Hello my darlings! This one is just under 4,000 word so it's kind of short, but fulfilling none the less. Plus it's an early update so can you really be mad at me. Especially if I get you the next chapter out at the regular time? Thought not. Thanks to Kage Kurai, AbsoluteReader1995, Phantom Claire, and KageNekoReborn for reviewing.
Absolute Reader: Its coming, I swear!
WARNINGS: This gets kind of graphic with some injure descriptions, and if you are kind of squeamish I don't think it is that bad but for someone else it could be disgusting, you've been warned.
Now to the disclaimer and chapter!
DISCLAIMER I DO NOT OWN BLEACH ONLY THE PLOT AND SOME OCs ARE MINE.
At the base of Neo-Gotei the room that housed their prisoner remained one of the least visited areas of the entire castle. It was passed a lot by the staff and members of the Neo-Gotei but hardly ever inquired about. Most of the staff and lower ranks had been given the story that it was a traitor, it didn't seem likely that anyone would want to betray Neo-Gotei given the power that they had in their top ranks alone but they bought it.
There had been a few visitors to the room. It was mainly the top ranks, at it had been Premier Enyo most of the time. The lower ranks didn't know the extent of her power but they did know she had a way of getting what she wanted when she wanted it. So again they though it had been something to do with interrogating the traitor.
The highest person that the guards had seen enter the room had been Yuna, the second-in-command of the entire Neo-Gotei. So it came to a surprise when the guards were greeted by none other than the King himself, though they weren't exactly greeted, it was more like a command to open the door. But they complied without hesitation.
Once inside it was only Sachio and the prone form of Ichigo, and whatever random oddities were in the room. Sachio clicked his tongue at the teen, knowing that he would be better off talking to a dog Sachio pulled over one of the chairs in the room. Briefly wondering why one chair was tilted over.
"It seems that we haven't been the best hosts to our guest." He spoke calmly. He looked over to the body.
The teen's body was deteriorating quicker than one would've thought. The boy was skinnier than he should be at his age, his ribs were starting to stick out further than they should. The teen's face was sunken and waxy looking, the high cheek bones were extremely prominent. Any muscle mass or fat that the kid had, was deteriorated, to the point of it almost being completely gone.
Sachio knew that if he lifted the kid up he would find it laughably easy to do so. The king also knew that if the teen had been awake and aware of his surrounds his eyes would be dull and hazy. He also saw the still bleeding wounds, they were also oozing some other foreign matter and the skin around them was a yellow-green color, and it was starting to streak, indicating that the infection was no longer localized in the wounds.
Sachio glance almost lazily at the teen's face. As was expected the boy's face was flushed red and his hair was sticking to his face because of the sweat. The carrot-top's hair was also noticeably longer now. The room was filled with his pathetic attempts to squeeze air into his lungs. His breaths were short and raspy, and there was the occasional wheeze thrown in.
The King's keen eyesight could see the pulse in his "guests" throat. From what he could tell it was weak, fluttery, and from his observations it wasn't very stable speed wise. It was either racing or dangerously slow. The smell in the room was putrid. It smelled of sickness, but it had the scent of death mingled into smell permeating the room.
The sheets that the teen laid on were covered in bodily fluids. Mostly blood, pus, and sweat that had left the teen. The sheets would probably stick to the teen if he was lifted from them. Sachio vaguely recalled Enyo whipping him a few times when he was still conscious, so there were wounds on his back as well.
Sachio laughed. "You're the famed hero of Soul Society? You'll be lucky if you make it to nightfall."
He stood abruptly. "I can't wait to see the look on your father's face when he sees who it was that killed his only son."
There was a manic glint to Sachio's eyes. "You should be grateful that you're unconscious. If I had my way, then you'd be feeling every agonizing second as your life force slipped away from me. Of course not everything goes to plan, but this is good as well. A strong shinigami unable to even fight for his life. You're dying and that unbreakable spirit I've heard about? I broke it."
Sachio paused a second as we about to leave the room. Something had escaped him when had first been observing the teen. There was a blossoming of purple across his lower abdomen, and some of his ribs were misshapen. "I'll be merciful. Hopefully this will speed up your departure."
With that he pressed down on a few of the misshapen ribs, hearing them crack under his gentle pressure. He wasn't a doctor but he could tell that they were completely broken. He had no way to tell if they had punctured his lung like he had hoped. Sachio also didn't have the pleasure of hearing the teen scream when his ribs that were starting to heal were broken.
"Internal bleeding and a possibility of a punctured lung." Sachio hummed. "How long can this body hold out?"
The king dusted himself off and left the room. His boredom sated for the moment. The guards didn't speak when the King came out, they didn't even look at them. It had become painfully obvious to them that this wasn't a traitor, they didn't know who it was, but from what they heard it sounded like they were guarding the body of a young man. The two guards looked at each other and swallowed hard.
Ichigo heard a sharp cracking sound come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He spun around trying to identify the cause of the strange sound. That was before he doubled over in pain and screamed bloody murder. A sudden burst of pain ripped through him. It felt like he was on fire and being hit with a hammer at the same time. He wasn't sure what hurt worst.
He remained doubled over for what he thought was a long time. The worst of the pain seemed to have gone away but it was still incredibly painful to move. He knew the feeling, he had somehow broken some of his ribs. He was relieved to find that he wasn't coughing up blood, so he didn't have a punctured lung. Ichigo was still baffled as to how he had broken his ribs when he wasn't doing anything.
Though Ichigo did realize that he wouldn't be able to walk at the same pace that he was doing, if he could walk at all. It wasn't impossible to move with broken ribs, but he rather not increase the risk of him having a puncture lung because he moved the wrong way. He was relieved to find one of the shelter was within eyesight. He could stay there until he was comfortable with the idea of moving for an extended period of time.
He moaned in pain as he stood up. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he lumbered over to the shelter. This was actually one of the nicer ones that he had found, it had three walls and its opening was away from the wind leaving him protected completely. That was one plus he had found.
He chuckled and then winced. He wondered if he had ever though he'd be excited to sleep in a shallow cave. This experience had certainly taught him a lot. Having nothing else to really do he fell asleep, hoping that it might help to dull the pain.
He didn't know how much later it was but he awoke screaming as he felt something eerily similar to a blade slice through his skin on his legs. He felt something oozing out of the area that he felt the pain in. Reaching down he gasped when he felt something wet, warm, and sticky. Pulling his fingers away he confirmed what he had feared. It was blood coating his fingers.
There were four cuts in all. One on each of his thighs and one of each of his ankles. It was creepily similar to what Tadashi had done the last time he had seen him, after the time he kissed him. Tadashi had come into his cell and cut almost directly parallel to the large artery that was in the leg. It was the same on both sides.
Tadashi had said something about the boss not wanting him to bleed out. The next two cuts that Tadashi had done were on his Achilles tendons. The red-head knew anatomy well, Ichigo concluded, because the foreigner had stopped directly after hitting the tendon in both ankles. Ichigo knew that Tadashi had stopped because the boss, whose name was Sachio, wanted something from him. Sachio wanted him in pain but not permanently crippled or dead.
Ichigo shook his head trying to clear out the memory of Tadashi and everyone that had cause him pain recently. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, he was bleeding and he had nothing to staunch the bleeding with. He was left wondering why he was receiving injuries when there was nothing that could harm him, aside from the occasional roof collapse, but that wasn't the point.
Determined to see if anything else of this nature happened to him again he stayed awake. He applied pressure to each of his wounds the best he could. He had to alternate in stopping the bleed from his thighs and his ankles, it seemed to be slowing but not clotting. He growled in frustration, but ended up coughing because his larynx was practically frozen from disuse.
This is identical to Tadashi's zanpakuto. Ichigo thought.
Still wondering if the mysterious wounds would happen again he remain awake. He started to count in his head. Ichigo had realized that it was counting minutes that he was sitting here. He wasn't sure if it even mattered that he was counting. But it was nice to have something to focus on in this monotonous land.
It was about sixty minutes later, by Ichigo's count, when he doubled over from an invisible impact. Well it was more like slumped over because he wasn't standing up. Several more impacts came from an invisible force, all hitting various places on his torso, not caring that he was in a position that wouldn't allow him to be kicked in the front. It was like when Daichi kicked him repeatedly, it felt like it was in the same places as Daichi's last beating.
Ichigo's eyes widened as he grunted in pain. He was somehow reliving the torture that he had got when he was in the physical world. He didn't understand how this was happening. He finally admitted to himself that he was somewhere like an inner world but not quiet. How was he being hurt by an outside force?
Finally the invisible Daichi's kicks stopped. His torture was going from the most recent to the furthest back. If he recalled correctly the later beatings weren't as worse at the first few, seeing as when they started the beatings he was able to withstand more.
He was in for a long whatever this was, since days and nights didn't exist here. This was worse than when he first went through the beatings. Then he could try to fight back, it was feeble and most of the time resulted in him not following his tormentors orders. But that was something! Now all he could do was sit and wait. He supposed he could see if he remembered who did what to him to see if he remembered the order, but that was just depressing. He choked back a sob, he hated not being able to do anything. He hated feeling weak!
As he guessed he was going through his torture only backwards. He was currently in a session of Enyo's whippings. He whimpered pathetically as he felt the sting of the whip on his back, he could almost hear the crack the whip made, and Enyo always cracked her whip twice, once aimed away from him and the other at him, she always did it at random so he would never know which crack would lead to him being in more pain.
Once the session was finished Ichigo curled into himself the best he could. The injuries certainly weren't phantoms. He wasn't crying, he refused to let himself believe that he was, he was ignoring the warm, wet, and thankfully non-sticky liquid running down his face.
He heard the humming or rumbling, he couldn't tell anymore get stronger and then the voice that he had heard before spoke, this time it was clearer, but it didn't seem like it was directed towards him, but he was sure that there was no one else in this entire world or whatever it was.
Hurry. Time is short. Life hanging in the balance. Hurry!
Then it faded as if it hadn't even existed. He couldn't decipher the meaning. It was without a doubt the same voice, it was stronger. Why was that? Ichigo wondered. The voice being clearer meant that Ichigo was able to recognize some of the distinct speech patterns. It sounded familiar to him. It wasn't a person he knew. Thinking hard on it he remembered that he had heard the voice a long time ago. It sounded like… Ichigo's eyes shot open as far as they could. There was no way! The voice was Hyourinmaru's!
Ichigo had heard the dragon's true voice before, not the physical version of it, it was unmistakable. That caused more questions than it actually answered. But it did explain the freaky snowstorm that was continuously blowing. It was an ice-dragon after all. But why would he be hearing Toshiro's zanpakuto, and why would it be telling him to hurry? Ichigo shook his head but found that it was a bad idea. The humming/rumbling sound hadn't dissipated completely. It was weaker than previously but he still could hear another voice.
Ichi…Stay strong… Stay alive!
Ichigo blinked the humming/rumbling sound had vanished completely this time. Even though it had been weaker than Hyorinmaru. Ichigo knew whose voice that was, there was no way that he could forget it. The voice had a watery and nasally sound to it. He knew of only one person that sounded like that, the only person that probably would ever sound like that, his inner hollow.
That made less sense that the whole I heard Hyourinmaru's voice for no reason, issue he was having. His hollow hadn't shown concern for him before, at least not like that. It was never so blatantly obvious.
Am I really in that dire of a situation? Ichigo wondered. More so, do the zanpakuto spirits like me for some reason? I swear if they need me for something stupid I'm going to… Huh? What am I going to do if that happens? Well I guess it depends on what the situation is exactly and how they ask me.
The substitute shinigami shook his head. Thoughts like that weren't going to solve anything other than his boredom. Was he really that dependent on fighting? That it was the only way that he could relieve boredom? He wondered what other people did when they were bored. He never had the chance to focus on anything other than fighting and training, it had consumed all of his time getting ready to face Aizen. He had missed a lot he supposed.
If he got out of this alive, the first thing he was going to do, after he recovered and was cleared by Captain Unohana, was find who he was crushing on and then asking them out on a date. He was determined to live the rest of his life as sort of a life. He wouldn't give up being a shinigami but he wouldn't let it consume his entire life, there would be enough time for that once he was finally dead.
That sounded really grim. Ichigo thought.
Just as he finished that thought he curled into himself again as he was cut by an invisible dagger. He remembered this, Tadashi had been in a particularly bad mood and had taken it out on him. He had made the cuts small but numerous, and in very strange places. Tadashi had sliced along his hands, never cutting anything that would impair the functioning of his phalanges. But there had been three cuts running horizontally across his palm. It had been the same thing on the other side.
Tadashi had also cut along his foot. Again taking care to not cut anything vital, but Tadashi had seemingly sliced at his foot, the top, sides, and bottom were all littered with small cuts that wouldn't stop bleeding. Again both feet received the same attention.
It was painful to even put pressure onto his hands or feet, that had left Ichigo in the same position for what seemed like a long time. Daichi and Enyo had taken advantage of that, soon enough the pain wore off enough to where Ichigo could scoot himself with his hands, he didn't want to look at his feet at the time.
Now it was the same thing Ichigo was whimpering in pain as the invisible dagger no longer cut him. The pain the first time around hadn't been so bad because he had been half conscious for most of it. But this was completely different, where in the real world he had had a day or so to recover, in this world he was lucky if he had two hours to rest before the started again.
Though he figured that this time the torture was relentless because he could take it. In the physical world his tormentors had to be cautious of the very fatal wounds that Yuna and Daichi had given him when they captured him.
Moaning in pain, or doing the best he could because his voice box was still warming up from disuse, he turned himself so that he was laying spread eagle on the floor of the shelter. He had forgotten that Enyo's whip marks were still there and he bit his tongue until he got used to the lacerations digging into the ground. The position struck something in him that made him feel like he had done this before. He couldn't bring himself to care about what he had done and what he hadn't.
He didn't know when the next phantom torture session would occur. He needed something to take his mind off of the pain and the hopelessness that was creeping into his soul. He let out a wheezy sigh, he knew what he could think about, but it seemed really girlish, but nobody would know what he thought while he was trapped in his mind.
He started to think about what his date would be like if the person he liked said yes. He pictured that they would go out for a bite to eat at this odd little Italian restaurant that he knew about from all the girls at school gossiping about how their dates took them there. It would be an early dinner, maybe about four in the afternoon. Afterwards they would walk to a nearby park and eat ice-cream and walk around, and the when the sun was about to set they'd walk towards the river and watch the sunset.
Then after the sun went down they would turn toward each other and share a passionate kiss.
As Ichigo was imagining the date, and just as they turned towards each other, Ichigo hadn't really figured out who he like so he blurred the features of his date, but as they turned towards each other they eyes, which had been closed opened and were a startling teal color. The carrot top paused his day dream. Where had he seen eyes like that before?
His thoughts were cut short as the invisible feet and first of Daichi assaulted him again. Beating Ichigo into a bloody pulp. Once the beating was finished, Ichigo stared out towards the endless snowstorm. Praying that someone would find him and fast. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. After finishing his impromptu prayer, which may or may not be answered considering that was the first time that he ever prayed, he felt into unconsciousness, his body too tired to keep him up any longer.
Ichigo certainly went through some physiological torture. *crickets*. Okay so that was a bad pun, we all have them. We all can't be punny! XD Okay so I'll stop. Well I am a nice person and I thought you all deserve an Ichigo centric chapter, plus I figured that you all might want to know some of the injuries he got*shrugs* so here they are. I honestly have mixed feelings about this chapter, It's a decent length but I feel like Ichigo was OCC slightly, but then it's allowed because of what he's going through, yes? Any who here's the preview for Chapter 20!
Hurry. Time is short. Life hanging in the balance. Hurry!
Toshiro shot up the moment that he heard those words, startling a few of the shinigami around him. They were still waiting for the hottest part of the day to be over with. The icy captain knew the risks of leaving early and rushing through the desert. It wasn't worth risking the lives of six shinigami and himself. He gritted his teeth in irritation. He had two responsibilities, one to protect his team the best he could and to make sure that they were able to save Ichigo.
Rangiku walked over to him and sat down, the two tenth division members sitting in silence. Neither of them really had anything to say, the vice-captain knew her captain was going through a personal struggle and it was just his personality to not request help. She'd still offer him as much comfort as he would take. It was her job to watch over her captain, she was the one to bring him into the world of shinigami after all.
Looking forward to the next update yet? Well I best be off to write it then! Later! ~IF