Disclaimer: Don't want to do this don't want to do this don't want to do this…

Sorry, but I haven't typed anything I liked for Vulpes Alveus in a while! So you need to understand my hesitance to writing this chapter. Especially since I haven't really written ANYTHING that I was happy with for a while…and unless I find a way to totally stall in this chapter, then Ichigo's going to make his grand appearance in Las Noches, which means that this chapter has to be written good…or well…or…

Gah, I'm American and I still suck at the English language.

PLEASE forgive me if this chapter sucks. ^^'

WARNING!: Multiple Timeskips ahead, brought to you by the Lazy Authoress Incorporation.

Chapter 15

Dolebit

They weren't stupid. They knew the reason that he was there, the reason that Aizen had assigned him to be one of Naruto's Fraccion. Garras Tigre had been trained to be one of Aizen's "right-hand Arrancars," the ones that didn't carry the title of Espada. The group that Tigre was a part of was like the Internal Affairs of the Las Noches, and just as disliked by most Arrancars as the IA agents were to the police officers and detectives in the World of the Living. To say that Senza, Riko, Toba, and Mojo weren't happy with his arrival was an understatement.

"What are you doing here?" Toba demanded, glaring suspiciously at the young Arrancar that had entered Naruto's wing uninvited and unannounced.

"I have been sent here under the orders of Aizen-sama." Tigre deadpanned. "Something happened with the way that Aizen-sama is keeping Vulpes-sama under control, and I am to report if anything should happen again."

"So you're here to be a whistle-blower!" Senza accused, frowning. "Well, we're not going to let you say or do anything that will harm Naruto. Leave. Now." He growled threateningly, his hand twitching towards the hilt of his Zonpaktou(A/N: YES I spell that wrong. I know the correct spelling for Zonpaktou and rietsu, I just choose to ignore them.). Tigre's eyes narrowed, his right arm raising slowly to hover halfway up his chest in preparation to draw his Zonpaktou if need be.

"Well, I'm here under the orders of our Lord, who outranks Vulpes-sama and makes your feelings of loyalty void." Tigre shot back. "Don't worry - so long as the demon does as he's supposed to, no harm will come to him. And if there is no reason for me to be here, then I fill be transferred out again."

"Good." Senza snorted, turning and storming away. "Let's hope that that day comes fast!" Mojo shot her hand in the air.

"I don't know what's going on!" She announced loudly. Riko, in one of her serious moods, blinked, and met eyes with Toba.

"I'll explain." She said and pulled her apprentice aside, talking to her in hushed tones. After a few minutes, Mojo was staring with narrowed eyes at Tigre, biting her lower lip. She opened her mouth to call something across the room, but was interrupted as the doors to the wing opened.

Naruto strolled in, one of his hands running through his wild hair while he sighed. "Damn, my head hurts…" He muttered, wincing as his hand pressed a bit to firmly on the jewel in the center of his forehead. He made a confused sound when his eyes landed on Tigre. "Who're you?"

"Garras Tigre, sir." Tigre said with a low bow. "Aizen-sama assigned me to you, if you'll have me."

"Like he has a choice." Senza growled from one side of the large room. Luckily, or unluckily as some would view it, Naruto muttered, at the same time, something that sounded suspiciously like:

"They're multiplying like damn rabbits…"

For a few moments, the room was silent, Naruto's Fraccion staring at him, and Naruto gazing at Tigre. Finally, Naruto blinked slowly, then shrugged.

"Okay." A few of the Fraccion sweat dropped, and Riko tripped over a table. Another pause. "My head hurts." Pause. "I'm gonna take a nap." And just as quickly as he arrived, he was gone, disappearing back into his room where a shout of: "WHAT THE HELL? WHY IS MY ROOF MISSING?" followed. Apparently, Naruto had forgotten about Riko and Senza's idea to break the entire tower. An awkward silence reigned, nobody really wanting to be the one to start any conversations. At one point or another, Tigre moved to one of the couches and plopped down, staring at the far wall with disinterest. Riko and Mojo went off on something that Mojo had claimed as "an adventure," and Toba and Senza were sitting at a low table. Toba had taken it upon himself to teach Senza how to play American chess the right way, and within the first five minutes Senza had gotten bored, resulting in him throwing all of his pieces at Toba's chest with the declaration of "SNEAK ATTACK!" To bad nobody had thought over what Mojo had said before the Dangerous Duo had left, or had thought to go find them and stop them.

Poor, poor Gin. After all, having superglue in place of shampoo never ended well.

:::One Week Later:::

Tigre had seemed to have adjusted to the schedule of Naruto and his Fraccion, in the sense that he now slept and ate when they did. Now, expecting him to be used to their behavior - such as the Fraccion slowly losing their habit of calling Naruto "Vulpes-sama," "Naruto-sama," or anything else respectful - was ridiculous.

Naruto, though, couldn't find out why his other Fraccion acted mostly cold to the quiet teen. Sure, while he was quiet they were mostly loud when around one another, but they practically alienated him, no matter how much Naruto tried to get them to warm up to him. Getting a new teammate was hard, he knew that, but they didn't seem to be trying to make any progress in becoming a functioning team. Tigre didn't seem to be to thrilled on the idea of learning to be a team, either, and when Naruto took his Fraccion out into the desert inside of Las Noches to train, Tigre usually trained on his own and at a distance. Only recently had he started to join in on a few training exercises. Naruto had forced him, but that was so not the point.

At the moment, Naruto was following Grimmjow around Las Noches, doing his best to annoy the cat-like man. His most effective way to annoy him was to spray him in the back of the head with a squirt-gun filled with water that Naruto had mixed with sugar and flour to the point that the water was horribly sticky and smelled sickly sweet, along with carrying around a cloth collar with a bell on it, jingling the bell.

His Fraccion were busy on a "training trip" around the perimeter of Las Noches to build their teamwork skills, so what else was he to do? (:::Inner Las Noches Perimeter::: "Stop hitting me!" Senza demanded. For a moment, Mojo stopped slapping his shin with the bleached skull of a Hollow she had dug up. But then she began again, hitting him in the shin every time he took a step, making him fall over and stand back up, only to be knocked down again. Toba was conveniently ignoring them while Riko was off setting up some type of explosive. Tigre, like Toba, was being wise - staying out of Riko's way, and making sure that Mojo didn't come close enough to try and impale him on the horn of the Hollow's skull :::Back With Naruto…)

"C'mon, Catman!" Naruto taunted, jingling the bell on the collar with a grin. "The caped vigilante of Las Noches needs to wear his collar! It symbolizes everything that you stand for!"

"It's Batman that's a caped vigilante. And what the hell does a stupid collar stand for?"

"No, you're Catman. The distant cousin of Batman, and the estranged evil-twin-half-step-brother of Catwoman." Naruto corrected quickly. "And he stands for Truth, Justice, and the Catnip-For-All Doctrine!"

"You're just spewing shit now."

"No I'm not!"

"…you got that freaky jewel limiter in your head screwed in to tight when Szayel fixed it for you, didn't you."

"No…maybe…yes…that's beside the point, put on your collar!"

"I will do no such thing!" Grimmjow snapped, stopping and glaring briefly at the orange-haired fox that insisted on following him. When Naruto just continued to stare at him with the same expression, he snorted and continued on his way down the hall.

"If you won't put it on to help start the Kitten Revolution-"

"Why are you such an idiot?"

"-then can you at least put it on so that animal control doesn't start following you?"

"Wha…?"

"Hey, I remember this one time when I was in the World of the Living, a dog catcher followed me for a good half-day. They're bloody persistent!" Naruto was completely serious now. "They're annoying, too. So, you don't have to wear it right now, but promise me that if you ever go into your Resurreccion in the Human World, or randomly get turned into a cat or randomly go back to your original Hollow form…" He held up the collar. "…that you will wear protection."

"Screw contemplating homicide, I'm just doing it!" SQUIRT! "Gah! What the hell?" Grimmjow snapped, frantically trying to rub the annoying sugar-flour-water mixture out of his hair before it could dry and turn into a crust that somehow had a consistency similar to instant cement. Wasn't impossible to get out, but hurt like hell when trying to pull it out of his hair.

"So where're you going, anyway?" Naruto asked, keeping the squirt gun pressed against the back of Grimmjow's head. He looked around at the halls. "I don't remember this place…"

Not surprised… Grimmjow thought. You've never been down here before. Technically, Naruto wasn't supposed to be down in these particular halls. But if what the rumors said were true, then no matter who Naruto saw, no matter what they had meant to him before, he wouldn't know them, and would never recognize them. It would be like he was meeting them for the first time ever. "You never had a reason to go down here." Technically, a truth. "You were never interested in the prison wing of Las Noches." NOT a truth, not even a technical one. Naruto squinted, frowning. Then he shrugged.

"…meh. Can't remember." Grimmjow blinked, understanding and even expecting it. Still, he played along.

"Can't remember?" He scoffed. "How hard did the Reapers hit you on the head, exactly?"

"Pretty damn hard, apparently." Naruto paused. "You never answered my question, you know!" He declared, spraying Grimmjow on the back of the head two more times with the squirt gun.

"Dammit! What question was that?" Grimmjow growled through his grit teeth, hurriedly combing his fingers through his hair to rid it of the offending substance.

"Where you're going!"

"A prison cell. Duh." Naruto nodded slowly.

"The comrade of the Reapers. Why?" Grimmjow waved around the stump of what remained of his arm that had been sliced off a while back. He had never really gotten a replacement arm - typically, a severed arm could be repaired by the medical team of Arrancars and Szayel, but Grimmjow's arm had been completely destroyed. The arm could only be fixed if it was still whole.

"I want my arm back."

There had been rumors going around that the comrade of the Reapers that had been kidnapped was not overly skilled in fighting, but what she lacked in battle abilities she made up for in healing. She could, allegedly, heal almost any wound, no matter how bad it was. Reverse time. That's what some claimed. But no amount of rumors had ever caused enough curiosity for Naruto to sniff out wherever she was being held. And if he focused on the thought, he just felt like he shouldn't go see where the rumors had come from. Like somebody would tell him "no" before he could even try. Even now, knowing where he was headed, he had the urge, the instinct, to turn around and walk away. Probably get lost, but still walk away. And Naruto was always one to trust his instincts, no matter how much they didn't make sense.

"On that note…" Naruto thought out loud, unscrewing the cap at the back of the squirt gun and jerking the small plastic pistol so all of its contents shot out and hit Grimmjow's back. While the man yowled - screaming and cussing and throwing insults - Naruto turned and trotted off with a content smile.

After a few minutes, his pace began to slow. Right as he had been turning around, a scent had caught his attention. The scent of the female comrade of the Reapers, that was obvious. It had been easy to ignore at first - after all, a scent was just a scent, and it didn't mean anything important to him. Scents could be ignored. But the farther he got away, the more something in the back of his mind was nagging him, pushing through the instinct that told him to walk away, replacing it with something along the lines of "turn your ass around and GO."

It's just a boring, meaningless human. He thought, frowning even as he stopped moving in the hall. There's absolutely no reason for me to turn around. So what if she can heal any wound? I'm not wounded. She's a human, I'm a demon. There's no reason for me to go see her. Even as he thought this, he was already turning around, walking back down the hall at a slow pace.

He reached the spot that he had left Grimmjow and continued on, following the scent trail left by the blue-haired man. It wound through the hallways, going around corners and down a stairwell, before going back up another two levels. Finally, the scent stopped at a large pair of doors - the scent also exited the room, this trail that wandered away being fresher than the one that had led Naruto through the halls in the first place. Grimmjow had already left. Naruto frowned, hesitating. He scratched at his forehead with his left hand, his claws sliding over the jewel in his forehead soundlessly. He grunted, his eyes narrowing while gripping the handle on the door. What harm could come from him going into the room with the captured female? At the very least, he'd be able to freak her out with his ears…

With his fox ears swiveled around backwards, and the same instinct that had broken through the previous one almost seeming to shout with a muffled voice, Naruto yanked the door open, and stepped into the gloom.

:::Orihime's "Room":::

Grimmjow had visited her a few minutes ago, demanding none to nicely that she heal his arm. She had managed to pull it back together, just as she always could, and he had went on his way with just a grunt of thanks. She had been left in silence after that, sitting on her bed and staring out the high window at the ever-present moon.

She knew that Naruto was in Las Noches. At least, knew that he HAD been in Las Noches. Who knew what had happened to him? She wasn't as good as a Soul Reaper Captain in sensing spiritual signatures, that was for sure, but she had always been able to do it. And now, whenever she searched for Naruto's signature…it just wasn't there. It hadn't been in a long time. But there was so many signatures to sort through, all Arrancar signatures. Naruto could, potentially, be any one of them and not even know it. For all she knew, he was being held in the room directly next to hers.

She bit her lip, frowning. Ichigo was sure to come for them, by himself if he had to. That fact wasn't debatable. He would come. Yes, she would be happy, but also sad. Arrancars were strong. She had learned that after becoming slightly familiar with a few of them. Ichigo was strong, too, but strong enough to take on all of Las Noches? Probably not.

He door opened quietly behind her, somebody shuffling in as the door closed automatically behind them. She didn't look away from the window for the first few milliseconds, figuring that the Arrancar - or Soul Reaper, if it was Aizen or one of his two Reaper friends - would call her attention to them eventually. But then she felt the signature. It was horribly disfigured, and she almost didn't recognize it. But he had always had something odd about his signature. Something not human.

Something demonic.

She jumped up and whirled around, her eyes wide and a cry being ripped from her lips that made the other jump, his own eyes - black sclera and yellow irises that weren't normal for him - mirroring her own shock. His fox ears were backwards in his hair, as they commonly were, and pressed down to the top of his head, nearly getting lost in his hair.

His hand twitched up, almost seeming to be going for the hilt of his Zonpaktou that peeked over his shoulder.

She was going to run to him. Run and give him the largest hug that she could manage. He was the first familiar face, the first relatively friendly face that she had seen since she had been taken from the World of the Living. But something was right. Not just his eyes, or how he had bandaged wrapped around his throat with old blood that was arranged in a pattern that mimicked the number of an Espada. It was also the jewel planted in the middle of his forehead, swirling black and purple as if it was alive. She had seen that before…

:Flashback:

Aizen pulled out a small, marble-sized sphere of black and purple, the two colors swirling and mixing constantly, but never completely melting together. He presented it to her, showing her with his sickly-sweet smile. She didn't miss how there was a sizeable shard missing from the orb. He hadn't mentioned it when showing her the orb, but she knew that he had wanted her to see it.

:Flashback End:

"Crap, you scared the hell outta me." The familiar-but-not fox breathed, his hand slowly lowering. She knew something was off. Even just having the teenage demon speak, she already knew that he wasn't 100% right. But even so, she couldn't stop the flicker of hope from growing and making itself known.

"N-Naruto…" She whispered, and instantly clapped a hand over her mouth. But he had heard it. He always heard. One of his fox ears twitched, and his eyes narrowed, his eyebrows lowering in confusion.

"How do you know my name?" He demanded. "I don't know you. How do you know my name?" He asked again after Orihime said nothing for a few seconds, though the seconds felt like minutes.

"Naruto…" She whispered again, taking a step forward. As soon as she twitched forward, her jerked back, his eyes still narrowed in what now Orihime identified as pain. He was wincing as well, his hand twitching in a conscious effort to keep his hand from flying to his head in a futile attempt to stop the headache that was surely there. "You're…Vulpes Naruto…" He bared his fangs in a silent growl.

"How do you know me?" She took another step, tears beginning to well in her eyes. She had been so close. So close…so close to finding somebody that could keep her company… The fox snarled, slashing a hand through the air and missing by feet.

The doors to her room opened, revealing the First Espada Starrk and Lilynette. The girl rushed inside, attaching to Naruto's hip like a magnet, staring at Orihime. She knew what was going on, knew why Naruto didn't know Orihime. She knew, and she cared, but she wasn't going to say anything to fix any of it.

"Naruto," Starrk yawned, pausing. "let's go."

"Wait, Coyote." Naruto snapped, swinging his head around to glare at him briefly, before turning back to Orihime. "How. Do. You. Know. My. Name?"

"Okay, time to go." Starrk said as soon as Naruto finished his sentence, entering and wrapping an arm around his chest. He dragged him and Lilynette backwards, through the door.

"Oi, stop! I'm talking to her! How do you know my name? Who are you?" The door slammed shut, Lilynette trying to talk over Naruto, asking the fox to go play with her.

As soon as they were gone, silent tears streaked down Orihime's cheeks. She had thought…hoped that she had found a friendly figure, finally. But no. Naruto wouldn't be there to keep her company. Because that wasn't Naruto. Whoever that was…she didn't know what had happened to make Naruto not know her, but if there was even a slim chance of him remembering, she sure as hell was going to do it.

:::With Naruto:::

His head burned. His mind was in agony. He could feel every heartbeat reverberate through his skull, and he grit his teeth and fangs in an effort to stop the ringing. Not that it did anything, but feeling his teeth strain helped him focus on one thing, and try to ignore the pain and confusion that currently plagued him. Why had that one human - seeing her, smelling her scent - made him react this way? He had felt instant happiness, had wanted to run up to her and smile, to tell her about his life in Las Noches and ask her about how hers had been going since…since when? Since a few months prior? A few years? Since her birth? He didn't know her, so why would he want to know how she had been for the past few weeks?

When we walked through the door to his wing he didn't pay his Fraccion any heed, just stumbled right past them with a hand to his forehead, the heel of that hand grinding into his shut-tight eyes as he just waved them off as he passed. He staggered blindly into his room, kicking his door closed with his foot and not caring that it bounced halfway open after him. He flopped down on his bed, burying his face in his pillow. It felt like only a few minutes but it must have been a few hours when a sharp rapping echoed off of his partially opened door.

"Sir?" It was Toba - looked like he had drawn the short straw for who would come in to see why the demon was acting so strange. Usually when demons acted strange it ended with quite a few deaths. "Are you alright, sir?"

"Hnnnn." Naruto groaned through the pillow without moving.

"Uh…I'm afraid I don't understand." Naruto lifted his head a few inches from his pillow, keeping his eyes closed - even with such low light his eyes burned.

"Headache, that's all." Naruto announced before letting his head fall back onto his pillow. "Let me rest a little, okay? I should be better by morning."

"Alright." Toba nodded, turning on his heels and walking out of the room to report to his teammates. He would late to tell Naruto that it was already morning - that he had already passed the entire night in his room - for later.

:::Next Day:::

By the next morning, Naruto - who had slept for 24 hours without knowing it - had decided what he would do. Not telling anybody he snuck out of his wing in fox form, his pads keeping his footsteps silent as he crept down the empty and quite corridors. A few times he had to run, keeping his body close to the ground, to get away from Arrancars that were awake as early as he was. Why he was being so secretive he had no idea, but his instincts were telling him that nobody should know what he was planning to do. His instincts were hardly ever wrong.

He made it to the door in record time, his head swinging from side to side to search for any nearby Arrancars. Eyes, ears, nor nose found any scent besides his and the human's. Keeping on his toes, literally and metaphorically, he pushed the door open with his nose, surprised that it was opened so easily and without a key. Couldn't the human just get up and walk out? What was stopping her? Was she even a prisoner at all?

She was asleep on her bed, her eyes red and puffy and her cheeks stained with tears. He sat down on the ground across the room, his tail curling around over his paws. He would sit, and he would wait for her to wake up. And when she did, they would talk.

They had a lot to talk about.

Sorry it's so short, but hey, at least I got the chapter out this month! I'm exhausted, my great grandfather just died, so I figured I'd end it here and see if I can get out another chapter before I have to focus on "Gatekeeper: Divinity" and "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing." So, here's hoping that you liked the chapter, and that I'll get another one out soon!

Chapter 15: Dolebit - Chapter 15: Pain/Ache.

~ Kitsune-242