-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Ichigo had no idea who this guy was. He'd never seen him before in his life, and he most certainly had no idea what he was talking about. He kept talking about the aliens coming to get them and calling him "star child" for some reason. He hadn't had much choice but to leave with him. He didn't want Nnoitra or anyone else to get hurt because of him. He supposed he could have yelled or screamed or something, but he wasn't sure what this guy would do. He seemed unstable.
Ichigo tested the bindings and found he couldn't get his hands loose. He'd tied him down to a chair with arms using electrical cords it looked like he'd torn out of lamps in the shabby house. The place was run down, and there was trash sitting everywhere like he never picked up after himself. He'd gagged him with a strip of cloth. As much as Ichigo liked being gagged, he didn't like it when this strange guy did it. He wanted his Papi. He watched him as he paced back and forth across the sparse living room.
"Must meet with them on time. Two days' time, that's it. Two days. That's all I have to put up with this place. Then they'll come get us." He turned back to Ichigo and grinned. "Don't you understand how wonderful this is?"
Ichigo just stared at him. He couldn't very well answer him. He grunted against the gag and hoped he got the idea he wanted him to take it off. He came closer and ran both hands over his head gently.
"Are you going to be quiet if I take this off?" he said, placing his hands on Ichigo's shoulders.
Ichigo nodded vigorously. He just wanted to be able to talk again.
"Alright. I guess it's okay. I live out of the way, and no one is going to hear you if you try to yell anyway," he said as he reached behind his head and untied the cloth.
"Why did you take me here? Who are you? What are you doing with me?" Ichigo said as soon as the gag was removed.
"I'm Kūgo. And I took you because you're the star child, and you're going to lead me to the aliens when they come to get us in two days," he said with a grin, holding the cloth in his hands tightly.
"What aliens?" Ichigo tugged again where his wrists were tied down and found it still tight. It was almost cutting off the circulation, he'd tied it so tight.
"Why the aliens!" he said, frowning at him. "You know the aliens. You're half alien, after all."
Ichigo frowned. "I'm not half anything! I'm a human!"
"It's okay that you don't know it yet. They cover up memories you know, when they put in the implant. So, you won't know you know anything until the time is right. Then we'll go to the pier and find the ship where it's hidden in the ocean. We will only have to swim a little while and we'll find it," Kūgo said as he smiled at Ichigo again. "We'll have to jump in the water, but they'll be waiting for us there."
It took a second, but it dawned on Ichigo what he meant to do. "I'm not going to the end of a pier and jumping off!" He knew about piers from when he was a little boy and his mom had taken him to walk down them where people were fishing.
"You'll be perfectly safe," Kūgo said, waving his hand dismissively. "They'll be waiting to take us home with them."
"You're crazy!" Ichigo snapped.
At the word, Kūgo's face changed. He frowned deeply and his hand shot out and backhanded him across the face hard. Ichigo could taste blood in his mouth. He turned back to him and stared for a minute. He just glared at him.
"Don't make me hurt you. I am trying to be understanding since you don't remember them, but if you continue this, I won't be able to continue to control myself. Now, I'm going to put this back on you until you learn not to use such words," he said and wrapped the cloth back around his mouth again.
Ichigo's breath came a little quicker because he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He was going to die if this guy did what he wanted to do. He was going to drown them both because of some weird delusion he had going on. He was quiet for a while, watching him go about the house and do normal everyday things like he didn't have someone tied up in the room with him. Ichigo could see the sun rising high in the sky, so he knew it had to be about lunch time.
What had happened when his Papi had woken up this morning? Had he been scared? What did he think when he found the note he'd left for him? He had no idea how anyone was going to find him. They hadn't ever encountered this guy before, and he had no idea how they would even begin to make a connection between him and Ichigo. There was no connection. How would anyone help him?
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
When Nnoitra woke up and didn't feel Ichigo beside him, he assumed he must be in the bathroom. He sighed, patting the bed to see if it was still warm, but found it cold and his hand patted on something. He pulled off the CPAP mask and sat it on the table with the machine and switched it off. He blinked and picked up Ichigo's pad of paper. Why was that on the bed? He sat up better and rubbed his one good eye. He read the words but didn't believe them.
"What?" he said and was up and out of the bed to check the bathroom.
He glanced at the window and saw it was still early morning. He stood there for a second then went out into the front room and saw the door was open. He walked quickly over to the door and saw that it had been pried open from the outside, and the lock was completely ruined now. His heart was in his throat and he couldn't move for a second. Ichigo was gone? Someone had taken him? Who would do that?
He rushed over and pounded on Isshin's door until the man opened it sleepily looking up at him. "Nnoitra?" he asked, frowning. "What is it? Isn't it early for you guys to be out of bed?"
"He's gone," he said.
Isshin blinked and seemed to get his bearings. "What do you mean he's gone?"
"Someone broke in. The door's been pried open and I found this note," he shoved it at Isshin.
Isshin took it. "It says, 'I've come to take the star child home. You don't have to worry about him, I will keep him safe until time for his return to the east at the end of the line', and it's in Ichigo's handwriting. But there's written under it something else, can you read it?"
Nnoitra took it back and held it up closer to his eye. Just barely he could see sketched under the words written in Ichigo's heavy, blocky writing, were the words "Help me Papi". Nnoitra's heart hammered in his chest and he clutched the pad of paper to his chest.
"I don't understand. What does that even mean? 'Star child?' What does that even mean?" Nnoitra said, starting to panic a little.
"Well, first, we can't panic. We need to call the police. Probably Gin could help us figure out who to call," Isshin said, stepping back in the bedroom and grabbing his phone.
A few seconds later, he'd gotten a hold of Gin who had taken another room in the hotel for the night before with Kira so Ichigo and his family could have the night to themselves. It didn't take long for the silver haired man to return to the cabin to find Nnoitra pacing back and forth in the living room.
"Has anyone touched anything?" he asked as he came in, carefully coming in the door as not to touch it as he passed.
"I picked this up, but that's all," Nnoitra said as he passed the pad of paper to Gin.
"This doesn't make any sense. His return to the east at the end of the line? What kind of nonsense is this anyway?" Gin said as he read it. He looked up as there was another knock and saw it was Findorr again. He had also been planning to head back to San Diego this morning.
"Who could have taken him, though?" Nnoitra said. "He wouldn't just leave with anyone, and Ryūken is in jail, so it wasn't him."
"But maybe he had something to do with it," Isshin said slowly. "Just because he's locked up doesn't mean he can't have others do his dirty work. We know he was into drugs, so he knows people that might be willing to help him out and do something like this."
"Why, though? What good does this do?" Nnoitra asked, taking the paper back from Gin and showing it to Findorr.
"We don't know anything yet. First, we'll get a CSI unit out here and dust for prints to see if we can't get a hit off that. Other than that, maybe I should have a little chat with Ryūken again before I leave," Gin said, glancing over at Findorr. "He hasn't been transferred out of local police custody yet. I'll call and his transfer delayed until we figure this out."
"If he did anything to hurt him again…" Nnoitra said slowly.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We don't know what's happened yet. No need to get too worked up about him. We don't know for sure if he's involved," he said and reached up to pat Nnoitra on the shoulder. First things first. Let me make some calls, okay?" Gin glanced over to see Findorr was already on the phone, most likely with the police to get a CSI unit out to dust the place.
After a few minutes, a unit showed up and began going over Nnoitra and Ichigo's room and the front door. They got several partials on the door where he'd managed to pry the lock open. In the middle of everything, Harribel came to see what all the commotion was about. Gin took her outside and explained what had happened. She said she'd talk to Grimmjow and see if he could go around town to see if he could find anything out.
Nnoitra sat in the recliner staring at the pad of paper with Ichigo's writing on it. He was fighting back tears because he couldn't believe that fate could be so cruel as to take him away just when they thought everything was going to work out. He wiped away a stray tear before it fell onto the pad of paper. He smiled, finger tracing the heavy, blocky marks. His writing had improved a little, but he still wrote like a child with large block letters and he pushed down on the pencil too hard. He could feel the indention in the paper where he'd made the marks. He paused over the lighter marks. He hadn't wanted whoever took him to see that; that's why he'd written it so light.
"Nnoitra?" he hears and looked up to see Szayel come into the cabin, skirting the CSI guys that were packing up. He was carrying a small, white paper bag with him. "What happened? Are you okay? Someone took Ichigo?"
He looked up and nodded. "I woke up this morning and he was gone. The place had been broken into and he left this note, but I can't make sense of it."
Szayel sat down on the sofa and looked at the note. "This is crazy nonsense," he said with a sigh. "That doesn't mean anything that I can understand."
"How'd you hear already?" he asked, looking up and frowning at him.
"Oh, that, well Gin called Kira, you know his assistant? And Kira was at Shūhei's place last night, so after he left, Shūhei called me," Szayel explained. "He just said Ichigo was kidnapped and no one knew where he was."
Nnoitra nodded. "Yeah, I should have been a better protector of him," he said softly.
"Don't do that, Nnoi. You can't blame yourself. No one expected this to happen. Ryūken is put away, and that was the only danger we knew about," Szayel pointed out. "But word's already out and spreading. I ran into Grimmjow at the Firecracker when I stopped for this," he put the bag on the table between them.
"Doughnuts?" Nnoitra asked as he opened it to find the diner's fresh made doughnuts inside the bag. They smelled good, he thought.
"I figured you wouldn't eat otherwise," Szayel told him with a soft smile.
"What do I do?" Nnoitra asked as he pulled out a doughnut and started eating it slowly.
Szayel pulled one out of the bag and ate it thoughtfully for a minute. "You just gotta let the professionals handle it. Everyone I know is already looking for him. Someone saw something, it's just a matter of finding the person who did. That's all. We just have to wait."
They both looked up when Isshin came over from talking to Findorr. "They're going to interview Ryūken and see if he knows anything. It's a longshot, but it's worth a try. If he knows anything, he might not talk anyway, but they're going to try every angle they can."
Nnoitra nodded, his eyes dropping to the paper again, and this time he didn't stop the tears that welled.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
"You want me to tell you what exactly?" Ryūken snorted as he sat across from Findorr and Gin in the interview room.
"Did you have anything to do with his disappearance?" Findorr asked again.
"I'm locked up in here; how could I be involved in the brat's disappearance. Maybe he ran away like the infantile boy he is," Ryūken practically spat at them.
"We might be able to get you some leniency if you cooperate," Findorr said, frowning deeply at him. Behind him, his partner Isane stood back against the wall and watched them.
"Cooperate? How? I don't know anything about what you're talking about," Ryūken said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "How can I tell you anything?"
"Someone took him out of that building, and you said in one of your statements you knew where he was. How did you know he was at Tiberon Azul?" Findorr asked, pushing a transcript of his statement over toward him.
"I knew because that drugged up Kūgo told me," he said, looking away from the paperwork.
"Why would this Kūgo have that information?" Gin said, glancing over at Findorr.
"How should I know? He's mad as a fucking hatter, so go ask him, if you can find him," Ryūken said, glaring over at Gin.
Findorr flipped the page on the clipboard he was holding. "Where can we find him?"
"How should I know that either?" he said with a snort. "I got my drugs from him, and who knows what he was taking himself, though I think he should have taken a few more drugs as crazy as he is."
"You say he's crazy, why do you say that?" Isane said from behind Findorr.
"He's always talking about aliens and shit, like they talk to him and crap," he sighed, shaking his head. "Look, if I had anything for you to deal with, I'd deal. But I don't know anything that would do any good."
Gin didn't think he was lying as much as he hated to admit it. "Other than this Kūgo being 'crazy', do you know where he might hang out?"
"I told you, I don't know." He paused. "Well, he might be at Cang Du's place."
"Cang Du?" Findorr asked, making a note on the clipboard.
"Yeah, but if I give you Cang Du, what does it get me?" he said, narrowing his eyes at them.
"Depends on what Cang Du is doing," Findorr said as he looked over the notes he was making.
Ryūken was quiet for a minute. "He's a drug manufacturer. Has a meth house where he cooks it. Special attic room with filtration to keep anyone from smelling it. Kūgo often would hang out there and did a lot of his dealing. That's where I was staying after the brat got away from me."
Findorr was quite a moment, tapping his pen on the clipboard. "We can deal. I can put in a word with the judge, maybe get your bond lowered. I can't promise anything, but I know it'll look good if you're willing to hand over a drug dealer in the area."
"Alright, I'll write down the address for you," he said and reached for the clipboard. Ryūken took it and scribbled down an address and then handed it back to Findorr.
"That's all I know about the crazy bastard," he said with a shrug.
Gin stood up and left with Findorr and Isane as the bailiff took Ryūken back to a holding cell. As they walked out to the front, Findorr was already on the phone setting up to get the warrants for this Cang Du's place. A little investigating proved that he did indeed own the house at the address that Ryūken had given them. It took a lot longer than they wanted, but they eventually got a warrant to get into Cang Du's place. The local police handled the entry.
Within a few hours, they'd gone in the house and busted several people in the building, including Cang Du. Surprisingly, they didn't have any trouble other than a couple people trying to run. They found the meth lab and got out everyone that was working in it. They brought Cang out of the building and led him over where Findorr was standing with Isane and Gin.
"Yeah, what is it?" he said as they brought him over.
"We're looking for a man named Kūgo. Do you know where he is?" Findorr asked him after showing his badge.
"Kūgo?" Cang said with a thoughtful look. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in a couple days. Dunno where he could have gone. He usually comes by to pick up his drugs that he sells. I get in a shipment from Los Angeles about once a week, but he missed this week."
"Do you have any idea where he might be?" Gin asked. "Any idea at all?"
Cang shook his head. "I think he had a house down close to the docks, but I think he was squatting. I don't think he's actually got a place of his own. East side of them, if I remember right."
"You can take him," Findorr said and they escorted him away to a waiting police car.
"East?" Gin said. "The note Ichigo left said something about east. Maybe it means something?"
"There has to be some meaning in the words he left," Findorr said thoughtfully. "We're back to square one and it's almost sundown. We're not going to be able to get any information from anyone else today. We should head back to the hotel and hope something breaks."
"Anything come out of the prints?" Gin asked as they got back in Findorr's car.
"No matches, but they're still running it. However, since this Kūgo has disappeared at the same time, maybe he has something to do with it. The question is why?"
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Nnoitra couldn't sleep at all the next night. It was almost impossible to even shut his eyes without Ichigo beside him. Before he knew it, it was dawn again. He dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. As he washed himself, he found himself looking over the bar where Ichigo would sit and wait for him an he hadn't felt his heart ache so much in his life. He got out and dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He looked in the mirror and realized it was the shirt he'd put on Ichigo when he found him, the one he didn't want to take off.
He sighed and left the bathroom and went out in the front room where he found Isshin in the kitchen. Kisuke had come back again once he found out what had happened. Uryū, like Karin and Yuzu, had found out what happened when they woke up just after the CSI team had left.
"You're already up?" Nnoitra said as he came in. "I thought I was up early."
"Yeah, the girls were up early and left to go meet up with Tōshirō and Wonderweiss at the soccer field, and maybe go for lunch at the diner." Isshin put down a plate of breakfast for him. "Here, gotta keep going today."
Nnoitra nodded, looking around. "Where's Uryū?"
"Oh, Chad came by this morning when he heard what had happened. They've gone down the beach again," Isshin said as he went back in the kitchen.
Kisuke came out and sat down. "How are you doing with everything?"
"As well as I can, I guess. I want to find him. He doesn't need something like this happening to him now. He's been through enough," Nnoitra said as he slowly began eating what had been fixed for him.
Isshin came out and they passed the rest of the morning in silence. He helped put away the dishes and heard his phone going off. He saw it was Szayel.
"Yeah?" he said, not expecting much.
"That note, it said something about the star child, right?" Szayel said excitedly.
Nnoitra's brow crinkled a bit. "Yeah."
"That nutter, um, that guy they were looking for, Kūgo I think was his name. He comes down to the Firecracker all the time and after that video Lilynette did on you, he started going on about a star child. Said something about him being here, and it had something to do with taking him home to the aliens," Szayel told him. "I just talked to a couple of the people in the group that meets there to talk alien shit, and he shows up now and then. But for the last couple months all he's talked about is the star child."
"Call Gin and tell him what you found out," Nnoitra said as Isshin and Kisuke came in the room and glanced at him.
As he clicked off Isshin spoke up. "Did you hear something?"
"I think we know for sure that that Kūgo guy has him," Nnoitra said as he put his phone in his pocket. He told them what Szayel had said.
"They're already looking for the guy. Maybe someone from that group of people might know where he lives?" Nnoitra wondered out loud.
"Maybe. I'm sure Gin will get on it," Isshin said as he dropped into the sofa. "We're stuck waiting again."
After a couple of hours, Isshin's phone rang. He answered. He listened for a few minutes and then told whoever it was okay and hung up. He looked over at Nnoitra. "They're sweeping the docks and abandoned buildings to find out where he's squatting. No one knew exactly where he was staying, just that it was down on the east side of the docks."
"Again, with the waiting," Nnoitra said with a sigh. He felt so useless right then. It had been most the day so far, and nothing had come of it. Waiting was all they could do. Wait and hope.
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Gin knocked on the old house's door. No answer came from within. He looked back at Findorr who was behind him, gun drawn. This was the fifth place they'd checked, and the sun was going down. If they didn't find something soon, they were going to lose the light completely. Gin pulled his phone out and turned on the flashlight to look around the place.
"This one looks lived in," he said as he walked around.
The broken-down furniture was arranged like someone had been using it recently. He came into the kitchen and saw there were canned goods, some opened up, on the counter, and a chair. The chair was out of place in the middle of the kitchen. As he got closer, there were electrical cords from something lying beside the chair, and on the floor was a delicate blue collar. Gin knelt to pick it up and recognized it immediately.
"He was here," he said softly.
"But where is he now?" Findorr asked as he looked around.
"East and the End of the line…" Gin muttered under his breath as he fingered the blue collar. "Wait!"
"You have an idea?" Findorr asked as he pulled out his phone to call in the location.
"East. What's east of here?" Gin asked, looking at him.
Findorr shrugged. "I'm not from here."
Gin turned off the flashlight and dialed Nnoitra's number quickly. After a second, he picked up. "Yeah?"
"Nnoitra, what's to the east of the east docks in town?" he asked urgently.
"East of east docks?" he repeated. "Um, not much. There's the old pier that's down a ways from the docks. But no one goes there because it's been blocked off for being unsafe. It hasn't been used in a few years, but that's really the only thing that's further east than the docks. Why?"
Gin thought about it. "I found the house he had him in, but they're gone. I was thinking that the note he left might clue us in to what he's doing. He mentioned the East and the end of the line. Could he mean that old pier?" he wondered out loud, locking eyes with Findorr who was still on his phone with the police station.
"Maybe. It is the furthest east point in Las Noches. But why would he take him to a pier?" Nnoitra asked, sounding confused.
"The people at the Diner said that he constantly talked about the star child and how finding him would lead to the aliens picking him up. He was desperate to get to these aliens of his. He'd do anything to get to them. Anything at all."
-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-
Ichigo stumbled, nearly falling again as Kūgo pushed him again. They were walking down a long stretch of beach that was covered with rocks and driftwood. He'd tied his hands behind him with a piece of the electrical cord and led him out of the house just before sunset. They'd been walking for a while, and Ichigo had yet to see anyone at all.
"We're almost there!" Kūgo said in an excited voice. "It's so close! They're really out there, waiting for us!"
Ichigo had tried to bolt a couple times. He had no idea where he was going to go, he just wanted to get away from him. Each time, he'd gotten smacked in the back of the head with the knife he was carrying. He could feel blood dripping down his neck, and he thought his vision was a little fuzzy. He thought that couldn't be good.
The last two days had been a nightmare. He'd spent most of it tied to the chair while Kūgo went over and over his plans and telling him what these aliens of his said to him. It was all utter nonsense, Ichigo knew, but rather than be hit again, he played along. He tried to ask him questions that would make him see it was all in his head, but it didn't do any good. He didn't want to listen at all, and it was obvious that he wasn't going to change his mind. The only time he'd let him get up was to let him use the bathroom, which was embarrassing because there was no running water, so he had to go outside, and Kūgo wouldn't let him do it alone.
They came to an area with a fence that said do not cross. Kūgo didn't let that stop him, though. He pulled at the fence until he found a place loose enough to pull it free. He shoved Ichigo forward through the fence. Ichigo winced as the wires scratched into his skin on his arms and legs. They came through the fence and Ichigo saw they were closer to the water now. He could just make out the end of a pier. There was a huge sign hanging over the end of it with the words DO NOT ENTER in bold letters. Another sign read DANGER. Ichigo swallowed and looked around. It was full dark now, and there wasn't a soul to be seen anywhere near them.
"Come on! They're waiting for us!" Kūgo said and tried to shove Ichigo forward.
"No, look, you gotta think this through. There's no aliens and we're just going to drown out there!" Ichigo tried and struggled to get away from him. He was weak though. He hadn't given him anything to eat and very little drink in the time he'd held him.
"Stop! You may be the star child, but you don't have to be awake for them to pick us up!" Kūgo said, jerking him toward the end of the pier. "I've waited all my life for this! You are not going to take it away now that it's so close."
"There's nothing close!" Ichigo nearly yelled. Maybe someone would hear him. "There's no ship in the water! You're crazy!"
Again, the word triggered an immediate reaction and Ichigo found himself on the ground with his head ringing. That couldn't be good. Kūgo grabbed him up by the arm and pulled his face close to him.
"I will go with them. It is you they come for, so it is you I take to them," he said and Ichigo tried to get his feet under him again.
"Please! There's nothing out there, Kūgo!" Ichigo tried as he pushed him past the posted warning signs onto the wood of the pier. The wood creaked as he stepped on it. "Nothing! There's no ship!"
"It's there, you just can't see it!" Kūgo said and dragged him forward again toward what?
It was the end of the line, he thought to himself as they slowly trudged to the end of the pier. Once there, Kūgo stopped and stared up at the moon. He turned and smiled at Ichigo.
"I'm so happy. All my life I've waited for it," he said with an awestruck sound in his voice.
Ichigo thought he heard voices, and for a second, he had to wonder if Kūgo's insanity was rubbing off on him. He turned and looked behind him. There was a flash of light in that direction. He started pulling away from Kūgo again, trying to jerk his arm out of his grip, but he couldn't.
"It's time!" he said and grabbed Ichigo by both arms and shoved him over the end of the pier into the cold water below.