True Personality

A/N: Italics (in general) indicate psychically sent thoughts to and from Ichigo and animals or Starrk. (also remember that Starrk can't talk out loud when he's a wolf).

Ichigo was pet sitting Murciélago for Grimmjow, mostly because Grimmjow said he'd been pretty busy lately and he felt bad for not playing with the kitten enough. There were a lot of things that Ichigo didn't have patience for, but he could roll a ball back and forth or wave a feather around for hours and still be entertained by the clumsy and cute moves of the kitten as he played and pounced.

"Ichigo," Aizen said as he walked into the hallway.

Ichigo looked up and saw that a pink hair man wearing glasses and a lab coat was next to him, staring at him with intense interest that made him more than a little uneasy. Ichigo looked at the kitten and the kitten scampered off back to Grimmjow's room.

"Did you tell him to leave?" Aizen asked.

"Yes," Ichigo answered.

"And exactly how do animal thoughts feel?" Szayel questioned.

"I have no frame of reference to answer that. How about you tell me how regular people's thoughts feel and then we'll compare them," Ichigo replied.

"Quite impossible I'm afraid. You're the closest thing to a psychic we've ever had," Szayel told him.

"Well, Ulquiorra is kind of psychic, and so is Starrk," Ichigo said.

"Let me clarify. You are the only one that can send and received thoughts, and read minds. Sure it's only animals, but that's still very interesting."

"I've seen you at the meetings but I don't remember your name," Ichigo told Szayel.

"I am Szayel Aporro Granz, I'm head of the 8th clan. I have quite a large one, I'm sure you've run into some people from my family running around," Szayel answered. "I've changed quite a lot of people over the years. I'm also in charge of our research lab here."

Aizen was on the phone. "Starrk? Change into a wolf," he told the man on the phone. He looked over at Ichigo. "We are curious on a few things. First of all, can you contact Starrk from where he is and tell him to come here to where we are?"

"Starrk?" Ichigo called out in his mind, reaching out for the wolf. He didn't think he could usually go that far, but he knew that with Starrk most likely it would be possible. There seemed to be a link between the two of them.

"Ichigo. What's going on? Are you in danger?" Starrk asked as he padded towards the room.

"No, I'm just supposed to tell you to come here."

"I was already on my way," Starrk broke out into a faster run. He hated how his claws clicked on the white marbled floor, and how he couldn't get very much traction on turns. Not to mention that in general being inside stunk. People and food and perfume and poison and blood, all making a terrible smothering smell that made him want to gag. Outside in the grass was much better.

"Excellent," Szayel said as Starrk came into the room.

"Now tell me, can you make him do something?" Aizen asked Ichigo.

Ichigo frowned. "What do you mean "make"?"

"You said that you make animals do things, correct?" Aizen said.

"Starrk isn't an animal," Ichigo replied.

"Which is why it would be interesting to know whether or not you can control him or not," Szayel explained.

"Ichigo," Starrk thought to Ichigo. "I'm not exactly happy about this, but I think you should probably pretend to go along with whatever these two are after."

"I get the feeling I should, but overriding someone's free will? That's disgusting," Ichigo thought back to him.

"Please, Ichigo. I don't think you understand how things work around here yet," Starrk pleaded.

"You seem to be hesitating," Aizen said.

"If it's going to hurt you, it's going to hurt me too," Ichigo declared to Starrk.

"What?" Starrk replied worriedly.

"Starrk, I want you to bite me in the arm," Ichigo said.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's not the same as a vampire bite, it will hurt. I don't want to injure you," the wolf replied.

"Starrk," Ichigo lowered his voice, staring at him.

"I refuse," Starrk said. "Forget what I said, don't play their games." He turned and began to leave.

"He doesn't seem very interested," Aizen pointed out.

"Starrk," Ichigo said, but the wolf was still moving away from him. "Coyote, attack my arm!" He thought forcefully.

Starrk whirled around and sprinted towards Ichigo, leaping at him. Ichigo held his arm in front of him to block the attack. Starrk's sharp teeth bit down deeply into Ichigo's arm. Ichigo could see the wolf's face clearly, see when his eyes began to focus again.

"ICHIGO!" Starrk yelled, instantly releasing Ichigo's arm, both mad at Ichigo and himself. He howled in frustration as he saw the damage he had done.

"How very fascinating," Szayel said.

Starrk growled and looked over at Szayel, his intent clear.

"Starrk, perhaps getting Ichigo healed should be your priority if you're feeling bad about what you did," Aizen suggested.

Starrk didn't want to admit it but Aizen was right. "Ichigo, I'm going to go and get Nel."

"Nel? She's...the goat?" Ichigo thought vaguely.

Starrk blinked in surprised. "Please don't say that to anyone else. We'll talk later. And you owe me." The wolf left the room quickly, trying to locate the Nel's scent. "And please never use my name that way again." Privately, Starrk wondered how Ichigo even knew it. He hadn't told him, and he knew that Lilynette would never have said anything to Ichigo without asking Starrk first.

"Let me take a look at it," Szayel said, approaching Ichigo.

"Stand back!" Ichigo ordered the man. Szayel froze. Ichigo carefully grabbed Szayel's arm and lifted it. He pointed at Szayel fingers. "I'm not letting anyone with a paralyzing poison under his finger nails touch me."

"I wasn't planning on doing you any harm," Szayel assured him. "But I do wonder how you know about the poison. It doesn't have a scent. Or how you'd know that it was a paralytic."

"Because you have a poor paralyzed rat in your pocket that is one of dozen you've been testing on this afternoon," Ichigo said evenly.

Szayel reached into his lab coat and pulled out the rat in question. "Giving away my secrets are you?" Szayel asked it.

Ichigo could barely stand to see to poor thing be teased. He wanted to grab it away from the scientist but didn't know how to unparalyze the creature if he did managed to rescue it. He was more than a little angry, mad at having to make Starrk do something he didn't want to do, and mad at how terrified the gray rat in front of him was.

"Yes," Ichigo said. "Just think of how many secrets they do know."

"What?" Szayel asked, his eyes narrowing. "Rats aren't intelligent enough to figure out what I'm working on. If you are trying to intimidated me, you can't."

"They don't know what you're working on it a computer, and they don't know how it works, but they can see your passwords, as symbols even if they don't understand words. I guess I now know what your favorite number is, although I'm unsure about the name. A he former lover maybe? A good friend?" Ichigo said.

Szayel glared at him, his golden eyes showing his annoyance. He made a note to change his password as soon as he got back to his lab. And to make sure that the cages were farther away from his monitors. Aizen gave a small laugh seeing his discomfort.

Starrk came back, this time looking as he usually did, having stopped back in his quarters to throw on some clothing after changing back from a wolf. Nel was with him.

"Hi!" the sea foam green haired vampire greeted Ichigo warmly. "I'm Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck!"

"Wow...I don't know that I'm going to remember that," Ichigo said honestly.

She roughly grabbed his shoulder.

"Hey, wait a minute! What are you doing?" Ichigo asked her, holding her back.

"The combination of my saliva and blood will heal you," she explained. "I need to bite you. It's faster if you bite me too."

"Um...isn't that a little..." Ichigo trailed off.

"I should warn you that Ichigo's blood is extremely potent," Aizen said.

It is? Ichigo thought.

"Yes," Starrk's voice answered in his mind.

"Starrk...you can talk me this way when you're not a wolf?"

"I'm always part wolf," Starrk laughed.

"Are you ready?" Nel asked Ichigo. "No jumping this time!" she ordered him.

Ichigo nodded and let himself be bitten. Instead of the slightly overpowering and heady rush he got when Aizen bit him, or the warmth and connection he felt when Starrk bite him, it was more of a regular high. He felt the thrill of it, but wasn't turned on by it as he was with the other two. I guess I'm just uber gay, Ichigo thought to himself. That's probably why Harribel didn't want to bite me since she prefers her own sex as well. Not that it was unpleasant. Ichigo realized he should be biting back so he leaned forward into her proffered neck. She tastes kind of green, like grass and trees, he thought to himself as he drank. Nel pulled away and examined his arm.

"I sometimes need to bite the area itself, but it looks like it's healed up nicely," she said.

Ichigo stretched it out. "Wow, thanks it's really..." he stopped suddenly when she threw her arms around him and buried her head in his chest.

"Nel?"

"You feel nice. You're warm," she said happily.

"I'm a vampire. I'm not warm," Ichigo rolled his eyes.

She ignored him and made a cooing noise, snuggling closer.

"Nel, you should get back to your duties now," Aizen told her.

"You really won't even shared him for cuddles?" she said as she looked back at him, with a pout on her face.

"Uh..." Ichigo was becoming uncomfortable with the situation.

Nel let him go though, and bounced out of the room. Ichigo called his thanks after her.

"Szayel and I need to talk over some things," Aizen said.

Ichigo nodded and walked down the hall towards the garden. Starrk quickly caught up to him.

"So are you..." Ichigo started. Starrk gave him a stern glance and put a finger to his lips. Ichigo sighed. "So are you you going to tell me why it freaked you out that I called Nel a goat?" he repeated, this time no longer out loud.

"Right now Aizen is happy with your power. He loves that you didn't show, out loud at least, any remorse or thought about forcing me to your whims. He finds your power interesting."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ichigo asked Starrk.

"All vampires, natural vampires that is, not transmuted ones like Aizen, Gin, and Kaname, have a totem animal. It is a basis for their powers. There is a small chance that you could have power in some way over any vampire if you found a way to tap into their totem animal. Do you understand?" Starrk said.

"Not really."

"Aizen will view you as a threat if you show too much potential. Right now, having control over me, the head of the 1st clan, is already a very powerful position. If you have even a chance of being able to control more vampires that way, then he'll view you as too dangerous. He'd either want to break you completely to do his bidding, or kill you to get rid of the problem," Starrk relayed.

I wonder why they are being so quiet, Gin wondered to himself, laying back on the roof over them. I should hear them clearly through the window. I heard everything else and it was farther away.

"Aizen wouldn't do that," Ichigo said.

Starrk just gave him a look.

"Starrk, I think Gin is on the roof," Ichigo told him.

"What?"

"A bird is in the tree wondering if he can take back some of that silver hair back to his nest. I imagine that would be Gin, right?" Ichigo asked.

"Most likely. He's a big fan of listening in on other people's conversations. He's going to wonder why we're being so quiet."

"Well, that's an easy fix," Ichigo smiled. "HEY STARRK!" he yelled out loud.

Starrk just barely prevented himself from jumping. He knew instantly what Ichigo was getting at. "What?" he said sleepily.

"What do you mean what? Don't you know it's rude to fall asleep when you're talking to someone?" Ichigo laughed at him.

"Leave me alone to my nap, pup," Starrk told him, walking away.

"What are you doing here?" Ichigo asked, his eyes narrowing as he saw the pink haired scientist in Aizen's quarters. He looked around but Aizen wasn't there.

"I've been given permission to test you," Szayel said, smiling widely.

"Test me? How? Who..." Ichigo stopped that last question because it was obvious who had give permission. "What, just like a few blood tests or something?"

"Oh, whatever I want, really," Szayel said, looking smug.

"Oh yeah?" Ichigo replied with irritation. "Well right now I'm supposed to be meeting for training with Ulquiorra, but don't think this is a done deal. You're not touching me."

Ichigo and Ulquiorra were sparring with dulled swords. Ichigo had rather liked this part of training, although he wasn't sure what he'd ever need a sword for. Today he was even more aggressive than usual, attacking without thinking, trying to press Ulquiorra.

"Calm yourself. You aren't thinking," Ulquiorra told him, easily dodging his attacks. Grimmjow laughed from the corner.

Ichigo instead threw himself into the training harder. "That bastard Szayel got "permission" from Aizen to do whatever the hell he wants to me!" he said angrily as he attacked.

"What?" Ulquiorra asked. Grimmjow was frowning.

"I don't know a lot about him but he's way too creepy and demented for me to let him poke and prod me, or inject me with crap, or whatever the hell he's planning on doing," Ichigo said, leaning on his sword to gain his breath when he saw Ulquiorra pull up.

"I don't know what the hell Aizen is thinking but I'm not some fucking pet. I can't just be ordered around and told what to do and just given to people!" Ichigo continued on his rant.

Grimmjow was very close to him all of sudden. "Ichigo, you seem a little winded. Why don't you drink a little?" he said, offering his neck.

"I'm not..."

Grimmjow practically smashed Ichigo's face into his neck.

"Fine, I get the picture," Ichigo complained. He pulled back a little and elongated his teeth.

"Ichigo," Grimmjow whispered closely into Ichigo's ear as Ichigo was biting into his neck. "Be very careful about what you say. You never know where he is."

A warning?

"Damn kid, what the hell do you eat?" Grimmjow said a few moments later, writhing around a little under Ichigo's teeth.

Ichigo lifted off of him and wiped at his mouth. "What do you mean?"

"You just rile me up is all, make me hot. And the fact that I can't have you makes it worse," Grimmjow grinned.

Ichigo frowned at him. "I'm sure this is very endearing to Ulquiorra."

"It kind of is. He's a jealous type," Grimmjow replied. "Not that anyone can tell."

"We may be spending more time together recently, but don't think you can speak about me so casually," Ulquiorra said.

Grimmjow moved quickly towards him and wrapped his arms around Ulquiorra's waist, not waiting to sink his teeth into his neck.

Ichigo knew from training with Ulquiorra that if he had really wanted to escape Grimmjow, he could have. Instead Ulquiorra stood stock still for a moment, before closing his eyes, seemingly accepting the embrace. Ichigo smiled to himself and moved towards the window, looking out over the garden, giving the men behind him a little privacy. He thought about what Starrk had said about totem animals. A cat. He thought to himself. Grimmjow is a cat, obviously. A big jungle cat. Ulquiorra...a bat. He laughed when he figured it out. The kitten was named after him of course.

"You seem a little out of sorts today, Ichigo," Ulquiorra said from behind him. "We will conclude training early today."

Ichigo smirked to himself.

Ichigo still hadn't gotten a chance to talk to Aizen about Szayel and his experiments, and exactly how he felt about being ordered around so much lately. He had wandered their shared quarters for awhile until he got notice that there was going to be a meeting. Ichigo hadn't been aware that there was going to be one that day and wondered if it had just been called or had been planned.

Seems like the same boring stuff to me, Ichigo thought, trying to pay attention in the meeting. He wasn't sure why he even had to go, since he wasn't the head of a clan and didn't know most of what they talked about even meant. There was a pause and Ichigo looked up, everyone was looking alert. What had happened? He wondered. There was just a shift in the atmosphere.

"Grimmjow," Aizen said evenly.

"Yeah?" Grimmjow answered, more than a little annoyed that he hadn't gotten to spend as long as he wanted with Ulquiorra.

"On your most recent mission I believe I told you to capture a specific warlock for me and bring him back. And yet, I understand he is dead," Aizen told him, sipping at his tea carefully.

"He knew I was coming. He started fighting me as soon as I got there. Things got a little intense. It's not my fault that he was so weak he couldn't defend himself against a simple blow," Grimmjow shrugged.

"I really did want him back here alive," Aizen pointed out.

"Well then you probably should have sent someone like Ulquiorra then."

"I sent you," Aizen said. "Unless you are questioning my judgment?"

There was dead silence around the table, not so much at the words, which were fairly serious, but at the way in which Aizen said them. There was more than just a little underlying tension.

"I..." Grimmjow started to speak but Aizen cut him off.

"This isn't the first time you've failed me," Aizen said. "And you've always made your...discontent well known. Do you have something to say to me, Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow paused before saying, "...no."

"Ichigo, convince me to not kill Grimmjow," Aizen said, turning to face Ichigo.

"I...what?" Ichigo stuttered.

Aizen eyes bore into his own.

"Unless you want him to die?" Aizen asked.

"Of course not!" Ichigo said, a little loudly. Every eye was on him. He didn't dare to turn and look at Grimmjow, not that he could take his gaze off of Aizen's eyes anyways.

"I...understand that perhaps Grimmjow has done things not exactly in the way that you wanted in the past," Ichigo tried to say something, anything.

"Starrk, he's kidding right?" Ichigo practically screamed into Starrk's mind.

"I doubt it," Starrk replied.

"But?" Aizen led Ichigo on.

"But...well think of how quickly they've found me both times that I've left and visited the mainland. There's obviously something happening, right? A leak, a spy, some sort of new technology or...err...spell or whatnot...that allows them to know when we are coming. If the person Grimmjow was after was already expecting him, and if he would have truly been valuable to you, then no doubt the warlock was already preparing himself to die. I think I was reading...don't they kill themselves sometimes? But they need time to prepare their souls because they think that they can't travel to their next life without peace. This person had time to make their piece and would have killed himself if Grimmjow hadn't...in fact, who is to say that he didn't allow Grimmjow to kill him? Grimmjow just said it was a weak attack that killed him."

"Interesting," Aizen said. "Grimmjow?" he looked over at the seething vampire.

Please keep it together, Ichigo thought at Grimmjow, wishing he could communicate with him the same way he could talk to Starrk. He could tell by the strained look on Ulquiorra's face he was thinking the same thing.

"We had fought for maybe ten minutes, a hard battle. The final blow was something even Ichigo could have dodged in his first week of training," Grimmjow stated.

"Hm," Aizen considered. "Yes, we've thought for some time that they've been rather well informed. I suppose it's in everyone's best interest to let this slide, at least this time."

The rest of the meeting continued on, almost as if nothing had happened.

"Starrk...he really would have killed him just like that?" Ichigo asked. Starrk looked like he was nodding off but Ichigo could still sense he was lucid.

"I've seen him do it before," Starrk assured him.

"He gave Szayel permission to do whatever testing and experiments he wants on me," Ichigo stated.

"Ichigo, I'm not saying it will be easy, but he's still interested in you. He wouldn't want you killed or damaged too badly."

"That's not assuring."

"Just try to go along with it...for now," Starrk said.

"For now?" Ichigo asked. Starrk didn't reply.