Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, but all OCs belong to me. That includes Saiu.

DEVIL'S SWAY

Chapter 25

A lean figure was crouched just inside the shattered front door. He was dressed in a strange outfit of white and red, kimono somehow crossed with something more modern. His wildly spiky hair was golden yellow, his eyes solid demonic red, and his slow smile wicked.

He leisurely rose to his feet, his movement flowing with predatory grace. He had no horns like most demons, but what looked like sleek snake scales of a gold several shades darker than his skin ran down the tops of his arms and the back of his neck. The demon looked Tōshirō up and down before brushing spiky bangs away from his eyes in a decidedly human gesture. Then he tilted his face up and scented the air, ruining the almost-human image.

"Pfff," he huffed, irritated. "You are not the right one." His words were coated in an alien, sibilant accent.

Tōshirō didn't respond, carefully analyzing his opponent instead. Class 2 was his best guess. The demon looked too human to be Class 3, but didn't have the right eyes to be a demon lord. No one besides Kurosaki had ever defeated a Class 2 demon. Tōshirō wasn't sure if he even stood a chance.

Then again, if Kurosaki could do it, he should be able to manage it too. He lifted his sword.

"Sit upon the frozen heavens, Hyōrinmaru!"

The demon rolled his eyes. "Am I supposed to be scared right now? You're not the one I'm looking for, but I'll kill you if you don't get out of my way." He inhaled slowly. "I can smell him. He's here somewhere."

Tōshirō stiffened. Could this demon smell Saiu? Surely the demon prince would have taken precautions against such a simple form of tracking. He set his set his feet and angled his sword defensively. There was no point in holding back. He already knew this demon was powerful.

His breathing slowed as he centered himself. He raised his chin. "Bankai," he whispered.

Reiatsu rushed out of him in a blast of power. Ice swirled through the air, condensing on his back, coating his sword arm. The temperature in the room plummeted. Tōshirō shifted forward a step, distracted as his ice tail knocked over a small table. He usually didn't unleash his Bankai in small rooms.

The demon stood casually, eyebrows raised in surprise. Then he sighed. "Really? A kid like you with Bankai? I just don't have time for this."

"I am not a kid," he said tersely. "I am Hitsugaya Tōshirō, Shinigami Captain of the Gotei 13."

Unimpressed, the demon sighed again. "Fine, if you really want me to kill you, I will. Any other day, I would have fun with you. Today, I'll have to kill you fast." He looked distinctly disappointed by the thought.

The demon flexed his hands—then launched at Tōshirō. They slammed together, but there was no space to maneuver in the room. Tōshirō struggled to keep up with the blindingly fast demon, barely managing to block the incoming strikes. Even though he'd spent most of the last two years wishing to be rid of it, he desperately regretted the loss of Hiren's power. There was nothing in the dark corner of his soul where Hiren had lived. Her remaining power has assimilated into Hyōrinmaru, leaving no trace.

The demon interspersed physical attacks with flashes of Kidō. Tōshirō froze them in ice as they came, but wasn't able to gain the advantage. They smashed through the wall into sitting room. Tōshirō caught a glimpse of Nakita diving out of their path before the demon slammed a heavy kick into his side, nearly shattering his ribs. Gasping, he rolled away, ice wings beating the air to speed his movement. He sprang up—and realized his mistake.

The demon stood in the center of the room. Tōshirō stood at one end. Nakita crouched in a corner at the other end, trapped, with the demon between them.

Red eyes slid to one side, taking in Nakita from head to toe. The demon slowly smiled.

"Who are you, pretty thing?" he asked. His gaze flicked backed to Tōshirō. "Someone special?"

Even before the demon moved, Tōshirō knew what it was going to do.

"No!" he roared.

The demon spun and flashed-stepped—straight for Nakita. Its claws were out, ready to kill. In the brief instant before the demon reached her, Tōshirō lunged forward, already knowing it was too late. No! How could he keep failing Nakita? How could he keep letting her suffer because of him?

Hyōrinmaru! he thought desperately, wordlessly demanding help, begging for all the power the Zanpakutō could spare.

The demon was on Nakita. Its claws flashed down. She hadn't even had a chance to raise her arms in frightened defense. As Tōshirō lunged forward, swinging his sword around in front of him, he felt a surge of power from Hyōrinmaru—an icy surge that held a dark, alien power. Savage, familiar power.

As the blade of his Zanpakutō swept in front of him, it glowed red. Not with the symbols he was used to, but with a solid, unbroken scarlet sheen. Strangely, the air seemed to resist the passing of the sword. Ripples ballooned out from the blade's path as though he were sweeping it through water instead of air. The ripples expanded, flowing away from the sword.

Suddenly, Tōshirō couldn't breathe.

The air had thickened into the consistency of mud, impossible to inhale. Ripples expanded outward, making the whole room shimmer. Confusion and fear nearly frozen Tōshirō in place, but he was already leaping toward the demon, knowing he was too late to save Nakita's life.

But something very strange was happening. The demon was still standing over Nakita, his deadly claws arching toward her throat. Her mouth was open wide in horror, her arms halfway raised in a futile gesture of self-defense. But through the rippling air, Tōshirō could see they both seemed to have frozen in place. No, not frozen—slowed. The demon's claws were sluggishly descending, struggling to complete their lethal swipe.

The demon's movements had somehow been constricted, slowed. How? Why?

And why couldn't Tōshirō breathe?

All this he absorbed in the first instant that the ripples cascaded out from his sword. Then he was leaping through the air, flash-stepping with all the speed he could muster before the slowed demon completed his strike. He flew through the sparkle of snowflakes created by his reiatsu; they hovered eerily, unmoving, their descent to the floor somehow blocked.

As the ripples spread, travelling ahead of him, they lost momentum, started to fade. The air thinned. The snowflakes started to drift downward again. And the demon's strike picked up speed, claws blurring toward Nakita's throat.

Tōshirō slammed into the demon, throwing him into the wall just an instant before he claws touched Nakita. He planted himself in front of her, gasping for air after the sudden, inexplicable thickening of the atmosphere.

The demon jumped to his feet, unhurt. His red eyes were so wide they were round as coins. He backed away from Tōshirō.

"How—how did you do that?" the creature demanded. "What power do you have to do that?" He took another step back.

Tōshirō clenched his jaw, confusion muddling his thoughts. Hadn't the demon felt the air grow thick, slowing all movement except Tōshirō's? Tōshirō didn't understand what he'd done, or how, but he didn't think admitting that to the demon was a wide decision.

"No one can move that fast," the demon snarled. "Not even the princes themselves can jump space like that."

Jump space? Tōshirō had moved his normal speed. It was the demon who'd suddenly slowed down.

"You'd be surprised what I can do," he replied, lining his voice with menace. He gave his sword tip a flick, noting that the red glow was gone again. Had that strange slowness been one of Hiren's abilities, left behind when the Akkihasaiki had returned to Nakita?

The demon backed away a little further, now clear at the other end of the room. "I don't have time for this," he growled. "I will let you live for now, Shinigami." His red gaze unexpectedly flicked around the room. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring.

"Or maybe not," he whispered. A slow smile stretched across his face and he turned toward the hole in the wall where he and Tōshirō had broken through.

. o : O : o .

Ichigo opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented by the darkness. As his eyes adjusted from the brightness of his inner world, he recognized the small bedroom where he and Saiu had retired while they fought their internal war against Saichi. He sat cross-legged on one side of the room, facing the demon prince.

Saiu's pose mirrored Ichigo, but his head was down, eyes closed, face serene. Still in the meditative state. For a moment, Ichigo worried that Saiu hadn't made it out of Saichi's inner world in time—but no, Saiu had vanished before Ichigo and Zangetsu. Saiu must be in his own inner world, collecting his thoughts or checking his soul for human soul bits or something.

Ichigo studied the demon, anxiety coiling deep in his belly. What was going to happen now? What would Saiu be like once he shed the human infection that had altered him, damaged him? How long would it take before he went back to the cool, intimidating demon prince Ichigo had first met in Hell's palace?

Perhaps the most important question: How much would Saiu hate Ichigo for weakening him, nearly breaking him? Not that Ichigo had done anything on purpose, but chances were that wouldn't make much difference to a re-demonized Saiu.

And what about what Zangetsu had said? That Ichigo needed to figure out what it was about Saiu that attracted him? He flinched at the thought, but he could no longer deny it without looking like a fool. But he still wasn't convinced—not in the slightest—that it was physical attraction. Well, maybe a little bit caused by Saiu's aura, but he knew he wasn't the only one having that problem. But he was the only one who actually liked being around Saiu, talking to him, annoying him . . . Everyone else was frightened by Saiu. Ichigo had moments of fear when it came to the demon prince, but overall, he wasn't afraid. He could say the same thing about Kenpachi Zaraki, the bloodthirsty Shinigami Captain.

Of course, when Saiu recovered, Ichigo's lack of fear might become a fond memory instead.

Ichigo was just about to get up and stretch while he waited for Saiu to wake up—when Tōshirō's reiatsu blasted through the shop with the release of his Bankai. Ichigo lurched to his feet, mentally kicking himself when he realized he could sense a faint, suppressed demonic aura. They were being attacked!

"Saiu!" he yelled. He grabbed the demon's arm and shook him. "Saiu, time to wake up!"

The demon prince didn't respond, still lost in his inner world.

Not daring to wait, Ichigo sprang from the room just as a massive tremor shook the building. The hallway near the end collapsed in on itself in a burst of dust and bits of drywall. Ichigo swore. With that route blocked, he charged down the hall in the opposite direction, forced to detour. As he sprinted down a different hall, honing in on the fight, he felt Tōshirō's reiatsu surge—and then suddenly it blinked out. In the very same instant, it blinked back in—a dozen feet from where the Shinigami had been.

Eyes wide, Ichigo burst through a door into the empty kitchen. The only thing like that he'd ever felt before was a teleportation Kidō. How had Tōshirō just shifted from one spot to another in the same instant? It definitely hadn't been Shunpo.

He tore through another door, not stopping to slide it open, and found the room where the fight had started. The wall had a gaping hole. He hefted Zangetsu in his hand and stepped into the opening. A yellow-haired demon, probably Class 2, smiled at him. Tōshirō stood in the corner in full Bankai array, Nakita crouched on the floor behind him, one hand touching the back of his leg.

"Hmm," the demon murmured. "That's some impressive Kidō hiding your reiatsu, Shinigami. Who cast that spell on you?"

"None of your business," Ichigo snapped. He lifted his sword aggressively.

"Don't be hasty, Shinigami. I've been looking everywhere for you, as have my brothers. I have a message for you."

He hesitated. "A message?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tōshirō tense.

"Oh yes." The demon smiled. "You need to come with me like a good Shinigami boy. Or you will regret it to your dying day."

Ichigo snorted. "And why would I regret not turning myself over to a bastard demon like you?"

The creature's smile widened. He slipped a hand into the front of his kimono and pulled out a crumpled piece of dark material. He casually tossed it to Ichigo, who caught it out of reflex. For a brief moment, dread closed an icy fist around his heart. He looked down at the object.

It was a black ball cap. Karin's black ball cap.

Ichigo's hand closed convulsively, crushing the hat. He slowly looked up at the demon. "Where is she?" The words came out in a hiss.

"Come with me and I'll show you."

"Where is she!" he bellowed. Panic rose up, choking him.

"Only I can show you." The demon's eyes darted to Ichigo's sword. "If you kill me, you'll never find her."

"She's not here," Nakita said into the charged silence. "They must have taken her to Hell already."

The demon nodded. "You won't find her without me. They've already masked her reiatsu and soul signature so not even a Diviner can find her." He inclined his head toward Ichigo. "Same spell you wear."

"Why do you want Kurosaki?" Tōshirō demanded. Ichigo stood silently, his heart breaking with terror and guilt. His fault. All his fault. Why had he involved her? Why hadn't he kept her safe?

"Not your business," the demon simpered. He held out a clawed hand toward Ichigo, gesturing. "Are you coming?"

Ichigo nodded woodenly. What choice did he have? He took a step forward. His hands were trembling, barely able to hold his sword. Emotions clashed in him, dread and rage and paralyzing fear. Karin. How could he have let a demon touch her? Take her into the destructive, poisonous torment of Hell?

"Kurosaki—" Tōshirō began warningly.

Ichigo ignored him, stopping in front of the demon. The creature smiled and reached for Ichigo. Green light was already sparking in his hand, a teleportation Kidō ready to go.

The air pressure dropped. The temperature cooled.

The demon in front of him stiffened. His eyes went wide with terror. He slowly turned around, shivering. Then he sank to his knees.

Saiu met Ichigo's stare, the bowed demon between them. The prince's head tilted slowly to one side as his gaze drifted down. His expression was icy smooth, unreadable, regal. He lightly touched one hand to the top of the demon's head.

Ichigo gasped as he felt Saiu's aura leap from his body like an arrow from a bow. It struck the bowed demon in a concentrated blast of power. The demon went rigid, then slumped forward, moaning. Ichigo shook his head sharply, trying to clear the haze from his thoughts. Even the residue of that aura release had been enough to fog Ichigo's mind.

"Miyasama," the demon whispered hoarsely. "Please. Command me. I am yours."

"Yes," Saiu crooned in agreement. Ichigo took a step back, fear tingling through him. He remembered what it was to be caught by Saiu's aura. It was so powerful it erased its victim's will, replacing it with nothing but the desire to do whatever Saiu wanted.

"Where did you take the human child?" he asked the enslaved demon.

"She was taken to Hell," he answered eagerly, desperate to please. "I don't know exactly where. I only know where to lead the Shinigami."

"And why are you to take the Shinigami to Hell?"

"To lure you after him, miyasama," the demon whispered, suddenly fearful that his answer would anger his master.

Saiu was silent for a moment, inhumanly still. "And why would you think I would follow a human into a trap?"

The demon shrank down slightly. "Because you already did it once before."

Saiu's face went even emptier. "I see."

"Forgive me, miyasama. Please, command me," he begged, agonized.

"Who arranged this plot?"

"I—I'm not sure, miyasama. I only know who gave my orders." The demon gazed at Saiu, mindlessly adoring.

"Who?"

"The Warlord."

Ichigo jerked straight, shock tearing him out of his confliction of emotions over Karin. He met Tōshirō's narrowed eyes. What was the Warlord playing at? If he wanted to find Saiu, kidnapping Ichigo's sister in order to kidnap Ichigo in order to bait Saiu into following hardly seemed the ideal approach.

The demon wrung his hands, staring imploring at Saiu. "Miyasama, I don't entirely understand, but the Warlord knows you've hidden yourself. He doesn't expect to be able to find you unless you want to be found, but he figured your Shinigami pet would be easier to catch."

Saiu nodded slowly. He stepped around the kneeling demon, toward Ichigo.

"Miyasama," the demon gasped. "Please, miyasama. Command me." He trembled with desperation.

Saiu glanced carelessly back. "I command you to die."

The demon straightened. For a moment, a serene smile of utter fulfillment brightened his face. Then he brought up both hands, claws hooked toward his own jugular. Ichigo looked away sharply, but he couldn't block out the sounds. The demon collapsed in a gurgle of blood, whispering his master's title with his dying breath.

The demon prince drifted to the center of the room, his dark eyes distant with thought. Ichigo watched him warily, his stomach tight with nerves. There was no doubt in his mind: Saiu was back to full demon. Somehow he'd already purged the human influence out of his mind and soul.

"You killed him," Tōshirō whispered, eyes wide with shock. He lifted his gaze to Saiu as his green eyes hardened. "Why did you do that? We needed to know where they took Karin!"

Ichigo froze, inside and out. Caught in his worries about Saiu, he hadn't realized the implications of the demon being dead.

"Saiu!" he burst out. "What the hell were you think? How are we going to find Karin!"

The demon slowly pivoted, motions fluid and almost sensual. He tilted his head. "We aren't."

Ichigo nearly choked, terror and fury raging inside him. "WHAT?"

"It is the most obvious of traps," the prince replied without emotion.

"That doesn't matter!" Ichigo roared. "That's my sister! I'm getting her back with or without you!"

"You will not."

"I—"

"You will not walk into that trap, Ichigo," Saiu interrupted, his tone imperial, commanding. "I will not surrender to the hands of my enemies on account of your stupidity. If you trade yourself for your sibling, you will die in Hell with her."

"I don't care what you do! I'm going to—"

"You will not."

"You can't stop me from—"

Faster than lightning, Saiu grabbed the front of his kimono. Ichigo smashed into the wall before he even knew what was happening, then hit the floor. Weight came down on his stomach. Saiu sat on him, smiling faintly as he tapped one deadly claw against the fragile skin at the base of Ichigo's throat. The demon slowly inhaled, eyelids sliding closed for a moment.

"Your soul is as pure as ever, Ichigo," Saiu whispered. "Delectable." His eyes came back into focus. "Let us summarize certain key elements of our current tribulations. One," he tapped the claw on Ichigo's throat. "I can prevent you from any action you would undertake, regardless of the emotional desperation behind it. Do not waste valuable time in an obstinate attempt."

Another tap of the claw. "Two. I am not pleased with you at present. Do not test my temper." Midnight eyes narrowed. "When we have leisure, I will educate you in our reality. For now, understand that you'd do best to encourage my favour and pray that I possess as yet undiscovered capacity for mercy."

Ichigo's breath caught in his throat. He held perfectly still.

"Three." Saiu hooked the claw in Ichigo's skin, just short of drawing blood. "One life, even the life of your kin, is nothing as to the doom that hovers just on the horizon. All life is in danger . . . all of us. However," he added coolly, "if you think me so powerless that I cannot whisk one child from death's grasp even in the midst of a universal crisis such as we have never faced before . . . you have little faith, Ichigo."

He blinked. "Huh?"

Saiu rose to his feet with flowing grace. He slid his hands into opposite sleeves as he cast a dismissive glance at the dead demon. "This fool did not know the girl's location," he said, his voice soft, sinister silk. "The Warlord does . . . and he belongs to me. He will give up the girl, willingly or not. As a hostage, she will be safe enough until I have the leisure to fetch her."

Ichigo sat up, terror for his sister twisting in his gut. "But—"

"Presently, we must set preparations in motion at once."

"Preparations for what?" Tōshirō asked warily.

Saiu turned, his eyes midnight black and colder than an arctic ocean. "To save the world. I have remembered what I forgot for too long—and it may already be too late."

. o : O : o .

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Betchya didn't think I was going to stick to the two updates a month promise, didja? I did more intend it to be a chapter every two weeks, but this still fits the criteria. Technically.

On a story-related note… Oh Saiu, it's good to have you back. ;D