Beaten but never Broken
Chapter 1.
8 Months post-Prologue
Kurosaki Ichigo absent-mindedly rubs the gothic tattoo on the right side of his neck with the palm of his hand, hidden by the noticeably longer strands of bright orange hair. A prominent reminder of who he now serves. His once seemingly permanent scowl nonexistent behind a façade of emotionlessness and unyielding obedience.
Faded copper pools almost lazily scan the white expanse of ceiling from his sprawled out position on the plush carpeted floor. To his right lay a pristine, white, king sized mattress and to his left a large, black, leather couch. Despite the adopted blank expression his mind is always working at a feverish pace, emotions simmering just beneath the surface waiting to escape their newfound prison. With a heavy sigh the tension in his lithe frame wanes slightly, but it is enough for him to slowly shut out the world behind closed eyelids.
Memories.
Those images, and sensations are hazy at best and nonexistent at worst. Every time one happens to bubble up toward the surface a pang of regret claws at his closed off heart. Out of habit his fingers trace a scar running diagonally along his face. As thick as his pinky the reminder spans from the top of his right eyebrow, to the far corner of his left jaw line, ending just under his left ear lobe. It was one of many, yet this one held the most pain.
They had been in the home stretch, victory; a palpable feeling in the air around them. An ambush of numerous lower ranked arrancar shattered that in an instant. Ichigo, only fatigued from his battle with the fourth Espada, stayed back to buy the group time to escape. It was then that his freedom, and life as he knew it, had become forfeit.
A repetition of sharp rasps snaps the teen out of his reverie. Propping himself up, his head swivels to get a better view of the massive door that almost blends entirely into the never-ending scheme of white. With an almost unnatural predatory grace he easily leaves his place on the floor and walks over to the gargantuan entrance.
In an instant he knew who was on the other side. His mask of indifference slips on as easy as it is to breathe. If it had been any other date this would most likely have disturbed him and anyone around him.
With a lazy flick of the wrist a bead of black energy is shot towards the eternally white frame, melting into the door upon contact. Seconds later a series of muffled clicks echoes through out the mostly barren expanse then the door slides to the right revealing the chocolate-colored skin and white uniform of TōsenKaname.
No words or signals are exchanged as the former captain turns on his heel and begins walking, Ichigo obediently falling into step behind the man. It doesn't take long to reach their destination, the throne room is placed in the center of the monstrosity known as Las Noches*, with the Espada's quarters branching outward. A wave of unease careens through the orange-haired youth. He doesn't know who's dead or alive. In all of his time here he never saw anyone other then Tōsen, Gin, Aizen, and a few low-level arrancar used to keep him alive when death was a mere hairs breadth away. For a brief moment a familiar scowl flashes across his scarred face, disappearing as quickly as it came.
Coming to a stop just before the thresh hold, Kaname places a palm on the door and it leaps from his hand, creaking as it swings open.
"Ah, so nice of you to join us."
The deep baritone washes over Ichigo,causing his skin to break out in a cold sweat. His muscles coil and nervous system rockets into over drive. Everything about the seemingly harmless man perched at the head of the large oval-shaped table sits wrong with him. Movement flickers to his right and honed instincts kick in.
Shifting his weight to his left he spins on the ball of his foot, gathering momentum for a powerful roundhouse kick to his attackers skull. A mirthful chuckle drifted to his ears moments before his heel would have made contact. Now knowing who was behind the movement Ichigo was forced to make a decision with in the span of a nanosecond. Launching him self up with his left, Ichigo spun parallel to the ground, making it look as if his right had become perfectly still. Using the spirit particles in the air he then controlled his descent to prevent a crater upon impact where he landed in a western style bow, left knee on and right knee off the ground with his head bowed and right arm set against his right thigh and his left rigid at his side.
"My deepest apologies Ichimaru-sama, I had not known it was you." Ichigo intoned.
"Ah, it's no big deal. Just need to work on yer' sensin' abilities now wont we." The silver-haired deserter replied.
"Hai."
Trepidation coiled in Ichigo's gut, and he had to work to keep the waiver of fear out of his monotone. Training with Ichimaru Gin was never pleasant. He was given no time to fully ward away the emotions before his Lord once again began speaking.
"As you all know, for the past two years we have made no, significant, move against Soul Society and the Gotei 13. Meet the newest member of the espada, your new brother in arms, Kurosaki Ichigo." His tone allowed no argument, an underlying thread of malice easily covered by a painfully fake curve of the lips.
Shock rippled through the other Espada. After not being informed of Aizen new "Project" many speculated their lieges absence, none expected this.
To Ichigo only a few familiar faces remained, not that he really saw the entirety of the Espada. While the first, third, fourth, sixth, and ninth Espada had somehow survived that epic battle, the rest it seemed had perished and already been replaced. Unfortunately Ichigo could not hide this shock at seeing the fourth and sixth Espada alive and well, not even sparing a glance to the recently recruited Espada, save himself. He had seem Grimmjow's bloody corpse on the white sand staining it dark crimson, he had watched as Ulquiorra turned to ash on the dome of Las Noches. How had they survived?
Disbelief had plastered itself onto the hybrid's visage, and it had not gone unnoticed, much to the amusement of Aizen.
For a moment it looked as if he would question the boy but thought better of it. It would, in the end, provide greater entertainment to watch the inevitable confrontation between the three.
"What's his rank?" The primera Espada, Stark C. Coyote, drawled sounding half-asleep.
"Zero." It had been a mere whisper, yet the reaction could be compared to a hydrogen bomb.
Reiatsu flared to dangerous levels in accordance to temper and volume levels in the room. The most recently induced could not comprehend that a mere child could hold more power then they. It was inconceivable. Yet for those who had encountered the boy, even if it had been a mere passing glance, it was not as much of a shock.
Something comparable to a sigh escaped Aizen's lips as his own massive store of reiatsu washed over those present, instantly silencing any and all protests.
"As you were chosen, so was he. Yet it was not I who gave him the rank, Hueco Mundo has that honor." If you knew the man you would've been able to hear the slight ire in those few words.
Queries were silenced, as attention returned to the highest authority in the immediate area.
"Now if that is all," He paused for a mere moment then continued. "A group of Shinigami have been picked up on the fringes of the Menos Forrest. Ulquiorra, Kurosaki you're to locate and eradicate every last one, save the leader, send him back with a message. "Their time has come,"."
Ichigo who had yet to leave his bowed position, swiveled his head to gaze unseeingly at the man and answered in tandem with the fourth.
"As you wish, Aizen-sama."
The doors behind them suddenly swung open, granting them an exit. Wasting no time Ichigo rose from his kneeling position and strode toward the door, Ulquiorra only a few paces behind.
The moment the doors had closed behind them Ichigo turned to face the fourth.
"Ten minutes from now, the north gate." Straight to the point, yet giving the Espada the respect his rank afforded him.
Not waiting for an answer Ichigo immediately launched into shunpo, disappearing with only a faint rustle of fabric and leaving the stoic arrancar to his thoughts.
'He's changed. He's stronger. He's going to... Interesting.'
Never one to waste time or miss a dead line the fourth blurred away, leaving the halls vacant.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
In a swirl of motion Ichigo appeared mere yards from his room, entering as soon as his feet touch the ground.
The reason for his haste?
Propped against the wall in the far corner of the square room lay his trusted battle partner, in all of his glory, an irritated hum and a faint light blue and demonic black glow emanating from the gargantuan weapon. In only a few powerful strides he's standing over the cloth-wrapped behemoth and, after only a slight hesitation, grabs the hilt hissing as the combined reiatsu of both his zanpaktou and hollow lash at his skin, leaving minor burns in their wake.
"Give me a chance to explain!" He barks, face falling into an all to familiar scowl of annoyance.
He's given no such thing, instead he's forcibly dragged into his inner world, landing on his feet with a muffled thud. No more then a few mili-seconds pass before the whistle of steel gliding through air wafts to his ears forcing him to draw the deadly cleaver from his back then block a swing that would have bifurcated him. The clang of steel against steel and an explosion of power erupts from where the red-head stands. Momentarily locking blades with his alabaster counter-part, Ichigo tenses and shifts his stance.
"Damn it! Give me a chance to explain you two!" Ichigo roars as he slashes downward, effectively forcing his hollow back a few paces and inadvertently placing the enraged hollow next to his simmering zanpaktou.
"Alright. Explain then Aibou. Explain why you completely cut off the link between us for two damn years. Why for two years we heard not a word from you after you entered that pathetic excuse of a battle and got yourself caught! And why for the past eight god damned months you drew on our power not giving us word of what the fuck was going on upstairs!" His hollow's distorted growl was dangerously low and held underlying threats to life and limb if a proper explanation was given.
They had formed a truce. It had been shaky, tentative, and above all insane. But a divided soul will only tear itself apart. He hadn't sealed his hollow in some part of his soul, only drawing on that tainted reservoir of power when needed. They had built on the others strengths, battling, training, and becoming comrades even. It had been monumental when they achieved a new height no other Vizard had reached, the perfect fusion of a shinigami at its peak and a vasto lorde level hollow. It had been a momentary fluke dug up by instinct. It had left them exhausted. It led to Ichigo's eventual capture.
"Those are memories. . . I'd rather not go into right now Ogichi." He sounded. . . Defeated, worn, and tired.
Something both hollow and zanpaktou had never heard from the man standing before them.
It was then they took in his appearance, from the reverse color shihaksho, giving hollow and shinigami an eerily similar appearance, as well as the scars riddling his lithe and athletic frame to the haunted look in dulled brown eyes they could only wonder.
"What exactly. . . did they put you through. . . Ichigo." The question faded to harbor quiet concern.
"If you want to know, access the memories. You know where to look. But right now I am serving under Aizen and at the moment I have a mission that I need to carry out... unfortunately it involves slaughtering a small group of shinigami. I have a feeling that Aizen is testing my loyalties... meaning someone I know is in that group... lets just hope that the person is the leader. It's all false loyalty though... I have sworn on my soul that I will be the one to bring that man to his knees and end his life with our blade." Ichigo declares, immediately launching out of his inner world the second his last syllable left his mouth.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
For a moment both hollow and zanpaktou could only stare at where their partner and wielder had stood. The change was painfully obvious, the usual roaring tempest that could be attributed to the hybrid was muted, and that firm resolve while was still existent, had also been muffled under the bindings of prolonged pain and hopelessness.
To their left a window suddenly erupted in a show of black light, snapping both out of their momentary reverie.
Taking the initiative and sheathing his weapon, Ogichi flickered over to the glass pane closely followed by the mysterious sword himself. This simple piece of glass writhed and whirled in on it self, creating the illusion of life in its rectangular container. Never one to be intimidated by anything the inner hollow knelt on one knee, Zangetsu's larger and calloused hand coming to rest on his shihaksho clad shoulder, quietly observing the answer to all of their questions before placing the palm of his strikingly white hand on the contrasting glass. In a swirl of power tainted with pain the two disappeared into the window of Ichigo's sorrow and suffering.
Never had Ichigo's inner sanctum been so barren. Blue skyscrapers seemed to reach into eternity, testament to the determination of the reigning king, their frames glistening in the rays of a nonexistent sun. Yet they had not always been this way. For what had seemed to be the longest time, the majestic metropolis had been completely submerged under an ocean of despair, the buildings had instantaneously gone under over a centuries worth of wear. With windows either shattered or cracked, buildings showing various extreme signs of decay it was, in few words, the veritable aftermath of a nuclear bomb.
Time, forever immeasurable in this lonely expanse, seemed to suddenly take a leap forward. Hairline fractures and cracks appeared in windows and concrete structures, leading to fissures and missing chunks of the building's them selves.
When the sudden transformation of the surrounding landscape ended, twin pillars of midnight black and sky blue energy exploded upward from the central building, which stood amazingly untouched. As suddenly as they came the pillars disappeared revealing both zanpaktou and hollow laying face up, the emotions of shock, disgust, and understanding rolling through them as their chests heaved from exertion.
"Damn... I don't even... think I would've been... able to... keep my head... for that long." Ogichi drawled out between gasps for air.
"Ahh." Came Zangetsu's echoing baritone.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Across the pallid sands of Hueco Mundo, two figures race across the dunes with natural grace. The silence between them could've been cut with a knife. Yet both refused to utter a word, seemingly content to simply run. But emerald green iris' train them selves onto the burns of Ichigo's right arm, barely contained curiosity swimming in their depths.
"Are the burns on my arm that interesting, Ulquiorra?" Ichigo asks slyly, looking straight ahead never sparing the inquisitive hollow a glance.
Not expecting the comment from his mission partner, the Espada in question snaps his eyes toward the scarred face of the orange-haired hybrid.
"Yes, and No." Comes the cryptic, monotone reply.
"My zanpakou and hollow didn't approve of being shut out for almost two years." The newly appointed Espada states calmly.
For a moment silence reattaches itself to the pair, only to be shattered again by a simple word.
"Why."
This time Ichigo's head whirls to gaze at the black-haired arrancar, copper eyes scanning the white expanse of the questioners face. For a split second the image of Ulquiorra in his second release overshadows the current form, causing Ichigo to blink a few times to rid him self of the sensation.
With a weary sigh he abruptly slows to a halt, Ulquiorra stopping a few paces away.
"In our last battle, you gained my respect. As such you deserve the answers to any question you might ask." Of the few memories Ichigo does posses, the battle on top of Las Noches is one of them.
The fourth seemed to mull over this information, averting his eyes to stare at the black and white horizon.
"Why do you now serve Aizen-sama, when before you were so adamant in destroying him?" His monotonous question faded slightly at the end, making it sound like more of a statement.
"Let's just say I wasn't given much of a choice." Under the heavy weight of sarcasm, untold levels of pain lace his statement making it sound slightly strained.
"Teach me about the "heart," and you may consider me an ally in the future." With that he leapt forward, leaving the red-head behind.
Ichigo could only stare with wide eyes at where Ulquiorra had stood. The shock pertaining to those few words had collided with him much like the force of a cero. He was reeling, mind moving a mile a minute to process what had just been said.
The fourth espada had some how figured out the base of Ichigo's plan, and yet he wasn't going to reveal any of it. Instead asking for knowledge Aizen or Hueco Mundo couldn't and wouldn't grant him.
For the first time in a long time a mirthful chuckle escaped his lips, a smile adorning his face under closed eyelids.
"Thank you, Ulquiorra. You have a deal."
Not wanting to fall behind Ichigo shot into shunpo, deserting the area with out a second thought.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
It didn't take long for the two to reach the entrance of the Menos Forrest, it was nearly impossible to miss. A dune that rose above all others for miles around, held a cave on its westward side.
Again both the Fourth and Zero Espada travel in silence, as they traverse through its pitch black maw.
Surprisingly, or not, they encounter no interference upon entry to the forrest, and as they scan the surrounding area from their perch atop the cliff-like opening both are on high alert. It is oddly silent in the Menos Forrest, something unheard of through out the entirety of Hueco Mundo.
"I don't like this... Let's get moving." Ichigo states, immediately slipping into the lead role his title forces him to be as he jumps forward blurring away with shunpo.
With only a curt nod in reply Ulquiorra follows Ichigo in a sonído of his own.
Only thirty or so steps away from the main entrance they burst into a clearing only for a command to pierce the air.
"FIRE!"
With nary a sound both arrancar and hybrid are forced to dodge as both binding and offensive kido are hurled their direction. Balls of yellow, red, and blue energy crackle and burn away the air around them as they fly towards their targets only to miss and impact the ground, stirring up dust and debris as well as effectively hiding the intended two in the resulting cloud.
"Surround them! W have orders to take them alive!" A rough masculine voice calls out.
A chorus of 'Yes, Sir!' follows the demand and in only a few moments a medium-sized platoon of twenty-one shinigami surrounds the dust cloud in an attempt to trap whom ever was 'caught' within.
Unfortunately the dust cloud prevented them from knowing who exactly was inside, so when it was blown away by a burst of hollow reitsu forcing all but four into the clutches of unconsciousness, the remaining could only look on in horror as the culprit was revealed.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Abarai Renji was stunned. It had been a perfect trap, and the execution was flawless. Orders had been to capture an arrancar and return it to Seireitei, who had been on edge over the last year from lack of action. Just before the cloud had been dispersed by a frightening rise in reiatsu, the fuku-taicho's mind kicked into over-drive. They might have just bitten of more then they could chew.
Yet as the cloud finally disappeared Renji definitely didn't expect what he saw.
At first he had easily recognized the fourth espada, completely unchanged, and as stoic as his captain, eying him and the other three shinigami with conceiled distaste and his stomach twisted into knots. With the presence of the Espada, especially one as high up and as powerful as Ulquiorra Renji knew they had essentially walked into their deaths.
"Well what do we have here?"
That voice. Renji's heart and body froze. He knew that voice. He hadn't heard it in two years, but he knew that voice.
Ichigo.
His conscious whispered that name like a prayer and joy rippled through him. After two long years of thinking his best friend and comrade had died, it was a breath of fresh air to hear his voice again.
However as his eyes decided to catch up to his ears, that joy was swallowed with confusion, sorrow, and hurt. This was not the Ichigo he knew, and fought beside.
Those warm brown eyes were dead, leaving only apathy and... was that blood lust? The black attire of a shinigami replaced with a white shihakshou. And most prominent under the unknown source of light in the small clearing a jagged scar running almost the entire length of the former substitutes face.
'What happened to you Ichigo. . .'
"Ah, it's been a while hasn't it. . . Renji."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
A.N: Okay originally I intended to extend this into the ensuing fight/merciless slaughter, but that is going to take a little while and I think that ending it here is pretty good.
I was NOT expecting such an amazing amount of feedback, 7 reviews sent me on cloud-9, prompting me to get this out as fast as my mind and fingers would let me.
Now this is extremely different from the version I had hand-written. While the base idea and outline is there, the details and events have been altered slightly.
So I'm almost making this from scratch.. again.
But this is eons better then what I had originally written. So I'm happy.
*: Is it just me or does everyone get the urge to write "Las Nacho" every time you need to write "Las Noches." I had to go back and fix that at least three times.
I hope that I met your guy's standards. And don't worry. You will get some flash backs onto what Ichigo went through and his capture. But that wont come till later.
Random P.O.I. My spacebar squeaks every time I hit it. I find it highly amusing and annoying.
Oh question... did anyone else have any problems with FF net? Almost all of today and most of yesterday my profile page wouldn't load using the temporary link and even with the permanent link. And even if I could get that to work, story links refused to work coming up with this error: Error
An error has occurred while processing your request.
Please email this error message to via .
All errors are logged for administrative and security purposes.
Even refreshing the page several times and going to a different browser didn't help. If ya' have any thoughts or know what's going on please let me know!... I'd really hate to think it's just me and my computer/location/internet.
So 9 pages of Beaten but Never Broken using Times New Roman size 12 font.
I really hope you guys enjoyed it! I definitely enjoyed typing this!
If ya' liked it please leave a review! It motivates me!
Much love:
~Animelover