Yey! A long chapter! I forgot to do my disclaimer so… I don't own bleach or any of the characters, I just think they rock!

~Flashback~

Rangiku walked through the seemingly calm streets of the Rukon district. 'the poverty rate hasn't changed since I was last here.' She thought. She was making her way through the town to a tavern where she was going to meet lieutenants Izuru Kira and Shuuhe Hisagi for a drink but before she stepped inside she felt a familiar reiatsu.

'Captain!' she thought, 'and it feels like he's fighting someone powerful!'

As fast as she could, Rangiku made her way through the busy streets, ignoring the protests of many angry passerbies'. Nearing the edge of town, she felt her captain's reiatsu spike. 'Not too much further.' She ran past the outskirts of the town to what she had believed to be an uninhabited area. It was a large field with green and yellow grass that rose to her mid-thigh. In the middle of the field was a small building. She ran towards it, feeling another spike in her captain's reiatsu. Reaching the door, she through it open and raced inside, only to find the room empty.

'Strange,' Rangiku thought, 'I can feel captain's reiatsu, but he's not here!' she stepped into the center of the room, looking around and being very cautious. Reaching for Heineko, her grey-blue eyes spotted a shadow of movement, but before she could react, she was knocked to the floor, hands pinned behind her back and a sword to her throat.

"Don't move!" a gruff voice sounded behind her, she stopped struggling, "get up!" with some difficulty, Rangiku got up and surveyed her position. There were two other men in the room, one had confiscated Heineko. He smirked as he unsheathed the beautiful blade. The steal shone in the dim light.

"Nice sword." The man holding Heineko smirked. Rangiku glared daggers at the man who seemed not to notice. The two men pulled back a rug in the middle of the floor. Rangiku watched with rising curiosity, despite her predicament, as the rug was moved revealing a trap door in the floor. One of the men opened the door and she was pushed down a set of dark stairs.

Walking down the seemingly endless dark stairwell, Rangiku could hear the clanging of swords. They reached the bottom and Rangiku saw her captain fighting a man twice his height. This was not unusual considering Toshiro's height, but the man was a head taller than everyone else in the room.

Forgetting herself, Rangiku called out to him. He turned, and at the sight of her, his face went white as a sheet. The tall man said something Rangiku could not make out, she then gasped in disbelief as Toshiro dropped Hyourinmaru and lowered his head, as the tall man just laughed, an evil, menacing laugh which sent shivers down Rangiku's spine.

She was pulled onto a platform and chained to the ceiling. But she wasn't paying attention to that, no she was paying attention to the sword which kept slowly cutting her captain. Blood was soon running down the small captain's chest, arms, and face. 'Why isn't he fighting back?' she thought. Hyourinmaru was lying at Toshiro's feet, yet he made no move to grab him.

Rangiku could only watch as the sword repeatedly bit the flesh of her captain, tearing his shihakusho, and revealing bleeding flesh. But he didn't flinch, nor did he fight back, he stood there, taking it as his tormentor laughed, that evil, menacing laugh.

This continued for what seemed like an eternity, then suddenly, he stopped. There was no more laughing, no more slashing, nothing. Rangiku watched as the man lowered his sword and began trembling. She looked at Hitsugaya, he was swaying a little, a pool of his own blood at his feet, but his eyes… his eyes were as cold and defiant as ever. This seemed to anger the man, who dropped his sword and punched Toshiro's face. Rangiku cried out as her captain fell to the ground. The man then kicked the young captain so hard he flew across the room, crashing into the wall. The strawberry blonde cringed as she heard the sound of ribs cracking.

The man was now towering over Toshiro. He bent down and grabbed the boy around the neck raising him up to meet the man's sinister face. Despite himself, the boy could not help but grasp the man's huge arms in a feeble attempt to let oxygen flow freely into his lungs.

Leaning his face toward Toshiro's ear, the man spoke. "I was going to kill you quickly, but now by the time I'm through with you, you will be so broken, you will beg for death!" he then through the white haired boy across the room, where he skidded to a stop by Rangiku's platform.

Tears formed in her eyes as she watched them order her captain to get up, only for him to try, but fall back down. Suddenly, she cried out as something hit her back, she turned and saw a man, who had been there the whole time, had hit her in the back with a large stick.

"Get up!" the man ordered Toshiro again. Slowly he got up, swaying dangerously, blood flowing from his body. "Let's see how an ice wielder reacts to heat." Two men came up behind him and pulled off his haori, then tore off the top of his shihakusho, revealing his chest. Despite the multiple wounds covering his body, Rangiku couldn't help but notice his finely toned muscles.

Toshiro's body shook from everything they put him through, but his eyes never lost a hint of their defiance. Even after his tormentors took hot metal to his flesh, even after they whipped him and beat him and preformed almost every imaginable torture, he did not cry out.

Rangiku's mind went numb, she heard herself scream over and over for them to stop, and over and over she heard that laugh she hated so much, but not one sound emitted from the child captain. 'Why are they doing this?' she thought. 'What reason do they have to torment him like this? Why isn't he fighting back? It makes no sense!'

Rangiku could not tell how long it had been before her captain's body collapsed in an unconscious heap, unable to take it any more. One of the men unchained Rangiku and allowed her to go to Toshiro. She didn't know why, but she wasn't about to complain.

She knelt down and cradled his limp form. "Oh captain."

"Do you know how to heal?" The tall man suddenly asked her.

"What?" she was caught off guard.

"Do you know how to heal?" he asked again more firmly.

"O-only a little." She wasn't sure where this was going.

"stop his bleeding and heal any life threatening wounds." She looked up, confused. "We can't have him dying in the middle of our fun now can we." There was that menacing laugh again.

Ignoring the man, Rangiku set to work on healing her captain. She felt somewhat guilty, knowing she was only doing this so they could prolong his torture, but she wanted to help him in any way possible.

Rangiku had stopped the bleeding and was about to move on to a very nasty looking wound when a movement of Hitsugaya's head caught her attention. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at her. "R-Rangiku?" the usual strength in his voice was gone, for the first time since he had been her captain she heard… weakness.

"Shhh captain, it's okay." She whispered as she began healing his wound.

"Where are the men?" he whispered.

"Still in here… Captain, why won't you fight back?"

He was about to answer her when the man heard them and cut him off. "I see he's awake." He roughly pulled Rangiku up. "Enough of that, you go to your cells and we start again tomorrow."

Rangiku was hauled away by two men as her captain was carried (none too gently) over the shoulder of the tall man. They were thrown into the cells next to each other and left for the night. Scanning the room, Rangiku noticed a face-sized whole in the wall. She went over and peered inside. Luck would have it that it connected to Toshiro's cell. She saw him lying in the middle of the stone floor, curled up in a ball.

"Captain." She whispered. Teal-blue eyes looked up to meet hers, they were softer now. "Are you alright?" it was a dumb question, but she didn't know what else to say.

"Y-yes." The walls went up as he tried to bar his pain from her.

"Why don't you fight back?" she asked again.

He hesitated, "because… I don't… I don't want them to hurt you." His voice was so quiet, Rangiku counted it a miracle she was able to hear him.

"What?"

"If… if I don't… do what they say," the weakness and vulnerability was back in the child-captain's voice, "they'll hurt… or even kill you… depending on what I do."

Rangiku was filled with mixed emotions, she wanted to cradle Toshiro in her arms, protecting him the way he was protecting her. She was angry, she wanted to barge through the doors of her prison and massacre every last one of those men who were using her to torment her captain. She was confused, she wanted to know why these men were doing what they were doing, these and many other questions were running through her head. "Captain?" but the little captain was already asleep, she curled up and did likewise.

Sleep came and went too quickly for the strawberry- blonde. Too soon the men were hauling her back out of her cell, and re-chaining her to the ceiling. The room was the same as she had left, except now there was a chair in the middle of the room with wires running in a tangled mess around it all hooked up to one large machine.

Soon after Rangiku was chained up, Toshiro was dragged out by the arm, stumbling on a few loose chords. They placed him on the chair and strapped down his arms and legs. They then connected wires to his body. The tall man smiled; a smile that could only be matched by his laugh in its ability to make Rangiku shudder.

"Now we'll see how strong this boy really is." He was about to give the signal when-

"WAIT!" Rangiku yelled out. He turned, showing her she had his attention. "Could you at least tell me why you're doing this? Why are you trying to kill my captain?"

This provoked a reaction, the man's eyes glazed over, his body went ridged, and his voice, when he spoke was drone-like and robotic. "That information is classified." This change startled the lieutenant, 'what is he?' she thought.

As quickly as the trance came, it was gone and the man was giving the signal for the control man to start. Rangiku turned her attention to Toshiro; he was jerking around in his chair, eyes wide, teeth clenched. The man made a flick of his hand, and the man at the control turned a knob slightly clockwise. Hitsugaya began to jerk around more fiercely. This continued for a while, but then the man ordered the torment to stop. Toshiro's body shook.

The man walked over to the trembling captain and slapped him across the face. "You will succumb to the torment, and you will scream." He stated coolly, but his eyes screamed in anger. He walked over to the control panel and every man's eyes went wide as he turned the knob al the way up, then pushed the button. No one's eyes were as wide as Toshiro's. his body shook uncontrollably, Rangiku could physically see the electricity that was shocking him, but what really scared her was his scream. She'd heard him yell, out of anger or annoyance, but never, in all her time of being his lieutenant, had she heard him scream. It was… unearthly.

One of the men behind her began beating her with his stick, but her mind was too numb to notice. The sight and sound of her captain tore her heart. Then she noticed the tears streaming down his face.

"Stop It!" she screamed, her voice sounded weird to her ears. She was struggling against her chains, the stick coming down more and more frequently. She felt moisture coming down her own face, tears.

She suddenly felt the air get cold, ice formed around her, encasing her. Rangiku looked to the men, none of them were being frozen, she started to panic. The ice encased her, giving her enough breathing room, but strong enough so the man's stick couldn't penetrate it. She then looked to her captain and saw a kido blast form in his hand.

"HADO 33: SOTKUTSUI!"