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Assistant: Title: Gods & Monsters
        Author: zabiume zabiume 
        Chapter: 1/14 
        Summary: In 1920s New York, a young Don Kurosaki navigates the dangerous world of organized crime, making tentative alliances, deadly enemies and a love that lasts a lifetime.
        Contents: Chapter 1: The Man Who Would Be King
    

    


  

  
  
    
     
  Prologue 
 Ichigo didn’t go to church, but if he did, he’d tell the priest something like this: he never meant to be a hero, a leader, or a king. They came to him. They saw in him a man of the people, a just man. You were more likely to see snow in July than a person of that description in some parts of New York City. He understood their faith, even if he hadn’t necessarily asked for it.The truth is, he’d returned from the war to a country broken and unrecognizable. Make no mistake, the wealthy men and the men in power still remained as they were; it was the rest that made no sense. The streets were mean now, or perhaps they always had been, but his eyes were trained and caught on quicker than they used to to the hidden world. Backdoor deals, muffled screams and wails from buildings you couldn’t look at for too long. That sort of thing.A man had held a knife to his sister’s throat when she was walking back from the store one day. She’d never been quick to cry, but that day her chin had trembled and that had been enough for Ichigo to go knocking on doors and peeping through windows for answers.He’d found out soon enough that the man ran with Don Baraggan, a kingpin who threw his weight around through extortion and excess. You either worked for Don Baraggan, or you paid your tithe to him. You didn’t look him in the eye. That was for equals, and Baraggan didn’t have many in the neighborhood.The more Ichigo dug around, the more stories he heard. Victims of pickpocketing, drunken grave vandalisms, blackmail, harassment…the list grew. No one could walk around at night without one of Baraggan’s guys causing a nuisance. Eventually, Ichigo was getting into fights with so many of them that word got around: there was a guy in the neighborhood who had real grit, and he was willing to take on Don Baraggan. Hope resurfaced, and with it came men who wanted to join the cause.“What if we kidnapped the Don,” Keigo Asano suggested with an excited clap, sending a few cards from the pack he was shuffling to the floor. He’d been too weak to enlist back then, but he had spirit — too much of it.“We’d have an easier time kidnapping the President,” Mizuiro Kojima dismissed, bending down to retrieve the cards. He’d dodged the draft with the help of a woman he was seeing upstate. Well-connected would be the polite word to describe a man like him, but Ichigo often called him a sleaze. Fondly, of course.When Mizuiro came back up, his eyes met Ichigo’s. “I know a guy who’s got guns.” His tone was casual, but the implication was anything but.Sado shifted in discomfort when Ichigo didn’t say anything else. Sado was his oldest friend and only connection to the old world — the only one from the army he still kept in touch with.Outside, it was snowing and decisions were waiting to be made. Ichigo waited for something, anything — fear, excitement, regret, the things that ran your blood hot and made your mind muddled — but all he felt was a sense of purpose for the first time since he’d enlisted. Except this time, he had none of that naive hope he had when he was eighteen; all he had was a sense of duty.“Call your guy,” he told Mizuiro. “Tell him he’s got a customer.”Ichigo didn’t go to church, but if he did, he’d tell the priest that if he killed Don Baraggan that summer, it was only because he had it coming.  
  Two Years Later
  Orihime stared at the big, mahogany door ahead of her, feeling nervous. Behind her, two little boys chased each other, seemingly unaware of their surroundings — or of Orihime’s predicament. She fidgeted, wondering not for the first time if she was making a mistake. The cab fare here had been a costly little thing, and a lot of hopes were riding on her shoulders.“Come along, dear,” the receptionist — Miss Unagiya — urged, pushing the handle down as she nudged it open. Orihime hadn’t expected a receptionist. She didn’t know what she had expected, but a plain-looking brownstone about three stories tall was not it. She only knew Miss Unagiya through her women’s group. Last week, Miss Unagiya had listened to Orihime’s story so sympathetically, it made Orihime tear up a little to still think about it. By the end of the conversation, she had handed Orihime a mysterious card with an address to this location. It seemed that if Orihime was to find answers anywhere, it would be here.As the door opened, the children suddenly abandoned their game and pressed up against it, giggling when they spilled through the entrance with her and Miss Unagiya.Orihime had the sense that a conversation had been taking place, but it ended abruptly. All the men in the room looked towards the door, and the man who was sitting at the chair — the only man who was sitting — looked startled for a moment, before relaxing.“Kaoru, Yuichi,” he said, somehow managing to sound both stern and gentle at the same time. “You know you’re not allowed in here.” He glanced up at Mrs Unagiya as if he was chastising her. Orihime took the opportunity to really look at him. To look at the man she was here to see. In his fine-pressed black suit, with a cigar in one hand, he looked the very definition of an important gentleman. His eyes were a deep, dark brown, settled into a strangely handsome face. Don Kurosaki, she supposed. They called him that in the streets, but Miss Unagiya had told her he disliked the title and she should avoid using it if she wanted to win his favor.Orihime really needed to win his favor.“Sorry, you know how they can get,” Miss Unagiya said, though she didn’t sound too apologetic. “Off you go!” she scolded the giggling kids, shooing them out of the door as she shut it behind her. Ichigo Kurosaki’s eyes fell on Orihime, curious, and Orihime was too absorbed to realize she probably shouldn’t have been staring back at one of the most up-and-coming figures of the underworld.Ichigo’s eyes drifted away from her and back to Miss Unagiya. “What’s going on?”“Right,” Miss Unaigya replied, gently shoving Orihime in front of her. “This is Miss Inoue.” She nudged. “Go on, tell them what you’re here for.”Orihime felt sheepish when all the eyes in the room turned to her. “Wow, this looks nothing at all like the bathroom,” she joked, trying to deflect some of the tension.The men looked stunned.“Please don’t shoot me, I’m only joking!” she blurted, feeling her ears turn red when they glanced at each other, amused and confused.“...I’m afraid you must be lost, Miss Inoue,” Ichigo said when he finally recovered from his shock to speak, and Orihime had the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the bathroom. His voice was deep and diplomatic. He wasn’t trying to threaten her, but there was a wary edge to his voice that spoke of his distrust.“She’s come a long way, kid,” Miss Unagiya insisted. “Trust me; she isn’t lost.”“Nonetheless, we don’t have an open-door policy,” Ichigo said, narrowing his eyes at Miss Unagiya as if they were speaking in code. Miss Unagiya rolled her eyes, and then left Orihime to her own devices as she pushed the door and went out the same way she came in. The room became quiet. Behind the table, there were two men on either side of Ichigo, wearing well-tailored suits just like him. They all stared at her with varying degrees of curiosity.Ichigo cleared his throat, then gestured to the seat in front of his table. “Well, Miss Inoue. Have a seat.”“Thank you, sir,” Orihime replied and gingerly settled down in the chair.“What’s the problem, miss?” asked the bespectacled man on Ichigo’s left. He had both his hands settled on a briefcase and wore a tie, a bit more formal than the rest of them.Orihime bit her lip. Right. “Mr Kurosaki,” she said, braving herself to look him in the eyes. “I hear you’re a man of great kindness. I hear - I hear many things, down at the lower east side, where I’m staying.”Ichigo lit his cigar, then held it to his mouth for a drag, the light dousing his profile for a brief flicker. He let her statement pass without acknowledgement. When he released the cigar, a puff of smoke with a faintly expensive scent blew out of his mouth. He nodded, as if encouraging her to go on.“I work down at the Karasu with a few other girls,” she explained. “We serve drinks, we entertain, we brew. Why, if you gentlemen were to find yourselves on the east bank, I can guarantee you that the finest five-star restaurant would not have the quality of our service.”“I don’t know if you’ve been reading the news, but we’re not in the market for alcohol at the moment, miss,” joked one of the men. He had mousy brown hair that parted in the middle, and his suit was a size too big. The other men chuckled — all except Ichigo.Orihime soldiered on. “We work hard, Mr Kurosaki. But Mr Iwao, our boss, he…he patronizes us. He won’t pay us on time, and he misbehaves in a manner that is not appropriate for a man in his position.”Ichigo's eyes softened with sympathy. Even though it was the reaction she expected, she was surprised to have it.“You could take the matter to the police,” the man with the spectacles suggested.“That’s only led me so far. They haven’t been — most receptive to my complaints.” She looked at Ichigo again. “I’m sure you can understand that I’m out of options.”Ichigo pulled open a drawer to withdraw a few bundles of cash. “If money is the issue…” He began rolling a few slips between his fingers.Orihime shook her head. "We’d like to be paid our wages in full, sir. And we’d like to be given our dignity. These girls, they’re depending on me to give them answers. But I’m afraid if you don’t help me, there’s not much I can give them.”“What do you suggest I do then, Miss Inoue?” Ichigo asked, setting aside the money. “What is it you think I do for a living?”Orihime’s heart began to race. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear carefully. It was true that she had heard things. Open secrets. But among all the things she’d heard, she knew in her heart that he was a kind man. He took children off the streets at the behest of his friends and godfathered them. He was sympathetic to women’s causes. Whatever else it was she heard, she knew that above all, he was a kind man. She sensed it in the way he spoke, the way he carried himself.“I-I’m not sure. Whatever it is important people do behind closed doors, I suppose.”Ichigo snorted, but his eyes were relaxed. It was astonishing how much softer his face looked when he wasn't wearing a deep-set scowl. He gave the big, burly man on his right a significant look, but continued speaking to her. “We’ll see what we can do.”Orihime felt her entire soul light up with joy. “T-Thank you, sir!” She clasped her hands together. “Oh, the girls…the girls will be so glad!”“Hey, he didn’t say we would—” the mousy-haired man piped up, but Orihime was too thrilled to hear him.“Thank you,” she repeated sincerely, trying not to cry when she held Ichigo’s gaze. “I really mean it. You-you have no idea the things we've been through in these last couple of months."Ichigo nodded. “Be seeing you.”Orihime beamed. "Goodbye, Mr Kurosaki."  -0-  No one had ever called him a kind man before. A powerful one, sure. A gutsy one. An ambitious one or an honorable one. But ‘kind' was not on the list of adjectives people associated with him. He was not in a line of work that gave him many opportunities to act out of such a virtue. The closest he ever got was mercy.About three hours after his fateful encounter with Miss Inoue, Ichigo arrived at a well-lit but imposing parlor where three other men were already seated. The one in the middle stood up as Ichigo approached."Ichigo Kurosaki," he said with a sharp, mocking smile. "The man who would be king.”"Mr Aizen." Ichigo gripped the man's hand firmly and gave it a shake. He didn't offer pleasantries; it would be a pretense on both parts if he did, though a passerby might be under the illusion that they were on cooperative terms.“Can I interest you in something from my leftovers?” Aizen gestured towards a little alcove in the room where there sat a private bar.Ichigo snorted. He didn’t buy the idea that Aizen was going to get rid of all his alcohol on account of the Prohibition. The man owned half of the NYPD, and was slowly working his way up to the senate. If it was up to Ichigo, he'd prefer every time he saw the man to be his last, but two years ago he'd put a bullet in Don Baraggan's skull, a catalyst, in many ways, that had set him on an unfortunate path.Don Baraggan, it turned out, was answerable to the New York Trident. A glorified ass-kisser who turned over profits to his three, formidable bosses. Aizen needed a man in west New York — a foot in the door who'd look the other way if Aizen needed him to. The late Don Baraggan had paid up to Aizen and helped him in the hopes that one day he could have his own ‘family,’ independent of the trident.Ichigo had the same hopes for himself. The only problem was that he’d inherited not only Don Baraggan’s dream, but also his relationship with Aizen.“Let’s get down to the brass tracks, shall we,” Ichigo said, dragging a chair out and sinking right into it.“Oh, he’s no fun,” Gin Ichimaru remarked cheerfully, while Kaname Tosen simply remained silent. If Ichigo was intimidated by being in the same room as the New York Trident, he didn’t show it.“Business it is, then.” Aizen sighed, as if he was disappointed. “Nothing too serious, just standard procedure, really.”“Don't worry,” Ichigo remarked dryly. “We'll still give you our lunch money whenever you pass by our class. Is that what you wanted to hear?"Tosen looked offended. Aizen’s face gave no indication of anything at all. For a second, there was an obvious tension in the room. It was clear that the three men were less than pleased about having to do business with Ichigo, but they could kiss his ass for all he cared. He wasn’t going anywhere.“Actually, I take that back, he’s a riot,” Gin laughed, though it was not a sound filled with good humor. Gin turned to Aizen. “Can we kill him?”Aizen held out a hand, as if to keep Gin and Tosen’s growing tempers at bay. “Mr Kurosaki, I’m well aware of your commitment to your community. Your family, I hear, grows each day.” Aizen smiled. “I respect men like you — men who know what they are owed and take it. But I guarantee you, I am not your enemy. Big things are coming, and when they do, there will be a slice for all of us. All I ask for is your trust and patience.”Ichigo said nothing. They both knew Aizen only kept him around because West New York was lucrative. It was why he had kept Don Barragan around. “Well,” he exhaled. “If that’s all you wanted to talk about.”Aizen’s mouth thinned, but he made no motion to stop Ichigo from getting up. “I’m sure we’ll be meeting again soon,” he replied, faux-polite.“Don’t count on it,” Ichigo snarked and bid them goodbye.Outside, the skies were a dark gray, a distant thunder growling hungrily. Ichigo found his car and yanked open the door. When he slid into the backseat, Uryu was already on the other side. The car began to move, one among hundreds speeding towards the highway.“How did the meeting go?” Uryu asked.“I guess he just wanted to test the waters — check if we’ve changed our minds about kissing his boots.” Ichigo sighed and pinched his brows, frustrated. “F@ck@ng Don Barragan.”Uryu said nothing in response to that, but Ichigo knew what was coming next. His consigliere was like a broken record sometimes. “I’ve told you before —”“That it would be a good idea for us to expand, yeah, I know.” Ichigo gritted his teeth.“I don’t know why you’re against it. We have the manpower. West New York is only Aizen’s in name, but it’s already ours in territory. All the businesses defer to us,” Uryu explained. “If we took the East, we would be strong enough to stand toe-to-toe with Aizen. We would not have to grovel in front of him for a chance at making our own family.”Ichigo frowned. A move like that would expose them drastically; no one would give up the East without a fight, and there would be blood. Ichigo wasn’t naive. Going to war with Aizen would mean putting everything on the line, even the people he cared about. Especially the people he cared about. Was his ambition worth the collateral damage?Ichigo sighed and shook his head. Rain began to slice at their windows in thin strokes, New York pedestrians turning into blurry smudges. He thought of Miss Inoue, who was in the same plight as he was — bowing down to a man she didn’t have the strength to stand up against.“I hear you’re a man of great kindness. I hear many things, down at the lower east side, where I’m staying,” he recalled her saying, and then straightened.“Where are we on the Karasu Bar situation with Miss Inoue?” he asked.Uryu looked up from his files, surprised. “Mizuiro was supposed to be on it, last I heard,” he said carefully, then glanced at Ichigo in disdain. “Anyway, regarding the expansion—”“Tell Mizuiro to leave it to me,” Ichigo decided, and Uryu’s eyes widened further. “I’ll take care of it.” Uryu looked like he was about to protest, but Ichigo held up his hand. “Karasu is East, right?”Uryu’s mouth hung open, then fell into a smirk. “Are you suggesting we buy Mr Iwao’s loyalty?” Ichigo almost wanted to smirk back. He could relate to Uryu’s sadistic streak in this regard — he too would love to put a man like that in his place, but no. His ideas were made of something stronger.“I’m suggesting we buy the bar,” Ichigo explained. “Show the East there’s a new business in town.”Uryu looked like he wanted to argue, but Ichigo knew he wouldn’t. This was a careful, methodical step in the direction he wanted to go after all. A baby step, but a step nonetheless.Eventually, Uryu nodded. “I’ll check our accounts.”“I guess it’s time to pay Miss Inoue a visit,” Ichigo muttered.'
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