Chapter 11

"This is it," Takumi says as he stops walking and looks down at his tablet. They're in the middle of the park. Standing on one of the rolling green hills. "This is where the last signal from her communicator pinged before it stopped."

"So where's Matilda," Eloise asks as she peers around but the girl's nowhere to be seen. The park is all but abandon since it's a weekday and everyone's off at school or work. "There's no one here."

"Maybe she dropped her communicator?" Humbert suggests as he looks around searching for it but Takumi shakes his head as he continues to fiddle with his tablet.

"The phone released a distress single so it's been destroyed," Takumi mutters and looks away from his tablet for a second to point towards the ground by Leah's feet where bits and pieces of metal and plastic and glass litter the ground. "There!"

Takumi makes his ways towards Leah and shoos her out of the way as he squats down. The communicator is crushed to pieces but he shifts through the shards of plastic, metal, and glass nonetheless. He finds what he's looking for after a bit of searching. It's a blue chip with The Agency's logo on it and he stands as he inserts it into his tablet.

"That's weird," he mumbles, mostly to himself, as he shifts through the messages and calls made from Matilda's communicator. "She's been talking to someone. It's an unfamiliar number," he tells the group as he scans the messages. "A person who goes by 'I'."

"I?"

"Yeah," Takumi mutters distractedly as he reads some of the messages. "It looks like he's…she's on a mission!"

"What?"

There's danger in Leah's voice as he rips the tablet from Takumi's hands and begins to read the messages herself. If had she not learned what she did the day before, they would not have made sense but they do. As she reads message after message, dread pools in her stomach.

"She's a Hollow," she whispers because that's what the messages say.

They paint a picture of dread and despair. Of a world caught in the mist of chaos with thousands of lives in the balance. They outline a world full of cruelty. Where hundreds go hungry every day and thousands more are punished and killed for the littlest of things.

Where any little difference makes you target and there's no stopping it. A world where Matilda and many others are in danger simply because they aren't the same as them.

"And he knows exactly who she is."

"What? Leah, what are you talking about?" Eloise asks, confused, and gently takes the tablet from the stunned woman's hands. "It says here that he knew her from before she got lost in the woods. That he knows her real name and who her father is. He even goes on to call her 'Princess' and promises to tell her everything she wants to know if she does something for him."

"Princess?" Grimmjow asks, speaking for the first time since they arrived at The World of the Living. There's shame and guilt coursing through every part of his being for losing her. For being too angry, upset, and just plain stupid to realize what she is. What she means to the pack. "What's he making her do?"

"He wants her to sway Ichigo to join your side."

"She's working for Lord Aizen?" Ulquiorra asks blankly as he peers over Eloise's shoulder to read the messages. He's angry, upset, annoyed. The list goes on and on but he does his best to conceal his emotions because he knows Grimmjow's beating himself up enough for the both of them.

"No, this 'I' makes references to him as well," Eloise tells him, flipping through some more messages. "He says that Aizen's his leader and not to believe the lies The Soul Society tells of him. That he's not actually the tyrant out to take over the world."

"We found her."

The group's conversation comes to a stop as Starrk and Harribel and Ceci-Anne rush towards them. They don't look relieved or excited though. Each of their faces are set in a frown as they join up with the other group.

"Where is she?" Leah demands but one look at Ceci-Anne is all it takes for her to know. "Shit, they got her, didn't they? How many are there? Where are they?"

"She's got a whole group of Death Gods—Captains and Lieutenants—transporting her to a 'secure' location," Harribel says when she realizes that the assassins are mentally preparing themselves to go in and take her back. "We have no hope of retrieving her without help."

"No, we can—"

"We will head back," Starrk says and his voice leaves no room for argument as he towers over Leah. He understands the woman's need to rush in as save her own. He's experiencing that as well. However, he rules over a large pack and knows that patience is for the best more often than not. "I will not risk the life of my men on a fool's mission. We will head back, inform Lord Aizen of the situation, and developed a well thought out plan. Ulquiorra?"

Starrk doesn't have to ask twice. Ulquiorra has the Garganta open and ready before he can even finish saying his name.

"We're not leaving her here for them to kill her!"

"Of course we're not, she's pack. We'll come back for her and kill anyone one that lays a finger on her."

The threat doesn't come from Starrk or even Harribel. It comes from Ulquiorra. When all eyes turn to him, they can clearly see the fire in his eyes.

"She's mine and I won't let them kill her."

~o0o~

This was so not part of the plan.

However, you know what they say, 'When it rains, it pours.'

Talk.

She was just supposed to talk to the kid. Not get caught and towed half way across the city to some shop owned by a demented man in a bucket hat.

"Why, who is this?"

'You know very well who the fuck I am.'

She wants to shout at the man. Beat him within an inch of his life but she holds her tongue and settles for glaring so she won't get them both killed. He's one of the few 'I' said she could come to for help. However, obviously, he wasn't thinking about this type of situation when he said it.

"That's what we'd like to know, Urahara," a tall, redheaded man says. He's the one that has her pinned. The one that's holding her arms behind her back so she won't beat the ever-living snot out of him for even thinking about touching her like she did to the bald one.

It's bad enough they've taken her masks and gloves. Now they have their dirty hands all over her.

"She has a seal," the white-haired midget says as he steps towards the demented man. If Matilda could, she would have stabbed him twenty-six times in the eye because he's the one in charge. Authority just oozes out of him and it makes her sick. "We require the use of your dojo so we can remove it safely."

'I'm going to kill you all...'

"Oh, I see," the man says thoughtfully as he looks at her from under the rim of his hat. There's a goofy grin on his face. Matilda wants to smack it off but the second their eyes lock she knows she's in deep trouble. There's resignation in his gaze. "Well, if you need help, feel free to figure it out for yourself."

After that she's pushed, pulled, and just over all manhandled down a trapdoor. The underground dojo is huge. It spans at least two football fields if not more. The second they're down there, they let her go.

She in a battle stance instantly. She's watching their every move and hoping she won't die before finding out who she really is. Ichigo moves towards her first. He takes small measured steps that are clearly intended to show her he means no harm but she's technically already fucked six ways to Sunday so she doesn't care.

She races right up to him and hits him so hard in his scrunched up little face that she sends him sprawling onto the floor. The others dive at her after that. It's by some miracle that she manages to dance out of their reach before they can nab her.

What follows then is the mother of all scuffles as Matilda manages to punch each and every single Death God in their smug little faces before Baldy and Redhead finally pin her down. Her knuckles are busted and bleeding. She has a few bruises of her own blooming but, as she sees Midget's eye begin to swell, she couldn't be more satisfied.

"If she's this strong with the seal than maybe we shouldn't remove it," a busty blonde says as she tilts her head back to stop the bleeding from her nose. Not that that'll help because Matilda's pretty sure she broke it.

Well, it's what she was aiming for anyways.

"That wasn't strength. That was skill," Baldy grunts from beside her as he spits a wad of blood on the floor. He has her left arm in a tight grip and he tugs at it harshly when Matilda continues to struggle to get free. It causes her to roll her eyes but she lets them continue to believe that they actually have incapacitated.

She needs to get this seal off somehow now that her cover is blown.

Midget moves towards them then and Matilda could cry in relief as he finally does it. He breaks the seal without another word and, before he can think better of it, Matilda moves. She kicks Midget right in his jewels, uses Redhead's momentary distraction to rip her arm from his grip so she can flip Baldy right over her shoulder before giving Redhead's jewels the same treatment as Midget.

She takes off at a run after that. Though she makes sure to step on Baldy's jewels as she goes so no one's left out.

She doesn't race towards the trapdoor, though. That would only spell trouble for Urahara because he'd be forced to stop her. If he didn't, his cover would be blown. Instead, she runs in the opposite direction because, really, she's fucked and the least she can do before her death is finished what she set out to do.

Ichigo's the only one to follow after her. Everyone's either rushing to Midge's side or rolling on the floor in pain. So she leads Ichigo as far away from the others as she can before he tackles her to the floor.

"They're lying to you."

She doesn't wait for the 'who, what, where, and whys'. They don't have the time for it. She gets down to business and pushes the now stunned boy off her as soon as they stop rolling. Getting to her feet, she pulls him up too and begins to drag him further away from the others.

"Aizen isn't evil," she tells him as they walk and she uses her real voice. Not the eerie one that she really only uses to annoy Ceci-Anne. The whole 'she-can't-talk-thing' is just bull that she uses to her advantage.

She hates talking, after all.

"But Shinji—"

"An experiment gone wrong," she explains as she continues to tug him along. "Accidents do happen. Especially in a lab filled with highly toxic chemicals and dangerous creatures. They didn't mean for that to happen to them but an experiment got loose and infected them with the Hollow Virus they were trying to eliminate to begin with."

"The Central—?"

"Were a bunch of corrupted bastards. Besides, Aizen was just keeping a promise to a certain feline friend," she says in a rush. She can feel the Reiatsu of the others closing in as the finally gather their wits and race after them. "Ask your father why he left and he'll tell you what Central 46 was really like."

"Orihime—"

"Is safe and sound and, honestly, in far less danger there than she was here."

Ichigo pulls them to a stop then. He turns her to face him as he takes both shoulders in his arms.

"But how can I trust you?"

"Ask Urahara. He'll tell you the truth."

"Who are you?" Ichigo asks, eyebrows pulled together in confusion as he continues to hold Matilda's shoulders so the girl won't run. She's left him confused enough as it is, the least she can do is tell her that much.

"I...I don't know."

And with those words the other Death Gods close in around them.