This story takes place after an alternate version of the Uryu Ishida & Renji Abarai vs. Szayelaporro Granz battle in Hueco Mundo. Not everything about the world as it's changed is revealed at the beginning of this story, and will instead be explored in later chapters. While the main characters in this story are Uryu Ishida and Szayel Granz, this story will feature various other background characters. This story will be broken up into "acts" spanning two chapters because I write too much and otherwise it will get messy.
Warnings: Chapters will include depictions of physical and sexual violence, including self-harm.
Under Normal Conditions
Act 1
1.1
A stifled cry interrupted his deep sleep. Under him, a cold material, reminiscent of concrete in its unforgiving nature, sucked all the heat from his frozen form. His reiatsu was dissipating, but not into the air as if fired from an arrow; it was swallowed into the surface below him, and he feared that his physical form would be swallowed soon after. When he tried to pull away, cuffs pushed into his skin and forced his continual contact with the cold material. The tightness of the bands had long since put his hands and feet to sleep.
The cry became more urgent, refocusing his mind. With surprising effort, he tried to open his eyes. The tearing sensation didn't deter him-the resistance only egged him on. If his eyes weren't supposed to be open, that was just too damn bad. Another stifled cry gave him the final push.
The sterile lights were blinding. Squinting against the sharp light provided no comfort. He tried twisting his head away, but the binds stopped him from moving. Resorting to eye movements, he looked left. A large computer spat more light at him, but this source was more bearable than the last. There were words floating across the screen, but, without his glasses, he couldn't make out a single one. Giving up on reading, he glanced right.
A splay of red dominated his vision; long, red hair spilling off the dissection table. A pang resounded in his gut. The man's body was sliced open from collar to pubic bone, held open by surgical clips. A sharp cry caused him to struggle against his bindings. Every instinct told him to fight, to assist, to save. The bindings laughed at his actions, holding him in place as he struggled.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," a man snickered. Uryu tried to find the source. "Don't strain yourself. There's nothing you can do with your reiatsu suppressed, so just be a good little Quincy and wait until it's your turn." Without glasses, it was easy to mistake the scientist for Ryuken, leaning over his mother's open form, taking what she had left to give. The shock of pink hair brought him back to the present. A toothy smile adorned Szayel's blood-speckled face. "You might want to settle down, you'll give yourself a heart attack." As if on cue, Uryu's ears finally tuned into the quick beeping behind him; a heart monitor echoed all his fears and anxieties.
"Kid," a gritted voice directed him to the spill of red. Of course, the red had a face and that tattooed vision was looking very pointedly at Uryu. "Don't let this bastard get a rise out of you. I'm fi-," another muffled cry echoed in his ears, this time clearly from Renji. Looking down his naked, open body, Uryu understood why. Szayel had stabbed into a bunching of muscle in his calf, annoyed at the interruption.
Szayel sneered as he pulled the long scissors out, "don't play the hero. It's not a good look on you. He doesn't believe it anyway."
A glance was thrown at Uryu, a golden haze staring him down in something of a challenge. Had Uryu's mouth not been bound, he would have spit a comment back. Instead of intelligible ridicule, he settled for a muffled growl. Szayel laughed and walked around Renji's table. He moved leisurely towards where Uryu was trapped, blood-covered scissors still in hand. It was then that Uryu realized he wasn't bound lying down, like Renji. He was tipped back slightly further than ninety degrees. The bindings had been so tight that he felt as if he were lying on his back, but Szayel's face, now in front of his, corrected his minds error.
The bloody scissors came back into view and, for a moment, Uryu was certain he would lose an eye for his muffled retort-but the jab never came. Szayel simply grabbed a piece of his hair, lifted the scissors, and cut it at the root. Something insisted Szayel was aiming to give him more than a haircut, but the scientist's motives were still unclear. The heart monitors already fast beat quickened. While Uryu could control what his face and mouth projected, keeping a cold exterior, he couldn't trick the machine.
With a sinister chop, another piece fell to the floor. Szayel kept cutting until the only long pieces resided in the back.
"I'm going to put you back under for about an hour or two now that I know how much anesthesia you can take. I wanted to avoid an overdose earlier, considering you're not as replaceable as some of my other specimens," Szayel sighed in annoyance as he crossed out of Uryu's line of sight. After a brief moment, he was back with a syringe of toxic-looking goo, "of course I'd prefer for you to be awake for the procedure, but a human would likely go into shock: Quincy or not."
Without further explanation, he punctured Uryu's arm and injected him with the hot liquid.
1.2
Incessant pounding; something scratching in his head and wearing on his nerves. If there ever was a time for civility and patience, it certainly wasn't now. His head hurt; well, more specifically, his brain hurt. Something, someone, was digging around in there. To say the least, he didn't enjoy the sensation.
Uryu's eyelids snapped open. He was seated facing a large white wall; no nicks or scratches to be found, no human imperfections ruining it. When he tried to turn away, the chair's high back kept his head from moving. Yet again, he was bound with no hope of escaping his bindings. From what he could see, stuck still, the room was an empty void of white.
"Finally awake? I swear you enjoy wasting my time… Next time, I'm giving you less anesthetic. Who cares if you wake up in the middle."
The voice came from behind him, sending chills down his spine. The question of Renji's location was shoved somewhere he didn't find himself looking. He was too focused on the animalistic fear circulating his blood.
"We're going to watch some home movies today, isn't that exciting? You should feel lucky, you're the first one to test out this new project. Or, should I say, projector?" The scientist cackled loudly, the sharp noise quickly filling the space and raising goosebumps on his bare arms.
He was completely naked, Uryu realized. He'd probably been since Szayel knocked him out the first time. While this raised questions, Uryu wasn't as bothered by it as he felt he should be. He couldn't feel the weight of his glasses either, but his vision was the same as when they were on-possibly better. The Espada must have done something to his vision-
The lab lights shut off. A projector beamed onto the wall in front of him, pulling Uryu out of his head.
His breathing stopped; his heartbeat sounded in his ears.
On the wall, not even five feet in front of him, was a projection of his mom. She was smiling, a shining ray of light directed at him, but not him now. No, this smile was for a much younger him. A him that she was alive to see. If he had been able to comprehend any of it, he might have stopped the stream of tears rushing down his face. But maybe he wouldn't have.
She was too much: too bright, too brilliant, too beautiful. And she was here somehow; or maybe he was there, back at six years old. He felt his own eyes pan over to Ryuken, stoic and still. He was seated on a park bench; Uryu and his mother played in the leaves. Unexpectedly, Ryuken smiled and stood. He quickly came over to them and picked Uryu up, lifting him above his head quickly and somewhat recklessly. Laughter bubbled into his ears, making the Uryu of today flinch.
This wasn't real; or not so much not real as not the present. He wasn't there right now. He was in a chair, being operated on by a sadistic puppet master.
"Stop it," he ground out, unable to control the river running down his face.
The projection didn't stop. It showed more happy memories of playing in the snow and rain and sun. It showed baking and gardening and sewing. It showed so many things that Uryu himself had not remembered. More happy times than he had counted. Of course, this happiness didn't last long; it never did.
The happy memories shifted to one of his worst. He hid behind the cracked door, looking into his parents' bedroom. Ryuken was yelling again. Some things about work, some about money, some about family (but whether that meant Uryu and Katagiri or Ryuken's parents was anybody's guess). This was the first fight he had witnessed.
Katagiri was in, what Uryu soon learned to be, her usual position, sitting on the edge of the bed, crying, with no effort to cover or explain her tears. She just sat and cried. Ryuken, on the other hand, paced back and forth; he screamed and shook until he locked himself in the bathroom connected to their room. To stop himself from hitting her, Uryu realized. What Ryuken didn't understand was that, to her, the emotional pain was worse than any physical pain he could inflict.
Uryu's stomach hurt. He remembered it hurting then, too. He wanted to go back and step in; preferably, he would shoot Ryuken full of holes until he finally apologized. Uryu let out a strained laugh. Even at his current power level, there wasn't a chance in hell that he could cause Ryuken physical or emotional pain of any kind.
There was an intrigued hum from behind him, "why are you laughing? This memory is painful, correct?"
While he knew his responses should be filtered, he couldn't bite his tongue. It was a kind of revenge on his past self; the self that did nothing to prevent Katagiri's beratement. "I didn't do anything for her, but I blame him completely. I just stood and watched. I'm as bad as him."
There was a hum akin to approval and the projection continued. Some memories were happy, but they started melding into a stream of fights, bullies, heightened tempers, loneliness, and finally death.
It was June.
There was no way to tell this from the information shown on the projector, but Uryu could recognize the scene that would soon play out. It was summer and he had begged Katagiri to take him out. The sun had gone down a little bit ago and it was cool and pleasant. Uryu had taken her hand with the promise of escorting her home. Things hadn't been good lately; in the brief moments Ryuken returned home, the only thing he did was fight. Katagiri, of course, didn't blame him, because, Uryu guessed, she could never find him at fault.
Katagiri's hand ripped from his; Uryu could feel her crash to the ground beside him. His heart rung in his ears. At nine, he had less medical knowledge than Ryuken thought he should have. With shaking hands, he pushed her body and started screaming nonsense dictated by fear.
That brief moment of panic had felt like years but, watching the tapes, turns out Ryuken arrived within the minute of her falling unconscious. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, urgency overpowering care, and grabbed Uryu with his other hand. A blinding flash got them to their destination; of course, Uryu could now recognize this as hirenkyaku.
Months spent in the hospital, crying over her unconscious body, overwhelming loneliness, and the complete absence of Ryuken. The only good thing that happened during those three months was meeting his grandfather. He was the only one to comfort Uryu from the second month of her comma to the day she passed.
The monitor flatlining brought Uryu's attention back to reality. His hands were in shaking fists and his teeth clenched unbearably tight. If he had even stopped crying, he didn't know.
"Why are you doing this," slipped past his defenses.
The man behind remained silent, or maybe he wasn't even there anymore. The question remained in the air; something he couldn't take back.
Of course, this wasn't the end. There was the brutal dissection of Katagiri, the gruesome murder of Souken, and even just general teenage angst to be covered, and Szayel didn't show him any mercy.
1.3
It was unclear when the torment ended and the blissful rest began; neither mattered since he was already awake again. He opened his eyes slowly, expecting the bright lights to overwhelm him. Utter darkness was a shock, to say the least. With a few more blinks, Uryu confirmed his first assessment; the room was pitch black, he couldn't see a thing.
He sat up too quickly and had to rest his dizzy head in his hands. It all felt like a dream, but his shaved head proved it as reality. The panic rose in his chest as his breathing quickened. This was bad. They had lost to a mad scientist who would now use them as his playthings. He was probably just in this room until Szayel had time for another experiment-
And what about the others? Everyone who came to rescue Orihime... Did different Espada keep them as trophies? Or were they already dead-
No, stop.
He cut the thought off before it could settle into him. They had to be alive and well, or, at least, well enough. They would win and come back for him and Renji. Or they would at least save Orihime, which was the most important thing. He could rot as long as he knew she was safe. Renji probably felt the same.
For now, he would have to look after himself; that wasn't so new. It would only be a couple of days-weeks-a month, at most. He'd either escape on his own or be begrudgingly rescued by Ichigo. All he had to do was survive and keep his eyes open for opportunities. And find Renji, but that couldn't be too hard since the Shinigami was never good at hiding his reiatsu.
He took a second to reach out in his mind, looking for any sign of another living creature, but nothing came up. Szayel must have reinforced the box to prevent him from feeling reiatsu. That was ok. He would just... remain content without confirmation. Renji wasn't a child, anyway, he didn't need babysitting. And Uryu could keep busy on his own.
After a few hours of avoiding thinking about worst-case scenarios, Uryu found himself out of things to think about. He'd always been alone, so this really shouldn't be so hard. But, when he'd been alone before, he always had a book or a sewing project or even just the ability to seek out human contact. A coffee shop, a supermarket, something. This darkness, this emptiness, was unlike any loneliness he'd felt.
Metal screeching together alerted him before a small source of light appeared. A tray was pushed through the wall, then the slit was closed, trapping him back in darkness.
Out of sheer boredom, Uryu felt his way over to the tray. With the small light source gone, it was impossible to see the thing, so he took each moment slow and steady. When his hands found a cup, he was surprised. His capture provided him with a cup of water, a sandwich, and an apple.
Whether he was hungry or bored, he ate the offered food without considering that it could be some kind of trap. Nothing happened and he wished he would've taken more time to savor the meal. Since the thoughts came back soon after he was done.
What if this was all some sort of weird Shinigami plan to weed out the last Quincy? Though he wasn't the "last" anymore, Soul Society didn't know. Hueco Mundo didn't know. But why would they even care? He wasn't much of a threat. He'd exhausted himself battling one captain in Soul Society. He'd lost a tag-team battle with one Espada in Hueco Mundo. He wasn't that powerful. He wasn't a threat.
So what if this was something more personal? This seemed like a scientist's fever dream, so maybe Mayuri was actually pulling the strings? Maybe it was revenge for almost defeating him once. Mayuri was clearly the type for revenge, Uryu wouldn't put capturing and torturing a Shinigami to further his revenge attempt past him.
Or if this was all the doings of an Espada. If they could easily be rescued, but the team was set on not coming back. That they'd talked it over-Ichigo, Orihime, Chad, Rukia-and decided to cut their losses and get out of Hueco Mundo while it was still easy. The real hard decision was leaving Renji behind-the consolation prize was leaving Uryu to rot and-
So maybe it was better to go to sleep.
This process of thinking until he couldn't think of anything else to think about, eating, urinating and defecating in a toilet he'd thankfully found in the corner, and sleeping on the unforgiving floor, only lasted a short while-till a depressive period hit.
He found himself sitting in the corner, curled in on himself.
His friends weren't coming to save him-if any of them were even his friends. They probably hated him-they had to hate him-since he'd said he hated them before-Quincy archer hates you-this was their way of getting rid of him, it was all so obvious. Ryuken definitely had something to do with it; maybe this whole box thing was his idea. There was no way to escape. This was where he would stay until death-
When he could no longer stand the thoughts, he got out of his head through any sort of physicality. The idea of spending one more minute crawling around made him the idiot. So he was walking in circles, keeping one hand on the wall in order to avoid a collision.
He considered doing more intensive exercise but, considering the small amount of food he was given, anything more intensive seemed foolish. Szayel seemed to understand that humans needed food and water, but the amount given was incorrect. And there was no way Uryu would beg for anymore.
Soon he was punching walls with the blurred image of Szayel, Ryuken, and even Ichigo in mind. It was a better physical release than walking, but his hands were always bleeding and he was in a constant state of exhaustion. His mind wasn't working, hadn't been working for months now. Or minutes. It was hard for him to tell at this point; there was no way of counting other than guestimation and memory, and that wasn't serving him well lately.
Good thing his eyes finally adjusted so he could see the blurry outline of the toilet shoved in the corner and the nothing else that was with him. "Fuck," the wall bit back, but he lost track of the feeling after hearing his own voice. It had been forever since he heard anyone talk and he could've sworn it was someone else. Too deep, too bitter, to be his. Then he was laying down on the floor trying to sleep some of the thoughts away.
Eventually, his fists weren't the only things bleeding. With his eyes adjusted to this level, he could see the way his skin came up under uncut nails, but he couldn't bring himself to so much as feel the pain. The only thing that distracted him from the incessant scratching was the sound of metal scraping together: his food and water.
There was no way to wash his hands and, while this had bothered him during his thinking period, he now found himself eating the food while his hands were wet with blood. When he woke up-had he gone to sleep?-the blood was dry on his hands, but that didn't matter. He'd just reopen anything that healed and create new patches of torn-up skin.
His ears perked at the sound of metal, the opening scritch, the beginnings of soft light. "Hey!" His voice came out without intention, or maybe it was by choice at the moment and then suddenly forgotten, "what is this about? Can you just-" The food was pushed in and the slot was closed. For a moment he was silent, but that moment was short.
With a booming clang, he threw the tray-the food, the water-at the door, "FUCK OFF!" His head was spinning, his own words echoing against his skull-but, then again, who else's words would there be? He was thirsty, he was hungry; he fell to the floor loudly weeping. There was no censorship of thought, none of body.
The anger eventually stopped. In fact, everything stopped. He found himself-or couldn't find himself-back in the corner he'd found in his first depressive period. The reprise of his depression was a total showstopper. He didn't think, talk, stand, sleep, eat, or drink for a long while.
Eventually, everything stopped.
1.4
The monitor, to which he'd been glued for a consecutive 172 hours, showed the same picture it'd shown for the past 70 hours. Had he not had such a critical eye, he would've thought the screen was frozen. Until Uryu fell, of course, which was something that had been expected approximately 170 hours ago. With a sharp command, Lumina and Verona scurried to the room Uryu had locked in for the last twenty-three days.
Szayel stood and stretched. While he was not human, his body still did not enjoy that much stillness. He would soon have to satisfy his appetite, too. The subject had been too interesting within those last 172 hours to step away from the monitor for even a second.
The two came bumbling back in, the boy lifted above their heads. He was considerably thinner, paler, and just plain closer to death than he'd been before. That was good, though, considering he only should've lasted a few days.
The two fraccion placed Uryu on the dissection table. Szayel grabbed the saline IV and inserted the needle into Uryu's arm. He then put a nasogastric tube through his nose to get any sort of food into his empty stomach. This was all that seemed necessary but, after seeing his arms, Szayel thought it best to treat those as well. Rot was a very real issue, after all. Taking the same machine he'd used on Uryu's head to speed the reformation of skin, Szayel fixed his torn-up arms.
To give them both some peaceful days, Szayel decided to induce a coma with a variation of his previous anesthetic; it should knock him out for a few days. Giving Lumina and Verona the responsibility of doing some general cleaning of his body, Szayel went back to the oversized monitor.
Books of notes covered everything that had happened during the past twenty-three days, but he had never been a man to half-ass his work. Fast-forwarding through the tapes the second time through, he checked every note made and continued adding new things spotted-creating new theories.
Though embarrassingly wrong, he had thought the subject would only last three days before having a major breakdown. While there were minor dips before, it took ten days for him to start causing any sort of physical pain, and five more days until he inflicted that pain directly onto himself. At twenty days, he officially gave up and opted for death. That was the official end to the mental side of the experiment, but it had been a good idea to wait out the physical side too. A human might've died, not that he was not human, but he had something in him, maybe it was that damn Quincy side of his, that pushed him to live longer than he should've.
Sorting through past files, he found what he'd been looking for. Out of the twelve humans who participated in this experiment, Uryu had lasted the longest by a long shot. The person who survived for the second-longest only lasted eight days, having stopped eating and drinking day four. It was impressive, the time he'd lasted.
Szayel found himself sparing a glance in the Quincy's direction. He was a piece of art: bones jutting out, skin paler than paper, tubes elongating his features… Szayel felt a weird surge in his body, the same surge that made him save the boy from death. Pushing it aside, he took more notes on the experiment's results.
1.5
Uryu bolted up; a head rush forcing his head into his hands. That made the tubes obvious. They encircled his body like venomous snakes, piercing his skin with a vengeance. Uryu started ripping the tubes out. Running on pure adrenaline gave him the strange ability to not feel anything but the fresh blood running down his arms; it was warm, a nice contrast to the freezing temperature of the lab.
Throwing his legs over the table, he tried to stand but quickly crashed to the ground. The unceremonious thud must have been alarming because, when he regained consciousness, he was met with Szayel's shoes.
"What is this about? I go through all this trouble of patching you up just so that you," Szayel squatted down to force eye contact, "can pathetically knock yourself unconscious? Really, I should keep a running count of the number of times you pass out, it's getting ridiculous." Once the feeling in his body returned, he started slowly rising to his hands and knees, Szayel still squatting in front of him. "You woke up a bit early, you should still be sedated. Fighting that groggy feeling will just land you face down on the floor again." Uryu, now successfully balanced on his knees, glared daggers into the Espada. Szayel placed a hand over his heart, the other one coming to fake dab at his eyes, "and here I took time out of my busy schedule to save your life and even put your arms back together."
"Go to hell," Uryu ground out, trying to stand.
Szayel frowned, standing before Uryu could fully straighten up. Once Uryu was up, though, he took some time to properly rest against the dissection table. When he felt balanced, he moved away from the table and started walking. Szayel, somewhat confused and extremely intrigued by his specimen's behavior, had no choice but to follow him.
Without warning, Uryu turned on his heels to face the Espada, "where is he?"
Szayel raised an eyebrow, "where is who? And where are you going?"
Uryu scoffed and turned away again. He walked a little bit faster, but his steps were unsure and sometimes he swayed a bit. It made Szayel want to laugh, but he repressed the urge and settled for watching his subject flutter around the lab, dodging in and out of open doors.
Again, he stopped in his tracks and turned on his heels, "where did you put him? This lab is large, but I'll find him eventually with or without your help."
Uryu's teeth were clenched, his arms tensed at his sides. Unlike a normal human, whose hand would be closed in a tight fist, his were flexed open, ready to grab his bow. Without his cross, Szayel doubted he'd be able to properly manifest a bow. And, with him being this weak, using any amount of power seemed out of the question.
Szayel, again suppressing a laugh, tried to appear rational, "you have to tell me what you mean. I'm not a mind reader."
Uryu glared again, not that he ever actually stopped, "Abarai. Renji Abarai-where did you put him? Is he in a place similar to mine? Or did you give him his own little slice of hell?"
The way the scientist searched the ceiling for answers made Uryu's glare intensify. Szayel, surprisingly enough, wasn't acting forgetful; he'd genuinely forgotten that he took in that Shinigami along with the Quincy. It was just that the Quincy was so interesting and new and the Shinigami… wasn't.
Finally, he located the man in his memory, "well, if Lumina and Verona have been taking proper care of the specimens, then he should still be here. But I'm not promising anything. I haven't checked in on him since the beginning of your experiment."
Szayel grabbed Uryu around the waist and used sonido to take them to where Renji might be-the sudden speed made Uryu feel sick. He took a moment to breathe before looking around. They were standing in front of a wall. Uryu glared; Szayel smirked. With too much flair, Szayel clicked in an invisible pin and opened the now apparent door, revealing the contents of the room.
Uryu couldn't breathe. Renji lay on the dissection table, body pulled open, the same he'd been so many days ago. He had to be dead, Uryu thought again and again, but Renji's labored breathing proved otherwise. Szayel stepped into the room; Renji's breath quickened at the sight of him.
Szayel sighed, "so they managed to keep you alive? That seems more like a waste of resources than anything… I am terribly sorry for my absence, I completely forgot you were even here. But I suppose I should take responsibility for you now. Let's see, what can we do with you…"
Slowly, Uryu came to Renji's side. The binds around his wrists had turned his hands a discolored blue: they blistered and smelled of death. Uryu took a hand into his, quickly dismissing any thought of the hand being foul or disgusting. Renji's eyes met his and then looked somewhere behind him. Attempting to avoid attention, Uryu slowly looked a little behind himself to a cart with a splay of tools on top of it. A small, sharp scalpel drew his eye immediately.
Uryu had never paid much attention to medical classes, or any class that focused on the human body. Having witnessed the dissection of his mother left a bad taste in his mouth which still lingered. He only knew the basics of first aid and how to make himself not immediately bleed out if attacked by a Hollow. Pressure, most things could be solved by pressure. But seeing the body open like this showed just how clueless he really was. However, he did understand something very simple; cutting through veins and arteries was bound to quickly end Renji's life.
Uryu looked back at Renji to make sure he understood completely. Unlike Ichigo, Uryu did not believe that everyone could be saved. Unlike Orihime, Uryu did not have faith in things getting better. Unlike Chad, Uryu was not above ending someone's life. Renji pleaded for Uryu to end things and Uryu understood.
Szayel continued a self-dialogue on future experiments the "brainless Shinigami" could be useful for. He was seemingly too caught up in himself to monitor the other parties.
Uryu grabbed the scalpel and, in one swift motion with more power than he had, sliced. He quickly cut up the inside of Renji's chest, not even flinching as hot blood squirted out.
His arm was twisted back, fingers gripping him tight enough to bruise. He was thrown back, making a Szayel sized space between him and Renji. The Espada reached into Renji's chest and pulled out the man's heart. He bit into it, forcing Uryu to stumble back further. Szayel finished his snack in a few bites, not bothering to wipe his mouth after.
"Kid," a raspy voice called his attention back to Renji. The man had a soft grin on his face, "thanks."
Within seconds, his breathing finally stopped. Uryu couldn't find the pain he knew would later arise in his arm, nor could he find the fear he should have of the Espada in front of him. All he could feel was the blood cooling on his skin. All he could see was the dead Shinigami he'd fought beside.
Abarai was a lot of things, but he wasn't a bad man. And someone as decent as him didn't deserve something as horrible as this; something this dark and painful; something that made him opt for suicide.
"Quincy," the Espada hissed, "what gives you the right to waste my research specimens? His death was not your call."
Fight or flight surged in his mind, but he was in a position to do neither. If his actions cost him his life, though, it would have been worth it. Szayel's fuse seemed short, a harsh scowl taking up the majority of his face.
Szayel absorbed the panic, completely dominating the room, "now that we're short of lab rats, you'll have to take up double duty. How would you like to spend a month in the box?"
Uryu could feel himself shake. He'd rather die a gruesome death than go back to the box; anything was better than that hell.
Szayel seemed to understand, a sharp smirk suddenly replacing the scowl, "of course, if you'd be a little cooperative, we could commence another experiment. One in which you'd be able to use your powers. How does that sound?"
He didn't want to help the Espada. The monster who was responsible for the loss of Renji's life, the monster who had locked him in a dark box for what felt like an eternity, shouldn't be helped in any form. Szayel looked down on him, the ultimatum sinking in.
There was nothing worse than the box.
"I'll do it."
