Title: S O V E R E I G N
Author: Shao Bei Bei
Rating: M
Genre: Romance/Drama
Summary: At the age of thirteen, Ichigo Kurosaki was married to a foreign princess he never met. Years later, the princess' brother Toshiro Hitsugaya comes to him with an urgent request for him to escort him back to his kingdom...with vicious vampires hot on their trail.
Warnings: Vampires, violence, slash, yaoi, an attempt at plot, alternate universe, original character
Author's Note: Usually I like to plan out all my chaptered fanfictions first, but I didn't feel like doing that for this one. So enjoy this in its unplanned state. This is a pilot chapter; depending on the response I get I may or may not continue this.
Let me explain something here. Ichigo's kingdom is like America, and Toshiro's kingdom is like Japan. But I'll be writing all the full names first name first, and referring to them that way (unless it's a title thing like Aizen), so you better have a good knowledge of character names if you don't want to get lost.
Archived On: Fanfiction dot net

S O V E R E I G N

S T A R T

Despite his youthful appearance, Royal Inventor Kisuke Urahara had served the Kurosaki family for generations and seen more royal events than any other servant of the palace. This was not the most lavish wedding he had been to, but it was certainly the most unusual. This wedding had the usual Kurosaki touch, with over-the-top sparkles and colorful decorations, but there were several things that made it unique. For one, the bride wasn't present, and for another, the groom was only thirteen.

Maybe King Isshin refused to let him give the kingdom a power grid to distribute his electricity, but Karakura was still quite modern. The legal age to marry in Karakura was eighteen, normally, but this was a political marriage. Prince Ichigo was being married to Princess Jun of Yuki'da in order to finalize a peace treaty between the two kingdoms, so it really didn't matter what age they were. In fact, they could even get divorced later on, if they met someone they wished to marry. But the fact that it was a political marriage did not deter the palace tailor Uryuu Ishida from going all out with the outfits.

That day Ichigo was dressed in traditional clothing from Yuki'da, a robe-thing called a yukata or a kimono or some other absurd word like that, with many layers of beautiful silk with a fall theme. Warm reds, bright golds, and light browns featured prominently in the color scheme, and the orange-haired boy looked decidedly uncomfortable in it. Kisuke thought his own outfit, a striped green and white yukata, was rather comfortable. In fact, he considered wearing it reguarly around here.

In Yuki'da they were probably going through the same thing. In fact, Kisuke wondered if there was a Royal Inventor over there too...

B R E A K

Prince Toshiro Hitsugaya groaned and peeked through the fingers covering his eyes to see if it had stopped yet. Nope. Royal Inventor Mayuri Kurotsuchi had not stopped prancing around in his new Karakura clothes. For some reason they had also sent a strange mask which the inventor had also donned. The mask had helped looking at him, actually, but it didn't mean anyone actually wanted to.

Hitsugaya shuddered a little in his new suit, trying to get comfortable. These clothes were strange, and tight, but he thought they looked rather classy. His twin sister, Princess Jun Hitsugaya, looked beautiful in a sky blue dress with a diamond veil tied around her waist as a sash. She was only eleven, but didn't look all that troubled dancing at her wedding. She accepted her duty as a princess far better than Toshiro did, because she didn't have to marry - he gritted his teeth - Aizen.

As if thinking his name summoned him, the vampire was there in an instant. Head Vampire Aizen was the current leader of all the vampires, and it was his duty to keep their race alive by upholding the conditions of the treaty worked out between the Hitsugaya family and the vampires a millenium ago - by marrying Toshiro.

It was not unusual for a man to marry a man, or for a woman to marry a woman in Yuki'da, but it was unusual for a head vampire to be picky about which prince or princess he chose to marry, since treaty marriages were basically political marriages. Besides the one denkai that would take place on Toshiro's 18th birthday, there was no need for any further interaction between him and Aizen in order to fulfill the conditions of the magical curse Toshiro's family held over the entire race of vampires. Which was why Aizen's attempts to get to know Toshiro better annoyed the young prince terribly.

"Good evening, my prince." Aizen said politely, looking for all the world a gentleman with his hair slicked back and his thick-frame glasses donned, but Toshiro was not fooled. There was something wrong about Aizen that he didn't like, and even though he could have forced him to pick someone else, the prince made the choice he thought was best. Jun wasn't cautious like he was, she was trusting and sweet. And besides, Karakura's royal family might have thrown up a bit of a fuss if they offered them a prince for marriage, since apparently they did not allow same gender marriages over there.

Foreign countries were so strange.

"Good evening, Head Vampire Aizen." Toshiro forced himself to reply. "Are you enjoying the party?"

Aizen chuckled; this was a ritual they went through at every royal event. He brought out two glasses of rice wine from behind his back and proferred one to Toshiro, sipping from the other.

"As your future husband, I insist you call me Aizen." The vampire said in his oily smooth voice. "And yes, I am enjoying this. It gives me a good idea of what a royal wedding would be like. Would ours be like this, do you think?"

Toshiro hated how he always brought their future marriage into things. He was eleven, for gods' sakes, it was ridiculous to keep reminding him.

"I prefer we not have a wedding at all, Aizen. We'll just have the denkai and be over with it." He forced out through his gritted teeth as he tried to focus on the wedding ceremony going on. The priest, here specially from Karakura, was saying some sort of nonsense to Jun.

Denkai was the proper term for the ceremony that united man and vampire every royal generation. The chosen prince or princess at that time would assume responsibility for the country by willingly sharing their blood with the head vampire of the time in a marriage, thus keeping the vampires alive for another generation. Without this process all vampires would die within a year, due to a curse Toshiro's ancestors had placed on the vampires when the blood-craving species attempted to take over the world.

Of course, if the royals had chosen to have children with the head vampires they united with then there would surely be inbreeding, especially since vampires lived quite a bit longer than humans and most often a head vampire would have a denkai with two to three royals in his lifetime. After the denkai was over they would eventually divorce and continue on with normal life, but Aizen seemed to want to break tradition.

"Don't be like that, Prince. You'll see eventually that I am not an untrustworthy person." With a surprise nip on the throat he left, leaving Toshiro frozen at his table. When the prince finally registered what happened, the official wedding ceremony had already been completed and Jun ran up to him, untying the diamond veil and leaving it in the grass for servants to pick up as she went.

"Shiro, it's finally over! Let's go play!" She cried, as if she hadn't just been married to someone thousands of miles away.

Toshiro discarded thoughts of what just happened to smile at her and put down his glass of untouched rice wine.

He intensely disliked, could even say that he hated the idea of having a denkai with Aizen. But that was all it took to keep his sister out of the vampire's clutches, he didn't mind it. He didn't mind it at all.

"Alright then, Jun. Let's go change first. Where do you want to go?"

B R E A K

"My son."

Sixteen-year-old Toshiro bowed down before his father, Emperor Juushiro. His servant Rangiku Matsumoto stood behind the emperor, her face full of fear but determination. The prince silently resolved that she must be punished for directly disobeying his order not to tell his father of the plot that she had discovered.

"Yes, father." He said, forehead touching the silk carpet.

"Rise. I wish to speak with my son face to face." Juushiro commanded. Though his eyes were soft and kind, his voice was hard with a note of betrayal. "Rangiku tells me that Head Vampire Aizen had concocted a plot to break the Agreement and the curse. Is this true?"

Toshiro kneeled on one knee, and then second thought, stood. Though a full foot and a half shorter than his father, he looked him in the eye like an equal, teal eyes meeting the emperor's with full force.

"Yes, father, it is." He said. "Rangiku discovered from Aizen's second-in-comand Gin Ichimaru that Aizen plans to use an ancient spell to reverse the curse."

"And what is this ancient spell?"

"Jun and I were the first twins born in the Hitsugaya family since the twins that placed the curse on the vampires. Aizen believes that if he performs a denkai with me before I have my rites, it will break the curse."

Every royal chosen to perform a denkai with a head vampire had to go through special rites at age seventeen so they wouldn't die during the denkai, which required the draining of quite a lot of blood. The rites weakened the power in their royal blood so the head vampire wouldn't be able to get stronger from draining them. But if Aizen took Toshiro's blood before the rites, he just might have enough power to break the curse.

"And how will he perform the denkai, Toshiro? You must give your blood willingly for it to fulfill the Agreement." Juushiro pointed out.

"Aizen plans to threaten Jun." Rangiku interrupted. "I fear for their lives, Emperor! Please, you must send them away!"

"No!" Toshiro cried out. "Aizen will be suspicious! We can't risk Jun's life!"

"Because Jun's life is more important than yours?" Juushiro asked angrily. "You are my son, Toshiro Hitsugaya, and I refuse to lose either you or your sister. Now, Rangiku has a plan, and I believe it will work."

Toshiro could not disobey his father. He nodded and listened quietly as Rangiku outlined the details of her plan, all the while thinking,

We cannot let Aizen succeed.

B R E A K

Eighteen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki scowled when he opened his bedroom door and found another gift from the visiting prince Shinji Hirako. Didn't that blond idiot know he was married already? To someone he had never met, sure, but that didn't mean a thing. And besides, he liked women, no matter how girlish Prince Shinji's hairstyle was.

He shifted uncomfortably in his yukata. It was a replica of the one he had worn at his wedding, only simpler, and according to Uryuu's readings, more suitable for greeting the guest from Yuki'da that had come in the middle of the night. The guest had asked for secrecy so only Ichigo and the royal healer Inoue Orihime knew that she was at the palace. They did not know who she was, but she provided a genuine letter from Emperor Juushiro that said she was there on official business. She came covered in blood and on foot, according to Inoue, but she hadn't been injured at all. Right now she slept in one of the guest rooms in some of Ichigo's old clothes. Apparently it was a funny sight because Inoue couldn't stop giggling when she spoke of it.

He strode down the hallways as majestically as he could, but nearly ruined it by tripping over his own two feet. After adjusting his yukata he walked normally to the guest room reserved specially for visitors from Yuki'da, and knocked on the patterned screen door. When there was no response he called,

"I'm coming in now," and slid the door aside. He'd never been in this room before, and was stunned. Everything was beautifully done, a world of silk and blue and white. A white dragon twirled around on the wallpaper, and its head looked down at the sleeping girl on the futon.

Ichigo had to stifle a laugh. The guest looked a year or two younger than him, but she was rather elfin in size. And Ichigo would know - last year, he and his father made a visit to another kingdom whose prime population consisted of elves. He'd been twice the height of most of the court officials. He got into quite a spot of trouble when he tripped over their king.

He recognized the clothes she slept in as one of the yukatas that had been considered for his wedding outfit. It was sea green with white dragon patterns, and although he'd really liked the dragon matter, the color clashed with his hair and the yukata was too big. The newcomer was practically swamped in it, her white hair fanning out and blending into the cloth, which had silver thread woven into it at some places.

She was beautiful, Ichigo thought. Her white skin had been covered with blood on arrival according to Inoue, but it was clear and smooth now. Her cheeks were tinged slightly with pink, her lips slightly open as she breathed in her sleep. Ichigo swallowed as he realized something.

This could be my wife.

He could not remember exactly what his wife looked like, since he had last looked at the painting when he was thirteen, but he did remember that she had white hair and clear, pretty teal eyes. If this was her...

He took a deep breath and shook her shoulder, feeling how dainty it was in his large, scarred hand. She stirred with a rather unladylike sound, eyelids sliding up to reveal large eyes exactly the color Ichigo remembered. But as she sat up, her hair did not fall to her shoulders as expected, instead staying up in spikes, and an Adam's apple bobbed in her throat. In the yukata her shoulders were not broad, but not ladylike either, and her chest was flat.

It was most definitely not Ichigo's wife.

"Hello there." He greeted, trying to comprehend how he could have mistaken the visitor for a woman (and his wife at that). "I am Prince Ichigo Kurosaki. May I inquire as to your name and purpose here in Karakura?"

The newcomer yawned and stretched before replying, yukata riding up his shoulders.

"I am Prince Toshiro Hitsugaya of Yuki'da." He stated in an unusually deep voice for his body. "On behalf of my kingdom, I request your assistance."

"Assistance in what?" Ichigo asked, wondering what could be so important.

Toshiro stared Ichigo straight in the eyes. The orange-haired prince was nearly blown back by the intensity in those eyes, but he held his own.

"I need you to escort me back to my kingdom."

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S O V E R E I G N C H A P T E R O N E