tell at all. It was awfully busy in here already; his condition was just troubled breathing and irritated eyes. Except for it being in his inner-world too, of course. "Some yellow growth…"
The Espada turned around, looking at the boy like he wanted to throw him out, his pink eyebrows twitching together as if silently telling him to shut up.
"W-we bumped into a body that lay in the sand. It had some strange yellow… stuff all over on its skin!" Ichigo babbled out, his worry getting the better of him as he smeared away another wave of fresh blood flowing into his eyes.
"A yellow growth over the body…?" The Espada suddenly asked rather fast, his voice less angry and, to the boy's unease, more worried.
"Yes." Ichigo answered, trying to remain calm. It was hard however when the Espada suddenly seemed a bit alarmed, leaving the patient he had been treating, motioning to someone to take over. "It was just a corpse! We didn't think it was gonna do anything! S-Some fucked up thing suddenly came out of it. Some sort of spore!"
"You inhaled this spore?" The Espada grabbed the boy's bony arm, holding him still. Ichigo looked down at the hand, not liking the other grabbing him. But when he looked up in the arrancar's eyes, he was more worried with the look he was given than the firm grip.
"I'll have to inspect your eyes."
"Our eyes…?" Ichigo echoed questioningly, but then again the blood would not stop flowing and it was making him half blind, now matter how much he tried to blink it away. Frowning, Ichigo moved his sleeve in a try to wipe his face free from blood he knew it was smeared in.
Szayel nodded as he put on a new pair of gloves and Ichigo bit his lip as his head was carefully leaned back. Cautiously Szayel's fingers moved over one of Ichigo's wet eyelid, rising it up. Understanding what the arrancar was getting at, the boy looked down, the eyeball turning in its socket.
The scientist looked at the white of the eye, and frowned in annoyance as the blood wouldn't clear away or stop flowing from the boy's eyes. Annoyed, he let go of the boy and he turned around, grabbed a bottle and once more leaning Ichigo's head back. But Ichigo drew back as he saw the other hand holding something as it move over his exposed eyeball. He earned an irritated grunt.
"It's eye-drops. It should make your eyes bleed less;" Szayel said, eyeing the boy. Ichigo looked the thing, wiped his eyes clear again for the moment and saw through squinting eyes that it indeed looked like what the man claimed it was. Relaxing somewhat the Espada took the motion as an invitation and dropped the clear liquid into the boy's eyes that he pried open with his free hand.
As the blood cleared away for the moment, he could see the now white eyeball mesh into black at the very back of the ball. The black from the hollow, he assumed, lying in the back of the eye lurking until ready take over. What did bother him was not the black at all, but the faint yellow dots he spotted in it. It was in the white too, but not as easy to notice there. No wonder the eyes were desperately trying to clean themselves out with the blood.
It wasn't long until he let go of Ichigo, who blinked madly and tried not to scratch. The Espada in front of him grabbed his arm, stretched it out, gave it a quick swab with some sort of alcohol and without any warning stuck him with a needle.
"What are you doing?" Ichigo asked as he tried not to flinch to make the needle go deeper.
"Taking a blood sample," Szayel replied rather quickly. He seemed stressed and Ichigo wondered if the Espada knew what he was doing.
For some reason Ichigo got the feeling the man wanted to leave him as fast as he could, as if Ichigo was suddenly dangerous. It was unsettling. When the scientist seemed to be done, the needle out of his white skinned arm, which Ichigo had no clue how it could penetrate his skeleton hide at all, even with the alcohol, the Espada looked around himself, seeming to look for something and snapped his fingers a few times. Soon four Fracción were at his side.
"Take him to the isolation room, immediately!"
Before Ichigo knew it, he was hauled toward the back of the large room, past many injured arrancar he knew had been at the party in the desert.
"Hey! What's going on!" He asked loudly, shocked at the sudden change of actions. It hadn't seemed too bad at first, but then the Espada suddenly changed his mind? What had he seen when he had looked at his eyes?
Ichigo was given no response to his question as only a few seconds later a door was opened and he was thrown inside. Clumsily he landed on his unresponsive arm, mumbling curses as he got up from the ground. What the hell was this?
"Hey!" He screamed, banging on the door that had closed behind him. There was another door in front of him in the small room too, but he'd rather head out then further in to wherever he had been thrown.
But as expected there was no response. Instead some sort of ventilator opened on both sides of him on the narrow walls, air forcefully being vented out, blowing over his body, and some odd sent filled the air. One that reminded him of detergent. Quickly, Ichigo moved the back of his hand over his face, trying to stop the sterilising air from getting into his eyes. The harsh winds tore at his hair, moved in under his clothing and got to him everywhere, cooling his feverish body down.
Taking the opportunity pressed his hand against the left ventilators metal shaft, knowing it had been smeared in spores. But he was getting dizzy, enough air blowing into his lungs to make him feel as if he was hyperventilating at maximum speed. Leaning on his hand, he wondered when the damn winds were going to be subdued.
Luckily enough, as if his thoughts had been heard, the vents closed and shut off with a clunking sound. Squinting through his eyelids Ichigo noticed the other door, the one he hadn't come from, opened.
At first he didn't dare to move, but after nothing else happened he carefully stepped forward, peering into the room as if it held something scary or dangerous. What he saw, though, was nothing like that. It was a small room, one with a single bed in it and hardly anything else. The bed had several monitors attached over it.
A sterilised isolation room, Ichigo figured. Why had he been thrown in here? He was starting to get scared again. The Espada seemed to know what he had inhaled and acted immediately as if it was something dangerous, bad enough to make sure Ichigo didn't come in contact with anyone else. Ichigo turned around, to head back into the room with the vents, but found the second pair of doors now tightly locked. Quickly his hand rose to bang on the thick plastic surface.
"Hey!" his voice barked. "What's going on! Let us out of here!" At first he got no answer, even as he continued his banging on the door. Eventually his hand went numb from the continuous banging.
There suddenly was a sound from within the room, coming from somewhere near the bed. As he located the source of the sound, Ichigo found a small, well camouflaged speaker next to the bed.
"I can't let you out just yet. You will have to stay in there until I can determine if you really are infected or not. After I've taken care of the others." The voice was recognised as the scientist Espada.
"Infected! With what?" Ichigo wheezed, but the microphone had already been switched off. "HEY! What the hell is wrong with us!?" He bellowed loudly, but quickly regretted it.
He couldn't breath again, couldn't think. Ichigo tore at his dull blond hair, feeling stands of it loosen. He gasped for breath, air not seeming to fill him. It felt cramped, like the spear was still there, preventing him from breathing properly.
"What's happening to us?" he whispered out loud. He closed his eyes; he was starting to panic again. He had to relax. Had to relax. Relax.
But he couldn't, not after that reaction he had been given by the Espada. Walking back and forth in the room, Ichigo fiddled with his limp arm. This was bad, he knew it. It wasn't long until the violent coughs returned, making Ichigo stop and sit down on the lonely bed. His blurry, blood tinted gaze travelled over the white walls, up to the roof and down again. Wait. What was that? Looking more intensely now, he could spot, if he tilted his head a little, the gleam of a glass lens.
Cameras? What he being watched…? A stab of betrayal surged thought him for a split second until Ichigo reminded himself what this was an isolation room. Where you kept patients monitored daily as they had increased risk for getting infected or infected others. Shit.
Turning his shoulders around Ichigo stared at the other corner of the wall, seeing no gleaming from a camera-lens in the opposite corner. Only one camera in the room he assumed. However what made his eyes narrow and turn around even more, to sit halfway off the bed, was the wall. It looked… odd. Leaving the soft mattress, Ichigo stepped up to it. Slowly lifting his hand, he touched the surface of the wall. No, this wasn't a wall; it was much too smooth to that. Furrowing his eyebrows Ichigo touched the other wall on the other side, finding its surface rugged. What was with the front wall? Touching it again, staring closer at it.
There definitely was something strange about it. Slowly he knocked on it, listening. Was it… glass? White painted glass or something. It had to be a window of some sort, that he couldn't see through but the people on the other side could. Like those mirror glass-things they often used in movies where they interrogated people, right? But this one was white instead of a mirror on his side. Was that even possible? But then again this wasn't earth, but fuck, it wasn't some sci-fi space-station either… He didn't like it, not at all, but dismissed it as something he didn't understand.
Walking back to the bed, Ichigo slowly slid down to the ground, where the window-like wall couldn't see him. The camera was still staring at him like a naked eye, but that was something he couldn't do anything about. He did, however, turn his back to it. Ichigo didn't know what to do or what was going on. His eyes clamped shut, smeary blood pushing out from his eyes, even if the eye-drop had helped a lot to lessen the flow. He was scared; he wasn't going to deny it.
What disease was the arrancar talking about! His eyes shot open again. It had to be able to be removed! He had to heal his body in some way!
"Hollow! Can't we heal this away?" Ichigo burst out.
'No, you damn dumb fuck!' Shirosaki shot at his counterpart. 'It would have healed already if it could!' He added, annoyed, 'We can re-grow limbs or close flesh wounds, not heal some odd spore!' The hollow gritted his teeth, feeling just as helpless as Ichigo.
"Then how do we stop it!"
'Ch'! How the hell should I know? I'm not a doctor!' There was a brief pause. 'But how bad can it be?' Shiro said, 'It's just a cloud of some dead body, probably just dust!'
"Yes I know we've seen, done, smelled and eaten things worse than durst, but that doesn't make it any less harmful!"
'It's not like a mere cloud of spore can stop us, Ichigo!''
Ichigo only rolled his eyes at the hollow's constant urge for power. "By the way the Espada reacted I'd say we're in deep shit again."
'Again? Ch'! To me it seemed like we never got out of it.'
"Pfft… true…" Ichigo mumbled, curling together tighter.
As he sat quietly on the white, flawless floor, doing his best not to scratch his still irritated eyes, he could hear the dull sounds from outside; the muffled screams and pained grunts; the overall hectic sound from tortured, injured people.
Without knowing how long he sat curled up in a ball, fret was still strong in his body. It never wanted to leave him, not even after the screams from outside eventually, stopped. He didn't even notice them doing so, his own mind screaming at the top of its lungs. The boy didn't know what to do. Not at all. Yet again he was what he wanted to be the least: helpless.
He felt like he had done when he had fled to the freezing city just after he had lost his heart and wished for that hole he wanted to dig then now to come, a hole so deep he could never crawl up from it ever again. He tried to block everything out, but he couldn't, now not and, seemingly, never. He was beyond cursed and he knew it.
Slowly he moved his clawed, despised monster hand in front of his face, pushing it against it, red creases left behind on pale skin. The pain was numbing to his face; his tattered and worn, disgusting face. In his self-loathing hate, him limbs trembled and his blood started to rush, his lips flushing and the bone mask crawled its way over his face without him summoning it. A grinning face to hide his distorted one from everything. Even himself.
But the brooding teen was not left alone for long. Two men entered, both dressed in yellow scrubs and their mouths covered with operating masks. Ichigo had no time to say anything or even turn around properly before his white arm was grabbed forcefully and pulled out to expose the crook of his arm. The other one, dressed exactly the same like the first, leaned forward with something in hand. Not trusting the two silent figures, Ichigo instantly tried to get away.
"What are you doing with that!" Ichigo asked loudly, his voice high-pitched with fear.
"Just calm down!" was the rough, almost angry and not very reassuring answer. Not trusting that voice at all, Ichigo wrenched himself free when the needle was only centimetres away.
He didn't know where to go, the instinct to get away strong enough to make him want to climb the walls. The two men, were only annoyed, if anything, at Ichigo's actions. Before Ichigo could even turn back around to face the intruders that had invaded his small room, one of them seemed to mumble something under his breath, making fast movements with his hands.
"Carriage of Thunder. Bridge of a spinning wheel. With light, divide this into six!"
The Kido ensnared the boy, twisting and trapping Ichigo's arms behind his back. A strangled scream pushed past his pale lips.
Desperately, Ichigo tried to pull his arms free, but before he could gather the power to do so, the snake-like magic coiled around his waist, hard enough to make it feel like he was going to be cut in half. The six cane light prison kidō immobilised him in midair.
Ichigo hissed and barked in his imprisonment, thrashing like a wildcat. But there was little he could do to stop the needle from sliding beneath his skin. As soon as the liquid was released inside his body he felt it numbing his limbs as it spread through his veins. It wasn't long until he hung limp in the magic's hold.
The kidō was released and it disintegrated into the air. The two men grabbed Ichigo before he fell to the white floor, holding him up by his arms. The boy could do little as he was dragged off, his feet shuffling across white floors. He had no idea where he was being taken, his vision limited to said floor and the marching feet of the two arrancar that held him. Breathing was hard in his odd position, his jaw almost lax in his numb face, making him drool over his lip and down his chin.
He passed thresholds into new rooms, but it gave no insight to where he was taken. However, when he was dragged to yet another room, he heard more people. Fear gripped at his gut when his body was hoisted up to lie on something.
Vaguely he could make out blurred figures, forms and shapes. A flash of pink walked past and soon returned. Trying to ask what was going on was all in vain for the boy, as his voice only came out in a dark gurgle, his mouth or any other part of his body refusing to cooperate due to the anaesthetic. However, he had little time to struggle until a mask of some sort was placed over his mouth and the world darkened around him.
The now limp body of the boy was placed properly over the white holder that hummed and moved inside the MRI. As soon as the machine was active it did what it was supped to do, scanning the soul inside. Several x-rays quickly appeared on the computers where the Espada was standing.
With a quick order of the images of the lungs and head to be printed out it, wasn't long until the Espada marched off, heading for the room where he knew his master was, to report his find. Once there, he opened the door after a hasty knock.
"Sir," he said, bowing in the doorway of the large room that had a balcony on the end, but before it there was a chair, in which Aizen was seated.
"Come on in, Szayel Aporro." the man asked his voice kind.
"I'm here to report that I've found another specimen." There a brief pause as he got up and stepped closer, holding up a paper for his superior to take. "Another infection of the un-named fungus."
"…Is that so?"
"Yes. It's the boy, sir."
"Kurosaki?" There was a light twitch in the man's left eyebrow, as if surprised. But it was hidden well. "How did he become contaminated?"
"After his punishment for his joining in the wild and inappropriate festivities in the desert he apparently ran away, into the unsupervised deserts of Hueco Mundo. Out there he claims to have run into a corpse with a yellow growth covering it," Szayel explained, trying to do his best to summarize the boy's ramblings from before. "I don't know whether he touched it or not, but he says spores came from it and he inhaled them. From the blood-samples and scans I've collected and started analyzing I can so far say that the boy has been infected by a sixty percent certainty."
"I see." Aizen moved his hand over his mouth as if pondering. "This is the same disease that infected one of the former Espada, am I correct?"
"Yes, the one I regretfully could not find a cure for in time."
Aizen fell silent as if pondering. "Do you think you will be able to find a way to distribute it in wide scale this time?"
"I will do my very best!"
"Very good, proceed then. I hope the boy will be more useful to your research. But keep me informed if you do find anything of value."
"Of course." The Espada bowed and left.
End chapter
