Chapter Twenty-Four: The Bitter End*

Ichigo sat in his cell, as he had done every day since his return to London. The cell, at least, was dry and warm, and he had not gone hungry. He could smell the salty air from the nearby docks. He longed to be back on the water again; he had always hoped to die at sea, not by a hangman's noose.

"One night more," he thought, closing his eyes and leaning back against the unyielding stone wall. What had Yamamoto said? Ten days to put his affairs into order? "It'd take about six centuries to do that." He smiled and closed his eyes. "I suppose I may get that long, after all."

He imagined Rukia and wondered if she could feel their child move yet, realizing she would be about three months pregnant. He was thankful for having a least touched his child's soul, however tiny it had been. He wouldn't even live know his daughter's name.

"I'm sorry Rukia. I promised you something I had no right to promise. When I said it would be different this time, I was thinking only about myself…"

He heard footsteps from down the passageway that led back to the stairs. "Dinner," he thought, gloomily. Cold bread and moldy cheese.

A guard walked over to the cell, hat over his eyes. "They're getting younger every day," Ichigo thought, with a chuckle. The guard shoved the tray under the gap in the cell door.

"How are you, sir?" the guard asked in a low voice.

Ichigo was not surprised at the question; he had found far more friendly guards than not since his confinement. "I'm fine, thank you," he replied, picking up a piece of bread and eyeing it with disdain.

"I am glad to hear that," the guard replied. "Take heart, Captain."

"Thanks," Ichigo said, as the guard took a few steps away from the door.

There was a flash of blue light, and the door to the cell swung open on its hinges. Ichigo jumped up, his back to the wall, hands out defensively in front of him. "What the hell?" he nearly shouted, as there was another flash of light at his feet, and the metal shackles fell with a clatter from his ankles.

The guard pulled off his hat.

"Rukia!" Ichigo shouted.

She grinned. "Come on," she said, motioning him to the door. "I'm getting you out of here."

"You're supposed to be…," he began.

"Did you honestly think I'd stay in Thyilea like a good little woman and let you martyr yourself?" she laughed. "Hardly."

"I won't leave," he said, stubbornly.

"And why not? Do you value your life so little?"

"It would be wrong."

"Wrong?" she demanded. "And how do you figure that?"

"Yamamoto and the others…"

"Damn them all, Ichigo," she interrupted, scowling. "You've played your role as sacrificial lamb. They won't be held accountable if rogue pirates help you escape. Yamamoto and Hisagi have nothing to do with this. We are getting you out of here."

"We?" he asked, still hesitating.

"Yes," came another voice, from out in the corridor. "We."

"Karin?" Ichigo's face registered shock as his sister, also dressed in the uniform of a navy guard, walked into the cell. She pointed a sword at him.

"Time to leave, big brother," she said, coolly. "Unless you want them to catch and hang all of us, that is. Or maybe you'd like me to put you out of your misery?"

He blinked, then gritted his teeth.

"You're outnumbered and outvoted, Captain," Rukia said, smiling at Karin. "Come on."

Ichigo eyed Karin suspiciously. "What are you looking at, Ichi-nii?" she asked, frowning back at him.

"I didn't know you knew how to handle a sword," he said, stupidly.

She laughed. "There are plenty of things you don't know about me, dear brother," she said, pointing her sword at the door. "You've been at sea longer than you realize."

"Karin knows about the Druids, Ichigo," said Rukia, with a reckless smile. "And she knows about us."

"Us?"

Karin turned and poked him in the arm with his sword. "Time to get moving," she said. "Or I'm going to hit you over the head and drag you out of here myself."

"Alright," Ichigo said, still not quite comprehending what was happening. "I'll go. But…"

"But nothing," Rukia said, her eyes narrowed, "I am not going back to Thyilea by myself to raise Sayuri."

"Sayuri?"

"Our daughter," said Rukia, with a smile.

For a moment, Ichigo said nothing. Then, he smiled and shook his head. "I should have known I couldn't keep you from London."

"Someone's coming," said Karin, gesturing to the stairway at the end of the hall.

Ichigo, realizing he had little choice but to escape or risk the safety of both women, sighed and materialized his sword. Karin replaced her hat, tucking her hair back underneath. Voices could be heard in the stairwell, as Ichigo and the women crept slowly down the hallway. There was no other way out from the cell block.

"Let me handle this," Karin said. "Give me a minute, then follow me." She was gone before Ichigo could protest.

Rukia held Ichigo back. "Let her go, Ichigo," she warned him. "She'll be fine. She's smart and I've seen her with a sword." Ichigo raised an eyebrow. "She took out three guards singlehandedly on our way down here. Your father says she's even a fair match for your sword-fighting skills."

"My father?"

Rukia smiled. "For someone as intelligent as you, Ichigo, you can be pretty naïve. Didn't you realize he was one of us, too?"

"I knew my mother was…,"Ichigo stammered, "but…Isshin? I mean, I know he knew about mom, but I just assumed…"

"He's been training your sister for years," Rukia said, laughing now. "He and Masaki lived in Thyilea, before you were born. He told me so himself."

There was little time for this information to sink in before more shouts were heard on the stairs. Rukia and Ichigo ran to the entrance. Standing in it, her hat slightly askew, stood Karin. Several guards lay around her in the stairwell.

"They'll be fine," she said, seeing Ichigo's pained face. "They're just unconscious."

"Come on," said Rukia, stepping over the guards and climbing the steps. "We need to get to the waterfront, before all of London realizes you've escaped."

They quickly ran up the steps, emerging onto the hallway that led to the courtroom in which Ichigo had been tried. Beyond, Ichigo knew, were the offices of some of the Royal Navy clerks and the document storage facilities.

"Dad sends his regards," Karin said, as they ran towards the door that led out to the street. "He told me to tell you he's expecting more grandchildren and that if he doesn't get them, he'll personally come visit you both in Thyilea and give you a piece of his mind."

Ichigo looked mortified. "Damn fool," he muttered under his breath.

Rukia laughed. "It's a little difficult to keep a secret like this, apparently," she said, as they burst through the door to the outside.

"What until I get my hands on…," Ichigo began, but, as they ran out into the sunlit street, they were immediately confronted with more than a dozen Navy guards, some armed with pistols, all of them with swords at their waists.

"That's him!" shouted one of the guards, pointing to Ichigo. "The Captain-Commander wants him brought back alive. The others, as well."

"Get out of here!" Ichigo yelled to Karin and Rukia, waving them off. "I'll handle this."

"You've got to be joking," Karin said, glaring at him. "If you think…"

Her words were cut short by the sound of a pistol being fired. Rukia raised her weapon, deftly deflecting the bullet even as it flew towards Karin. There was a dull pinging sound, then a tiny clink of metal on the cobblestone street. The man who fired the shot stared in disbelief.

"Nice," Karin remarked, grinning at Rukia. "You'll have to teach me that when we get out of here."

"If we get out of here," Ichigo remarked. Whatever they did, he knew they could not risk revealing more than absolutely necessary. The guards might pass off Rukia's bullet-repelling skills as just speed or sleight of hand, but their more obvious powers would be clearly suspect.

Several more guards crowded the street, and Ichigo and the others found themselves backed up against the stone building, unable to move forward or even to retreat back to the door, which stood nearly three yards away. One of the guards made to grab for Karin, who whirled around and kicked him, hard, in the shins. She wrenched away his pistol, and it fell to the street with a clatter. Two more men approached Rukia from the sides, while another stood, his gun pointed directly at her. The other guards, nearly a dozen in all, surrounded Ichigo, approaching him slowly, pistols and swords raised.

Ichigo took a deep breath. He had to do something, although he was at a loss to figure a way out of the situation which would not reveal them all as being something other than merely human. Ichigo felt his sword vibrate slightly in his hand. Instinctively, he looked up at the sky, as if Zangetsu had directed him there.

"Your power is water, Ichigo," said the sword.

Ichigo laughed at this reminder, drawing looks of surprise from the guards who were slowly pushing him back up against the wall. Putting his left hand unobtrusively behind his back, he took a deep breath and imagined rain. Rukia, having felt the burst of energy from his hand, looked at him in surprise. He smiled at her as if to say, "Be ready."

The clouds began to move and the sky began to darken. Karin glanced over at Ichigo, her eyes wide. "She feels it as well," Ichigo thought, astonished.

The wind began to pick up, blowing dirt and dust from the street around them. Several of the guards held their hands in front of their eyes as small pebbles flew up from the ground. Droplets of rain began with increasing intensity; the drops became larger and larger until the rain became a downpour. Ichigo silently thanked Yamamoto for his orders, which had kept them alive up until now. Any other prisoner would have already been dead, he knew. Had the old goat known he would escape all along?

The ruts in the road and the gutters filled quickly with water. Ichigo glanced at Rukia and Karin, nodding almost imperceptibly as each woman sought to maintain the uneasy status quo with the guards, their swords held out in front of them.

"Now!" he shouted, as he swung his sword towards the guards. The sword was merely a distraction – his left hand formed a fist behind his back and he reached across his body, flinging it towards the men. Simultaneously, all of the water that lay in the street rose up in a powerful jet, hitting the guards and knocking them to the ground, like an enormous wave crashing on the beach.

Rukia and Karin rolled to the ground to avoid the shots that some of the guards fired off in the chaos. A stray bullet grazed Ichigo's right arm, and he clamped his left hand over the wound, his sword vanishing amidst the splatter of muddy water as it hit the surrounding structures.

"Damn," he thought, gritting his teeth.

"Ichigo!" shouted Rukia, wiping her eyes of dirt and water and seeing his blood-soaked shirtsleeve.

"I'm fine," he shouted, motioning to the alleyway that led onto the main square. The wound was not deep, and he easily stopped the bleeding.

The men had begun to stagger to their feet. Ichigo grabbed Karin, pulling her up with his good arm.

"We have to make it to the harbor," Rukia shouted, as the rain came down even harder. "There's a ship waiting on the south docks."

They ran through the rain, covered in dirt and soaked to the skin, slipping from time to time on the slick cobblestones. The force of the downpour had, thankfully, sent most of the pedestrians running for cover, and even the horse-drawn carriages seemed to have retreated temporarily under overhangs and trees.

They reached the harbor in minutes. In spite of the deluge, the docks were bustling with activity – a storm, even as heavy a storm as this, was of little concern the mariners and longshoremen who worked the shipping vessels. Ichigo smiled at his companions as he saw the Kuchiki Enterprises ship ready to set sail from the farthest dock.

"Courtesy of my brother," Rukia laughed, slightly giddy with the ease of their escape. Karin scrambled up the gangplank to the deck, Rukia a few feet behind. Ichigo turned to head upwards, when he felt a strong arm on his shoulder. The ship began to pull away from the docks, the dock lines dragging in the water.

"Stop right there, Kurosaki," came a gruff voice from behind him. He felt the hard muzzle of a pistol at his back and froze in his tracks. The gangplank fell into the water with a splash.

"No!" Rukia shouted, nearly falling into the water between the docks and the ship but grabbing a hold of the railing at the last second.

"Stay there!" Ichigo ordered, as his heart leapt into his throat to watch her nearly fall the twenty feet or so into the harbor.

"Don't move," said the man with the gun at his back.

"Leave them alone," said Ichigo, looking around to see Choujirou Sakakibe's face near his.

"I'm not interested in them," Sakakibe replied, evenly. "My orders are to pursue you."

The ship's sails had begun to fill, and Ichigo could see Karin and Rukia still standing on the deck. He silently willed them to do nothing. He could not bear the thought of either of them being hurt. The rain stopped, and the wind picked up.

"Hands above your head, Kurosaki," Sakakibe said, pressing the gun with determination. "Now turn around slowly.

Ichigo obliged, happy to be the focus of attention and let the Kuchiki ship slip soundlessly into the harbor. He thought momentarily about using the water in the harbor to make an escape, but instead he focused on the water underneath and alongside the keel of the ship on which Rukia and Karin stood, forcing it against the wood to propel the ship even farther away from the docks.

Nearly a dozen sailors stood, guns pointed at Ichigo. Sakakibe nodded to one of the men, who pulled Ichigo's hands behind his back and clamped a pair of iron handcuffs around his wrists for good measure.

"Sorry, Kurosaki," said Sakakibe, "Captain-Commander's orders. I have to take you back."

Ichigo frowned but followed Sakakibe back towards the barracks and offices from which they had come, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was pursuing the Kuchiki ship. They reached the edge of the docks, the forward-most guards turning the corner to head back towards the city. Ichigo heard a shout from one of the guards as they turned and saw a flash of white hair in the breaking sunlight.

Several of the men fell like ragdolls to the ground. Ichigo instinctively dropped to his knees, rolling and kicking Sakakibe and narrowly avoiding one of the other men, who thrust his sword in Ichigo's direction. Hands tightly held behind his back, he knew he could not wield a sword – the best he could do was to block the remaining men standing.

There was a loud clap, like thunder, as a stack of barrels at the edge of the docks fell forward and rolled towards the guards. Seeing one of the barrels rolling his direction, Ichigo curled up and rolled sideways, the barrel missing him by inches. He felt a strong arm haul him up off the ground, and he kicked hard.

"Damn," he heard a familiar voice growl. "I should really just leave you here. You're much too much trouble than you're worth."

"Hitsugaya? I didn't realize it was…"

The white-headed Druid frowned and pushed Ichigo forward, back towards the water. "Shut up and move," he said, amidst the sounds of more shouts and gunshots. Ichigo ran, all the while struggling against the iron cuffs that bound his hands behind him. "We'll have to swim. With a little luck, we can catch one of the dock lines trailing from her stern."

Ichigo gritted his teeth as they neared the edge of the water. "Can you get these things off me?" he asked Hitsugaya, testily. Hitsugaya shot him an irritated look, then turned him around so that he could see the advancing guards. He aimed his sword at the metal, and Ichigo felt heat emanate from the cuffs.

"Hurry up," Ichigo said, watching the guards draw their weapons. "I can't…"

One of the guards, perhaps overcome by the excitement of the pursuit, fired his weapon in their direction, and Ichigo felt a searing pain in his shoulder. Taken by surprise and without the use of his arms to counterbalance the force of the impact, Ichigo staggered backwards towards the water's edge. For a moment, everything around him appeared to be frozen in time and the edges of his vision began to cloud. He saw Hitsugaya grab for his collar, but there was a shout from one of the other guards and Hitsugaya turned to fend off the attack.

Ichigo fell backwards, hitting the water with a loud splash. He inhaled a large mouthful of salty water and he felt the cold blackness claim him.

*The Bitter End: The anchor cable is tied to the bitts, when the cable is fully paid out, the bitter end has been reached. The last part of a rope or cable.

Author's Note: Yes, I know, I am completely evil! But you can't have a swashbuckling tale without a few good cliffhangers, can you? Just one chapter and an epilogue to go now - I think (hope) you'll enjoy the finale. -Lex

Special thanks to Mikazuki Mitsukai for her suggestion naming the IchiRuki baby "Sayuri," which means "Little Lilly."