Who knew moving to the other side of the world would be so hard.

Chapter IX

Trapped in Darkness

"When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back."

- Sarah J. Maas A Court of Mist and Fury

There was a sharp sting in his neck the moment Ichigo was dragged from Aizen's lair. It felt like a bee sting, a moment of pain followed by an itching sensation. However, the pain traveled like a train through his veins. First a mere itch, but turning soon into a firey burn.

And yet he could not scream.

His body would not comply to his brain's constant signals to move, to escape.

Muscles froze, his limbs went lifeless.

After exiting the large gates of the old barracks of squad one, he felt his head rush forward, making the world around him twist and turn. Ichigo felt his body being dragged. His head hung low, still feeling the burning sensation through his veins. Guards in white held him by the wrists, pulling him like a rag doll through the abandon dark streets of the Seireitei.

And although his world was crumbling before his eyes, all he could think about was the traitor he once trusted.

Anger rushed through his blurred mind thinking about the white-haired child that cost him and Unohana their lives.

Then Unohana replaced his angered thoughts, and his mind filled with thoughts of her and if she was okay. He knew she could take better care of herself then he with him, but he couldn't erase the pitted pain in his stomach.

Darkness filled Ichigo's vision when they arrived at Muken's entrance. He barely remembered how he got there. There were even moments where he thought he was upside down or the world had become a backwards mess.

He did remember a massive white building – the main entrance to Central 46. A place he had only seen once before. It was the main place of politics in the Seireitei. Where all the decisions were made by retired Shinigami of the Gotei, chosen respectively by their service. They were powerful, smart, and all now dead.

Ichigo did see the blurred red paint all over the walls. The place which was once a political capital was now a tomb. Dismembered body parts scattered the floor. Some bodies were pinned to the walls- headless. But the one clear image Ichigo remembered was all the 46 heads that were placed on abandoned zanpakutos hilts all in a row.

He was pulled further in. Into another room in the back. The door creeped shut and Ichigo then wondered what and where Muken really was. He heard about this place once before - a dark dungeon filled with nothing but the cruelest and dangerous criminals of the Seireitei and Rukongai.

But that was all he knew.

In the room, no one spoke. The only sound was the slight breathing from the guards and a bing sound that came after they were fully enclosed in the room. Then light appeared through two sliding doors opening in front of them. Ichigo was pulled inside by his two guards; the door shutting behind them.

The room started to move as Ichigo felt it go down. Further down they went, no talking, no sounds but the wires moving the box they were in. Ichigo didn't know how long they had been travelling down, but by the time it stopped and the doors opened into more darkness, he could feel his mind slowly recovering from his injection.

The guards pulled him into the dark hole. Ichigo's vision cleared and all he saw was blackness ahead. A pure black color that nobody would know existed without seeing it. And another thing Ichigo noticed as they ventured further into it was the still silence that emanated.

It was sickening.

Chilling.

Yet Ichigo felt eyes lurking in the dark. Like there was a monster ready to pounce.

Then they stopped.

"Here is good," he heard one of the guards say. "We don't want to be around when he wakes up."

"You're right," the other said. "This should keep him entertained for a few days."

Ichigo was thrown on the ground. He tried to make his body get up, but his limbs still felt weak and numb from whatever spell they placed him on.

"Have fun with the monster," the guard said, both chuckling as they retreated faster than they came in.

Finally, the light from the elevator was swallowed up, leaving Ichigo utterly alone.

For minutes he lay there, hearing only his heavy breathing through the unknown distance of this prison. One thing the guards did confirm, Ichigo was not alone.

And he shut his eyes.

xXx

Ichigo consciousness was blasted by light. He didn't know how long he'd been out. He didn't know what was happening, but behind his shut eyes the brightness was so confusing and overwhelming, his brain was begging him to look. To take just a peek.

So, he did.

And he awoke in a colour of white. All around him white. Just like being in its opposite colour moments ago, there was nothing but the blinding glow. What place was he in?

He sat up, feeling…fine. He had energy again. Felt better than ever before. As if the light had given his powers back.

He stood, looking around, seeing once again nothing. At least this time he was able to see himself.

He shouted. "Hello!"

Nothing. There was only silence. Just as before.

He knew this time there was nothing lurking in the shadows. Nothing he couldn't see at least.

He moved, walking forward, searching for…anything, trying to think of when the place he was in could've become so enhanced in white. And how.

Then he heard it. "Ichigo…." The voice was soft, barely audible at first.

Ichigo paused looking around, making sure he wasn't, all of a sudden, hearing things. And knowing this hell hole, he wouldn't have been surprised.

But the voice once again sang his name – louder but still too soft to recognize. "Ichigo…."

It was enough, however, for him to head in the direction he heard it from.

"Hello!" he desperately shouted at it.

"Ichigo…." It sang again, louder, clearer. And Ichigo finally realized who the voice belonged to.

The sweet, demanding and intimidating voice of the woman he had been travelling with.

"Ichigo," she said, and Ichigo ran towards the voice into more white paint.

"Yachiru!" he shouted back her first and true name.

He kept running, hearing the voice still. Then it started to fade away, as if it was running away from him. He stopped, catching his breath, cursing the still lack of energy. Then he looked to his side after noticing movement in his peripheral view. He looked and saw a slightly dark, misty shadow. It moved side to side, strangely. Ichigo cocked his head to the side, watching it, wondering what it was.

He moved slowly towards it as it kept swaying back and forth. Her voice had vanished, but Ichigo's focus was now on the image in front of him.

His hand reached out as he grew closer, curious on what would happen if he touched its smoky body.

Who are…? He thought as the tips of his fingers connected with the mist, pushing him back and bringing forth a shrieking scream from an unknown voice.

When he pushed himself up into a sitting position, he saw he was in a different place. No longer was he surrounded by white, but by the colour red.

Bodies upon bodies laid around him, all mutilated and seeping red paint from their wounds. He breathed out, trying to compose from the scene. Eyes wide as he stood up.

What the fuck! He shouted in his mind as his voice was suddenly unable to work.

He wanted to vomit. He wanted to shout. He didn't know what to do. He was trapped in a nightmare in a world painted in red.

Then in front of him, the misty shadow appeared before him again. He watched it; eyes stern on the creature. He wanted to ask what happened, where he was, but stopped when he noticed it start to change shape. No longer was it a shadow, but a figure of a woman. Her back was facing Ichigo, as long, black-ink hair shielded his view of her face. She was wearing a white yukata which was painted and splattered with the blood beneath her feet. And in her hand, it appeared. A long katana, dripping and drinking in the blood from the victims fallen below.

Ichigo dared to take a step forward, splashing his foot into a pool of blood. The woman turned her head at the sudden sound and Ichigo finally saw who it was.

Ichigo saw the psychotic eyes of Yachiru Unohana.

Another flash appeared in front of him again and Ichigo swore, for just a moment, he saw Unohana's figure transform into the what he knew as The Creeper.

xXx

The flash ended with him in darkness again. From there he was still lying on the floor, feeling the effects of the spell, trying to figure out now what he just saw.

Who was really down here?

What monster was watching him deep in this unforsaken hellhole?

What about what he just saw? Was it Muken itself showing something to him? What did it mean?

What was happening?

If something was in the dark that was a threat to him, and it was what those guards spoke of earlier, Ichigo could be in trouble. He was without Zangetsu. How he was going to defend himself, he didn't know.

"Fuck," he muttered quietly to the dark silence.

He slowly got up, his body returning its sensation and painless mobility. The first few steps he stumbled, but started to inched forward, moving through the dark. He had no idea where he was going or how deep the place ran, but he had to find some source of light. They couldn't have just left him here without some way to sustain himself. He didn't know much about Muken, but he had to figure how the place worked.

It felt as if hours passed him, still leaving him deeply alone in the silence. His recovering legs were tired. Sweat dripped down his face. He blinked forward, trying to see anything.

How long had he been walking really? His mind questioned it. The moments of leaving the lights of the elevator seemed so long ago and yet he had this forgoing feeling it hadn't been long at all.

Was this Muken's power? Did it push the confusion of time onto its prisoners? Did time not matter down here?

Ichigo's head swarm, making him wish he was still under the spell than questioning how long he'd been underground. His memories flashed. Anxiety rose through his stomach and into his lungs. He exhaled and inhaled slowly, holding his head and falling to his knees. His eyes shut tight trying to focus his thoughts on the woman he'd been traveling with and away from the darkness around him. Her face. Her voice. Her smell. The way she moved when teaching him how to properly fight. Her techniques and true personality to who she used to be.

She was a captain… Ichigo thought. She was…the captain of…of…

The darkness…

The dream he encountered overlapped, bringing forth the fear of the creature in the shadows.

He shook his head, trying to blur it out.

What was her name again? Yukio? Yumiko? Yoko?

It was the darkness that made those below go wild.

It was the darkness that made memories disappear into the shadows.

Being trapped.

Being unaware.

The darkness was the true power of Muken. And Ichigo had to overcome it somehow. He had to push through and keep on finding the light ahead.

He had to keep finding her.

"Whoever you are…" Ichigo opened his eyes. "…I will find you again."

Then it came. It started off as just an echoed tap every few seconds. For a moment, Ichigo wondered if his mind was completely lost. That somehow only hallucinations could comfort him. But the noise grew closer. Ichigo peered forward into the pitch darkness, seeing nothing of course. But he could hear it moving closer and closer.

Then the noise became the familiar tune of metal scraping on the ground. A sound he felt as if he hasn't heard for years, and yet it had been only mere hours.

It came closer and closer until he found himself seeing a dim blur of light. He squinted his eyes, watching it come forward until he saw something appear - a figure - just like in the strange dream he had encountered earlier. It was then he became excited, thinking his female companion was here. Ichigo smiled, slowly moving towards it. But the figure grew bigger until it became too big for it to be who Ichigo thought it would be. He grew worried as his smiled disappeared.

Then the figure became a clear image in front of him.

Instead of Yachiru Unohana, Ichigo was staring into the crazed, psychotic eyes of Kenpachi Zaraki.