Chapter Text
Japan Times named Karakura the safest city in western Tokyo for five years straight. Nestled between the 13th and 11th wards, on the borders between the 3rd and 9th wards, most of Tokyo’s denizens were under the impression that ghoul violence—everything from predation to terrorist attacks—would be a common sight. However, Ichigo knew differently. Hollows were a far greater threat than ghouls. It wasn’t a ghoul that devoured his mother, after all.
He’d asked Urahara about it once. Ichigo had bled out in the streets far too often to never encounter a single ghoul, and even luckier to get away the times he did. In fact, the Yakuza and local delinquents were by far the most likely to die in a ghoul-related incident. It’s why his dad had been so strict about curfews until Ichigo unlocked his powers—ghouls. It was by far the most understandable rule his dad gave his children, especially after their mother passed away.
So when Ikumi sent him on an odd job for Unagiya, Ichigo hadn’t expected anything out of the ordinary. The request was to help an elderly homeowner with their laundry list of chores that they couldn’t handle anymore with their frail, aging body. Hardly the type of request to raise brows and overwhelmingly the most common work Ichigo received. Hell, he’d even met the client inside the shop. No one would suspect a ghoul would use such an idiotic, traceable tactic.
Of course, in typical fashion, the entire situation blew up in his face when a bunch of masked strangers restrained him at the door to the apartment, knocked him out cold, and drug him with the strongest tranquilizers known to man. Now, he was sitting on the nasty ass floor covered in god-knows-what, waiting for his own execution with the only potential weapon on his person being the worthless combat pass that no longer functioned. An absolutely wonderful set of circumstances.
“Onii-san, do you know what’s going on?” And of course, the ghouls dragged a fucking child into this mess. Before now, he’d been rather neutral towards ghouls. Ichigo neither hated them nor supported the human-like creatures and had even placed them into the same mental box as hollows—some were lowly, ravenous beasts and others likely capable of complex thoughts and rationality.
Caging a child like livestock had moved them to “worse than hollows” in seconds. Hollows were like animals; whatever ghouls did this were treating literal children like cattle. They tortured people in these cells. Old, dried blood, piss, and other indecipherable bodily fluids told the story at a glance. Few hollows did such a thing—even Shrieker didn’t come close to how abhorrent these conditions were.
“I’m not sure. I know it’s scary, but you need to stay strong, okay?” Ichigo held a hand toward the bright-eyed boy. Curly, black, stiff hair reminded him of one of those puffballs used in arts and crafts. The ghouls had stolen a clearly foreigner’s child (or an immigrant) from their parents. Or perhaps a mixed-blood like Chad. His best friend had mentioned before how Japanese ghouls loved to snack on “exotic” humans and had developed the skills to avoid ever being alone with a ghoul at a glance.
The boy dried his tears and reached stubby, grabby fingers toward Ichigo. Fondness swirled in his chest as he kneeled, lifting the boy by the armpits before shifting and tucking him snug against his hip with an arm to support his legs and back. “Hey, it’ll be alright. I’ll get us out of here.” Well, he hoped he could. Without his powers, the chances were slim to non-existent. “What’s your name?”
“Jack.”
“Jack, huh? Do you remember how you got here?”
The boy shook his head and tucked himself into Ichigo’s chest. The teen ran a hand through the hair, marveling at the coarseness, as he remembered his sisters. Jack’s chubby cheeks were adorable, just like the twins’. Their families would be worried sick—one parent looking for their lost baby at the park, and his own father fretting over losing yet another precious person. Ichigo frowned and restrained himself from clenching his fists in anger. Instead, Ichigo noted his surroundings. A chamber pot was tucked into the corner, and reinforced steel bars trapped them inside. Dying fluorescent lights flickered ominously like a bad horror film overhead. Nothing he could use.
There was his combat pass. The useless trinket rested against his thigh. Gritting his teeth, Ichigo held the inert hunk of wood in a tight fist. If only he had the power to protect…Ichigo released the badge with a sigh and dragged a palm down his face. What good is it to think about the past?
It had been for a few short months, but Ichigo had gotten a taste of what it was like to have the power to protect, and now, in this situation, he had never felt so pathetic. So useless. Instead, he had a heap of a kid crying into his shoulder while they bemoaned their fate in some musty, ghoul-infested cellar. He hugged Jack closer.
Ichigo didn’t know how long he rested against the wall with the child in his lap. Eventually, the echo of boots came from somewhere down the dark tunnel of washed out lighting. A person appeared. It was difficult to tell if they were male or female with the oversized, baggy robe and blank mask that hid their face. Even their hair was in a neutral style, with their long hair tied into a ponytail. Ichigo clutched Jack closer to his chest.
“Get them cleaned up and send them to the kitchen.”
Kitchen? Shit. If there had been any hope of not being brutally murdered, those dreams were dashed in an instant. A ghoul kitchen—God knows what went on in this barbaric place. The masked ghoul tore Jack from his grasp, and Ichigo strained. Before he could go more than a step, the ghoul’s goon wrapped around him, restraining both of his arms in a choking grip.
“None of that,” goon one—as Ichigo dubbed them—said. The orange-haired teen struggled in vain against the inhuman strength as they tackled him to the ground.
“Jack!” Ichigo freed an arm and reached toward the boy. I’m powerless. What is even the point? Just to watch someone die in front of me, over and over…! Mom…!
“Onii-san! Help me! ONII-SAN!” Ichigo slammed a fist into the concrete floor, ignoring the pain that lanced through his knuckles and up his arm. He could still hear the boy’s cries echoing off the tunnel walls as he disappeared with the robed ghoul.
“Up and at ’em, kid. Gotta get you prepped.”
“Monsters! He’s just a child! Let him go…!” The ghouls forced Ichigo in the opposite direction, where the nauseating iron tang of blood and seared meat lingered in the air. The kitchen—no doubt that was human meat. Ichigo bit his lip as he held back from vomiting. Sometimes he’d been too late to respond when hollows came but cooked human flesh…? That was another visceral level of ‘fuck no.’ Ghouls really were worse than hollows.
The goons shoved him under a blast of freezing cold water, forcefully lathering the struggling nineteen-year-old with scented shampoos and oils before throwing a set of new clothes in front of the teen. Ichigo glared at the pair, ignoring the pointed looks he could see through the holes in their masks. “Put them on.”
Ichigo noted the badge on the table with his sullied clothes. It was the sole item that might get him out of this situation alive, even if he didn’t know how at the moment. “I’ll do it—if you let me keep my memento.”
They glanced at each other. The taller of the pair—a man with a mask based on a traditional oni—shrugged. “Why?”
“I’m going to die. At least allow me some comfort in my last moments. It belonged to my father.” Ichigo almost said ‘mom’, but the edgy skull design didn’t scream ‘feminine.’ Better not to risk any incredulous looks. The ghoul picked up the pass and turned it over in his hands, as if suspicious that something more was going on. It brought the badge to his ear. “It’s just wood. A memento, like I said.”
“Why not just give it to the poor bastard?” Oh, so the partner was a woman? Interesting.
“Right! So, please?”
The male ghoul tossed the pass at Ichigo’s feet. “Take it. Get dressed.”
“Y-yes.” Ichigo got dressed without further prompting, though he took longer than necessary. Better to drag the situation out. If the ghouls noticed, they didn’t comment on the sluggish behavior. Finished, Ichigo loosened the necktie just enough to not feel too stifled and tied the combat pass to the belt loop.
“Come.” The male prodded Ichigo between the shoulders with a rough palm, urging him to move. Swallowing, Ichigo followed the orders without complaint. He was running out of time to figure a way out. They corralled him down a long tunnel, the horrific smell of cooking getting stronger the closer they got to the end of their destination. Dim hallways opened to a mouth of light at the end of the tunnel where the chatter of people echoed off the boarded walls.
Ichigo blocked the glare of light with the shadow of a raised arm as he stepped into an arena. Figures the sadistic fucks would make him fight for his life before they killed him. This was good, though. If he could fight his way out, or stall long enough, Ichigo might manage an escape. He held the badge in a white-knuckled grip as the announcer got on stage to make fanciful comments about taste, atmosphere, or some other such smug nonsense. Ichigo wasn’t paying attention.
He observed everything. The hungry grins of the patron ghouls. Each individual mask. The number of sadistic monsters that could rip him limb from limb currently occupying the amphitheater’s upper levels. So caught up in his musings, Ichigo almost missed when the butcher took the floor, muttering in a manner reminiscent of a young child. The tub of lard was the furthest thing from it, and certifiably insane.
“Poor bastard.”
“Mama says I need to chop you up.”
Mama? Probably the ghoul in charge. A cleaver came down. “Oh, you’re surprisingly fast for a fat bastard, huh?” Ichigo smirked at the hooded thing. Thing, because the male was surely human. He wasn’t fast enough to be a ghoul, but there wasn’t a mind left inside the dude’s skull. Likely tortured to insanity. Ichigo ground his teeth in fury. Hollows were far better by comparison. Grimmjow, hell, even Yammy, the crazy asshole, neither made a sport of breaking minds. They just killed.
Ichigo weaved in between slashes, redirected blunt strikes with the thing’s own force, and struck with a fist at the hooded face. The strike did zero damage to the walking tub of lard, however, leaving Ichigo to dodge a slash aimed at his neck. He put distance between them. He raised his fist, ready to move when a wave of dizziness washed over him. What…?
“Ladies and gentle ghouls, it seems the paralytic is finally taking effect!”
Shit! Ichigo stumbled his way around the continuous barrage of attacks even as his vision wavered at the edges. He’d fought worse. Way worse. If he gave up, he was one hundred percent dead. It was inevitable, however, that Ichigo would trip. His foot slipped. Unable to stop the fall of his body, he watched as the cleaver came down straight towards his chest. Ichigo gripped the badge and–
The world exploded with power, his senses expanding outwards with the familiar sensation of reiatsu. He could count at least fifty ghouls overhead. Grinding steel met pure energy as black, fiery reiatsu burst from his chest, enveloping Ichigo in a cloak. Not wasting a moment, Ichigo swung. The ethereal blade carved a path straight through the butcher and blasted a hole in the wall in a beam of darkness.
“What the hell was that?”
“Maybe he’s one of those humans?”
“Impossible, those are just rumors. Ah! That makes me want to eat him more!”
“Idiot, we’ve got to get out of here before the authorities show up. Doves will be swarming here within the hour!”
“Tch.”
Ichigo huffed as he watched the ghouls stampede out the doors and through the hole, leaving Ichigo by himself in the middle of the so-called ‘kitchen.’ Already, the shriek of sirens and the muttering of frightened people filled the air in the distance as curious crowds of people loitered about the site of the explosion. Ichigo released the tight hold on his power just as the first person poked their head in with a shriek.
Ichigo collapsed to his knees as his legs went numb.
“Oya, oya, you’re in quite the conundrum, aren’t you?” Ichigo blinked, barely able to make out the figure in front of him. A white coat, a briefcase, clutched in the hand of a deranged, skeletal man shrouded by even whiter hair. Hardly the epitome of confidence. “Are you a ghoul? Or human?”
“I-” Ichigo’s words slurred, and the teen winced. “Ii…chii…go. H-human.”
“Human?” The man surveyed the damage, attention darting between the butcher to the banisters and the hole in the wall. “This is quite the damage. Do you know what happened?”
“Nooooooo….” Ichigo bit his cheek in anger as the words refused to cooperate. Fuck, I sound like an idiot! Though it’s probably saving my ass right now.
“That’s a heavy paralytic they used on you, hm?” The other dug around in the lapels of his coat pocket, retrieving an ID that he promptly showed to Ichigo with a grin. “I work for the CCG. If you’re not a ghoul, you’ll consent to an RC test at the hospital, yes?”
“Uh-huh,” Ichigo nodded. He’d heard of the CCG, and had even witnessed them chasing down ghouls in the past. Urahara made sure most ghouls kept out of their ward despite the non-interference policy every shinigami abided by, and Ichigo never had a reason to intervene. After all, not a day went by without hearing about some kind of predation event or death by ghoul.
Ichigo didn’t get the chance to think any longer on his predicament as a suspected ghoul, because he cracked his skull on the floor as the rest of the paralytic overwhelmed him, drawing him into nothingness. The investigator would keep him safe.
-------
When Ichigo returned to consciousness, it was to the incessant beep of a heart monitor and the taste of saline filling his dry mouth with fuzziness. He blinked. Passing cars rushed by the nearby window, casting racing shadows and glares of sunlight across the ceiling. A hospital. Ichigo swallowed, noting the scratching itch of a sore throat and the ache in his limbs. How had he gotten here again?
“Oh, you’re awake.” Ichigo turned to the voice. A woman dressed in standard nurse scrubs adjusted the IV connected to his hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a bus,” Ichigo coughed, and the nurse rushed to adjust the bed into a sitting position. Retrieving a glass of water, the nurse tilted the cup against Ichigo’s lips. Cold liquid rushed down his throat, and Ichigo sighed in pure relief. He tried to move his arms but accomplished little more than a muscle spasm that hurt like a bitch.
“Careful. The paralytic was one of the strongest we’ve seen. I’m amazed you were still awake when the investigators found you.” She pulled the cup away, and Ichigo attempted to lean forward, chasing the cup with his eyes, desperate to gulp as much of the cool liquid down as possible. His body twitched under the covers to no avail. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news considering you just woke up, but a CCG investigator’s been waiting this entire time for you to wake up.”
“It’s okay. They probably want to know how I ended up there.” Everything came back in snippets—the restaurant, the gaunt man in the coat, the brief recovery of his powers. My powers! If he could pump his fists, he would. I finally have a path to get my powers back!
“Someone’s in a good mood. Usually, people are the opposite when the authorities want to talk with them.”
“Oh, uh, I’m just stoked to have gotten out alive is all.”
The nurse blinked. “Yes, I guess that is a good reason to be happy. Well, I’ll let him know you’re awake for questioning.”
She exited the room, followed by some muffled conversation on the other side of the door, before the skeletal man who had saved him entered. The investigator still had the metal briefcase in his gloved hand, and the bulging eye didn’t inspire confidence in his sanity. Ichigo prayed the man wasn’t another Mayuri; he had no desire to be prodded and poked. Getting eaten would’ve been preferable. “Well,” the investigator said, “you seem to be in a good mood.”
“Escaping death tends to do that.”
The investigator grinned, rows of flat white teeth giving a menacing look combined with the sunken cheeks. “My name is Mado. Let’s get started, shall we?” Mado retrieved a sheet of paper from his coat. “First, we ran some RC level bloodwork while you were recovering. Here.”
Ichigo stared at the paper. “Ah, sorry I still can’t move my arms.”
“Oh. My apologies. To sum things up, your RC count was 490. Very high for a human, but not out of the normal range. It was likely one of the reasons why you were targeted to begin with.” Mado set the paper on the bed.
“Meaning?”
“Congratulations, you’re cleared of being a ghoul! That said, what do you remember? It’s not every day a ghoul restaurant explodes.”
“Not much,” Ichigo said. “I work for an odd jobs business called Unagiya. We vet every customer, and it was a run-of-the-mill job for an old woman. Her apartment records and photo id checked out, so I headed down that morning to handle things. Instead, a bunch of ghouls in suits hit me over the head, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a cell, and there…there was a little boy. Some foreigner’s kid. Black, curly hair. African. He spoke fluent Japanese, though.” Ichigo bit his lip as he recalled the boy’s last cries, fingers spasming under the covers. “I-I don’t know what happened to him. I couldn’t do anything when they took him away.”
Mado pulled a flyer from his coat and held it in front of Ichigo. “This boy?”
“Yes! Him!” The child was unmistakable. Jack looked so happy in the photo his parents provided to the CCG.
“As you suspected, the boy isn’t Japanese. He wasn’t even a Tokyo local–likely why he was nabbed. His father is a soldier stationed down in Okinawa, and the family was in Tokyo on vacation.”
Those monsters kidnapped a kid in a strange city. “I don’t understand how anyone could hurt a kid! He had a whole life ahead of him…”
“Ghouls are nasty creatures, Mr. Kurosaki.” Mado seemed lost in his own world when he said that. His gaunt face became more sunken, and his gaze more haunted.
Ichigo nodded. “I didn’t really have an opinion about them. They were more an idea than an actual threat. But now…” he trailed off. Even if ghouls had feelings like people, did it excuse the sheer loss of life? Jack’s screaming, terrified face flashed in his mind. Ichigo could never forget this experience. Could not forget the boy who surely died. No, even if a few innocent ghouls got caught in the crossfire, slaughtering a child like a pig was inexcusable.
“You want to see them pay?” Mado finished.
Ichigo shook his head. “I don’t care about that. Revenge, I mean. Humans kill humans.” And hollows. “But I’ve seen the news. How many people are killed each year in ghoul attacks? How many aren’t reported? How many are just sadistic torture arenas?”
“About 40% of all homicides within the Tokyo Metro are the result of ghouls, though the number of cases is suspected to be at least double the amount reported. As for the restaurants, they are uncommon but not unusual. We theorize there is at least one per ward.”
That high?
“Of course, we suspect ghoul numbers are kept lower through other means such as scavenging or cannibalizing other ghouls. However, the number is far too great.”
Ichigo found himself agreeing. Even hollows didn’t kill that many humans, with the majority preferring to stick to Hueco Mundo, eating mostly the already deceased pluses, or getting eliminated by shinigami before they did much damage. And even the most sadistic arrancar weren’t known for torturing ordinary souls.
All Ichigo could think of was the little boy he had failed. If Ichigo hadn’t escaped, would anyone learn the child’s fate? The answer was likely a huge ‘no.’ Jack would just become another missing case among hundreds. “How do I help? I don’t want to see another child torn from their parents.”
Mado’s grin turned bloodthirsty. “Join the CCG Academy. We could always use more able-bodied recruits.”
Ichigo wadded the blankets into his fists. Would joining make him a killer? What happened to the souls of ghouls? He had never seen one after all. However, Jack deserved better. So many people deserved better than losing a child or a mother or a father to senseless violence—hollow or ghoul. Ichigo turned to Mado and squared his shoulder in resolution. “Where do I sign up?”