Adult-FanFiction.org : Bleach

Prize of Victory 1.5
By : NovaAlexandria
Category: Bleach > General
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Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach nor profit from my works.
Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
I wrote the bones, Black Fox flushed it out big time.
Journey’s Start - Dismay

Brown eyes scanned the remnants of what had, a few days prior, been a bustling Tokyo suburb, trying to determine where he was from the buildings that still stood. Karakura’s once-familiar skyline was forever altered, though he guessed that if it came down to it, they could follow the river until he came across something he recognized.
Ichigo had to know, had to see for himself… even if coming here was dangerous. Not even Yoruichi had tried to talk him out of it and her protests would have been half-hearted at best. In reality, this might be their only chance to search the ruins for survivors. Aizen would be too busy solidifying his control over the Soul Society to send the Espada to round up any survivors and Ichigo wasn’t going to let the opportunity to look for his family and his friends slip away.
He had to know, had to try after failing so miserably.
The guilt that gnawed at him would not let him do anything else.
A weary voice spoke up behind him.
“So much devastation,” Rukia said, one hand shading her wide, awestruck eyes from the sun. “I can’t believe it. It’s crazy!”
“And yet, there are no bodies,” Yoruichi added. She wore her feline form, perching on Ichigo’s shoulders as if she owned that portion of him. The rumbling, masculine tone that came with the smaller body vibrated against his shoulder and neck. “Interesting… I see no signs of fire or looting. Let’s keep going.”
The four of them crossed what had once been a busy intersection, if the number of cars haphazardly strewn across the asphalt was any indication. At one point, Ichigo sidestepped a pool of oil that had leaked from the cracked engine of a delivery van that lay on its side. Its crumpled front end had smashed through the window of a normally bustling, noisy pachinko parlor. The young man wondered if the crash had occurred before or after Aizen had created the Ouken.
‘Probably afterwards,’ he decided grimly and then did a double take. The arcade’s name, stenciled on the glass, had been partially obliterated when the van’s grill shattered it, but Ichigo recalled passing it on the few occasions that he made it over to this section of town. Holding up one hand, he turned to the left and used two fingers to point straight ahead, down a side street.
“We have to go this way. We’re too far north. We need to be four or five streets south of here.”
Neither Yoruichi nor Rukia questioned him, and Hachi, the fourth member of their scouting troop, inclined his head in a ‘then lead the way’ manner. Ichigo took that as permission. His mouth pressed into a hard, straight line, he picked a path through the piles of empty clothing, doing his best to shut out the part of him that wanted to shriek an apology to the people that had worn them. It wasn’t time yet to go to pieces. Not until he had definitive proof. Not until he knew.
Twenty minutes went by before Rukia ventured another question.
“Can you tell where we are now?”
Ichigo swallowed hard and nodded, gesturing to yet another pile of concrete and twisted metal surrounded by glittering glass shards. It looked as if a dump truck had tipped a load of boulders onto what might have been a family-style restaurant. The lump that formed in his throat kept him from answering right away.
“Yeah, Chad and I use to hang out there, to work on school projects.”
The words were hard to say and Ichigo nearly choked on them. He paused and then turned to the right. “The clinic is two blocks away. Do you sense anything?” he desperately asked the two women. He didn’t trust his normally abysmal abilities at reiatsu detection to give him a correct reading when it came to their goal or anyone who might try to intercept them.
“No. It doesn’t seem as if Aizen,” the name fell from Rukia’s mouth like bitter bile, “has sent anyone to check the city. I can’t sense anything.”
“They’re busy with other things.”
The way Yoruichi said this left little doubt as to what those ‘other things’ might be, only that they involved the Seireitei and those unlucky enough to be there. “We need to hurry – there’s no telling when he might decide to dispatch a few Arrancar to mop up here.”
“I agree. Let us not waste time on speculation.”
Hachi brought up the rear, his eyes moving back and forth, as if he expected something to jump out at them from the shadows on either side of the ruined avenue. The large Vizard had accompanied them on the premise that he would be able to hide their party using one of his impressive barriers, if they ran into trouble and if they could find a place to hide amongst the damage. The last wouldn’t be much of a problem - parts of Karakura were still standing while others had been reduced to ruins. At one point, Ichigo wasn’t certain if the cracked expanse of pavement, lined with rubble, the remains of caved in roofs, and downed electrical and telephone wires was his street or not.
The broken sign, with its green cross that denoted emergency medicine, told him he’d finally arrived. It hung upside down on part of the clinic’s exterior that had once been the second floor and now shared space with the first, and added to the sick, cold feeling in the pit of Ichigo’s stomach. The roof had collapsed and portions of the brick wall that surrounded the property were missing. The mortar had given way, leaving the bricks in loose piles. Splintered wood and plaster lay everywhere. With a sinking heart, Ichigo raced towards what had once been his home.
Stepping through the first hole in the fence he could reach, he waded through the detritus searching for any signs of life. It was something of a mercy that he didn’t have to claw through fallen lumber, jagged sections of drywall and pieces of broken siding; his body was elsewhere, and in his Shinigami guise, movement was relatively easy. His ears strained to hear the smallest sound, praying that he wouldn’t overlook a signal that would lead him to his sisters. Eventually, he slogged through a mass of tiles and ceramic that he guessed was the upstairs bathroom, and found the twisted shell of his computer monitor beneath a remnant of the cracked soaking tub. There was no sign of the keyboard, though Ichigo did discover one of the legs of his desk rammed straight through the hard casing of his desktop’s tower. Rukia worked a few feet away from him, peering through the mess and sidling around a metal examination table that had landed atop the crushed refrigerator. His panic grew the longer they searched, until Rukia waved one hand excitedly.
“Over here, Ichigo! I think I found a small tunnel!” she cried and crouched. He was by her side in a flash, his heart racing in excitement.
“Rukia…” he started before she cut him off, getting down on her hands and knees. She handed him her Zanpakuto before wriggling into the dark, impossibly narrow space she’d uncovered.
“I…oof…think I can squeeze through.”
Ichigo’s hands tightened around Sode no Shirayuki’s sheath as he waited. He heard her shuffling and the occasional muffled curse. The two presences in his mind remained silent, which was just as well. He was in no mood to deal with Zangetsu’s cryptic attitude or his Hollow’s nastiness. He hated them both only slightly less than he hated himself.
After what felt like an eternity, Rukia squirmed out of the space, pulling her torso and then her hips up and out. She coughed up dust and brushed more of the greyish soot out of her hair and shihakusho.
“There is large hole down there. Two of the building’s main support beams caught each other and allowed for some space below the point where they connect. There is a lot of dust and a few spots of blood. Not a lot…” she cautioned and wiped more dust from her face with the palm of her hand. “More like what someone would shed if they received a shallow cut, rather than a deep wound.”
“…And?” Ichigo tried to stay calm in the face of this news. Rukia regarded him warily and her expression grew both grim and apologetic.
“That’s it. There’s no other sign of them,” she said with some reluctance and then looked down at her sandals. “I’m sorry…”
Her apology went unheard as white noise filled Ichigo’s ears. What little hope he’d had evaporated and he fell to his knees, still gripping Rukia’s weapon with two white-knuckled hands. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she sat down next to him, mirroring his defeated posture. Eventually, he felt her lean against him, the warmth of her smaller body soaking into his. It proved a brief distraction, a short flare of comfort quickly drowned by overwhelming pain and grief.
Something wet splashed on his black-clad knee, the warm liquid soaking into his uniform. More drops followed and he thought that it might be raining, save that the rain was body-temperature. A wave of disgust temporarily overwhelmed the sorrow that shrouded him.
‘Damn it. I haven’t cried since mom died. So useless… just like then. I couldn’t save them either.’
Rukia didn’t seem to have a problem shedding tears. She sniffled and began to scrub at the trails of saltwater running down her face with the back of her sleeve.
“I am so sorry Ichigo,” she whispered, and then repeated those words until he could no longer bear it. He flung one arm around her smaller shoulders and pulled her closer.
‘I am not the only one who lost everything’, he reminded himself as she soaked the front of his uniform. They had yet to get to the Soul Society, but he wasn’t optimistic. Not after finding what was left of Sado and Hanataro. Not after they had discovered a massive amount of blood that Yoruichi said could only have belonged to Uryuu, splattered across the sands next to a demolished Espada’s stronghold. What made it all worse was that there had been no sign of Renji or Kuchiki-Taichou anywhere in Hueco Mundo. Rukia had wanted to stay and look for her brother and her best friend, getting into a stubborn, heated argument with Yoruichi before Nel warned them that they needed to escape through her Garganta as quickly as possible.
‘Staying there had been out of the question. There was no shelter, no food, and no water. With the Espada gone, other Hollows would have moved in to try to devour us. It’s not as if Kenpachi knows how to hide, or at least, not well.’
Stepping away from the little Shinigami, Ichigo took a deep breath and debated whether it would be worth scrounging through the demolished clinic for any personal items, or whether it would be physically possible after he retrieved his human body.
‘I suppose we should be thankful that lunatic agreed to watch over Nel and Hiyori while we’re here. Hiyori’s still too fragile to move and Nel would be as good as lost if she wandered away. Yachiru can at least keep him in line and there’s nothing left to confront in Karakura. He’s probably bored out of his mind though. We can’t stay away too long.’
After a short while, Rukia’s shoulders stopped shaking and his tears dried, though his eyes stayed red and puffy. His family was gone, his father dead and his sisters consumed to make the Ouken, like the rest of the residents of Karakura. There was nothing more to do here. Ichigo got to his feet and helped Rukia to hers, handing Sode no Shirayuki back to her with a faint ‘thanks’ for her efforts. She mumbled a watery-sounding reply that he couldn’t make out in its entirety.
Hachi and Yoruichi were nowhere to be seen, but he knew where they were most likely headed. Turning his back on the place where his sisters had met their end, he and Rukia walked towards Kisuke’s old shop, detouring a bit to check out the school, and his friends’ homes. It was the same story at each stop: nothing but silence amid immense destruction. Only Tatsuki’s house was still standing, but it was just as empty as the rest of the city, and each confirmation of a friend he’d never see again added to his grief.
‘Keigo, Mizuiro, Chizuru, Kyoko, Ryo… please, please forgive me. I failed everyone…’
Tatsuki’s absence was particularly painful. Ichigo could only imagine what she might have said to him, hell, what she might have done to him, if she had learned how he’d let that green-eyed, bat-winged monstrosity take Orihime. The only thing he did know was that he would have deserved every blow she landed on him, and then some.
The rest of the trip to Urahara’s shoten was a blur, though there was a surprise at the end of it. Entering the courtyard in front of the odd little shop, Ichigo was stunned see a very human-looking Yoruichi emerge from the open front door with a large wooden box in her arms. Hachi was right behind her, carrying two more boxes. Those joined the seven boxes near the door and Ichigo belatedly realized that they were wearing gigai in order to complete their task.
“Help me with this stuff,” Yoruichi huffed as she set down her burden. “We need to move as much of it as we can to a safe location.” She only spared them the briefest of glances, though Ichigo was sure she saw evidence of their earlier breakdown. He was grateful she said nothing about it. Instead, he heard her give an order: “Kuchiki-san, your gigai is downstairs, as is your body, Ichigo. Get dressed and grab a box.”
“What do they contain? Is it important?” Rukia inquired. Yoruichi snorted motioned for them to do as she’d asked. She also sounded somewhat impatient. Hachi paused and gave her a sad, knowing look before going back inside, presumably for another load.
“Kisuke’s research, a few devices and projects he hadn’t completed, a lot of papers… There might be something in here that can help,” the woman muttered.
“Do you really think so?” Ichigo couldn’t help asking this and Yoruichi pressed the heel of one hand against her forehead, eyes shut tightly.
“Maybe… we won’t know until we can go through it and we definitely don’t want any of this falling into the wrong hands.”
A sudden, terrible thought struck Ichigo and he opened his mouth. Evidently, the same thought had occurred to Rukia, because they shouted their next question in unison.
“Jinta and Ururu! Where are they?”
Yoruichi had moved to the doorway, intent on another load, but stopped. With a toss of her purple ponytail, she regarded them over her shoulder with tired yellow eyes. Then, to Ichigo’s shock, he saw her smile.
“Kisuke left a receipt for two train tickets, one way, to Kyoto. That train left the day before yesterday. I’ve checked the kids’ rooms and there are things missing, like clothing and personal items. I think Kisuke got them out of the way, just in case. If they’re smart, they’ll stay put.”
In the midst of unrelenting bad news, the information felt like a ray of sunshine. Rukia sucked in her breath and then let it out, as well as allowing her shoulders to slump in relief.
“I’m glad. I hope…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Ichigo looked down at her as she scrubbed her already red-rimmed eyes with her hand. Knowing that old ‘Hat and Clogs’ had been smart enough not to gamble with the lives of his under-aged protégés helped, but it also made him angry. To him, it was evidence that the shady scientist hadn’t been one-hundred percent certain that his plan to save Karakura would work.
‘If that’s what you thought, why didn’t you and Dad get my sisters out with them?’ he inwardly raged, wanting to shake the dead Shinigami exile and his father by their collar and frustrated by the fact there would be no good answer. Yoruichi must have seen the dots he was connecting in his head, because she scowled at the two of them.
“Hurry up. We don’t have all afternoon. This place will be crawling with people soon enough and we need to stash this in one of Kisuke’s hidey-holes as soon as possible!”
He scowled right back at her as she disappeared through the doors, but decided he was too worn out, and too worn down to argue. What made it all the more surreal was that the building was still in perfect condition, so much so that he half-expected Tessai to greet him with a tray of tea the second he stepped inside the shop. Of course, that didn’t happen and Ichigo tried not to think too much as he descended the stairs to the basement. Rukia followed him and nearly ran into him when he came to a halt next to a body laid out on what looked like an Army cot, a blanket draped over its shoulders.
The body abruptly snored and Ichigo drew back in alarm, until he realized that he should have expected this. Urahara might have had the good sense to send Jinta and Ururu out of harm’s way, but doing the same with Kon hadn’t occurred to him. Then again, Kon was something of a special case. A sudden urge to shake the mod soul awake, to talk to the feisty, plushie-dwelling, perverted twit gripped him and he reached down with the intention of grabbing his body’s shoulder. A much smaller hand grabbed his wrist, stopping him before he could do that. Rukia hissed a warning softly, so as not to wake the sleeper.
“Don’t,” she ordered and shook her head. “We don’t have time to explain things to him right now. Let me get my gigai and glove and we’ll handle Kon later.”
She let go of him and resolutely walked to the table where her false body, in its knee-length dress and sensible walking shoes, laid. Entering it, he saw her sit up, blink furiously and then cough a small object into her hand. Stretching, a flesh-clad Rukia, minus the swollen eyes and dust, swung her legs over the side of the table and rooted in the pocket of her dress. Eventually, she fished out a familiar glove. While Ichigo waited, she hastened to Ichigo’s sleeping form and tapped it lightly on the shoulder.
“Kon? Kon? Wake up.”
Ichigo watched his body stir, mumble something he swore sounded distinctly indecent that involved breasts and opened its eyes. Rukia bent at the waist, leaning over him while Kon came to and rubbed the sand from one eye. As always, recognition brought swift consequences.
“NEEE-SAAAN!” Kon’s voice shrieked at the sight of her. Ichigo’s arms flew up in an automatic and predictable attempt to embrace the Shinigami above. At the same time, Rukia’s elbow rose and her glove-clad fist tightened. Ichigo himself winced. He knew what was coming and wondered how badly his abdominal muscles would hurt when he re-entered his body.
The answer was ‘quite a bit’.
“Owwwww… shit,” he moaned, immediately curling up on his side in pain. Rukia flexed her fingers as her eyes followed the trajectory of the small green pill when it exited his mouth. It struck the far wall, bounced a few times on the floor and ended up rolling to a stop next to a filing cabinet. As quickly as she’d struck, Rukia deftly scooped up the soul candy and tucked it into her dress pocket along with the pink Chappy candy.
“Hurry up,” she told him as Ichigo wrapped one arm around his midsection and made a face. She also pointed at a stack of boxes, some of which were large enough to contain a human corpse. He recalled that Hiyori and Shinji had worn a gigai the first time he’d met them and figured that at least one of them might contain the snarky Vizard’s false body. Picking up the end of one of the larger crates, he nodded and pointed with his chin towards the stairs.
With the four of them working as fast as they could, they piled everything they could shovel into boxes, bags and any other empty containers they could find lying around the shop. Then they hauled all of it up to the courtyard. When Yoruichi estimated they’d run out time to expend, she put Hachi in charge and ran off to the west in search of a vehicle. Ichigo took a few minutes to rest and used one of the larger boxes as a chair. To his surprise, a fistful of candy materialized beneath his nose.
“This will give you some energy until we can procure a proper meal for you,” Hachi insisted. At first, Ichigo wanted to refuse, but while he didn’t feel like eating, it was also hard to turn down the Vizard’s well-intentioned order.
“Do you know where Yoruichi intends to store all of this?” Rukia’s question, mumbled as she bit into the candy bar that Hachi handed to her, made Ichigo wonder just how many versions of the shielded shoten might be out there. Urahara had hidden from the Seireitei for close to a century, and the Vizards, he presumed, had done the same. It was more than conceivable to him that Karakura might be littered with ‘safe spots’ set up by the absent-minded genius.
“One well beyond the scope of the destruction, I would guess. We’ll move after dark. It will be easier to transport all of this once the sun goes down and Shihoin-san will find a clear route out of the worst of this. No point in trying to drive if all of the roads are impassable.”
Yoruichi returned just before sunset, at the wheel of a delivery van she backed into a spot between two of the buildings that hemmed in the shoten’s front yard. Ichigo, Rukia and Hachi all but threw the boxes into the back of the vehicle. The former Taichou offered to take on her feline form to make room for everyone in the cab, but Hachi put that idea on hold. Neither Ichigo nor Rukia could drive, and the Kido master took one look at the space available for the driver before shaking his head. Thankfully, there was just enough room for the large Vizard to squeeze into the back, sitting between the rolling door and one of the gigai containers, so Ichigo left him to act as packing material and climbed into the passenger side.
They wound a careful, circuitous route through the darkened, least-obstructed streets, keeping the headlights dimmed as much as possible. Without streetlights, the way was particularly difficult and slow, and more than once Ichigo strained to see where they were going. Rukia kept quiet, wedged between him and Yoruichi as the latter gripped the wheel and cursed. Occasionally, the moon would come out from behind the clouds and pale silver light would allow for better progress, but it still took forever to reach their destination.
It was a normal, nondescript house on a secluded residential street, mercifully intact and three blocks inside the growing perimeter the military was busy erecting. A hedge and a concealed gate helped keep the truck out of sight when they arrived. With the curtains drawn, no one looking at the refuge would know that four disembodied beings were camped out in the living room, waiting for the scouting team to return. Three streets away, the flashing lights of the JSDF, the local and national authorities, and the media’s spotlights glared beyond layers of tape labelled ‘Danger’ and ‘Do Not Cross’.
Rukia’s elbow dug into his side, tearing his attention away from the barrier they would have to navigate later. Yoruichi had already killed the engine and had slipped out of the driver’s seat. He then heard the ‘clack’ of the back latch and a heavy ‘thud’ as she freed the imprisoned Hachi. Ichigo peered into the rear-view mirror and watched the Vizard awkwardly rub his wide lower back.
“Let’s go, Ichigo. We have to be fast about this,” Rukia urged and he quickly vacated the cab, letting her get out. Hachi and Ichigo hastened to the gate and as silently as possible, opened the portal wide enough to allow for the passage of bodies and boxes. Putting his exhausted brain into autopilot, the young man did as Rukia and Yoruichi directed, toting as many of the saved artifacts, boxes of records, notebooks and sheaves of paper, and the salvaged gigai to the attached, single-auto garage. The nearly-invisible shields, like the one that had sheltered Urahara’s shop, made his hair stand on end each time he crossed it. The wards weren’t enough to deter him, but he did get a distinct impression that ‘there is nothing to see here’ and ‘this is just another boring, middle class dwelling… move along,’ when he reached the other side.
When they’d packed the last box into the garage, Yoruichi slipped the van into neutral and instructed Ichigo and Hachi to push against the front grille. It took some time, but between them, they discreetly rolled the van away from the safe house to a spot half a block away, without actually starting the engine. Sneaking back to their refuge via the alley, they eased as best they could through the gate and shut it behind them. The Vizard softly rapped his knuckles on the front door in a pre-determined sequence.
Nothing happened and Ichigo’s eyes narrowed. Yoruichi rolled hers and she pushed past Hachi, who stepped aside reflexively. Sniffing, she tested the knob and made an irritated sound when it easily turned under her fingertips
“Idiots…” she grumbled and pushed the door open. Peering over her shoulder, Ichigo saw a bored Kenpachi sprawled over the living room couch. His back was to the door and his spiky hair formed an inky silhouette against the large television screen. Ichigo nervously edged around the bored-seeming Shinigami, to find Yachiru in the space between Kenpachi’s sandals and the television stand. The pink haired child lay on her stomach, humming contently and kicking her feet in the air while using a bright red crayon to color in the pages of a book she’d found somewhere in the house. Ichigo thought better of asking why each of the bodies she drew had a detached head.
“I told you to keep this locked,” Yoruichi said in a deceptively nonchalant voice. Hachi went still, Rukia froze in mid-step and Ichigo scanned the living room to see whether there were any good places to hide in the event of sudden, intra-Shinigami violence.
If Kenpachi understood the danger, he didn’t show it, nor did he bother looking at any of those behind him.
“The uniformed pansies down the way still haven’t decided to start searching th’ town. We got plenty o’ time. Besides, they ain’t gonna see shit if they walk through that door.”
It was a surprisingly solid, reasonable answer from someone who put such an emphasis on beating first and asking questions later. Thankfully, Kenpachi had a reassuringly blunt follow-up to his assumption that the authorities would be spiritually blind to them.
“I’m bored as all fuck. Why can‘t we go to Soul Society and start kicking asses?”
“We have no way to get there,” Yoruichi pointed out, as the news program cut away to a commercial for cat food, “and even if we could get there, we’d have to contend with Aizen. He has the Throne now, and all of its power. We wouldn’t stand a chance in a head-on fight now. He’s essentially immortal and all-seeing. I’d rather wait until the odds are better.”
“Huh. That just means it would be more fun to cut him down and leave him in an immortal pile of gore,” Kenpachi cackled. His laugh quickly degenerated into a more unsettling, raucous noise.
“Yeah, no one can beat Ken-chan!” Yachiru cheered, looking up from her drawing of what Ichigo suspected was a dismembered corpse. Yoruichi rolled her eyes a second time and he knew that the only reason Rukia hadn’t done the same was due to her training, which ingrained deference to superior officers… even one as bloodthirsty as the Eleventh’s Taichou.
“Not to interrupt your observations about our odds,” Hachi coughed, “but how are the others?”
Kenpachi shrugged, and waved his big hand in the direction of the stairs. “Haven’t stirred, either of ‘em.”
The Vizard nodded and then placed one hand on the banister post.
“If you’ll excuse me. I need to renew the healing barrier around Hiyori and check on her wounds.”
‘Wounds’ was a gross understatement. Ichigo and Rukia shared a look regarding the extent of the little Vizard’s injuries. Hachi had not yet gone so far as to proclaim his companion was ‘out of the woods’, which said volumes about her current condition. Nel wasn’t much better – the beating she’d taken at Nnoitra’s hands had left the child battered and bruised, despite her Hierro. While the Kido Master went upstairs to assess his patients, Yoruichi turned to the rest and put her hands on her hips.
“Kisuke’s spell on this place won’t last forever. I’d say we have about three weeks before it dissipates. We’ll need to lock everything in the garage while we find a better hiding spot for it. We’ll leave the truck here, since I doubt anyone will come to claim it.”
Warming to her subject, Yoruichi’s eyes travelled to the ceiling and Ichigo could tell she was putting together the plan as she went along.
“We can’t afford to take too much with us, so as of tomorrow everyone but Nel will need to be in a gigai. Kenpachi, you and Yachiru can make use of the ones that Kisuke created for Madarame-san and Hitsugaya-Taichou. Those are the closest fits for your body types, so try not to damage them. We’ll need, at the very least, rucksacks or backpacks to carry necessities. Think you can borrow some from the neighbors without being seen?”
The big man on the couch made a derisive, snorting sound, but lurched off the couch just the same. Yachiru promptly dropped the crayons and clambered to her usual perch on his shoulder, a big excited grin on her small face.
“Che, at least it’s something to do,” Kenpachi groused, but ducked through the front door all the same. Ichigo watched him go and prayed that the Taichou wouldn’t use his ragged-edged Zanpakuto to pick any locks, nor draw any unwanted attention from the authorities. Rukia put her hand in the air next.
“I saw at least two convenience stores on the way here,” she said, bringing up a topic that made Ichigo’s stomach rumble at the reminder of food. “They’re not lit up, so now would be a good time to pick up prepackaged things that don’t require a refrigerator.”
Ichigo was about to tell her that the juice containers she favored were too heavy to carry for long periods of time when Yoruichi added something else to the list.
“Grab any cash that might be in the registers. If you can, break them open and take the paper, not the coins. If I’m right, we’re going to need travelling money and lots of it.”
Rukia’s shocked expression mirrored his own, but after a moment to think about it, Ichigo reluctantly concluded that it was a good idea. At least she hadn’t used the term ‘looting.’ That didn’t make it any better, but they didn’t have many options to begin with and the longer they took, the more those options would dwindle.
“Go with her, Ichigo. Food and money. Don’t get caught. I’ll keep an eye on things here. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll get back.” Then she picked up the remote control to the television and clicked through the channels until she found a live broadcast. In a lower tone, Ichigo heard her say “I’ll have a plan in place by then.”
The next two hours involved a list of crimes that under normal circumstances would have landed him in a police station cell: breaking and entering, larceny and to top it off, desecration of the dead’s belongings. He hated every minute of it, even as he emptied unopened boxes of energy bars and dried, salted squid into a tote bag he’d found on the sidewalk outside of the closest convenience store they found. Rukia had emptied out the belongings within it and wordlessly thrust it into his hands. He’d tried not to flinch as a pink cellphone, decorated with the kind of cute stickers Yuzu had favored, hit the pavement and bounced into the gutter, along with a notebook, a wallet and a hairbrush.
If there was any more room in his gut for self-loathing, the sight of the phone eliminated it. Ichigo said nothing as Rukia pulled things from shelves, picking out items that would travel well. It felt to him as if he was merely observing and that someone else was rifling through necessities, grabbing aspirin, cold tablets, vitamins and other things a human body or a gigai, might need. His arms went through the motion of packing it all into the tote, until the sides bulged.
Something cold and square-shaped found its way into his hands. Looking down, Ichigo saw Rukia looking back at him with tired, dark blue eyes. His companion had pressed a box of apple juice into his hands, which had begun to tremble as he worked.
“Your body probably needs energy. I know I do. Drink this.”
Ichigo stared at the faintly illuminated beads of moisture on the waxed cardboard, and the straw she’d poked through the small foil hole. When he failed to bring it to his lips, she scowled and put her hands under his elbow, forcing his fingers and the box upwards.
“Drink that now, or I swear I’ll kick you out of that body and put Kon back into it. He’ll do what I tell him to do, even if you won’t.”
He blinked at her. A glimmer of moisture threatened at the corner of one of her eyes. She might have the discipline that serving in the Gotei 13 had instilled in her over the long years to fall back on in a pinch, but doing this was no easier on her than it was on him.
Putting the end of the straw into his mouth, he began to drink. Once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop; the sweetness on his tongue, the cold and his own overwhelming thirst hit him at the same time. Soon he finished it, only to find another box, this one grape-flavored, ready to go. In all, he guzzled four boxes of the liquid, while Rukia downed three. When they were done, she indicated that he should throw them away in the basket behind the empty counter while she dealt with the register.
Dehydration and low blood sugar addressed, they gleaned about twenty-five thousand yen from the till. Rukia asked if it would be wise to look for a safe, but Ichigo shook his head. Smashing into a register was one thing, but safecracking was well outside his high school skill set. They left the store the same way they’d entered it, through the broken window, and set about looking for another grocery.
In all, they hit four stores, scavenging what they thought would be most helpful, until they had two large bags of what Ichigo hoped would tide them over until they could find a better, more permanent place to hide. Retracing their steps wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. It was past midnight and he was on his last legs. Hachi opened the door of the safe house for them, and took the bags from them. The big man ushered them up the stairs, pushed them into what appeared to the master suit and promptly doused the lights. It was less a suggestion than an order, one Ichigo could not defy. He fell face-first on the bed, curled on his side and allowed the near pitch darkness to swallow him.
When he awoke, gray light leaked into the room from beneath the drawn shades. The clock on the bedside table told him it was mid-morning, and the warmth on the other side of the bed lingering on the coverlet informed him that Rukia had recently vacated that spot. Scrubbing his face with his hand, he got up and stumbled to the washroom, to pour some cold water over his head. Someone was talking on the first floor, but he couldn’t make out the words. The downside of regaining his senses was that he remembered everything with crushing clarity.
Ichigo barely recognized the wan, haggard man in the mirror, his bright hair a sharp contrast to unhealthy tone of his skin and smudges below his eyes.
‘I look like shit,’ he finally decided, and reached for a towel. About to put it back after giving his hair a quick rub, he paused and draped it over his arm. It might come in handy at some point in the near future, depending on where they went next.
His stomach reminded him that man could not live by stolen juice alone, and with a sigh he left the bathroom and made for the stairs. On his way down, he found out that the voice he’d heard earlier belonged to a television newscaster, rattling off information to his viewers about the catastrophe that had befallen the city of Karakura, Japan. Yoruichi and Rukia sat on the couch, Yachiru sat on the floor and Kenpachi leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. Their collective gaze was on the screen. Nel sat in the space between Rukia and the former Taichou, wrapped in a blanket. Her gray eyes lit up when they spied him and she freed one hand to wave at him.
“Itsygo! Nel’s feelin’ better! We’re watchin’ the soldiers!”
Nel was the only one in the room with a smile and Ichigo struggled to turn up the corners of his mouth to match hers. Instead of replying, he finished his descent and came around to Rukia’s side of the couch.
“It’s been non-stop coverage,” Yoruichi said flatly.
“… loss of lives. When questioned, the head of the Karakura General Hospital had this to say:”
“I had no prior warning that such a catastrophic event would take place. It was pure coincidence that I chose to relocate patients and the majority of my medical staff to Meijo Hospital three days ago. The renovations and mold mitigation were scheduled months in advance.”
“Investigators say that, at the moment, the hospital owner and administrator, Ishida Ryuuken, is not under investigation. Paperwork filed and permits obtained in the last sixty days relating to the temporary closure back up his claims. For now, Ishida-san and his staff are cooperating fully with the authorities, both national and international, as the government tries to pinpoint how and why over one hundred-thousand Japanese citizens vanished in the space of a single afternoon.”
“We now go to our correspondent Akamatsu Yui, reporting live from the eastern edge of the JSDF blockade. Can you tell us anything new, Akamatsu-san?”
“Thanks, Iwamura-san. I’m afraid that information is scant at the moment. The armed forces are currently overseeing the evacuation of every structure within a twenty kilometer radius of the disaster epicenter. People are asked to take only what they absolutely need with them, including important personal identification documents. The Red Cross has set up temporary shelters at several sites around the Tokyo metropolitan area and additional shelters have been opened in Sagamihara and Yokohama. Lists of these shelters can be found on the prefecture website, and on government websites, as well as the International Red Cross.”
“There has been some speculation in the media and online that this was a possible terrorist attack using a previously unknown type of chemical weapon, though the JSDF has yet to make any announcement regarding a definitive cause. Can you tell the viewers what you’ve been allowed to see?”
“Other than the stream of residents out of what the field teams are calling a ‘buffer zone’, most of whom are being directed to shelters and other aid facilities, I can tell you that we’ve seen very little. We have seen several teams wearing suits designed to keep out hazardous and biological contaminants dispatched to the affected areas, but we have not been allowed to interview them. So far, the only survivors of whatever occurred in Karakura are those who, for whatever reason, were not in the city at the time.”
Ichigo’s throat felt dry again, and the hunger that had driven him downstairs faded.
He only knew one person with the last name ‘Ishida’ and that person had only mentioned his father a few times. Uryuu hadn’t been on good terms with the man, from what Ichigo could tell. Something about his father not wanting to uphold Quincy honor or ideals. However, the young man could not believe that the elder Ishida was completely ignorant of his son’s activities… or the danger his helpless, hospitalized patients faced.
An awful thought struck him: if Uryuu’s father was still alive, Ichigo had an obligation to inform him of his son’s fate. The problem was that he had almost no idea how Uryuu had died. There had been no body, just the blood. Ichigo wanted to sink to the floor and bury his head in his hands, but Yoruichi’s voice sliced neatly through the misery that threatened to smother him.
“Well, that’s the second bit of good news we have had since this shit-storm started.” She said this with a half-hearted smirk, a lackluster effort for the normally confident woman. Yoruichi got to her feet and crooked a finger, beckoning everyone into the kitchen. “Let’s polish off whatever’s in the refrigerator and cupboards and then start packing. We can afford to stay another night, but after that we’ll need to get as far away as possible.”
“How far away?” Rukia ventured, as Ichigo took the spot she’d vacated on the couch.
“Far. We might have to go as far south as Kagoshima, or as far north as Wakkanai. We might even need to leave Japan altogether if Aizen goes all out looking for us. If we’re lucky and if we don’t leave an obvious trail, they might write us off as dead.”
The names meant nothing to Rukia, but Ichigo paled, knowing those cities were on opposite ends of Japan.
“Are you sure we need to go that far?” he asked, hoping he’d heard wrong, or that she was exaggerating about actually hiking half the length of the country. “How the hell do you plan to get us there? We didn’t find that much cash last night.”
“We’ll walk, if it comes down to it,” Yoruichi replied coolly and ran her fingers through her hair, freeing a few tangles from the purple strands in the process. “I have some funds stashed in various places, and I’m certain that the Vizard had some yen put aside for a rainy day if they needed it. It won’t last forever, but it will buy us some breathing room and some space. After that, we get jobs while we think up a counterattack.”
She didn’t bring it up, but Ichigo wondered if they’d end up stealing food with such a sketchy plan. He certainly hoped not. Despite his reputation as something of a delinquent, and the fights others had picked with him, he wasn’t a true delinquent. At first, he considered the idea of living hand to mouth in his own country, on the run while they tried to come up with a way of deposing Aizen, insane. Then his conscience, already battered, tore into what was left of his pride.
‘Maybe you should have considered this possibility before you fucked up and lost to that Espada. No one else to blame but yourself for what’s happened. Get used to it.’
The harsh reprimand didn’t come from his Hollow, but it was enough to keep him silent through the meal that followed. Ichigo ate automatically without tasting the food put before him. He also refrained from speaking while Yoruichi divvied up tasks for the day.
The house had no attic, but there was a cellar and they spent part of the day moving Urahara’s research papers from the garage to a protected spot below ground. They packed what they could fit into the knapsacks that Kenpachi had found and Ichigo tried to lose himself in the process, rolling sleeping bags and sorting through clothing that he thought might work if they needed to sleep out of doors during the coming months. Yoruichi left a few hours before sunset, in cat form, telling the rest of them to stay put while she checked on the JSDF buildup and the police presence.
Early that evening, Rukia passed around a plate of sandwiches she’d hurriedly made, keeping one nervous eye on the newscast for any sign the powers that be were ready to move into Karakura proper. Hachi took three of them, mentioned that Hiyori was doing much better than he’d expected and earned a hearty backslap from Kenpachi. The sandwich he hadn’t eaten yet flew from his fingers, only to be caught by a small black form that entered from the half-open kitchen window. Yoruichi landed on the table, dropped the food she’d already begun to gobble and quickly finished it before Hachi could complain.
“We leave tonight,” the cat’s gravelly voice informed them after washing her whiskers. “The roads are, as expected, blocked and while there’s still foot traffic on the outer perimeter of the buffer zone, I don’t think we’ll be able to blend enough, even in civilian clothing, with the residents. That leaves one way out.”
“The river…” Ichigo started to say and Yoruichi nodded, confirming his suspicions.
“They’ve set up guards along the footpaths that parallel the waterway, but the real action is downstream, to the southeast. They have people sampling the river for contaminants looking for poisons, or fallout, or what have you. It’s a mess – too many people and too many obstacles. However…”
“… No one would conduct such studies on water that isn’t considered a potential problem yet,” Rukia finished for the older Shinigami. “So we follow the river to the northwest. How many guards along the walkways and bridges?”
“Nothing inside the perimeter. Just past the bridge, they’ve stationed a soldier on either bank, with a full kit, including weapons,” Yoruichi replied and her tail swished back and forth. “Beyond that, I’m sure there will be more officers of various sorts, but once we’ve dodged those, we can pick our way through them using the alleyways and side streets.
“We only need to distract one of them long enough to sneak through.”
“How are we going to do that? Won’t the guard on the other side of the river see us? They’ll have flashlights.”
Ichigo swore he saw the damned cat grin at his question.
“Glad you asked, Ichigo…”
***********************************
Yoruichi’s plan turned out to be relatively simple: misdirection coupled with a large distraction near the water’s edge. The concrete sidewalk that handled pedestrian traffic lay halfway up the bank, between the reedy shallows and the street above. Ichigo didn’t entirely like it – the banks were open and grassy and there wasn’t much room for six people to hide. Nel didn’t have a gigai and clung to Ichigo’s shoulders like a leech, the way she had in Hueco Mundo. Kenpachi and Yachiru, wearing the gigai that had once housed Ikakku and Yumichika, weren’t exactly models of stealth and Hachi was just too large for anyone to ignore for long, even if he hadn’t been carrying a groggy, nominally-healed Hiyori in his arms like a doped, muffler-bundled princess. Around midnight, they stopped between a copse of trees and shrubs and the masonry of the bridge. There was barely enough cover and Ichigo ducked down as far as he could, hiding his telltale hair under his jacket’s hood so that the color wouldn’t give them away.
At first, Ichigo thought their chances of making it by two well-trained members of the JSDF would be impossible. That was before he saw the two sentries. Their backs were turned away from the city, not towards it and Rukia’s earlier observation came back to him. Of course, he realized, their focus would be on keeping looters and the press out of the area. The military and the police wouldn’t expect anyone to come from the ruins.
“Itsygo, Nel pwomises she’ll do her best!” he heard a small, lisping voice whisper in his ear. “Nel’s not weally stwong, but Nel c’n do this much…”
“Do what you can,” he whispered back and then winced when Rukia’s elbow found his side, telling him via pain to keep it down.
A faint rustling sound, almost imperceptible from where they crouched and waited, reached them. It came again, louder this time and Ichigo felt Nel tense against him. The response was the sound of booted footsteps on pavement, stopping only a few yards below them. A darker man-shaped blot against the moonlit river, holding a heavy flashlight in a defensive position, trained the beam on the river’s edge.
“Who’s there? State your name!”
Nel gripped Ichigo’s shoulder, the fabric of his coat clenched tightly in her chubby fists. Whatever the little Arrancar was doing was working. The reeds on the bank were moving furiously, back and forth, as if something large and dangerous lurked there, waiting to pounce.
The guard had left the path, as Yoruichi had predicted and had his pistol out, training it on the murky water.
“I said come out now!”
At that point, two things happened at once. The soldier, in full gear, lurched forward, as if he’d been hit by a massive gust of wind. His momentum was enough to propel him headfirst into the river, creating a huge splash, and a smaller one when the pistol went under. Ichigo was happy to hear a solid ‘carpools,’ rather than the crack of actual gunfire. At the same time, Rukia grabbed Ichigo’s elbow and pulled him onto the slanted concrete slope beneath the bridge. He got the hint, moving as fast as he could through the shadows to the other side while the soldier flailed. The same force that had put the soldier in the river kept him there, preventing him from crying out to his counterpart across the waterway. The splashing hid any sounds their passage made. Not until the last of the gigai-clad refugees had crossed beneath the bridge did the hapless sentry surface for air. His soggy screech was loud enough to get the attention of those on the bridge’s road, and behind them, Ichigo heard the first shouts of alarm.
Per the plan, Ichigo and Nel hung back while the others trotted around them, sprinting as best they could for the next set of bushes and trees on the embankment. Turning his head to the side, Ichigo saw a drop of sweat roll down Nel’s cheek. The Arrancar child’s eyes were closed and her breathing was heavier than it had been before their crossing attempt. The poor guard lost his footing again, pushed down by the force of Nel’s reiatsu focused upon him, this time falling flat on his back.
“Jus’ a lil’ more…” she whimpered and Ichigo reached up to place his palm on her mask, in an attempt to comfort her. He then tapped the ridge of bone along one of the eye sockets to let her know she could ease up.
“Good job,” he murmured as he slunk behind a row of leafless bushes, taking care not to snap any twigs or allow his feet to make too much noise. He heard more voices join that of the waterlogged guard and additional flashlight beams fanned out in the darkness, throwing circles of light in crazy arcs.
“What happened!” a newcomer shouted. After some coughing and hacking, the first soldier answered.
“I heard a noise near the bank and someone pushed me into the river. They were holding me under!”
“There’s no one here… unless you’re talking about that cat.”
“What cat?”
“The black one… it was right over there!”
A circle of yellow illuminated an empty patch of reeds and grass.
“It wasn’t a cat! It was too big for a cat! It held me under the water and tried to drown me, I tell you!”
Ichigo ducked his head, turned his back and slipped away, not bothering to hear the rest of it. Nel and Yoruichi had done their respective jobs and there was no need to linger. He darted along, following the route the others had left, mostly due to Nel’s perceptions. The young man steered clear of bright lights, past the crowds of press corralled into official waiting areas with their cameras and the squads of law enforcement equipped with more weapons than any Shinigami would ever need. Eventually, he caught up to the others, busy catching their breaths in the postcard-sized backyard of a suburban house. Kenpachi had propped up Yoruichi’s empty human body against the side of a gardening shed, while Hachi hovered over Hiyori. Something warm and furry rubbed up against his ankle, which made Ichigo jump in alarm, until he realized who it was. A minute later, Yoruichi’s gigai was on its feet, stretching her arms and yawning.
“See? Easy as pie. Good work, Odelschwanck! Now, which way do we go? North or south?” the woman pondered. She took the coat that Rukia held out to her and zipped it up to her chin.
“South,” Ichigo responded immediately. “It’s only going to get colder the farther north we go and we won’t freeze if we have to sleep outside.”
“A good point,” Yoruichi conceded, “but that means we’ll have to circle around and skirt the buffer zone. We should take any roads that hug the foothills if we can. Any pursuers will have a harder time finding us in the trees or on hiking trails. I want at least six kilometres between us and Karakura before dawn.”
They shouldered the heavy packs once more, passed a bottle of water among them and set out. An hour passed, and then another as they trudged down empty streets, and vacant homes. Half-an-hour after ducking through two unavoidable checkpoints and promising that they would take a sleeping Hiyori to the closest hospital, Nel went stock still. In her tremulous, childlike voice she said, “Someone opened a Garganta.”
The announcement was enough to make them pause in their tracks. Yoruichi tucked her chin into the collar of her coat and let out a long breath. The cloudy white vapor hovered there for all to see, mingling with their own.
“I suppose Aizen wants to make sure he finished the job. He was bound to turn up the heat at some point.”
“S‘bout time,” Kenpachi agreed, though his was a more gleeful observation. Rukia openly scowled at what he implied. Even Hachi cast a disapproving look at the berserker wearing his former 3rd Seat’s gigai. Ichigo merely found it ironic that this time Ikakku’s deranged smile wasn’t merely an imitation of his superior officer’s toothy grin.
“Don’t even think about it. We’re in no shape to take on Aizen’s troop. If they do catch up or find us, you can play with them all you want.” Ichigo was certain the last part was a bone meant to keep the bloodthirsty man from doing something stupid. Ikakku or rather, Kenpachi’s face contorted in irritation.
“Che. I really do hope they find us,” Kenpachi growled as the rest picked up the pace, determined to remain free of Aizen’s clutches. Ichigo debated whether or not to turn around, to see if what Nel had said was true, but he had no reason to doubt her. Taking the time to consult with his Hollow seemed a waste of effort.
More importantly, there was no real reason to look back. Everything that had made Karakura his home for the last fifteen years was gone… his family, his friends, his teachers, his school. All of it reduced to scrap, thanks to his failure at freeing Orihime-chan and his failure to confront Aizen. Each footstep connecting with cold asphalt was a step towards an atonement he wasn’t even certain he’d be able to make. The only thing he could do was to try use the rest of his life to try to make amends to all of the souls he’d let down.
Rukia, sensing that he’d fallen behind, turned around and gestured for him to hurry. Ichigo hunched his shoulders and did as he was told, hoisting Nel higher in his arms as the sun peeked over the tops of the tall buildings in the distance.
He owed them, and Karakura that much, no matter how painful the journey.
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Prize of Victory 1.5	By : NovaAlexandria Category: Bleach > General Views: 14938 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach nor profit from my works.

Prize of Victory 1.5