Ichigo stood in the air over Karakura Town. His mission was to feel out the place and determine if it was going to be well-defended after his master, Aizen-sama, had defected from Soul Society. He looked behind him and was proud because this was only the second mission he'd taken on his own for Aizen-sama. The first one he had failed and paid the price for that already. Now, he couldn't fail again. This would be easy. He went to the ground and looked around for the strongest reiatsu signatures he could find. He had to find out what people defended this place and return to Las Noches as quickly as possible.

He definitely didn't look like he belonged in the World of the Living, so he was sure he'd get noticed. He was wearing a long white coat with black trim that looked similar to a typical kusodo, overlapping in the front and tied with a black obi. It had long, fitted sleeves that came down to his wrists. His hakama were white and he wore a pair of geta with it. His tabi were black and disappeared under his hakama. His hair was bright orange-red in color, somewhat long and falling into his face on one side. There were several longer braids in it surrounding his face. On his face, on the left side, were red marks over his left eye and under it, as well as a few coming down from his mouth to his chin and jaw.

He took off the reiatsu hiding cloak and waited.

"Stop!" he heard a few minutes and turned around to see two female Shinigami.

The one was shorter and had vibrant, purple-colored eyes and dark hair. The taller Shinigami was a younger looking girl, with dark hair and pair of dark gray eyes.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" asked the taller Shinigami. She was looking at him strangely, though, as though she were very surprised by him being there. He supposed they should be. Aizen-sama hadn't sent anyone else for a little bit since he defected to Hueco Mundo.

"He's an Arrancar," the one with purple eyes said. "But something's off about him. I don't see a hollow hole."

"He could be hiding it," the first one said.

"Excuse me, but I'd rather you not talk about me like I'm not here," Ichigo sighed. He waved at them. "Who are you anyway? Do you protect this town or something?"

"What does it matter to you?" the Shinigami asked.

"Well, it would make my job a lot easier if you would just give me the information I came after, then I can go back to Las Noches and leave you alone." He shrugged. "But up to you!"

"We're not giving you anything," the shorter one said. "I'm Rukia Kuchiki and this is Karin Kurosaki. And yes, we defend Karakura Town."

"Well, that's helpful. Well, I guess I'll tell you something in exchange. No, I don't have a hollow hole. I'm special like that." Ichigo crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. "But how powerful are you anyway?"

"Want to find out?" Karin asked, picking up the sword from her back. It was larger than a katana but was nearly black in color with a cloth wrapped handle.

Ichigo grinned, pulling his sword and immediately finding it blocked by her weapon. The short one, Rukia, held up her hands as though about to cast a spell of some sort. Karin, though, something felt different about her. And familiar, which was strange to Ichigo. He'd never been here before. But her reiatsu was significant enough. Rukia's reiatsu was decent.

"Huh, well, I wasn't instructed to get in a fight with anyone, so that's okay," he said, stepping back and sheathing his sword at his side, which, like the one Karin wielded, was black in color.

"Instructed? By Aizen?" Rukia asked, frowning.

"Well, of course, who else?" Ichigo said, waving a dismissive hand at them. "I have to go back now; it was fun playing with you. Hopefully, we meet again!" he said, turning and walking away.

"Wait a minute!" Karin snapped. "You can't just walk into Karakura Town anytime you want like this!"

Ichigo turned back, narrowing his brown eyes at her. "Really, now, and who is going to stop me, little girl? You?"

Karin's eye twitched. "Why you…"

Rukia put a hand out to stop her from moving forward. "You're not like the other Arrancar, are you? What makes you different?" Rukia asked.

Ichigo turned back around and shoved his hands in the pockets of his white hakama. "Well, I don't know. I've always been like this, since I was a kid."

Rukia frowned. "A kid?"

Karin looked at her and shook her head. "What's the big deal with that?"

"They aren't humans. They don't grow up like you do. They are created when they evolve from hollows. How were you a kid? There's no way you grew as an Arrancar," Rukia asked.

Ichigo looked at her and then glanced at Karin. "Um, I just was. I was always different. I never had a hollow hole, never had a mask." He shrugged. "Ever since I was young."

Ichigo had no idea why he was even telling them this. It wasn't like they mattered. All that mattered was completing the mission that he'd been assigned my Aizen-sama. And he'd done that. He was curious now, though, because he was different, and everyone just went with it. No one ever mentioned it, and no one talked about it, but he did notice it.

"Well, was lovely talking to you, but I believe I'll go now," he said, taking off in a sonido.

When he'd gotten far enough from them, he opened a garganta and slipped back to Hueco Mundo. He'd done it this time, and he wouldn't be punished. He got back to Las Noches and headed to Aizen's chambers. He'd found out what he went there for. He didn't know why he had been sent on such a simple mission, but he guessed it probably had something to do with the fact he failed to do his last mission successfully.

"Aizen-sama?" he called out.

"Ichigo-kun, you've returned. Successful, I hope?" he smiled and walked from the back of the room.

"Yeah, I only met two Shinigami that were of moderate power. It was just them, though," he said, shrugging. "No one else came, and I wasn't hiding my reiatsu."

Aizen looked at him. "Interesting. I would have thought your presence would have drawn Urahara out. Or perhaps it did, and you didn't sense him. Who did you meet?"

"One of the Shinigami was Rukia Kuchiki and the other was named Karin Kurosaki."

Aizen nodded. "Very good. You may go," he said, waving him away.

Ichigo nodded, turning and going back out. He'd done a good job this time. He wouldn't have to spend time in the dungeon because he succeeded. He smiled despite himself. He was very happy, and now he could go see some of the Espada again.

Ichigo wasn't an Espada. At least, not like Starrk, Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, and the others. Aizen-sama didn't call him one, but instead told him he was his "protégé". Ichigo wasn't sure what exactly that meant, but he got to do whatever he wanted most the time. Ichigo had lived in Las Noches as long as he could remember, ever since he was barely able to walk, from what the others said.

Growing up in Las Noches had been something Ichigo never thought twice about. He'd always been around the Espada, and Aizen-sama had always been there, if a little rough with him from time to time. He supposed he deserved it, though, as a child he was strong willed and wanted to do things his way instead of the way Aizen-sama wanted them done. So, as a kid he'd spent most his time bruised and banged up in some way, either from being punished or just from sparring with the other Arrancar. Of course, the first thing he learned was not to cry. Even still, crying was a quick way to be punished and not acceptable at all.

He had learned from the beginning what it was like to be violent and to use violence as a solution to problems, though there was a part of him that yearned for a different way. Even his simplest interactions seemed to have some sort of violent nature to them. He didn't mind, though. It was just the way of things in Las Noches. The world of Hueco Mundo was a place where only the strong survived and thrived, and he wanted to survive.

He came to his room and knew someone was already there. He wondered who it was this time. He opened the door carefully and looked inside. Immediately, his hair was grabbed, and he was yanked into the room forcefully. He stumbled, falling to the ground and shaking his head a bit. He heard a growl and looked over to see it was the sixth Espada, Grimmjow.

"Hey, I just got back!" he said as Grimmjow came at him, grabbing him by the arm.

"Yeah, and I was waiting too long, so yer gonna pay for that," Grimmjow said and pulled him to his feet.

Ichigo grumbled a bit but went along with him as he was tossed unceremoniously to the bed. Grimmjow was already untying his obi and Ichigo flushed. He was in a mood today, that was for sure. He tried to roll to his back, but Grimmjow was already on him, pressing him down into the bed and hand slipping down the back of his hakama.

"Can't you wait until I'm undressed!" Ichigo said, feeling his fingers sliding into him without warning.

"Fuck you, no."

Ichigo sighed, trying to relax as he roughly fingered him, easily slipping into the role he always took with certain Espada. He pulled is fingers out after a few minutes and ripped the obi off and slipped his hakama over his hips. Ichigo jerked as he pulled back and slapped his ass hard, but he couldn't help the shock it sent to his own cock which was quickly coming to life. He slapped him a few more times, and Ichigo knew he must be leaving red marks at least, maybe even bruises because he wasn't holding back at all. He never did.

Grimmjow had been his first in a lot of things. He had been his first sparring partner as a kid. He'd been the first one to summarily beat him at swordplay. And he'd been the first Espada that Ichigo ended up getting with sexually when he was about fifteen. For this reason, there was a special connection between them, and though Ichigo had no concept of romantic things, he held Grimmjow in a particular place in his heart.

Of course, that was the last thing he was thinking of, bent over his bed, ass burning hot, and cock throbbing in anticipation. Grimmjow pushed his legs open and slipped between them, rubbing insistently with his rather large cock (it was not the largest of the Espada, but it was close. Ulquiorra had Grimmjow beat by a little. Not much though).

"You fuckin' succeed this time, little bitch?" Grimmjow growled.

"I did what Aizen-sama told me to do!" Ichigo responded, pushing back on him and wishing he'd just fuck him already.

"Good fuckin' job, then," Grimmjow growled and slammed himself forward.

"Ah, my gods," Ichigo gasped, feeling him spread him open and fill him all in one fell swoop.

"About goddamn time you succeed at something, fuckin' protégé and shit. I can't believe you failed the last time, but I guess you made up for it this time," Grimmjow continued as he thrusted forward and pulled back slowly.

Ichigo nodded, burying his face in the bedding until Grimmjow grabbed his hair again, pulling him up and back so he could get to his throat. Ichigo swallowed hard as he fucked him while he bit and sucked at the side of his neck. This was another reason Ichigo was typically bruised these days. None of his Espada partners were shy about marking him, and on more than one occasion, had competed with each other to see who could leave the most marks or the worst ones. Ichigo didn't mind, though. He enjoyed their attention.

"Fuck, Grimmjow, what got you going today?" Ichigo gasped, feeling his teeth scrape against him.

"Nothing, just wanted to fuck you like the small dicked bitch you are," he said, reaching down with his free hand to stroke Ichigo's significantly smaller arousal.

He let go of his hair to grab his hips and kept going, sliding faster and faster, obviously seeking his own satisfaction, but at least giving Ichigo a chance to maybe come if he was lucky. Sometimes, Ichigo wasn't very lucky.

Even though it was rough, fast, and hard, Ichigo loved every moment of it. Even the frustration when they wouldn't let him orgasm. There was something significant about that moment of denial, and though he'd never tell them, he adored those moments of pure pain and pleasure wrapped up in one. Not that he couldn't finish himself off, he was entirely capable of that, but he wouldn't. And they all knew it.

"Alright, bitch, think you can come, or are you going to have to wait again?" Grimmjow growled. "Because I'm fucking gonna bust a nut soon, and I'm not finishing your ass off."

"I can! Just a little more…" Ichigo begged, really wanting to get finished right then.

"Then fuckin' come!" Grimmjow demanded.

Ichigo didn't have to hear it twice. Just the demand was enough to pull him over the edge, but Grimmjow was still stroking him, too, so that helped. He moaned out, letting go and coming harder than he expected. Grimmjow waited just a moment, then slammed forward hard a few times, then released, his cock throbbing and filling Ichigo with his essence.

Ichigo winced as he pulled out, doing up his pants and slapping him on the ass again. "There's a good little bitch."

Ichigo turned over, the bed under him wet again. He looked at Grimmjow and smiled. "I needed that."

"Yeah, bet you did. Clean yerself up and come down to the commons. The others will wanna hear about your mission."

Grimmjow turned and left, leaving Ichigo disheveled and thoroughly fucked out for a moment. He sighed, though, getting up and pulling the sheets off the bed so he could change them. He cleaned himself up with the dirty sheets and then set them aside. He'd have to clean them later, but for now, Grimmjow wanted him to come to the commons, and he couldn't make him wait too long.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"I have to show you something," Karin said, pulling Rukia with her back toward her house once they'd gotten Rukia's Gigai and Karin's body.

"What's so important?" Rukia asked.

"It's time you met our brother," Karin said and led her into the house.

"Brother?" Rukia frowned as she followed her into the house and to the clinic. "Since when do you have a brother? I thought it was just you and your twin sister?"

They came to a room off to the side of the clinic and Karin opened the door. Inside, it looked almost like a fully functional hospital room. There was a dark-haired woman sitting in a recliner reading a book and a bed with someone in it. The woman looked up as they entered.

"Oh, Karin, didn't expect you today," she smiled gently. Rukia could see that she was in a set of nurse's scrubs.

"Hey, Tomoko, how are things today?" Karin asked.

Tomoko shrugged. "Same as always. Except earlier today the strangest thing happened. His heart rate increased for a while, then settled back down." She shrugged. "He's been changed and fed recently, so he should be comfortable."

"Alright, you can take a break. I want to spend some time with him and let him meet my friend here," Karin nodded.

"Alright, I'll go get a drink in the kitchen. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes," Tomoko said and left the room.

Rukia had no idea what was happening. She followed Karin over to the bed and blinked. Karin turned to her and nodded. "This is Ichigo. Our older brother."

The young man in the bed looked like any other person would, only asleep. He was tall with bright orange-red hair close cropped around his head. His eyes were closed, and motionless, but there was the steady rise and fall of his chest. Beside him, a heart monitor showed his pulse and heartrate. Rukia had no idea what normal would be, but it looked that way to her. She frowned, though.

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"Before we were born, he went to sleep and never woke up. My mother was pregnant with us already when it happened, so he would have been about three or so. Just one night, they put him to bed, and the next day, he wouldn't open his eyes or respond in the least. They took him to the doctor, and no one could figure out what was wrong. His body is perfectly healthy, surprisingly so considering that he doesn't move on his own. Even after all this time, his muscles haven't atrophied, and though we do exercise him daily, it seems that he shouldn't have grown the way he did." Karin picked up his hand and held it. "Nothing ever changes. He never moves. His heartrate never increases. He just lays here. At least, until today."

Rukia looked at the unconscious figure and then looked back at Karin. "Karin, this body has no soul."

Karin glanced at her brother, then looked at Rukia. "What do you mean?"

"There is no soul here. The Soul Chain has been cut," she said, gesturing to him. "I can see that much."

"Then how does he live? Explain that! When I leave my body, it's like a dead thing. This is different, so why?"

Rukia had no idea. She shook her head and walked around the other side, taking his other hand. "It's empty, completely empty, but…"

"He looks like that Arrancar we saw today," Karin pointed out.

Rukia nodded. Were the hair a bit longer and the markings added to his face, this person would have looked identical to the Arrancar that they had seen that day. His facial features, his build, his height, everything would have been the same. So, what did that mean?

"A body with a Soul Chain severed. An Arrancar without a hollow hole or a mask fragment. Aizen's defection. The hogyuku. Could this have been Aizen's meddling, too?" Rukia mused out loud.

Karin looked pained. "Does that mean that Arrancar was Ichigo?"

"It could have been his soul transformed. We know the hogyuku can do amazing things, like the Vizard and the experiments that Aizen conducted. Why couldn't he do something as simple as stealing a single human soul?" she asked, reaching out and brushing back Ichigo's hair.

"We need to talk to Urahara," Karin said. "He knows more about the hogyuku than most people, right?"

"He certainly seems to," Rukia said, looking at her. "Maybe he'd be able to tell us if this is possible."

There was a knock at the door and Tomoko came back in. "Thanks, Karin. I needed a little break."

"No problem, Tomoko. We'll be going now," she said and took Rukia by the hand to lead her back out of the room.

"Let's see what Urahara has to say." Rukia led the way back to the shoten, determined to get an answer out of the shopkeeper that was more than he appeared to be.

A few minutes later, they sat across from him in the shop, explaining what had happened, and what they had put together. Urahara, as usual, was inscrutable, and they weren't sure what the man in the striped hat was thinking at all. He nodded when they were done, looking thoughtful.

"Well, is it possible?" Karin asked.

Urahara looked over her head suddenly and sighed. "We should tell them," he said to someone else.

Karin and Rukia turned around to Isshin Kurosaki, Karin's father, standing in the doorway.

"So, it would seem," Isshin sighed, coming into the room.

"Pop?" Karin frowned. "You know Urahara?"

Isshin sat down beside her and nodded. "There's some things you don't know yet. The first of which is I'm a Shinigami, or I used to be before my powers were sealed over twenty years ago."

Karin's eyes widened and Rukia didn't know how to react to that. "You're a what?" Karin managed.

"I've known about what's gone on since the first night when the hollow attacked and Rukia gave you her power. I directed Kisuke to help you as best he could since I could not. My powers have been unsealed, and I'm able to use them again, but it is most important that you know that I was a captain. Your Zanpakutō, Mingestu, is descended from mine, Engetsu. I know about your hollowification because I was there when your mother was infected by Aizen's creation, White." He looked at Karin. "She's the reason I had my powers sealed and lived as a human. I fought the hollow without a hole, and I saved her from it."

"A hollow without a hole? We met one today, one that looked just like Ichigo!" Karin said, gasping.

"I heard your story, and I'm afraid we were right, Kisuke. Aizen has been meddling in our lives from the beginning. I knew your brother's Soul Chain was severed but could never figure out how it had happened. We didn't know at the time that Aizen had created White, and I never put the pieces together." Isshin swallowed hard. "And now he's turned him into something else using his hogyuku, and now he has the other one. Who knows his plans with bother versions of the orb?"

"I am sure he plans to combine them, as both of the hogyuku were incomplete. What that means for us, I'm not sure," Urahara said, looking thoughtful again.

"So, wait, you're telling me, all this time, you knew about me and knew that Kon was in my body?" Karin said, suddenly realizing that fact.

"I knew. That's why I gave you the protection sigils to keep. Your body needed protection while Kon as you call it, took over," Isshin said with a shrug.

"Alright, that's all well and good, but now what do we do? His reiatsu was completely hollow in nature. I could detect nothing else from him, but he said he grew up in Hueco Mundo. Is that the doing of the hogyuku?" Rukia asked, looking between Isshin and Urahara.

"I don't know," Isshin said. "He may not be able to be saved after Aizen has had him for the last sixteen years."

"I still don't understand how Aizen did all this right under Soul Society's nose," Karin groused.

"He was very good at deception," Urahara said, sighing. "He fooled everyone many times over, including me."

"Do we take this to the Sou Taichou?" Rukia asked.

"We must," Urahara said, nodding. "I suggest you return and give a full report. I'll talk to Hitsugaya and the others. No doubt they felt the Arrancar's arrival this morning, but like me, chose not to reveal themselves."

"Either way, we need to keep an eye on Ichigo's body, just in case he chooses to return to it," Isshin said slowly.

"Wait, are you suggesting that Ichigo could take back his body and interact with the World of the Living if he wanted to?" Karin frowned yet again.

"It's like your body, or a Gigai," Urahara explained. "He could easily take up residence in it once again. What good that would do, I don't know, but it could cause havoc in the human world if he was to do so with the powers of an Arrancar."

"So, what do we do?" Karin asked. "How do we find this Arrancar and figure out if it is Ichigo's soul?"

"He'll be back, don't doubt that," Urahara said. "Aizen will make sure of that. His presence will set everyone off center that knows the situation, and that's what he wants. That's why he sent him on a recon mission. He wasn't here to get any information that Aizen doesn't already know."

"You mean, Aizen sent him just so we could see him?" Karin asked.

"Of course," Isshin said, nodding. "The whole purpose to him coming was to do what it did. Give you hope that your brother was alive, and then he plans to make it so that you can't save him. That's why he did this."

"We can save him. I know that." Karin nodded, looking at Rukia. "We have to."