Notes:

Thanks to my beta reader Ink and Blade!

Mirrored on Archive of our Own

So God of War came out and holy lord a whole week has already gone by. Decided to split this into two parts so you don't have to wait days for me to finish it. Sorry!

I made up a bunch of Kido fight me.

Cheat Sheet:

Reiryoku → reiatsu → reishi

die Königin (The Queen)

Aspect: Vengeance, Life

Location: Living World - Geisterwelt (Spirit World)

Physical medium: Die Augen der Königin (The eyes of the Queen)

Ability: Das licht (the light)

Kinder: Quincy (Manipulate reishi)

Quincy host: das Herz der Königin (The heart of the Queen)

Current Host: Kurosaki Ichigo

Previous Host: Adaliz

- xxx -

Reiō (Soul King) -Destroyed-

Aspect: Disruption

Location: Souru Sosaeti (Soul Society)

Physical Medium: Crystal

Ability: Kekkai

?

Kuriētā: Shinigami

Aspect: Balance

Location: Souru Sosaeti (Soul Society)

Physical medium: ?

Shinigami Host: ?

Current Host: None

Previous Host: ?

Shinigami

Aspect: Neutrality

Physical Medium: sekkiseki

Ability: Soul Filtration

Location: Souru Sosaeti (Soul Society)

- xxx -

Alteza (High King)

Aspect: Regret, death

Location: Hueco Mundo (Hollow world)

Physical medium: Las manos de Alteza (the hands of the High King)

Ability: La sangre (the blood)

Niños: Hollows (feed off of reishi)

Hollow host: El corazón de Alteza (The heart of Alteza)

Current Host: Kurosaki Ichigo

Previous Hosts: Aizen Sousuke - Mictlāntēcutli

Ganbari masu!

La Trampa

- xxx -

Kurosaki Ichigo

Standing in the outskirts of the Rukongai, Ichigo left Starrk with the same cloak Grimmjow had "borrowed" from Urahara. His reiatsu was still fluctuating, but even if it wasn't, he'd rather Starrk be invisible than focusing on dampening his presence.

His orders were simple; watch, observe, and if they did manage to seal him, report back. Starrk seemed more than okay with this, he was happy to be given something to do at all.

Before he left, Starrk asked, "Why not Grimmjow?"

It seemed everyone had noticed his dependency on the arrancar, which probably wasn't a good thing. Ichigo said, "You're stronger, level-headed, and Grimmjow is still...adjusting." That seemed to be the best word for it. He knew he'd taken a good deal of time to work out his frustrations over Alteza, he could only imagine how Grimmjow would handle it. In between waking him up and now, he was up to speed, even if he'd given the arrancar the shortened version.

Starrk nodded, laid back about the whole affair. He was surprisingly okay with being thrown into a kido induced sleep, although Ichigo didn't think he would have been nearly as okay with it if someone else had tried it. Then again, Ichigo had made it exceedingly clear he went out of his way to protect his own, he wouldn't let something happen on his watch, not even to Szayel.

Leaving Starrk to work out how he wanted to approach this, Ichigo stepped into sonido, crossing miles with a single step. In the seconds it took him to get there, he manifested his hollow, deciding he'd rather have him watching his back then adding to his power. He passed right through Seireitei's barrier, feeling nothing more than gossamer thin resistance. It wanted to repel him, but he had within him Alteza and die Konigin, the barrier didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

He stepped lightly on the sand somewhere in the middle of Seireitei, choosing someplace at random, someplace populated enough that they would take notice.

For a moment, no one did. He had no reiatsu to sense, and he was quiet. He hadn't always been quiet, but after so long spent in the silence of night, he'd changed to reflect it. What felt quiet in the clamor of school, of civilization, was suddenly loud, and he'd had all the reason in the world to keep from drawing attention to himself.

He could be patient when he needed to be, but not even a minute passed before the first shinigami noticed him. They stopped, stared, then their eyes widened in fear and they raised a shout of alarm, one that rippled across Seireitei.

He waited, passively watching the chaos unfold around him. After a few moments, he stood alone, warning bells still echoing in the distance. His relative solitude didn't last long, the captain's started to show, but not all of them were as fast as Byakuya, he had a feeling he would be waiting for awhile.

Given he had already taken strides to spring their traps, doubtless, they were ready for him to do it again. For some time they had been under the false impression they were dealing with an inexperienced child, albeit one with an ocean of reiryoku at his disposal. He didn't think he would be able to count on their pride to underestimate him again.

He knew they would hit him with everything that they had, and Soul Society would be as prepared as he felt he was. He kept still, and he watched, his eyes roaming not for hidden captains or physical traps, but for any sort of Kido he might not be prepared for. It might have been a wasted effort, because given enough sekkiseki stone, he wouldn't be able to see anything at all. Apparently, die Konigin's sight was limited to everything the light touched, and Alteza just wasn't suited for subtlety.

The barrier sekkiseki made was easy to break, but getting around the stone itself was something of a challenge. He couldn't see inside Shin'ōchikadaikangoku at all, it was a blank space in his vision, as was anything too close to the walls of Seireitei, or Senzaikyu. It was enough to make him wonder if this was something like the deserts of Hueco Mundo, something specific to the shinigami's nameless god.

He was torn from his thoughts when Gin started getting a little too close. His eyes snapped to the taicho, and Gin froze, hands raised in surrender. "No need to panic."

Gin took another step and Ichigo warned tightly. "That's close enough." The sand shifted around his feet, a gentle reminded that he might not have his sword drawn, but he was no less dangerous than if he did.

Grin stopped, reasoning away his proximity. "I don't like to shout."

"That's too bad," answered Ichigo, eyes still roaming. He wasn't about to be caught off guard because of this snake in the grass.

Gin spoke in a casual, light voice. "See, somethin ya said got me thinkin'."

He didn't continue, so Ichigo sighed and played along. "About what?"

"'Bout having Aizen in yer head." Ichigo's eyes snapped back to Gin, and the man smiled, tapping a finger against his temple. "Don't deny it."

Ichigo's eyes narrowed. "I dealt with it."

"Did ya?" Gin smiled. "Ain't anyone that spent more time with Aizen than I did. The real Aizen." Ichigo didn't like where this was headed. Gin wanted his attention, he had it. "If you look past the crazy-"

"I'm not crazy," Ichigo snapped.

"Yeah, yeah." Gin blew him off, but he was a touch wary, choosing his words more carefully. "It's little things, in the way you talk, in the way you stand."

"Ignore him, King."

Easier said than done. The only person alive that would know was telling him to his face his fears were justified. He snarled, "I'm not like him."

"You have his confidence, his distrust. I can see him in the way you hold your sword, the way you assess a situation."

The sand around him writhed the deeper Gin dug. He growled, "Shut up."

"See...I think ya spent a lot of time around Aizen. I think you weren't just a pet project, I think you were his protégé."

Ichigo moved, his hand suddenly tight around Gin's throat. The shinigami seemed to expect that, his smile widening. He struggled to speak under his tightening grip, his voice raspy. "Just as angry, but more willing to get yer hands dirty. I bet he actually liked you."

"Shut up!" Ichigo cut off his air and his voice, he was sick and tired of being trapped in Aizen's shadow.

"King!"

His warning wasn't fast enough. He felt a twist in his soul, his eyes snapping down to where Gin's hand hovered just over the void in his chest.

Gin's apologetic voice was the last thing he heard before he found himself thrown into a different dimension. "Sorry, kid."

Zangetsu was painfully wrenched back into his soul, his hollow howling his rage in his inner world. He fell, surrounded by darkness. That was painfully disorienting. He caught himself on a platform of reishi, instinctively casting his senses out. The space wasn't huge, and it existed between the worlds like the dangai and the valley of screams. It was someplace unknown.

He lifted his hand to the void in his chest, that rending feeling of disquiet still lingering in his soul. He growled, "Did he do what I think he did? The fuck is that thing called?"

"Caja Negación." Ossan supplied.

"FUCK!" His voice fell flat in the dark with nothing to echo off of, leaving him feeling unsatisfied.

"Calm, Ichigo. It was your anger that put you here to begin with."

He knew that, but it didn't do anything to cool his rage. Stupid. Gin tore into an old wound on purpose, getting him close, distracting him. He felt stupid for falling for it, and angry at how easily he'd been drawn in.

He reached out for the rip between the worlds and found it out of reach. He flared his reiatsu for the first time in months, pushing against the walls of his own special pocket dimension. He couldn't break free, not immediately, which was likely the whole reason he'd been sent here. It wasn't a permanent solution, so why bother? What was their plan?

"Be cautious, Ichigo."

The warning wasn't lost on him, especially when he was fucking angry that he'd been manipulated. When he was angry he made mistakes, he knew that.

He pushed against the walls of his prison with a snarl, raising his reiatsu. It shuddered under the force, but only inched back under the pressure.

He was strapped for time, the longer he was stuck here, the more time they would have to spring their trap. Depending on where the fuck he'd been sent, time might may be off kilter in his little box, just like the dangai. An hour could be much more or less time in Soul Society, and even without that knowledge, keeping track of time with no light and nothing but his anger and the voices in his head wasn't necessarily exact.

He drew both swords, reiatsu racing along the edge. He loosed a getsuga, his power rebounding off his prison and surging around him in an undertow of power. For a brief moment, the space was bathed in red light, but soon enough he was thrown back into darkness. Red was burned into his irises, but he blinked it back, charging up another.

"They know you will break free, your advantage has already been lost. Do not waste your energy so freely."

Ichigo shouted into the dark. "They can't keep me here!"

"Of course not. Calm down, Ichigo."

Where normally Ossan was collected, there was an authoritative bite to his tone, and that he could hear the spirit at all was testament to how badly he wished to be heard. He should listen, he should.

"Face what you truly feel, did you not tell your fraccion much the same?" His hands tightened on the hilt of his swords. Ossan was right, he was always right. He wasn't angry, he was ashamed. Ashamed Gin was right, that he let the shinigami get under his skin so easily.

His shoulders fell, glaring down at swords he couldn't see with his eyes, but as the beacon of power he had come to rely on. Slowly, he let his attack dissipate, forcing his reiatsu to strain the cage that held him with a near normal output of power. He spoke aloud, his tone dry. "Zangetsu, you're wasting your time."

"You saw what he did! I'll string his guts like fucking christmas lights."

Ichigo snapped, "Destroying my inner world doesn't solve anything, and listening to you scream when I can't do anything about it isn't helping!" To his credit, Zangetsu stopped, waiting to see if what he had to say was worth his time. "They planned to send me here, they've seen how angry I can get, Gin probably didn't expect to live through that."

"Why the fuck would he do it, then?"

Struggling to think past the words Gin had said, Ichigo tried to remember what was happening around him at the time. He'd been distracted, but expecting an attack outside of Gin, he hadn't been unaware of what was happening.

He spoke his thoughts aloud. "The other captains didn't move, they let him get close, they were planning on it. They didn't move when I got my hand around his throat either, they didn't even seem alarmed."

"We never did discover what Soul Society intended to do with Gin." Ossan reminded.

"That shit he pulled never happened, why would he owe them?"

"I don't know, we don't even know if that's what happened, but he's right, he and I were the only ones that ever knew Aizen. The real Aizen. If they don't have the brute strength to stop me, they would have little recourse than to attack my heart." Something he'd shown far too much emotion over, even hollowfied. They knew how to hit him where it hurt, and Gin could do that. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter why he did it, he did."

He'd been so angry, he'd almost forgotten. "Gin apologized..."

"So fucking what?"

"Why would he do that?" His spirits had no answer and he was no closer to getting to one on his own. It could have been about tricking him, but it could have also been sympathy for the deceived and the manipulated.

He couldn't shake the fact that Gin was right. Fighting Aizen, he'd gotten better, he'd learned, whether he wanted to or not. He picked up things here and there, and near the end, Aizen hounded his steps, he barely let him sleep, he was his own personalized nightmare. So much time spent around the man, he shouldn't be surprised if bits of him leaked through. That he resembled Aizen more than his own father twisted his guts into knots, but hating it made it no less true.

He let out a steadying breath, his reiatsu still vibrating with fury, but it was far more controlled than before. He focused on getting out, on preparing himself for defense rather than the offense he wanted so desperately to indulge.

"Nothing they create will be strong enough to hold us."

"Don't be arrogant. Sekkiseki is still strong enough to negate our reiatsu, and die Konigin and Alteza can't affect it either." That was noteworthy, but he wasn't sure what to do with that information other than as a reminder to avoid sekkiseki whenever possible.

- xxx -

Ukitake

The moment the alarm was raised, he jumped into action, knowing without a doubt their fiery ryoka was to blame. From what he'd seen of Kurosaki's decaying patience and short temper, he had a feeling Soul Society's plan would be successful. With that being the case, he had a short window to act.

On the off chance Kurosaki managed to elude their trap, then their preparations wouldn't be necessary, but if he didn't, then it might be one of the few and fastest ways to free him.

"You make a poor thief, Ukitake."

He spun to face an empty hallway, then looked up at the woman lazily sprawled over a rafter. "Yoruichi-san?" She idly kicked her foot, her hands laced over her stomach like she'd been napping. She rolled her head to the side to watch him with feline indifference. "I see Kyoraku came to the same conclusion we did."

That statement caused him to turn back, eying the seal across the door. They appeared to be intact, but if he looked closely, he could see they were fresh. "You stole it."

"Well...is it stealing if it was entrusted to the Shihōin clan to begin with?"

"How did you know?" She arched a brow at him, rolling from the beam to land in a graceful crouch. She straightened, and drawled, "Please. As boring as it is, as the former head of the Onmitsukidō, I know the laws inside and out, and a case like Kurosaki's is pretty cut and dry. Execution, or imprisonment, and no one can kill him. Kisuke figured someone might make a move against Soul Society, that kid has a way of getting you to do what he wants by not asking for anything at all. Irritating, isn't it?"

He gave her a sheepish smile, but anxiety still raced through his veins. "I wouldn't call it irritating. Maybe inconvenient." It would be easy to sit back and let events unfold as they would, but his conscience wouldn't stand for it. He wasn't sure if it was her intention to derail his thoughts, but it was working. He steered her back to the topic at hand. "If you've taken the Hōgu…do you intend to use it?"

Her eyes narrowed, thoughtful. "That isn't my part to play."

That was an interesting response, a calculated one. This wasn't normally a game he played, but it seemed to him that she and Kisuke intended for those within Seiretei to commit high treason. They appeared to desire the same outcome, but the path to get there was being manipulated. That didn't sit well with him, but that didn't change his task at hand. Damn that man. He asked, "Since you've acquired it, might I ask where it is?"

She raised her hand with the curl of her fingers in a lazy motion to beckon. "Come on, try to keep up." She blurred into shunpo with little to no warning, and he struck as fast a pace as he could manage and he still lagged behind. She certainly lived up to her name, and he was no pushover when it came to speed.

He brief;y considered the wisdom of following a dangerous, unpredictable detractor. Knowing she was working alongside Kisuke, he had no doubt he was just a cog in his plans. Ukitake had never known Kisuke personally, but he'd never known him to be an idle man.

She took to the rooftops, carefully avoiding the area Kurosaki was reported to have been seen. Without needing the distraction of Kurosaki's arrival to steal something precious, he'd come into some time. If Yoruichi had time to steal, reseal the shrine, and then hide the Hōgu, who knew when Kisuke had worked this out. For all he knew, it could have been days or even weeks.

The shinigami on the ground never even noticed them pass, too wrapped under in their own orders and division to consider looking up, especially when the very ground was on the brink of betraying their steps. The sand shifted like the churning surf after a wave, making it difficult to keep their footing.

When Yoruichi led them down to the sand-drowned path below, he got to experience it firsthand. He staggered, then caught himself, wondering how Yoruichi managed with so much ease. It felt like he was standing on something living, breathing, and the comparison made him feel a bit ill.

She brought down a kido barrier and led him into a small, empty room. The light cut through the dust and gloom, illuminating a wrapped bundle in the middle of the floor. She lifted it and carried it back to him, holding it out. He took it, and she tightened her grip on it, her voice tight. "Why?"

His brows furrowed. "Why are you involved?"

"That's personal. You don't know Kurosaki at all, so why involve yourself?" Her eyes narrowed, skeptical, and Ukitake was reminded of how very alone they were in that room.

He said, "There isn't one reason." He looked down at the sand still gently shifting beneath their feet. "But that's a big one. Kurosaki is a player in a larger game, attempting to remove him from it is only a temporary solution. Kurosaki was right, he's all we have, ignoring him won't change that."

She let go, accepting that answer. If he had given her a lie, he wondered if she would have killed him. Maybe he was being dramatic.

She gave him a mock salute and strolled outside. "Good luck. I'll be watching you." Ukitake didn't think that was reassuring at all. There was the nearby sound of barked orders and she was gone.

- xxx -

Kurosaki Ichigo

His prison didn't fracture over time, when it broke, it shattered, and he found himself exactly where he'd been before he'd been forced into that separate dimension. His feet hit the sand, reality rippling around him, and several things happened at once.

Gravity seemed to press down on him from above, threatening to force him to his knees. Lances of glowing gold Kido impaled the sand around him from every direction, trapping him in a forest of spears clustered close enough to restrict his movement, but none had done more than graze his hierro.

He clenched his hand into a fist, la sangre spilling around him in a cyclone of defense. He made a cutting motion with his arm, shattering the spears of Kido within the relative safety of his bubble, but they didn't dissolve, they lingered as shards hovering in the air. The thousands of shards shivered, oriented themselves and he had less than a second to realize his mistake.

The Kido struck his hierro like hail and instead of a thousand piercing blades, they clung to him like molten metal. They didn't behave like a weapon, the Kido wasn't an attack, but bakudo meant to trap his reiatsu. "Shit." He felt it burn, his high speed regeneration struggling to keep up with his own reiatsu output.

Instinctively he reigned in his reiatsu, clamping down on it self defense. Attention torn, his grip on la sangre and the sand was broken, enough that someone found an opening, and they took it.

The bakudo hit him in the back, and his reiatsu was too low to break it. Black seals constricted around him, forcing his arms and legs together. He fell to his knees, trying to keep the panic from clawing it way up his throat. He was hit with more bakudo, too preoccupied with the first two to even wonder what it was. Zangetsu screeched for violence, but with his precarious control over his reiatsu, there was no way in hell he was going to be able to manifest his hollow.

He couldn't see shit, but that was fine, he didn't need his eyes to 'see' his surroundings. Stop panicking, stop. He knew this would happen. He pressed through the pain of his own reiatsu, struggling to steady his breathing, and focused.

He called on la sangre, tightening his defense with a tight sphere of darkness. It was far from steady, his connection to it was formed on instinct alone, and with bakudo straining his control, it reacted accordingly. La sangre was nothing but a chaotic storm around him, but it was probably intimidating enough to serve its purpose. They could seal him, but they sure as shit weren't going to get close to him.

He sensed someone with massive reiryoku approach from his left. His head snapped towards them on instinct, no matter if the bakudo blocked his sight. He would recognize that reiatsu anywhere. Yamamoto.

His tight defense didn't seem to worry Yamamoto, the soutaichou kept getting closer. In a surge of rage, the sand reacted, lashing out against the shinigami in a wave of spikes. His 'vision' was blinded by sudden light, assuming he'd drawn his sword to defend himself. The light still threatened to overload his senses, so he turned his head away. Yamamoto stopped advancing, and at the moment that was all he could ask for.

Perhaps if Aizen had ever attempted to fight him with anything other than Hado, he would have the practice he'd needed to know how to counter this. He could try to blame Aizen for that, but he couldn't blame anyone other than himself. His only consolation was the fact that the seal was temporary.

He could already feel the press of Alteza in his mind, the whispers dragging over his brain like blades. Die Konigin was no better, those howls joining Alteza in their fervor.

He knew without a doubt they couldn't hold him forever, but he couldn't afford to be here wasting time. He could almost hear this hiss of the sand slipping through the hourglass. Grimmjow's time was still slipping away, and every second trapped here was a second of his life lost, circling the drain.

That did more than make him angry, it made him desperate. His control over Alteza was loose, wound tightly around his instincts, and it reacted in kind.

The sand rushed from the nooks and crannies it had invaded directly towards him, reacting to his need in crude understanding. It rushed around him in a hurricane, tight enough that if his arms were unbound, he could reach out and touch it. It surged, then stiffened into stone, a massive sphere of spikes. Defense and offense, all in seconds. He had no doubt he'd killed someone with an action so massive and so abrupt, but at the moment, he didn't care.

Was he safe? Could they get him? Gods it burned, the sharp ache of his pain wouldn't fade, he wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. Just knowing how long this could persist sparked his panic, but Zangetsu's voice cut through it like steel. "Jinzen, King."

He focused and the seconds crawled by. Keep his reiatsu down, breathe, he couldn't move, he couldn't move-NO-there was no blade to split his skin, there was no Szayel-breathe-breathe-breathe-

He opened his eyes with a gasp, suddenly in his inner world.

It was chaos. His world howled, a sandstorm buffeting a sunken city. Sharp grains of obsidian raked over his skin and he turned his back to it, taking in a red soaked landscape. Even in his mind, he could feel the ghostly press of pain, and he saw no one.

More panic, and then Zangetsu was before him, his hollow's eyes ablaze in rage. Zangetsu fisted his hand in his kosode, yanking him away in a burst of sonido. He dropped him inside a building, the space empty except for growing piles of sand that had slipped through the cracks.

He'd never been inside any of the buildings before, they were dark and empty, with a maze of walls that didn't seem to be based on any sort of logic. He sank to the ground, realizing he was still in a mild state of panic. His hands shook, his breath came too fast and shallow.

Zangetsu crouched before him, his hollow's voice steely. "Relax."

He was trying. Trying, but panic was a difficult seed to uproot. Zangetsu held his eyes, daring him to argue, and he stayed, he watched every second of his panic, just like he always did. "You can't kill them for this."

"Watch me," he snarled.

Ichigo didn't say anything, but the look on his face must have pissed him off, because Zangetsu suddenly had his hands around his throat, pinning him to the floor. His hollow could make good on his threat, he could do everything he threatened to do and more, but Ichigo knew he wouldn't. Again and again they found themselves here, disagreeing so resolutely on what was important. Zangetsu's grip tightened, always so angry, so frustrated, that despite his best efforts, Ichigo kept pushing his luck.

"It never stops! How much more are you going to take before you makethem stop!"

His hollow's grip tightened, then eased, his hands still wrapped loosely around his neck. Ichigo realized his hollow's hands were shaking too, but not from fear. Ichigo's voice was resolute, in spite of his panic. "All of it. I scare them." He let out a strained laugh, his voice bordering on disgust. "Look at us. A monster...psh, if they knew."

One step forward, three steps back. Their monster was an illusion. He was scared, he was sick with it. Violence might sing to him, but it wasn't what drove him, it never was. "They got us."

Zangetsu's grip tightened, the tremble in his hands noticeable, then shoved away, staring down at him in deep disapproval. He left a hand on either side of his head, pinning him with a look of judgement that only his hollow could snare him with. "Fuck them."

Ichigo tried not to sigh. "I'm well aware of your opinion." There was nothing he could do but keep himself alive and wait for the Gods to do something. It was a good plan, one that wouldn't have worked on someone more familiar with Kido, more resolute in their defense.

Zangetsu curled his lips back from his teeth and growled, pushing himself off to sit beside him. "Your stupid friends will do something."

He frowned at his hollow. "How can you know that?"

"You're a fucking idiot sometimes, King." Zangetsu narrowed his eyes and begrudgingly continued. "Do you really think they won't help you?"

Ichigo stared at him, and Zangetsu's expression twisted into an even more unpleasant scowl. "When you're asleep, unconscious, gone, you don't see. I do. They'll come for you." It looked like it physically hurt him to keep talking. "Hope, King."

- xxx -

Coyote Starrk

Kurosaki didn't come back. He had no reiatsu to sense, but that the sand he'd brought into Seireitei still moved made Starrk believe he was alive. Hours had passed, and while quite a lot of shinigami seemed worked up about Kurosaki's presence, he didn't know what was going on, not unless he got closer. He'd been ordered not to, and he didn't want to break that order.

He was about to give up when his instincts bristled in fear of something he couldn't sense. He knew that feeling, he sensed it whenever Kurosaki was close, whenever la sangre was roused. That unsettling noise grew louder, and though those inhuman voices didn't change in pitch, he felt a distinct anger within it.

There was a loud hiss of several tons of sand shifting, and spikes of it shot skyward, visible even above the wall. Starrk jumped into the air, climbing to a higher vantage point. As he ascended, it became clear what he was looking at.

A sizeable stone sphere stretched high over the roofs of Seireitei. The entire surface was littered with spikes, no rhyme or reason to the size or length. They didn't stab straight out from the sphere, but twisted around upwards in a spiral, frozen in motion. Flickers of darkness were visible against white, the unmistakable mark of la sangre, yet nothing further happened. Starrk didn't expect that was a good thing.

He watched and waited, cape tugging at his heels in the wind. The breeze shifted, and he caught the scent of blood. That didn't bode well at all. He could sense someone of great power almost directly on top of that spiked fortress, but nothing came of it. Should he leave, or stay? Leave or stay…

Someone else decided for him. A shout of alarm went up, noticing him now that he wasn't hidden in the trees. He might be confident he was strong, but he was only one arrancar. It was time to go.

Reluctantly, he opened a garganta, returning to Las Noches. He sought out Harribel, unsure what she could do, but she needed to know. Grimmjow was there, hovering in the knowledge he would return to her to report.

"I think Kurosaki was captured."

"You think?!" accused Grimmjow. He looked fierce before, but now he looked absolutely feral. If he wanted to start a fight, Starrk wanted nothing to do with it.

"Enough," said Harribel. She eyed Grimmjow and he looked away, conceding, for the moment.

Starrk continued, explaining what he knew in enough detail for Harribel to judge.

Folding her arms, she said, "There's the chance he's pinned down and not captured, but regardless, he doesn't appear to be in a good position." She spared a look for Grimmjow. "It would be wise to wait."

"You want to leave him there?" growled Grimmjow.

"For now," Harribel answered. "We can't yet know how our actions might worsen the situation."

Grimmjow growled under his breath and started to move, restless. "I can't stay here."

"You will stay here, Grimmjow." She raised her voice enough to gain his attention, and the Espada's hands tightened into fists, his posture shifting towards something far more aggressive.

Starrk interfered, by no means defending Harribel, but attacking her would be a massive waste of time. He took a step between them. "Grimmjow, cease."

"You don't feel it." Harribel didn't look surprised to hear this, she actually seemed prepared to hear more, which made Starrk wonder how long Grimmjow had been agitated.

Starrk asked, "Feel what?"

Grimmjow grit out. "That fucker is angry, or feels like it. It's loud, won't shut the fuck up."

He started to turn in circles, and Harribel warned steeply. "Grimmjow."

"I feel it," Grimmjow insisted.

"Feel what?" Starrk repeated.

Grimmjow looked like he was loathe to tell the truth, and Starrk didn't understand why until he spoke. "I feel Kurosaki. Panic...I feel a lot of panic, and rage." If that was true, it was no wonder he was unwilling to share. Sharing Kurosaki's fear wouldn't be a comfortable thing to do.

Harribel said, "I can't work with that, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow lunged, but so did Starrk, catching his wrist and pulling it back between his shoulder blades to force him down. Grimmjow's knees hit the ground with a grunt of pain, but he didn't resist. That he'd caught him so easily was only a testament to how distracted the Espada was. "Relax, Grimmjow. We aren't leaving him."

Without letting Grimmjow rise, Starrk readjusted his grip, not about to let him up when he was still so volatile. Harribel said, "Without real information I-" She stopped, tilting her head, and it took Starrk a moment to realise she was listening to the communication device in her ear. No, upon closer inspection, there was nothing but a metal band on the ridge of her ear. An upgrade?

Her eyes snapped to Grimmjow's. "Szayel has word on Kurosaki. Stay calm, and you may join us."

Us? Starrk wasn't expecting to be included, no matter how much he wanted to know what was going on.

Grimmjow growled shortly. "Fine." Harribel gave Starrk a small nod, and he let the Espada go. Grimmjow straightened, avoiding eye contact with both of them. His pride was a little hurt, but he'd live, and he didn't seem he would start a fight.

Grimmjow asked "How the fuck does Szayel know anything?"

That was a good question, and both of them looked to Harribel for the answer. "A shinigami told him."

"Kisuke?" asked Grimmjow.

"No, a captain." Harribel seemed just as surprised as they were.

- xxx -

Shin'ōchikadaikangoku: The Central Great Underground Prison

Hōgu: Treasured Tools

Thanks for reading!

Current Espada Ranking

King Strawberry

Fraccion: Grimmjow, Nelliel

0 - Harribel

1 - Ulquiorra

2 - Starrk & Lilynette

3 - Grimmjow

4 - Zommari

5 - Szayelaporro Granz

6 - Shawlong

7 - Cyan, Mila Rose, Apacci (Quimera Parca: Ayon)

8 - Yylfordt Granz

9 - Edrad Liones

10 - Pesche