Chapter 6: Wrath, Part A

HEY LOOK GUYS A NEW CHAPTER HO SHIIII---

Excuse for my near-inexcusable lateness: I was raped by school. The End! But thank you so much to the reviewers who sent me nice messages and prodded me into writing again! (I laugh because I wrote parts of this in class under the guise of taking notes.) By the way, I keep a fairly current update of how well I'm doing on the top of my profile page, so my readers can see what's going to be updated next.

I got around to thinking after I posted the last chapter (scary, I know) and realized I hadn't cleared something up.

I realize Mayuri and Szayel don't get along at all. I get it. But in my opinion, if they were on the same side, they'd either be rivals or BFFs. I can just see Szayel painting Kurotsuchi's nails as he chatters about the shoes (or bling'd-out syringes) he just bought.

A/N: Hmm...which sin is left? *chuckles evilly*

Try to get that image out of your head now. :D

To all those people who told me not to hurt Renji too much...uh, my bad? *hides under desk*

NECESSARY WARNING: This chapter is filled with violence. If you thought that little paragraph at the end of the last chapter was bad, then you won't believe this. The fur will fly (...bad pun is bad). It is necessary violence. The chapter is titled Wrath, did you see that? Pissed off people tend to be violent.

THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH WARNING FOR EVERYONE HERE.

Also, medical gore. Angst. Alcohol usage (AKA Shunsui). Things of that nature. Hi.

Thank you. I just wanted to be sure everyone here knows what to expect, in the vaguest way possible. Have a nice day!

Ichigo was sure he'd been here before. There were flames, and the smell of fresh dirt and charred flesh. He was small and pudgy with youth, about ten years of age, and he had awoken with a jump. It was too hot, everywhere (even in his bones), and there were flames shooting from the hallway, threatening to enter his bedroom. Another little boy, who looked almost the same as Ichigo, shared his bed. He hadn't awoken yet, even though the flames crept closer and the heat threatened to suffocate them both.

"Brother! Wake up!" Ichigo shook the other little boy in vain. His brother's skin was even more pale than usual, which was saying something. He was usually called "Shirosaki" or just "Shiro" because of how pale his face and hands always were. Now, they were ashy-grey, and Shiro's breathing was shallow.

Ichigo had been here before, he knew it, but maybe, this time, he could change what had happened. The fire had begun devouring the rafters greedily, bringing down a pine log wider around than Ichigo. Shards of shattered embers erupted everywhere, burning through the bed sheets and sending flames licking through the cotton. Ichigo threw himself out of bed, and grabbed Shiro to heave him outside as well. Now the fire had begun consuming the floorboards like a starved wolf on a lamb as the heat snapped apart the boards. Shiro refused to wake still, and he was too heavy for Ichigo's scrawny body. Ichigo stumbled, crying out in pain as his face started to blister from the heat.

Ichigo managed to roll outside and into the snow bank. Winter's gift put out the fire on his dirty clothes and in his skin, but started to melt even this far from the house. The wood was now a furnace, a cremation chamber, a hell.

He had left Shiro inside in his haste, once again.

Ichigo sobbed until he couldn't feel the heat anymore, but instead could feel Grimmjow's strong arms and concerned kisses. He was still resting in the forest, by the campfire, and safe in the panther's embrace. "I'm fine," he told Grimmjow, and waved off the concern. This dream was very familiar to him. He had it almost every week. He would smile and shake it off, just like he always did, and forget about it in an hour or two, just like he always did.

But he still couldn't shake the feeling that this time, things were different.

Nanao stared at her feet as she opened the last bag of tea leaves. It was so horrible, to watch it come to this. They would try to stretch it out as much as they could, but by the looks of things, Ukitake had three, maybe four more days to live.

On the other hand, the little koi Ukitake had tried to save was doing much better now. Almost too well, Nanao recalled. He had grown very quickly, becoming one of the biggest fish in the pond. If only it would do the same for Ukitake.

Shunsui bustled into the kitchen, reeking of alcohol and slurping down another bottle of pure sake. He was taking the situation very, very badly. He was drowning his woes in alcohol, the only way to deal with the depression the entire household was suffering from.

Ukitake, the person most affected by the lack of tea, was also the person most at peace. He refused to be afraid of dying, and had accepted his fate as soon as he heard the news. "If it's my time, I'll go peacefully," he promised. "I can't fight Death, so I might as well make the most of my time here, and then embrace whatever the future may hold."

Shunsui had started sobbing uncontrollably after that speech, and Nanao wasn't sure how she'd kept herself from crying.

A little packet of normal tea leaves fell from an upper cupboard, jolting Nanao out of her reverie.

"...Five days," she whispered to herself as she mixed in the magic-less tea leaves. "I can make him last five days, no more."

Renji was no longer screaming. The black powder had worked all pollutants from his body, leaving him temporarily mute and shivering in the aftershock of intense pain. He was still conscious-a blessing in most cases, but not in this one-and Mayuri had decided that he was well enough to test on a second time.

"Good boy," Mayuri crooned, scraping his long, black nails across Renji's bare back. "You'll do beautifully. Szayel, bring the first vial."

The mad scientist called the pink, oily fluid an agent of "Total Physio-psychological Manual Manipulation."

Szayel, after reading the lab report, called it "Liquid Possession."

"This is an experimental batch of harvested souls," Mayuri explained. "They are poltergeists, different from other souls because of their ability to possess a living host and inhabit it in the same way as the host's own living soul. If that soul can then be controlled by an outside source, the host becomes a drone for that person. This technique has been only theory for ages, but with the new multi-frequency controller I've developed, it could be possible to control anyone!"

Renji gulped. He was going to be...experimented on? Possessed? Controlled? He whimpered in fear as Szayel cracked a whip.

"If the soul is unworthy," Mayuri continued explaining, "it will try to remain in the host's body indefinitely. The only way to relieve the host of such a burden is to cause enough pain to the host's body to flush the soul out."

"In other words," Szayel tickled his cheek with a loop of the whip, "I will have the pleasure of beating it out of you."

Renji closed his eyes, cringing away from the horrible scientists and their horrible methods.

"Of course, I've tried this procedure before, on my own slaves. None of them were successful, unfortunately. Most of them lived, some of them even kept their minds. It was brilliant of me to recognize how unique you are; you've proven yourself so much more emotionally strong than anyone else I've seen before, so spirits can be tested for quality more easily within you. Because of this strength, the worthy spirits will immediately try to prove they are stronger, crushing the very life out of you. It is one of the more painful processes of dying, or so I'm told."

"To make things easier for you to understand, mutt," Szayel laughed, "If you don't start screaming when the spirit is injected, I'll make you scream myself."

Renji gulped. Maybe he would be strong enough to survive this. Maybe he would be able to--

Mayuri slid the first needle into Renji's IV, injecting a wriggling pink mass into the tube. Both scientists watched the poltergeist worm its way into Renji's arm, and hoped for the screams of success.

After a few drops of the oily substance had leaked into Renji's bloodstream, his nerve endings lit on fire again. It was worse this time, because he couldn't scream. His vocal cords and his lungs were tearing apart from the inside, he was coughing up his own blood, and suddenly, he wasn't in control of his body anymore. He clenched up, unable to breathe or blink or spit out the copper-tasting liquid in his throat.

Then, Renji started feeling numb, as though he were floating. Another consciousness bumped up against his, promising to be gentle as it took over his body. His eyes started to close as the pain dulled away. Am I dying?

"It must be a bad spirit," Mayuri commented. "Szayel, you'll have to beat it out of him."

Pink-hair nodded, brandishing the whip he'd pulled out of a filing cabinet. The leather cracked across Renji's back over and over.
Snap. Crack. Snap.

Renji's back arched, even though he felt no pain. Something gaseous and that same shade of pink began rising off of his back. The pink cloud tried to gather itself into a more stable form, and became a sphere. It suddenly shattered into a million shards of impossible rosy haziness. It was like it had thrown itself from Renji's body, escaping the pain.

Renji snapped back into his physical form with a waterfall of agony. He finally coughed out a mouthful of blood, and something that might have once been a part of his lungs.

"Try the next vial," Mayuri ordered.

Next vial? The first one was incinerated as the welts on Renji's back started to rise.

Szayel opened a freezer case, revealing hundreds upon hundreds of rows of vials. Each one was filled with the same identical pink liquid.

"We have to test each one individually, in order to find the ones that work," Kurotsuchi giggled. "Isn't this such fun?"

Another syringe of pink liquid was injected into the IV tube, and the process restarted itself.

Byakuya lounged in his bathtub, trying to clear his thoughts.

Love? What did that even mean? How could Renji, a slave, and more importantly, a man, love him? But Grimmjow had seemed convinced, and willing to go as far as violence to convince him.

Maybe that meant something?

But Grimmjow had someone to love. Byakuya tried, only for a moment, to entertain the thought of himself and Renji in the place of Grimmjow and Ichigo. Renji was Ichigo, pretending he didn't notice Byakuya's perverted advances...

Wait, that didn't fit at all.

Maybe if Renji was the loudmouthed, perverted one?

But Byakuya refused to picture himself as the bottom.

Hmm, this was problematic.

Byakuya shifted in the tub, leaning his head back far enough to soak his raven hair. He wrapped his arms around himself protectively, and scowled. There was something different about Renji. He wasn't like the other slaves. While most slaves became faceless drones in Byakuya's mind, some actually managed to border on endearing. Ichigo, Grimmjow, and Hitsugaya all fell into this selective grouping. Renji...did not. He was something entirely different, but Byakuya didn't know what kind of different it was.

Maybe it was a different breed of love? Byakuya tried to remember exactly how Soi Fon went about breeding her weres and half-weres. Maybe it was like that.

Renji, the unbreakable, snarky, beautiful werewolf. Loved him. The thoughts wouldn't fit together, almost like a puzzle with one piece turned upside-down. Love. Renji...could he love Renji back?

The werewolf hated taking orders. That much was obvious from the tension in his spine, the flip of his hair, the curl of his sneer. And yet, he had always done everything Byakuya had ordered him to do, with minimal resistance.

Because it was him, Byakuya, asking him to do it, he realized. Renji would go against everything he stood for to please Byakuya.

Byakuya suddenly hated himself.

Then, because Fate is a fickle goddess, a painful realization pounded against his skull.

Renji had been taken by Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Not just taken, but stolen from him. The Mad Scientist, Mayuri Kurotsuchi. The same man who had no respect for life and no qualms about putting someone down like a mad dog. Mayuri Kurotsuchi...had his Renji. His Renji.

Renji was his, and he was Renji's.

Maybe that's what their love is meant to be.

After Grimmjow was sure his "frail" little Berryhead was up for the next leg of their journey, he dragged Ichigo off again. They weren't going in a specific direction, and the rocks and trees started to look familiar.

Grimmjow wouldn't admit it, but Ichigo would.

"We're completely lost, aren't we?"

"Shut up! We are not lost. I know where we are, I just don't know where anything else is," Grimmjow attempted to explain intelligently.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Well, that's helpful."

"Shhh," Grimmjow waved a hand at him. "I'll see if I can see anything up this tree." He slid into his cat form, and then clambered up the tree trunk as if gravity didn't exist. With a fluid motion, he wound himself around branches until he found one to his liking.

"There's some smoke or something over there," he yelled back down, sitting comfortably with one hand clamped down on a higher branch. "Maybe it's a campfire!"

"Grimmjow, I'm pretty sure Mayuri's manor is that way," Ichigo sighed and pointed in the direction opposite Grimmjow's "campfire".

Grimmjow shifted, pulling himself to a higher branch. "It can't be, I don't see anyth--!" His eyes popped.

"Do you see it now?!" Ichigo shouted up to him.

"Uhh...dark manor, sprawling layout, possible hedge maze, pointy towers, aura of thunderstorms and doom?"

"Oh, that has GOT to be it," Ichigo groaned.

After getting completely lost seven more times and making Grimmjow climb up seven more trees, Ichigo and Grimmjow stumbled upon the very stereotypical villain's lair. Okay, so it lacked a moat filled with electric eels, man-eating sharks, or lava, but the gate was pretty impressive.

The lock wasn't quite so impressive, though, and after watching Grimmjow wrestle with the wrought iron for several hilarious minutes, Ichigo took pity on him and picked the lock.

"I coulda done that," Grimmjow snorted, feeling slightly emasculated.

"Whatever you say, Grimm-kitty."

"Do you want me to re-assert my dominance right here on this lawn?" Grimmjow hissed.

"I'm good, really." Ichigo reached the manor's front door. Oak, he thought approvingly, though black pine would have brought out the soft blue tones in the stone better...

"I thought so," Grimmjow smirked. "And stop stroking that door. If you're gonna stroke something like that, you could always stroke my--"

"Would you just open it?!" Ichigo hissed.

Grimmjow shoved, hard, and the door popped open. "That wasn't even hard, girly."

Ichigo gaped, and ceased to function properly. He gave an overly dramatic anime full-body point, and Grimmjow made the mistake of turning to look.

"DEAR BABY JESUS," the werecat exclaimed, and wrenched the door back closed. "What. Was. That."

"I-I-I dunno," Ichigo gibbered, "It had eyes, too many eyes, and tentacles EVERYWHERE..."

"Definitely Japanese."

"What are you gonna do about it? We have to save Renji!"

"Here's the plan. You push the door open and I'll rip its...its...something out." Grimmjow quickly morphed and crouched into a pouncing position.

Ichigo pushed. The door creaked, the blue panther snarled, and bits of something spoogey and green-brown and tentacled flew everywhere. A happy werecat trotted back out of the mess, the ooze clinging to his fur and dripping from his whiskers.

"Gross, it smells!" Ichigo plugged his nose. It had the distinct, pungent odor of gym shorts and surstromming.

"Nasty," Grimmjow agreed, and then cheerfully mimed licking it off his hands. Ichigo looked a little green.

"Okay, okay, we have to hurry." As if on cue, the sound of Renji crying out in unimaginable agony rang through the manor. Grimmjow's sense of humor instantly dried up.

"What are they...?" Grimmjow gasped, looking honestly disturbed. He shifted again, padding silently down the long hall to try to find stairs. The screams were coming from below them. A basement, or a cellar, perhaps?

The manor was architecturally and fundamentally beautiful, but covered in all sorts of miscellaneous clutter and unidentifiable gore. The entire first floor was filled with old papers, ripped clothes, broken furniture, and bloodstains. It wasn't like Mayuri purposely ruined the manor, it seemed as though he just didn't care.

A rat ran past Ichigo--a five-pound, six-legged, purple rat. To say Ichigo jumped would be a gross understatement.

"This manor--" Ichigo hissed at Grimmjow "--it doesn't have any guards, because Mayuri lets his failed experiments wander freely...how sick!"

Grimmjow raised a feline eyebrow.

"Have you been using your eyes? Everything's broken and there was that tentacle monster and the purple rat, did you even see that?"

Grimmjow dispatched another failed experiment, this one made of naked muscle and strings of bloody flesh. Then another, a man with a wolf's head that had been attached backwards. They slowly battled their way through legions of horrific sights, Grimmjow ripping apart flesh and goo indiscriminately as Ichigo tried to point him in the right direction. They'd trekked across a mile's worth of twisted hallways and ripped through too many creatures to count. Grimmjow was starting to get tired out, and the disfigured humanoid things just kept appearing.

"Try that door," Ichigo suggested. Grimmjow released the green-tinted throat he had just ripped out, and twisted the knob with a massive paw.

"Jackpot! Looks like we found the stairwell!"

"Finally," Grimmjow whined. "I'm going to be brushing my teeth for weeks when this is all over and done with."

Ichigo jumped down flight after flight of stairs, using the handrail as a brake when going around sharp corners. Grimmjow was right behind him, stumbling along once or twice. They reached the bottom, where the screams were ear-shattering, just to find another door. It had a boarded-up window and a biohazard sign, and was the same light gray of bird crap.

"Should I go? Or are you gonna go first?" Ichigo asked.

There was no answer. Ichigo whipped around just in time to see Grimmjow's limp body hit the floor.

"Run," Grimmjow hissed before falling unconscious completely. Ichigo, startled witless by the thick-needled syringe protruding from Grimmjow's neck and the sudden appearance of the same pink-haired demon from the dinner party, did just that.

Szayel smirked, and casually watched the human go. His new, more interesting master would only want the werecat.

Ulquiorra poked the dying embers of his small fire, stirring up the warmth that was left. He had seen his opportunity last night, and ran. There would be no more taking orders from that horrible demon, no more going through empty actions to please his so-called master.

He was his own master now.

He was sure Aizen wouldn't be looking for him anytime soon, because of the drugs he'd slipped into the Demon Lord's drink. It would take him at least a week to recover from the long-lasting, head-pounding, nausea-inducing hangover he'd have.

Ulquiorra grinned slowly, faintly. He was free to do whatever he wanted. Such a change from his usual apathetic serving-his-master goals. It was refreshing. He could give or take as he wished, without the consent of such a foolish King.

He knew exactly what he was going to destroy first.

Ichigo slumped to the ground, exhausted, heartbroken, and disappointed in himself. He sank with his back against a rotting log, ignoring the ants that attacked his shirt. He was so useless. He'd gone to save Renji, and instead, lost his lover and ran like a scared bunny rabbit. How pathetic. He wouldn't let himself cry in rage, but he was close.

"Tch, too bad you can't get him back without help, weakling."

Ichigo's head snapped up. Shiro towered over him, his face perfectly neutral. Ichigo cringed at the words.

They were all true.

"Leave me alone. I thought you left a while ago. Years, even."

"Naw, you can't get rid of the great Shirosaki that easily. Even death won't stop me. You should know something about my death, Ichigo."

"Shiro, I--"

"Stop talking, little one. Here's the deal. I will help you, for a price."

Ichigo hung his head. Nothing could go right today. Even the poltergeist couldn't see he had nothing more to give.

"What do you want from me, Shiro?"

"Ah, nothing much. I just wanted back some of the life that you stole from me, in the form of control over your body." Shiro grinned; he had Ichigo trapped now. The boy was too noble for his own good. If sacrificing himself could save his friends, he'd do it in an instant. As for his life being stolen...that was up for interpretation.

"Fine," Ichigo growled in frustration, "you can take what you please, just don't hurt my friends. I thought I apologized for what I did?" Now burning, frustrated tears were trickling down Ichigo's face, and he couldn't even feel them.

"If you did, I sure as hell wasn't there. You did a good job of pretending it never happened...pretending I never happened. You pretend every week that you don't remember your own failure." Shiro frowned.

"Then, please, Shiro...you're here now." Ichigo knelt before Shiro, his eyes huge and watery. He didn't know how the poltergeist felt until now. "I'm so very sorry for all I've done. I never meant to hurt you, or leave you, or let you die. You were the one person I wanted to protect as a child, after everyone else left us or died, and I even failed that. Please believe me, Shiro. I'm sorry." He took one of Shiro's slender hands in his own, and leaned his forehead against it. "Please, can you forgive me?"

Shiro pulled Ichigo up by the hand with another manic grin, but shook his head. "Can you forgive yourself...brother? That is the real question."

Ichigo looked at his feet. "I--"

"I accept your apology, though. Just stop being a whiny little bastard, okay?" Shiro griped.

Ichigo tried not to look too happy with the huge storm cloud of problems still looming overhead. But somehow, this acceptance overwhelmed him with thanks. He threw an arm around his twin brother, murdered by Ichigo's own survival instinct. "Thank you, brother."

"Don't thank me yet. You still owe me your body, whenever and wherever I'd like." Shiro grinned so widely, it was plausible that his face might split in half. "I can think of so many things I'd like to do with it."

"I'm sure you can. We have to rescue Grimmjow and Renji first, though. Hold up your end of the deal, brother." It felt so strange to say it again, but Ichigo just couldn't stop.

"Of course, brother. Now let me take over, just to see what is possible and what is not. You'll keep your consciousness. Just let me try."

Ichigo hesitated. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Shirosaki cocked his head. "You can't, of course. After all, you left me to die. I might kill you for that, for all you know. And yet, you have to let me if you want any chance of saving your friends."

"I see. Then, how do I know it's even you? I mean, you could just be an illusion, or a ghost masquerading as my brother."

Shirosaki kept smiling, a silent repeat of his last answer.

Ichigo nodded his acceptance. No matter what the cost, it was worth it.

The poltergeist slid into his body one limb at a time, being careful to let Ichigo see every move he made. Finally, with Shiro's chest still protruding from Ichigo's stomach, he gave his last audible orders to his host.

"Relax, but don't fall on your head, okay? I have to attach myself slowly to keep my new body in one piece. Don't fight me; work with me, unless you'd like to tear yourself in half. Got it?"

Ichigo nodded slowly, feeling lightheaded and nauseous. Shiro slowly retracted into Ichigo's chest, and Ichigo slowly released a huge lungful of air to calm himself.

"Relax," the spirit whispered, now inside his head. "This won't hurt...much."

Shiro fit his hand precisely into Ichigo's, fitting each finger into the correct position the same way you'd put on a too-small glove. The pain wasn't exactly pain, Ichigo realized, more like a mild electric shock of strange warm energy. An electric shock doesn't hurt, exactly. It feels strange and uncomfortable, but not really painful. This sensation was the same.

Shiro carefully extended his legs, toeing into Ichigo's feet with the grace of a ballet dancer. Then Shiro fit his other arm, his slowly unrolling torso, and all the way to Ichigo's face. Ichigo accepted the intrusions rather than pushing them away, as Shiro had ordered, and the lines between the two souls began to blur. They became one being within Ichigo's body, each separate and yet together. The twins breathed together, blinked together, pressed their palms together in experimental curiosity, and then smiled in understanding. They jumped together, kicked together, balanced together, laughed together. They knocked down entire trees with their bare hands, ripping a hole in the maze of branches. They were running, feeling the wind whip past their face, overjoyed by nothing and everything and life and just being who they were. Their thoughts buzzed back and forth between them, filled with wonder and thanks and apologies and understandings, fear and hope and regret and mischief. Ichigo was amazed that his body could move so quickly, so powerfully, so gracefully. Shiro bathed in the sensations of being alive; touch and smell and breath and the beating of a heart in his chest.

They both heard it at the same time. A deep, raspy, throaty growl tore itself from the throat of a nearby monster. The twins wheeled around to see what it was, digging their heels into the crunchy, patchy grass. They caught a glimpse of something dark and huge, before they both felt the pain of a massive claw scrape over Ichigo's ribs.

A massive gray-black werewolf, standing at least twice the height of Renji himself, licked the blood from his battle-worn paw. The twins had conflicting thoughts of fighting or fleeing, causing Ichigo's body to freeze on the spot.

"Why do you smell of him, abomination?" the werewolf growled through teeth the size of Ichigo's forearms. Ichigo was surprised; this were could speak even while shifted.

"You don't smell so great yourself, furball," Shiro spat back. "Why the hell did you attack me? I wasn't doing anything to you."

"You smell of him," he repeated, "I heard him crying for me. Where is he? What have you done to him?" The were looked positively livid now, red-gold eyes searching for whoever Ichigo supposedly smelled of.

"Who is 'him'?" Shiro demanded.

Something tiny and bubble-gum pink dashed past the massive were. A baby fox, another were by the look of her, was studying them with unreadable intent.

She shifted into her human form: a tiny pink-haired girl with adorable proportions.

"Is this bad man bothering you, Kenny?" she spoke, her voice high-pitched and a bit grating. She scampered up his broad back and nestled between his thick neck and muscled shoulder, perfectly happy with this position.

"He smells like Renji, Yachiru."

Ichigo jumped at that name. "You're looking for Renji? We...uh, I am too. In fact, I know where he is, I just need help getting in to rescue him."

"Hah, nice try, kid. I'm not fooled that easily. You're probably the one who hurt him in the first place."

"He's not," came a deep, strangely familiar voice. "Mayuri Kurotsuchi is still hurting him as we speak."

Ichigo turned to find Aizen's pale-faced lap demon, solemnly stating the facts.

"Because this human is alone, I can only assume that his werecat lover was taken prisoner also," he sighed. "A shame, but we'll have to rescue him too, I suppose."

"What the hell?!" Ichigo exclaimed, "Why are you out here too?!"

Ulquiorra looked him straight in the eyes, completely emotionless.

"I want to kill Mayuri Kurotsuchi with my own hands. If I help you in the process, then so be it."

This puzzled Ichigo. The lap-demon had seemed just fine where he was last night.

"But why him? What has he done to you?"

"Does it matter to you?" Ulquiorra questioned Ichigo as if he were mentally deficient. "I'm going to kill him, so that makes us allies. You can either take my help, or stay out of my way."

Ichigo didn't quite understand his logic, but help was help.

"Sure," he shrugged, "but we have to tell Byakuya first," Ichigo insisted, "since Renji is still his slave." And his love interest, he added mentally.

"Then what are we waiting for?" the huge werewolf sounded suddenly delighted. "There's a battle to be had!"

The little girl clapped her hands. "Yay! Battles with Kenny are always fun!"

"Wait," Ichigo stopped him, "what did you say your name was?"

The gray werewolf leered down at him with massive yellowing teeth and claws itching for a fight.

"Do you really want to know?"

The twins nodded.

"Zaraki Kenpachi. The Nightmare."

Even Shiro couldn't stop himself from gulping from the nervous thrills of adrenaline that shot through Ichigo's body. If Renji needed help, this is where he was sure to find it.

Renji's back was in shreds, barely holding him together anymore. His lungs were nearly as bad, torn inside and out from his tissue-expelling coughs and terrified cries for any sort of help.

Blood trickled from both corners of his mouth, staining the operating table and his chest. Kurotsuchi and Szayel had found only one usable poltergeist so far, which they had withdrawn from Renji's body along with a fair amount of his blood. His head was spinning, and he'd almost blacked out during the process. Szayel had ordered a tiny little girl with green hair, a filthy green smock, and a penchant for referring to herself in the third person to patch his lungs up. She finished with a quick wave of her chubby hands, an innocent, hopeful smile at Renji, and a quiet "Don't worry, Nell made you better!" Now they'd given him a few minutes to recover, so they could play with their new "toy".

Grimmjow was also laid face-down on another operating table, this one even rustier than Renji's. He was handcuffed by the wrists, but otherwise unbound. After all, he was unconscious, and drugged heavily besides.

Kurotsuchi and Szayel muttered something between the two of them, and pink-hair gave an approving "mmmm". Kurotsuchi produced a scalpel, already covered in crusted blood, and made two quick incisions on the nape of Grimmjow's neck. Szayel stabbed yet another needle into the deep wound, and re-injected the pink blob they'd extracted from Renji.

"Now, to test the controller..." Kurotsuchi trailed off, and entered an adjoining room.

Hitsugaya was not moping. He did not mope. Maybe he shuffled his feet a little, and hung his head a little, but he did not mope. He felt guilty for drugging one of his only friends. But he'd been under explicit orders, he reminded himself.

He was nearly flattened when the front door of Byakuya's mansion burst inwards and a familiar berry head sprinted in.

"Ichigo, did you find him?" Hitsugaya yelled at him.

"Hey, ice midget! Yeah, I found him. Where the hell's Byakuya?"

This was not Ichigo, Hitsugaya realized, after seeing the crazed look in his eyes and the psychotic grin on his face.

"You're...not Ichigo?" Hitsugaya asked in confusion.

"Yes I am," Ichigo's body retorted with a pout. "Okay, okay. He's in here too, though." The poltergeist let Ichigo bind back into his own body, encouraging him to talk the kid into hurrying the hell up.

Hitsugaya saw something shift within Ichigo, and he was back to his scowly self.

"I'm fine, kid. Now seriously, where is he? This is kind of important."

"You are not fine! What was that?"

"Poltergeist, Hitsugaya, now where the hell is he?!"

"Who are we asking for?" A deep, calm voice came from across the room. Byakuya sauntered into the entrance hall, looking no tenser than he sounded.

"Byakuya!" Ichigo exclaimed in relief, "we found him. But you have to hurry, Kurotsuchi's killing him! He's got Grimmjow, too!"

There was a flurry of movement as the massive, grizzled werewolf pounced over Ichigo and landed somewhat gracefully before Byakuya. He raised himself onto his hind legs, and there was a silence where everyone in the vicinity besides our heroes simultaneously pissed themselves.

"There's a fight to be had, Kuchiki. You in?" The werewolf's lips were curled into an ugly, happy grin.

Byakuya's expression was blank as normal.

"Zaraki Kenpachi," he stated flatly. "What a surprise."

"Kenny," little Yachiru piped up from her seat on the big were's shoulder, "why doesn't his face move? I'm gonna call him slate-face."

Kenpachi chuckled softly. "He's always been like that."

There was a moment where nobody moved, and then there was shuffling from one person in the room.

Hitsugaya stepped forward. "I feel personally responsible for what has happened. If you will let me grab my sword and ice beads, I'll join you."

"Go," Ichigo shooed him. Hitsugaya pattered off towards the servants' quarters, brushing past Byakuya as if he didn't exist.

"Kid's sore about something," Kenpachi muttered, amused.

"He has something to be sore about," Ichigo informed him.

"Well, not my place to pry." He shrugged.

Ichigo decided it was better not to remind the massive, bloodthirsty, grizzled werewolf towering a few feet over him that prying was exactly what he was doing.

Ulquiorra stayed silent, observing the very atmosphere with amazing perception. He could understand the relationships between each of them in turn, even if he couldn't comprehend why those relationships were there. Byakuya, however, was unreadable. The vampire lord had no emotions, it seemed; or perhaps those emotions were hidden even from himself. Ichigo, on the other hand, was an open book to him. He was a noble young man; he'd made a deal with the devil not for himself, but to save the two people closest to him. Kenpachi just wanted to fight, and Yachiru, watch him; Hitsugaya felt that he needed to redeem himself; and he himself had his own purposes to attend to.

"Are you coming, Byakuya?" Ichigo pressed. He suspected Shiro had influenced that question.

The vampire lord made no move, for or against. Ichigo feared the worst.

The little ice samurai reappeared, now with a deadly katana strapped over one shoulder and a long string of irregular blue crystals over the other. He had put on a necklace: a thin chain with a single, larger crystal in the center.

"I'm ready now," he announced. "If everyone else is ready, we should be on our way."

Ulquiorra stepped back out of the manor with no further ado, followed quickly by Kenpachi (Yachiru in tow) and then Hitsugaya.

Ichigo tried one last time. "Will you save them?"

Byakuya stared at the doorway as if Ichigo wasn't occupying it, and then turned his back on the rescue party. Ichigo's temper flared.

"You don't deserve him," he growled at the vampire, and slammed his precious door in his unchanging face.

"Stupid Kenny! I said to turn right at the big knotty tree! Now we're lost, cuz Kenny is stupid," Yachiru whined.

"I thought you said turn left," Kenpachi sighed. "Where now?"

"Due north," Ulquiorra stated, sounding almost cranky.

"I remember going further that way," Ichigo pointed, also indicating a northerly direction.

"Well, I say we go... THAT WAY!!!" Yachiru crowed triumphantly, spurring Kenpachi into a full-out sprint.

...Unfortunately, it was to the west.

"Wheeee!" she cried, as Ichigo and Ulquiorra scrambled to catch up.

Snap. Kenpachi grinned psychotically, bits of raw muscle and shattered radius and ulna dripping from his fangs. He became a whirling twister of fur and claws and rage once again. Blood vessels and tendons littered the floor after only seconds of this rampage. Maybe it was five monsters, but maybe it was fifty; only the growing pile of gore was counting.

Yet the monsters kept coming, oozing, limping, growling, and lunging. Ichigo and Shirosaki just tried to stay out of the way, because Kenpachi's teeth and brute force didn't discriminate between friend and foe or even living and inanimate. Tables shattered like fine china, walls crumbled like children's sandcastles, and solid marble statues exploded like cherry bombs as

Kenpachi raged on. He had started bleeding, from the forearms, from his muzzle. He didn't notice, or maybe he couldn't feel it anymore. Yachiru was giggling, or yapping, excited to see her Kenny in his element.

Ichigo felt sick.

Hitsugaya was trying to steer the near-mindless killing machine further into the house. "It's through that doorway!" Ichigo would shout, and Hitsugaya would smash an ice bead to freeze the monsters furthest from the door. He and Ichigo would then slice and shatter the sitting ducks like sushi. Kenpachi would then move in the direction Ichigo had indicated, because that's where the meat-bag creations were.

Ulquiorra efficiently dispatched anything that somehow survived the initial slaughter, and stated his observations about the house. He mentioned a draft from a central air system, and then reported there were no sounds coming from the source.

The basement had gone silent.

The group tried to hurry, sometimes sending Ichigo or Ulquiorra to scout ahead, slowly finding their way further down into the depths of this hellish mansion.

After a multitude of rooms and hallways, and enemies too numerous to count, Kenpachi began to tire, his ears drooping more than usual, and then his furious wheeling slowed to a crawl. He huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf he was, sneezing out blood that wasn't all his. He was ragged and matted, even more than before. But the group seemed to have reached a turning point, as there were no monsters to be seen.

"Which way now?" Hitsugaya panted. Ichigo caught his breath and replied, "There were stairs, I, uh, don't know which ones."

"Oh, lost are we?" someone gloated from behind them. Ichigo wheeled around.

Szayel stood proudly before them, a new contraption strapped to his arm. It clanked menacingly, each wriggle of his fingers sending awful screeches across the metal bars that made it up.

"So, I thought we would play a little game. Your group will choose one person to fight to the death. If you win, you can get through this door," he motioned to one behind him and to the left, "which leads to your friend. If you lose, however, everyone in the group becomes an experiment for my master. I think this is fair, don't you?"

"What the hell?! You can't toy with us! Just shut up and fight, then!" Ichigo shouted, clearly sick of this hellish mansion and its tyrannical lord.

"Not so fast," Szayel knowingly laughed. "You won't be fighting me. I'm much too smart to fall for that. We've brought a special challenger for you to face."

Szayel wiggled his fingers like a particularly skilled puppeteer, and a feline snarl pealed off of the mouldy walls.

"Come, Grimmjow! Fight your challenger!" he laughed again, his voice high and mad.

The only thing Ichigo saw was Grimmjow's eyes. They were black, full of hate, and devoid of recognition.

A/N: THE LOVE, YOU GUYS. OMG I HAD NO IDEA I HAD SUCH A FOLLOWING. ILU ALL *cries tears of joy...and joyness*

I feel like I should apologize profusely for my nosediving quality. I'M SO SORRY YOU GUYS I feel like this wasn't as well written as it could have been. *sob sob* If I ever rewrite this story (which I might) this chapter will have so much more WTF in it (in the good way).

FROM LAST CHAPTER:
...Nobody guessed why Ulquiorra was a tomato fairy?? (lol, yeah, he wasn't actually a fairy, but, yeah. I am so eloquent today.) BUONO TOMATO, BUONO TOMATO, BUONO, BUONO, OOH, TOMATO... Google "ulquiorra tomato song". Don't ask why, just do it. (Besides, the song is hella catchy.)
After watching Hetalia (actually, replace "watching" with "stalking") I keep thinking Shiro is Prussia. So yeah, that pretty much explains all his OOC-ness.

BUT I'M SO, SO, SOOOO SORRY ABOUT TEMPORARILY DYING LIKE THAT. I might be better now, who knows? My teachers like to assign extra homework when they think us students might have some free time. Like over Spring Break. Yup.
On a slightly happier note, NOTICE THAT THIS IS PART A OF CHAPTER 6. That means you get another part, and thus, MOAR STORY. Sorry I had to split it, but the chapter was getting out of control in length. I'll try to get the second part up in the next two weeks or so, okay? THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME, GUYS. I ABSOLUTELY WILL FINISH THIS STORY. MARK MY WORDS.