Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach...
Rated M- For the violence and language mostly...so uh...yeah...

"How the hell is this supposed to work anyways," Ichigo muttered to himself, looking at the item in his hand.

The…lunch with Aizen had extended much longer than just lunch, the whole conversation had been well spread out and irritating as it was the man had both given him a lot of information without really revealing anything at all. Not only was it annoying but it was also frustrating, how was he supposed to prepare himself for whatever would happen, or even what he was supposed to do, if he didn't know anything. Apparently Aizen expected him to figure it out himself.

After the lunch had started edging on into dinner he had been shoved back into the limo and after that he had been driven for no reason at all until the driver had dropped Aizen off and then finally went to let him get out of the limo…at least seven blocks from his house that is. Forced to walk the rest of the way home he was not only pissed when he got there but he was tired as well. Everything that happened the night before and today had been way too much in such a short amount of time. So…when he entered the house he had yelled his greeting and went straight to his room, locking the door behind him.

Now he was here, staring at the item Aizen had given him, Aizen had told him it'd be his lifeline, the item that would practically be his life from now on and to never lose it or show it to outsiders. What that exactly meant, Ichigo didn't know, but the fact it was a phone was a little strange. A white cell phone was the item that was to apparently become his life. This raised the question though…how exactly would this work? Aizen had just given it to him and then left the limo.

Ichigo sighed and opened the phone, white background with a gothic number zero he had tried changing it but the thing wouldn't change no matter what he did. Going through the menu he checked the numbers, empty, it made no sense to give him a phone that not only he couldn't do anything with but didn't even have a single phone number on it. Groaning Ichigo lay on his bed in defeat, the whole thing didn't make sense. Aizen didn't make sense.

The lunch had been horrible, he had barely gleamed anything off of it and he didn't even like the food that Aizen had ordered without even letting him look at the menu. Closing his eyes Ichigo thought back to that wretched lunch. Overall it had been uneventful, Aizen had ordered both the food and drink and then made them sit around in silence until it arrived. After eating, and only after did he start talking. Most of it Ichigo had passed off as useless, something or another about how a great deal was to be expected of him. Something Ichigo found to be pretty obvious, he was supposed to sneak into people's homes and murder them…yeah…that was one of the easiest things in the world to do.

Eventually though Aizen had let out one little bit that Ichigo had found…interesting. Aizen had said, and this was if he remembered correctly, "Every person who works for me is quite pleased with the arrangements I provide. As long as they don't do anything they're not supposed to it all works out. Of course if they ever find it unpleasant there are some…steps that I can take to prevent them from leaving. I'm afraid I don't allow anyone to resign," of course when he said interesting he meant interesting…in a creepy way.

Not only did that sound like a threat but it also seemed that he wasn't going to be the only unhappy one in this group. Opening his eyes Ichigo glanced at the phone again, staring at the locked background in some hope that it'd tell him something that he hadn't managed to figure out. All he knew was that he was royally screwed over. Not only was he being employed by a probably insane man but he also couldn't leave once employed without something bad happening, oh and of course the job detailed killing people that sucked as well.

A soft knock came at his door, tearing his gaze away from the phone, "Who is it?" he asked.

"Ichigo are you hungry? You um…weren't at school apparently and you didn't come home until really late…" Yuzu said softly.

Instead of explaining Ichigo left it simple, "I already ate thanks though," and then he hoped that she'd accept it at that and leave.

She didn't leave right away, but instead stood outside the door probably thinking of saying something. Eventually though Ichigo heard her soft footsteps signal her leaving. Sighing Ichigo rolled over, at the moment some sleep sounded good.

Peaceful sleep on the other hand was hard to come by. Halfway through the night Ichigo woke up, the images of his dream too realistic to properly ignore, especially considering half of them were from the night before. Glancing at the clock he saw that even though he didn't feel like he got a lot of sleep he had in fact gotten in a good amount. 2:29am was too early to be up, but Ichigo really didn't feel like going back to sleep, instead Ichigo rolled out of bed, got ready for the day and went down to the living room.

Sitting down Ichigo yawned tiredly and sat there for a little bit, unsure of what exactly to do. As of now he had no definite plan of what to do. Aizen was…well Ichigo didn't know exactly what Aizen was, the man was the leader of a group of killers, although that didn't speak well of his character the friendly smiles and the way the waitress had acted pointed to him being well liked. Feeling a headache growing Ichigo decided to turn to less could-kill-me-if-I-screw-up matters and instead decided to think of what he was going to tell his friends as his excuse for not being at school yesterday. After all he couldn't exactly say he was having lunch with the man who was trying to employ him to kill people for a living because he had killed one of the man's employees, now could he?

Different ideas went though his head, he could say he hadn't been feeling well. He had lost track of time, that was sort of plausible. A better one was that he had gotten into a fight because of his hair again and then had gone to his home and by the time he was done patching himself up too much time had passed to go back to school. It was the current favorite, it also explained off the whole stab wound, which he really should have changed as soon as he got home but hadn't. Sighing Ichigo sat there thinking about what he'd say, how much he'd keep at least close to the truth, and how much he'd have to change into complete and utter lies.

It was only when Yuzu came down form upstairs was he broken from the little trance he had put himself in. As soon as his little sister saw him she smiled sleepily, a confused look on her face, "What are you doing up so early?" she asked, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to get more awake and aware.

"Couldn't sleep, you need any help with breakfast?" Ichigo asked, a little eager to do something to keep his mind off his situation…the situation his family had forcibly been dragged into.

Yawning Yuzu nodded, "Okay, you can start it up, I'll um…" she paused for a second, "I'll go get ready. You can go warm up the stove, get the stuff out," she said sleepily.

Nodding Ichigo went to the kitchen and did exactly what she said, as to what exactly he was supposed to get out he didn't know. She hadn't exactly told him what to grab, but…she had just woken up so it wasn't that surprising. Opening the fridge he stared at the various foods and eventually grabbed what looked appropriate for breakfast and set it out on the counter. After turning on the stove he stood there awkwardly with nothing left to do, looking around Ichigo spotted something he hadn't noticed before on the calendar that Yuzu insisted on having.

In red slightly messy handwriting were the words 'Dad gets back' exactly a week from today. Staring at it for a few seconds he wondered what would have happened if his idiot of a father hadn't been off renewing his license. What if he had been home yesterday? What would've happened, would the man have succeeded, would his sisters be dead? That very thought was pissing him off, here he had escaped one little disaster and an even bigger one came in to ruin what he had managed to save. But…relaxing a little Ichigo couldn't help but feel a little relief, his father hadn't been here, they were still all alive, and he was going to figure a way out of this mess…somehow.

"Dad called last night, said he wouldn't be getting home until next week. You were asleep. We won't be hearing anything from him until he gets back," Karin said calmly, walking into the kitchen and eyeing her brother carefully, "Where were you yesterday? You didn't go to school but you didn't get home until almost dinner," she said suspiciously.

Shrugging Ichigo winced a little, his shoulder was still hurt, "I didn't quite get done until late, by then it was too late to go to school. Someone called and asked me to meet them somewhere. They never showed but I waited for them for a while," he lied easily, surprisingly so.

Karin frowned, she wasn't buying it. But judging by how jumpy her brother was being, and how adverse he was being to answering her questions… he was definitely hiding something. Letting out a frustrated sigh Karin went to get something to drink. She'd figure out what her brother was hiding, if it was important enough for him to hid, then it was important enough for her to figure out.

Even with Karin suspiciously watching his every move, the morning actually passed by rather quickly with his sisters awake. With Yuzu's help he got his stab wound properly looked at, got some medication for it and got it properly wrapped along with getting at least some food in his stomach. The last time he'd eaten was about 24 hours ago, even with that in mind he wasn't that hungry, the very thought of food actually made him feel a little ill. To make Yuzu worry less though he had forced himself to eat something before they walked to school together, his sisters wanting to make sure he actually made it.

After seeing him off, Ichigo watched his sisters walk to their own school until he couldn't see them anymore. For a second he thought about following them to make sure that nothing bad happened but he pushed that worry down and walked into the school building. He was just having irrational yet completely rational fears was all.

Instead of looking for his friends like always, or waiting for them to find him, Ichigo walked straight to his class and took his seat. When lunch came he'd get enough questions, he really didn't need to deal with them before school as well. If he could help it, he'd give them as little to work on as possible, and try not to let them get any ideas. The less his friends knew the better, after all if this Aizen man was threatening his family it was only a little step to threaten his friends as well.

Normally school passed at almost agonizingly slow rate, but today the morning classes seemed to fly by. Lunch came at an astonishingly fast rate and as soon as the bell rang for lunch Ichigo reluctantly knew that he wouldn't be able to push off answering questions. Hopefully they'd leave it be and he'd get away easy enough with little to no damage done to any of them. As slowly as he could Ichigo wandered up to the rooftop, the normally place they met for lunch. Even though he walked as slowly as possible he still managed to be the first one there.

Calming himself Ichigo sat down in his usual spot and relaxed, there was nothing to worry about. Closing his eyes he sat there calmly and just waited, he would have started eating if he wasn't feeling so ill at just the thought of food. He heard the door open and seconds later "Ichigo! See I told you he'd be here!" Keigo exclaimed brightly.

Opening his eyes Ichigo watched as his friends quickly approached their spot by the fence. "Where were you yesterday! You missed out on-" and even as Ichigo faded out to what he was saying Keigo continued to rattle off different reasons as to why he should have been at school.

"So why weren't you here?" Mizuiro asked, sitting down calmly next to Chad who was staying silent as of this moment.

Ichigo resisted the urge to shrug, "Got into a fight was all, didn't get myself patched up in time to get to school," he said easily, having already practiced those lines in his head to make them sound as natural as possible.

"What! Did you have to go the hospital or something!" Keigo said, turning his attention quickly to the conversation at hand.

"Uh the guy had a knife and managed to hit me is all. Nothing serious so I just used our clinic at home," Ichigo answered, so far so good.

That was until Chad spoke, "You don't seem very injured. Was there only a few?"

Nodding Ichigo quickly continued with his lie, "Not too many, I got the first two down pretty quickly but the third had the knife and…caught me by surprise."

For a second there was silence as his friends digested this information, Ichigo was glad that at least it was just them. If Tatsuki, Orihime and the other girls had been up here there would have been a lot more questions. Luckily enough though they were down eating somewhere else. "Well at least your alright," Mizuiro said.

The other two nodded in agreement, with that pushed out of the way Ichigo quickly started up topic that he knew would get Keigo going and easily push the attention off of him. And with that he successfully managed to avoid any sticky situations that would have arose if any of his friends knew about what he had gotten himself into. With telling them though, he also avoided telling any of his other friends, with Keigo's habit of spreading things the rest of his friends would know the story by the end of the week and he wouldn't have to speak another word about it. Relaxing a little Ichigo tried to enjoy the rest of his lunch, unaware of Chad's slightly un-convinced look.

After lunch the rest of school passed quickly, Ichigo managed to get all the homework he missed, nothing horrible happened, and overall it was a pretty good day, minus the large amount of work he'd have to do when he got home that is. And for a while, things went on like that. In fact for the rest of the week things went perfect almost. Aizen didn't show up on his doorsteps, his sisters remained alive and well, and he was fine too. The white phone Aizen had give him remained locked and unused on top of his desk, and after the first two days things quieted down about the fact he had been stabbed. Everything had been fine until that last day of school that week.

Like everyday Ichigo woke up, got ready for school, but…as he was grabbing his homework that he'd left on the desk he noticed something. The white phone that had been silent all week was now showing something on the screen. Picking it up Ichigo stared at the small screen blankly that showed in words clear as day: 3 New Messages. Feeling whatever good feelings he had drop away, he took a calming breath and opened the phone.

Getting to the message screen Ichigo stared at it. All of the numbers were supposed to be unknown but instead of just numbers they all read from Aizen. Looking at the times he was a little surprised to see that they had been sent just a few minutes ago, so if they were a warning he was getting it in time at least. Opening the one sent earliest he was…well surprised at what it said.

To all Esapda, it's been almost a week since we last had any business. As much as it pains me to say this, I have bad, yet wonderful news! Number 10, what's his face Yam something is dead. Now don't ya start cryin over him, we got someone new. Kurosaki Ichigo, our youngest member yet. Hope ya treat him well. -Gin, Aizen, Tousen

At the sight of his own name in the message Ichigo couldn't help but feel nervous, there was no way he was backing out of this now. The next thing he noticed though was the names at the bottom, all three of them. Aizen he recognized, but…Gin and Tousen he didn't quite notice. He wasn't really familiar with the bastard of a business man yet but even Ichigo could tell he hadn't been the one to write this message out so it was one of the other two. But…what exactly did this mean? Shaking those thoughts off Ichigo moved on to the next message.

To all Espada: As mentioned we have a new member. Since Aizen likes havin' unity and all that we're goin to have a nice introductory meetin for him. If you want to introduce yourself, see the new guy, or even intimidate him enough to scare him then come down to the ever wonderful Starlight Café tonight, you've all been there before. 12:20am is the meetin' time. Don't be late! -Gin, Aizen, Tousen

Frowning Ichigo stared at that text for even longer. An…introductory meeting? What exactly was with this group. The time was also a problem, either that was a typo, or there really was a café that was still open at almost 1 am. Since it was an introductory meeting he'd have to be there, but what about everyone else? Exactly how many people were in the Espada? Small enough to send texts to them…but these were generic messages, so it could still be a very large number. A large number filled with cold-blooded killers who wouldn't hesitate to snap his neck in two. Now slightly more nervous than he had been before Ichigo went on the last message.

0 Ichigo Kurosaki: I do hope you enjoyed our luncheon, I have the oddest feeling you didn't quite like me all that much. As you might already be aware we are holding a meeting for you later tonight. 12:20 to be exact, I suggest you get there early. I do not tolerate lateness well. The rules shall be explained at the meeting, until then I hope you make good time and arrive on time. Not being there isn't an option. Directions are attached to this message. I shall be seeing you soon. -Aizen, Gin, Tousen

Staring at the message Ichigo didn't know what to think. At the moment he felt that he was drowning…drowning and the only rescue was the man who had tossed him overboard in the first place…


A/N: So there ya go, the chapter's done. Hopefully it's not that boring and you find something to enjoy about it. I know things haven't exactly been going the fastest of paces nor has this been the most intersting of things to read. But now that we're finally introducing the other Espada it'll start getting more interesting. Right...well uh...I don't really have much to say. I hope you've enjoyed this story so far. As always please direct all questions, comments, complaints, noticing of errors to me if you so chose to. All comments are appreciated! So uh...that's about it. With nothing left to say I bid you goodbye until next time.