Rescue

"I would have thought you were a man of more finesse," Ichigo said through gritted teeth.

"Ah, well, sometimes it's good to mix things up a bit. Plus all these poor men will be sad and bored if I don't give them something to do," Szayel shrugged.

One of the previously mentioned "poor men" punched Ichigo in the head so hard he fell off his chair.

"Yeah, I'm still pretty paralyzed, so if you want me sitting you're going to have to put me back up there," Ichigo replied. Rough hands grabbed at him and propped him back on the chair.

"You have a remarkable tolerance for pain," Szayel mentioned. "I'm pretty sure that right hand of yours has at least three broken bones."

Ichigo just grinned.

"Let me rephrase that," Szayel continued. "For someone who keeps claiming to be a normal college student you have had a lot of training to resist interrogation."

"Naw, I'm just a natural," Ichigo smirked. "I'm just really stubborn and it doesn't hurt that I really dislike you."

"Oh? And what do you dislike about me?" Szayel asked.

Ichigo was quiet, he wasn't going to volunteer any information.

"By the way, have you been having fun with our Grimm?" Szayel questioned.

"Oh yeah, we go and play catch in the park and go on camping trips. He's my bestest friend."

Szayel looked at his watch. "You still have some time to go before it's safe for me to give you a little happy juice to make our questioning go smoother. Are you sure you don't want to help me out? Or do you like the sight of your own blood?"

Ichigo was quiet.

"Oh just stab him someplace," Szayel told one of the men. "Just remember to keep him conscious."

Ichigo closed his eyes and tried to think of complex code, something that would require all of his free thoughts to work on. He tried to keep his body as relaxed as possible, at least as much as he could with whatever he's been dosed with that was restricting his movements. He'd lied when he had been laying on the ground though, he was getting feeling back in most of his body. Before, although he had felt the pain, he hadn't been able to flex or move. Now he was cautiously stretching, trying to see how much freedom he had gained. White hot pain shot out from his left leg as one of the goons near him plunged a knife into his thigh.

"Yeah, that's probably gonna bleed a lot," Ichigo said, opening his eyes. "Or did you want me passed out?"

"You idiot!" Szayel yelled at the man with the knife. He ordered someone else to get some bandages, or at least that's what Ichigo assumed was happening, his ears were starting to buzz. He blinked his eyes to get the blood and sweat out of them.

I wonder how long I can hold out? Ichigo thought. He'll probably be a lot more thorough in his questions than Grimmjow was and I wasn't very strong against whatever it was that Szayel drugged me with that first time. Of course, it was Grimmjow, and...I kind of wanted to explain some things to him. Maybe it'll be a little different this time. I'll try to take satisfaction in any bit of annoyance I cause this Espada. I suppose that there are people trying to rescue me, but it's never good to expect help, and I'm not the type to sit around and wait.

Ichigo opened and closed his hands while Szayel was arguing with some of his men. I'm getting there, Ichigo thought.

Grimmjow and Nnoitra looked at each other before slowly opening the door and descending the steps that led underneath the empty looking lot. They froze when they saw a figure at the bottom. The person also didn't move for a minute, but then laughed. He held out his hands to indicate that he wasn't holding a weapon, and slowly pulled back his hood.

"Kaien?" Grimmjow said.

"You here to rescue Ichigo too?" Kaien asked.

"What? I heard that you were dead," Grimmjow replied.

"I think he's probably just down this hall," Kaien said.

Nnoitra's brow was furrowed. "Ichigo is a cop?"

"I wouldn't say that," Kaien replied. His face got stern. "But I'm not going to let them take Ichigo away from me too. I survived, but my wife didn't."

"You guys are related?" Grimmjow questioned. "You suck at background checks, Nnoitra."

"We need to stop talking and move," Kaien said. "I have some more people coming but it might take another half an hour."

The three men walked quietly down the hall, stopping when they heard voices. Kaien knelt down and grabbed something from his pocket, a small mirror on a stick, and edged it towards the doorway. He gave several quick hand signals to Grimmjow and Nnoitra, indicating two enemies on the right side of the door, three on the left, and one in the center. Grimmjow and Kaien were taking left and center, Nnoitra would go right. They carefully waited, watching the countdown Kaien was giving.

They ran in.

One of Nnoitra's targets was the closest, he went down not even being able to reach his weapon in time.

Grimmjow's first target heard the shot and ducked behind a box. Grimmjow just laughed and shot right through it, stepping around to make sure he'd gotten the man, The man's face was full of splinters and his shoulder was bleeding, he start to bring his gun level but was blown back as Grimmjow finished the job.

Nnoitra was pissed off that he had had to hide behind a steel poll because his second target was a little more on the ball than the first. He just turned his gun around and fired randomly behind him. He was a little shocked when he heard a gun clatter to the ground. He peeked around to see that he had managed to nick the guy. My lucky day today, Nnoitra thought. The man was laying on the ground and reached for his weapon. Nnoitra grinned and pulled the trigger a couple more times.

Grimmjow's second target was proving annoying as well, having holed himself up in a fairly defensible position. Grimmjow spent a split second of consideration and then just charged, dodging back and forth quickly as he heard shots around him. He jumped on top of the car the man was hiding behind and shot down as the man fell over backwards trying to get another shot at him.

Grimmjow and Nnoitra looked across the room, meeting each other's eyes. Kaien was in the center of the room, next to a slumped over body. He was facing Szayel, who had made no move to hide or find a weapon. Nnoitra and Grimmjow walked up behind Kaien.

"Where did ya pick up these guys, Szayel?" Nnoitra said with disgust. "I don't know if ya noticed, but they kinda sucked."

"I guess he couldn't really get company men," Grimmjow said. "These were just some random hired thugs."

Szayel opened his mouth to speak.

Kaien shot him through the throat. Szayel's eyes went wide. His hands were flying up even as his body was falling to the ground.

"Wow, I didn't really think that cops were supposed to shoot unarmed..." All of a sudden things went very slow for Grimmjow. Even as he was talking he noticed that Kaien was turning towards him. He saw the gun come up and started going for his own, but he knew that it was going to be too late. Two shots rang out.

Grimmjow had his hands around his gun, pointing at nothing. Kaien was on the ground moaning. Grimmjow looked over and saw Ichigo with a gun still trained on the fallen man.

"...nice shooting, kid..." Nnoitra said.

Kaien's gun hand had been shot, and then his knee.

"Ichigo?" Grimmjow asked, confused. "Isn't he your...cousin or something?"

"Are you kidding?" Ichigo replied. He frowned at Grimmjow. "You really don't know who this is?"

"Why the hell is this so damn confusing?" Nnoitra complained.

"Imagine him with pads on the inside of his cheeks to puff them out. Add thick brows. Change the eye color to brown. Slick back his hair," Ichigo said.

"You...you're Espada 9?" Grimmjow said in surprise.

"Well I guess it's not surprising, I think we've only met twice officially," the man on the floor said.

"Kaien Shiba is an Espada? No, that doesn't make sense..."

"You never met Kaien," Ichigo said. "Espada 9 here found a man that looked very similar to him and had plastic surgery to make them almost identical. He killed the original Kaien, and of course his wife, who would recognize the difference. After he did what was needed to do, he had it look like both were killed."

"You bastard! You guys did set me up!" Grimmjow yelled. "And why the hell did you shoot Szayel? Isn't he with you? Why not just kill me? Why jail? Why put the police on me?"

"My name is Aaroniero by the way."

"Who fucking cares?" Nnoitra responded.

"Well, I thought somebody might," Aaroniero said, as he pulled a knife from his pocket.

"Yeah, good luck try to get us with that from down there," Grimmjow told him.

Aaroniero smiled and then put the blade to his neck. Ichigo quickly turned around as the Espada slit his own throat. Looking away didn't help though, there were just more dead bodies wherever he looked.

"I have to say, I really wasn't expecting that," Grimmjow admitted.

"Did you guys really have to kill them all?" Ichigo said weakly.

"You're the one that is a fucking marksman," Grimmjow replied. "Hand and knee, huh? Just like they teach in the academy?"

"I'm not a cop," Ichigo said.

"Yeah, you just play video games," Grimmjow rolled his eyes.

Ichigo fell to his hands and knees, blood spewing from his mouth. Grimmjow rushed to his side to hold him up. "I uh...think I have a punctured lung," Ichigo mentioned.

"I think you got a lot more than that," Grimmjow said, finally noticing all Ichigo's injuries.

"So uh, do we call cleaners or not?" Nnoitra said, looking around the room.

"Leave them," Ichigo replied. "You probably don't want anyone to know you were here."

"Did you forget that I'm freaking being monitored?" Grimmjow asked.

"Then we should get going before anyone shows up," Ichigo mentioned.

"There's no reason for you to not go to the hospital," Grimmjow was saying. "We can just drop you off."

"My dad is a doctor, I suppose he could...no, I'm going to need more than that," Ichigo considered. "Actually, there's someplace I should probably go anyways."

"Oh yeah, let's stop by the bank and do some chores," Grimmjow said sarcastically. "I'm sure that the blood in your lungs will solve itself."

"You came and saved me, huh?" Ichigo asked. "I'm surprised you were able to make Nnoitra come along."

"Nnoitra came because he didn't want Shiro to cut him off from sex forever," Grimmjow grinned.

"Pretty much," Nnoitra agreed.

"Left here," Ichigo said. Grimmjow turned. "Right," Ichigo directed.

Eventually they parked in front of a large office building. Grimmjow and Nnoitra stood in front of it nervously.

"Uh, Grimmjow?" Nnoitra asked.

"You think I'm happy about this?" Grimmjow replied.

"What's wrong, guys?" Ichigo questioned them. He was leaning heavily on the car.

"Nothing," Grimmjow said, putting Ichigo's arm around him to he could help him walk.

The elevator was already full of tension when Ichigo reached out and hit the emergency stop on it. The elevator shuddered to a standstill. Ichigo grabbed the red emergency phone out of its cubbyhole and waited.

"Ichigo!" came a loud feminine voice over the phone.

"Hi, Rangiku," Ichigo said, waving at the security camera in the corner.

"Coming up?"

"Yeah," Ichigo replied. He hung up and the elevator began moving up again.

"You're starting to make me nervous," Grimmjow told Ichigo.

"Yeah, ya know, I'm thinking maybe I should've stayed with the dead bodies," Nnoitra agreed.

"You're safer here than you're going to be anywhere else right now," Ichigo said.

"I sincerely hope that's not true," Grimmjow replied.

"A car," Nnoitra said.

"What?" Grimmjow asked.

"I was trying to think of what ya owed me. I'm thinking a really nice car."

The doors opened and neither man moved. "I hate to ask this, but I do need a little help," Ichigo said. Grimmjow sighed and helped Ichigo walk down the hall, Nnoitra following behind cautiously.

"Oh there you are Ichigo!" a busty strawberry blond emerged from a pair of double doors. She grabbed Ichigo into a fierce hug. Ichigo made a gurgling noise as his face went between her breasts.

"Hey, get off him!" Grimmjow pushed her off. "He's hurt."

"Getting into fights again, Ichigo?" she asked as she looked him over.

"It's a little more serious than that. I need to see the old man," Ichigo replied.

"Er..." Rangiku looked at the two men behind him.

"Trust me, it'll be fine," Ichigo told her.

"I'll just let Chojiro know then," she said, walking quickly back down the hall.

Ichigo motioned for Grimmjow to follow after her.

"Grimmjow, who the hell can just walk into a place like this?" Nnoitra asked.

"I uh...don't know..." Grimmjow said.

"I'm right here," Ichigo replied.

"Yeah, and would you answer if we asked you anything?" Grimmjow questioned.

"Well, I imagine it's going to be pretty clear in a minute or two anyways," Ichigo came back with.

"He's having tea," Chojiro said as the party walked up to the door. "But seeing as how it seems to be important..."

"Thanks," Ichigo said. Chojiro pulled open the door and allowed them to enter.

Three men sat around a low table drinking tea.

"Well this is interesting," the one with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail said.

"Ichigo! You're hurt!" the one with long white hair stated, jumping up.

"Grandfather," Ichigo said, bowing to the oldest one, who was bald but had a long white beard.

"...shit," Nnoitra breathed.

"Director Yamamoto," Grimmjow gave a small nod of his head towards the old man.