Chapter Fifteen: The Final Countdown, Part Three: Grillz

On the outskirts of Kyoto there was a giant complex, almost twenty six stories high and seven to eight hundred yards in length. No roads led up to it, as it was surrounded on all sides by the 'shell' of a mountain. Thus, it was obscured from sight, allowing the ones who used this facility complete and total anonymity. This was considered its most important facet, as the people inside would be faced with death should the wrong people ever find out the building's location.

This was the headquarters of every single Vaizard warrior. In its halls, it housed libraries and living space. Its aesthetic blend of an office building and a hospital added to its formidable presence and impact on those who were new to the ways of the masked Shinigami. Not only did it have offices, one wing of the facility was an actual hospital. And at this very moment, Ichigo of the Kurosaki family was walking inside that very medical wing.

He passed by very few people, mostly the ever vigilant nursing staff and the doctors that were currently on call. They all smiled and nodded at him as he walked past, as he was a frequent visitor to this wing of the Vaizard Complex. He also was one of their few early supporters on the Vaizard Elder Council. Hanajima and Ichigo not only funded this wing, they were also instrumental in its firm foundation, and they were chiefly responsible for the many laws and codes concerning health and welfare for the Vaizard as a whole.

As he turned a corner, he noticed that one of the lights in the hallway he was in was starting to flicker in and out. Gesturing with his hand and using just a tiny bit of Kidou, he called one of the handheld radios over to him. A loud click-clack noise echoed throughout the hall as the said radio detached itself from the wall and levitated over to Ichigo's hand. He then flipped the switch to turn it on, before turning to channel Five. He pressed the switch on the side and spoke into the small black device,

"This is Overlord, requesting assistance from a Janitor, over"

Some static was heard for a while, before a deep voice responded, "This is Janitor Forty Three Alpha, how may I be of service? Over."

Ichigo pressed the button again and said, "One of the lights in hallway Twenty six Forty three Seventy nine has gone out, and is causing a reiatsu leak that could become problematic. I need either you or someone qualified to come down here and get it fixed, over."

"I read you loud and clear, Overlord. I should be able to get there within two to six minutes, depending on how long it takes me to open that stubborn maintenance door. But other than that, it should be no problem. I hope you have a good day sir, over and out."

With that, Ichigo turned the radio back to channel one before flipping the power switch to the off position. He then placed it back on the wall, before continuing down the hallway, taking a left at the very end. As he walked down the dimly lit hallway, he noticed that the nurses had turned off most of the lights here, keeping only a few of them on. The Nurse's station was the only thing brightly lit, with the other semi-important areas only dimly so. He kindly and politely greeted the three nurses on duty, checking the information on the clipboard that they gave him.

He raised an eyebrow in amusement as he flipped one of the pages, and had to restrain himself from laughing at how the patient had obtained his injuries. Evidently the young Vaizard had yet again done something to piss off his girlfriend and had gotten severe injuries in retaliation. Ichigo smile turned to a frown, however, when he noted that Little Tony had gotten severe injuries due to an attack by several Menos. He had been delivering a message to one of their informant in Hueco Mundo when it had happened, and had bitten off more than he could chew.

Ichigo sighed and set the clipboard back down before heading into the office behind the Nurse's station. It was his office. He set his Zanpakutoh down on his desk, before turning around and closing the door. After he shut the blinds, he proceeded to remove his second division uniform and change into a dark blue polo, khaki's, and dark brown shoes. He then put the Shinigami in the laundry basket before heading over to the coat stand and removing his white doctor's coat from the hook it was place on. Patting one of his coat pockets to insure that he indeed had his glasses on his person, he opened the blinds and the door before walking out of the office.

Nodding again to the Nurses and picking up the clipboard with the medical charts, he walked into the first exam room, noticing as he did so that the young man that had received harm from his irate girlfriend was sleeping soundly. Ichigo winced when he saw that the young woman had completely ripped off her boyfriend's arm. Not that this was anything new, as she had the tendency to be violent towards anybody that even breathed near her during that time of the month. What made the situation worse was that the boy didn't realize that it wasn't a smart thing to go out of his way to piss the girl off. Ichigo set the boy up on an IV, adding both the limb regrowth medicine and a drug he had developed that caused the patient to go into a 24 hour long coma. Ichigo chuckled as he finished up the boy's paperwork, thinking, ah, to be young and 13 again.

He then moved to the next exam room, and had to force himself not to gag. The teenage boy lying on the hospital bed had gaping wounds all over his body. His flesh was unnaturally pale, his reiatsu unnaturally low. If Ichigo didn't know any better, he would have thought the young man dead. He checked the boy's chart again, and frowned in recognition at the name. It was Tony Bortecelli Jr., Antonio's own grandson. Little Tony's vitals did not look good, and Ichigo knew he would have to pull some serious miracles if he wanted this boy to live to see another day.

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Ichigo sighed in weariness before taking another large gulp of coffee directly from the pot. It felt good to have that scalding warmth envelope his body. The caffeine was an added bonus as well. He finished the pot in two to three more large gulps before turning around and heading for one of the lounge chairs near the fire. He was currently in the lounge, or as it was known by the family members of the patients, a comfortable hell.

Sitting across from him in another of the comfortable lounge chairs was his patient's grandfather, Antonio. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, but had hardly touched it due to nervousness. He looked towards Ichigo expectantly, waiting for news about his Grandson's condition. Ichigo cleared his throat a couple of times, before saying,

"It's good news, Antonio. Your Grandson will be just fine." Antonio's shoulders slumped and his whole body began to loosen up, Ichigo continued. "He has an iron will, Antonio, that's the only reason he managed to survive this long. I just have one question, where was his backup?"

Antonio frowned slightly as he replied, "He's dead. Probably killed in the ambush. It was about Thirteen Adjuchas, Ichigo, and even you or I would be at least scratched, and they aren't nearly as strong as us."

Ichigo nodded, "You have a very valid point there. Just make sure he doesn't do anything reckless. Come, let's go for a walk. You look like you could use it."

They got up, refilled their coffee, and headed even further into the deep recesses of the hospital wing of the Complex. As they passed department after department, Antonio finally became bored of the silence and asked, "I never asked Ichigo, but what was it like?"

Ichigo looked at him in confusion, "What was what like?"

Antonio responded, "What was it like when you fell through the Vortex?"

Ichigo involuntarily shuddered at the memory, "It was horrible, if you really want to know. For over five years I could see nothing but darkness, and I had no equilibrium at all, meaning I just kept on floating and drifting through that accursed place."

Antonio nodded his head in sympathy, "I hope it never happens to another Vaizard ever again."

Ichigo hoped so too. When he had been nine years old, he and his mother had been attacked by the hollow known as Grand Fisher. When Ichigo had been ripped from his body, his inner hollow had awoken and had gone on a complete rampage, killing the Vaizard Vice-Captain of the Second Division, and nearly ending the life of the Captain of said division. After he had been restrained by the Vaizard elders Antonio, Hanajima, Akito, Fuji, and Shoji, he had been forced to face his inner hollow. This allowed Ichigo to take back control, but since he was so young, he accidentally opened a portal to Hueco Mundo.

He had then fallen into the portal, and since he had had no experience before hand in dealing with anything even remotely resembling controlling his powers, he had fallen off the path. He had gotten caught in one of the outer currents, and had been thrust through the empty void, till he came upon the Vortex.

Now the Vortex was an unstable dimension that existed between the path to Hueco Mundo and the entrance to Hell. It was always changing, being peaceful one second, before becoming a raging storm of darkness the next. But he had not been alone in that damnable place, no, he had been forced to spend it with twisted and malformed creatures of evil that took up residence in that place between Hell and Hollow. Never in those five years of torture did Ichigo ever have a day of peace. Even though it wasn't hell, it was just like it for the young Ichigo.

When he had finally been flung out of the Vortex, he landed back in the real world. He landed on Antonio, as a matter of fact. After he had recovered slightly, Ichigo asked the old man where the others were. Antonio had looked at him in confusion and had told him he had never seen him before in his life. After a few more minutes of interrogation, Antonio managed to glean enough information. Ichigo, an inexperienced Vaizard, had accidentally been flung into the Vortex. Not only that, but when the young boy escaped, he had wound up in Italy in the year 1962, over twenty years before he had been born.

Antonio had taken good care of the boy, and taught him everything he knew about being a Vaizard. It was under Antonio's tutelage that Ichigo had met the Hirawatari siblings, and had formed a friendship with them. It was because of this friendship that he had eventually received Vaizard and Human medical training, becoming one of the top ten most proficient Vaizard doctors. He took care not to affect the timeline, and had managed to avoid his parents whenever he was in the vicinity of either Japan or Soul Society.

Both Antonio and Ichigo arrived at the long term care part of the hospital wing, pausing to let Ichigo sign his name on the clipboard outside one of the rooms. He and Antonio both then entered the room quietly, as to not disturb anyone who might be sleeping. Ichigo walked over to the bed and pulled up a chair, nodding his head at Hanajima as she checked the vitals of the woman laying in a coma on the bed. Ichigo took one of the sleeping woman's hands in his own, gazing at her with love and sorrow. Antonio sat in a chair near the nightstand on the wall facing the foot of the woman's bed. Hanajima joined him and sat on the other side of the nightstand, saying a polite thank you to him when he offered her a cup of coffee. They all stared at the woman laying in the bed in sadness, for they had all known her well before she had fallen into the coma. Her husband and daughters thought her dead, but it took more than a grand cero blast to take out a former leader of the Vaizard.

And as the night wore on, the three Elders sat in silence in the hospital room of Masaki Kurosaki.

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TBC

AN: I had originally had planned something completely different for this chapter, but I am kind of glad that I got some of the back-story taken care of. I might have another chapter on Thursday, but there's no guarantee. I should have it by Saturday night at the latest. Peace.

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