The Snake Pit
By Spunky0ne
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Gin was always a survivor, even after everyone thought Aizen Sosuke killed him. Still, though he lives, he suffers under a demonic master who is scheming to bring down the five great clans. When he escapes in the company of Aizen and a recently captured Kuchiki Tetsuya, can the three survive long enough to prove the existence of the Underworld Phantom Clan? Yaoi, mpreg, Non-graphic non-con, BDSM…Gin/Orochi/Tetsuya, Aizen/Urahara, Byakuya/Renji
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Chapter 1: In the Coil
It was the sound of a young man's pained screams that brought the silver-haired prisoner out of sleep and made him crouch near the front of the small cell he occupied. His icy blue eyes opened and fixed on the chamber outside his cell, where two of the prison guards had stripped and restrained a young looking black-haired man on an examination table. One of the men stood at the end of the table, where the prisoner's spread legs hung over. He leaned over the young man, attacking him sexually, while his comrade stood at the other end of the table, one palm on each side of the tormented man's head, flowing some kind of malevolent reiatsu into his mind.
That's not likely to end well for him, the silver-haired man decided, But, he's probably better off if they kill him. That bastard, Shigeru, has treated me to that same torment. It was two days before I came out of the nightmares his reiatsu caused when he used that power on me. I don't know how strong this guy is. He's screaming a lot, but he's still moving, still struggling. I guess we'll see, won't we?
He kept to the shadows near the front of his cell, watching intently as the two guards continued their assault, until the man between the prisoner's spread thighs was gave a dragging sigh and released into the writhing and gasping prisoner, who quivered and finally lost consciousness.
Poor thing.
He's still alive.
The guards callously left the black-haired man naked and restrained on the table and walked out.
Bastards.
The man laid perfectly still, his chest raggedly heaving from the terror and pain of his ordeal. The caged man could make out before his eyes closed completely, that they looked to be a bright, gemlike sapphire color. Although his skin was bruised in more than a few places, the unbruised expanses were a light, porcelain color. His whole body looked too delicate to survive what he had just endured, with finely carved facial features, a graceful neck, shapely torso and long, slender fingers and toes.
He seems to have some noble blood at least. Reminds me a little of Byakuya. Could this be a Kuchiki relative? Why would he be here?
The silver-haired man heard approaching footsteps and skittered to the back of his cage, lying down on his cot to make it look as though he was still unconscious from his last ordeal. He breathed a sigh of relief that the man who walked in, although also a guard, was one of the less dastardly ones. The guard spotted the man on the examination table and sighed in annoyance.
"Damn those animals…"
He looked down at the dark-haired prisoner and shook his head.
"Well, you're alive, unfortunately for you. I suppose we'll need to find a place for you."
He turned to a schematic on the wall and nodded, then he returned to the man on the table.
"Don't resist me or I will just put you out of your misery, understand?" he warned the captive, "Just be quiet and do like you're told now."
He picked up a silver band from the implement table beside the prisoner, and placed it on the young man's wrist. Only then did he release the heavy restraints that held the man down.
"Do you think you can walk?" he asked the dark-haired man.
The prisoner started to sit up, but then quivered and gasped in distress.
"What a pain," the guard complained as he fell back on the table and stopped moving except to breathe.
But despite his obvious annoyance, the guard's hands were gentle as he wrapped a ragged yukata around the unconscious man and carried him to the silver-haired man's cell.
"This guy in here is a little creepy, but he won't hurt you, or he'll be punished in a way I know he really hates," the guard said, glaring at the silver-haired prisoner.
"Why bother talking to him, Miki?" the prisoner in the cell asked, "He's obviously not hearing you."
"I was warning you, baka," Miki snapped, "Stand back."
He opened the cell door, keeping his eyes fixed on the prisoner in the cell as he carried the new one through the doorway and laid him down on one side of the single cot in the cell. The silver-haired man watched closely, but warily kept his distance as the guard left the cell, then shut the cell door and looked calmly in at the two.
"Make nice now, okay? Behave and I'll see you're fed tonight. Misbehave and I'll let Shigeru and Saburo back in to entertain the two of you."
"What a nice guy," the silver-haired prisoner muttered under his breath.
The guard turned away and continued down the rows of cells, stopping to talk to some prisoners, then pausing to note where one had died. He dragged the body out and dumped it into a reiatsu dispersal unit, then pushed a button. The machine whirred and lights on it flashed. A moment later, small red points of light appeared on the dead man's body and the body slowly broke down into a little cloud of spirit particles that floated in the air and swirled before completely disappearing. The guard sighed and shook his head again, then continued on his rounds.
Within the silver-haired man's cage, the resident prisoner moved to his new cellmate's bedside and leaned over the unconscious black-haired man.
"Don't suppose this'll be easy and you'll just give me your name?" the man asked, eyeing his sapphire-eyed companion.
The dark haired man quivered and groaned incoherently, but failed to wake.
"I'm Gin," the silver-haired man offered, "I bet when you wake, you'll be surprised that I didn't die when Aizen tried to kill me."
He grinned down at the unconscious man.
"Pardon the intrusion, but you've got me curious, here."
He opened the man's yukata and bent over him, examining him carefully.
"Impressive spirit centers, I have to say. I wonder if that limiter Miki put on you is going to hold your powers back. I guess we'll see. You're very pretty too, aren't you? You're not going to like all of the company you're going to have because of that. I'd mark you up a little to make them not desire you as much, but you know, I kind of like you already. Maybe I'll just give you a few more smudges."
He dirtied the young man's face with dust and grit, then shook his head.
"You're in trouble," he snickered, "You're even cuter when you're filthy."
He continued his exploration of the unconscious man's body, pausing and laying down next to him as Miki passed by again on his rounds. When the guard was gone, he renewed his efforts with his cellmate, studying the man's left arm, then picking up the right. As he studied the right hand, he made a sound of surprise, then quickly checked the man's spirit centers again.
"You're a healer, eh? Must be a damned good one with such developed spirit centers. You're a little bit of a mystery, aren't you, my friend?"
As he reached the top of the black-haired man's shoulder, he paused again, noting what he thought was just a tattoo, but what turned out instead to be a branding of some kind.
"Itamigiri?" he read, "Kuchiki Tetsuya, Impure. Huh…"
He finished examining the young man's body then returned to the branding again.
"Hey, Tetsuya-san, will you tell me something?" the silver-haired man inquired, "Why'd they put you in here? You're a noble born, right?"
"Impure," he read again, "You're a mixed blood?"
He rubbed his chin and sighed.
"That makes it curious, doesn't it?" Gin mused, touching a finger to his chin thoughtfully, "I've been wondering who these guys are, and why they have us all here. See, I think something big is going on. They need a lot of power, or at least people with some power. Maybe they want to steal it somehow. I just…don't know yet."
He took a closer look at his unconscious cellmate and smiled.
"Maybe you appearing here means that we're about to find out."
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Byakuya rested quietly in his red-haired lover's arms, his dark eyes troubled as he brooded over his favored cousin's unexplained absence and the complete dearth of clues as to where the young man could be. Renji ran his rough fingers through the unhappy clan leader's silken hair and kissed his cheek soothingly, doing his best to comfort his taicho and lover.
"Come on now, you should really try to sleep," he urged the weary noble, "We're not going to find him any faster by worrying."
"But, I feel like there must be something more that I should be doing."
Renji sighed and shook his head.
"What can we do? Koji, Akio and Torio all searched everywhere that Tetsuya and ol' Fleabag usually go. You and your Ikazuchi both tried tracking them, and even with your expert skills and connection with them, you found nothing."
"None of Tetsuya's close friends have seen him anywhere," Byakuya added.
"And it doesn't help that Tetsuya's job is pretty much to be invisible," Renji complained, "I tell you, we need to do a kido version of the living world's GPS and keep it on that guy and his four footed buddy."
"I don't think this is as simple as Tetsuya hiding out," Byakuya said anxiously, "Something has happened to him."
He paused and looked up at Renji.
I should tell him.
"What is it?" Renji asked, noting his sudden hesitation, "What're you thinking? Did you get an idea of something to do?"
"No, it's nothing like that," Byakuya answered, "It's just that, because of Tetsuya's disappearance, there is something that I was not able to tell you today."
Renji tilted his head and looked back at Byakuya questioningly.
"Renji, you remember when we went before the Kuchiki council to request their blessing to marry, and they required us to prove our commitment to the clan's needs by first producing an heir?"
"How could I forget?" Renji recalled, his cinnamon eyes softening as he recalled, "I almost passed out when you told me it was actually possible for us to have a child. The stuff you told me about the breeder males and their history in the clans had my head spinning. And Tetsuya being one of them? I just about passed out. I'll never forget all he did to give us a shot at our dream."
"Well," Byakuya said, pausing for a moment to gather himself, "I received word from Michio, our clan healer, today that he sensed the formation of a viable reiatsu in Tetsuya's body."
Renji's breath caught and his eyes rounded.
"Whoa! Does that mean that…? Are we…? Are we having a baby here?" he stammered.
Byakuya's proud eyes shone, but were at the same time, clouded with worry.
"Tetsuya is with child," he said softly, "The Kuchiki heir has been seeded."
"S-so that means that we can get married, right?" Renji asked hopefully.
Byakuya's face fell.
"Renji, you know that permission for us to marry is based on us producing an heir prior to the wedding. It is this way because we are both male, and were there not a breeder male capable of combining the strongest of our characteristics in his body, we would not be allowed to wed. There are no other known breeder males left. Tetsuya is the only one. And we are not capable of combining specific traits in a female surrogate. The makeup of the breeder males is unique. If something has happened to Tetsuya and he does not come back…"
"What?" Renji asked anxiously, "You mean, we couldn't get married then?"
"No," Byakuya said sadly, "The elders would insist on choosing a wife for me, although, they would overlook us continuing to see each other, as long as we are discreet."
"Huh…" Renji mused, his mind whirling as he tried to make sense of his lover's words, "Just like that…"
"I am sorry, Renji. Those are the rules, "And I…agreed to abide by them when I became their leader."
"Okay," Renji said, his eyes strengthening again as he absorbed the information, "it sounds like you and I need to find Tetsuya…and we need to do that right away. Cause, I don't know about you? But I am not losing the kid we made together, or the friend who made it possible for me to marry the love of my life!"
"I feel the same," Byakuya said determinedly, "The only problem is finding new places to search. If we knew where Tetsuya was when he was abducted…but we just can't pinpoint the location or the circumstances. Oddly, he left no word where he was going. And because Arashi, too, is missing, we cannot use their form of communication to find either of them."
"There's gotta be a way to figure this out," Renji said determinedly, "I don't know, maybe we just need to look at this from a different angle."
He thought for a moment, then his eyes widened and met Byakuya's, both sets of orbs radiating the same thought.
"What if he was taken because of the baby?" they said together.
"There has been no announcement," Byakuya said, rubbing his chin, "But it was announced to the elders."
"And not everyone on that council is a friend of ours," Renji said darkly, "There were a few of'em who objected, even though I proved myself according to their standards of radiant power and taicho level ability."
"I just don't know if this is some kind of attempt by one or more of them, or if this is something that includes someone outside of the clan too. Is this internal betrayal, or is it, perhaps, something more expansive?"
"How're we gonna find out?" Renji asked.
"I am going to begin by paying a visit to the home of the family members most likely to be involved. I will divine from that whether there is a need to look farther."
"So, which one do you think might be the backstabber?" the redhead inquired, "That stuck up noble princess Arisu? Or maybe that snaky guy and his nasty pop, Isas?"
Byakuya considered and his eyes darkened.
Orochi has a connection to Tetusya. You remember when I told you that the reason we all learned about Tetsuya being a natural born breeder male was that he was incarcerated in an illegal prison, years ago, and he became pregnant there?"
"Yeah, I remember you telling me that," Renji affirmed.
Tetsuya claimed that the child was his cellmate, Naoki's, however there were no records recovered to either support or subvert the claim. It was known that the guards in the prison used the prisoners for sexual purposes."
"So, you're saying the baby could have been someone else's?" Renji inquired.
"I needed someone inside the prison, so that I could plan the raid, but there weren't many choices. The person I sent to find Tetsuya's family was Orochi. He was known for being from a subfamily that looks down on nobles who mix blood with commoners. But, he had the skills for the job and I had something to hold over him to make sure that if Tetsuya and his parents were alive, they would stay that way. Tetsuya's father had already been executed by the time Orochi arrived, and his mother died of illness before she could be rescued. Orochi positioned himself near Tetsuya to watch over him, but…it is rumored that he took advantage of our incarcerated cousin, himself. And even after Tetsuya was freed, he seemed to share a troubled connection with Orochi. But, Orochi didn't want Tetsuya to die. He simply wanted to dominate him."
"Well, that sounds like a place to start looking, doesn't it?" Renji concluded.
"I believe so," Byakuya concurred.
"So, do you want me to go with you?" the redhead asked.
Byakuya gave him an amused look.
"I am going into a pit of snakes," he said blithely, "I would never do that without a trusted comrade watching my back."