Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uryuu nearly collapsed. With relief. Ichigo had just managed to cut down Yhwach. The quincy knew he had helped, still, thanks were in order. He turned to the exhausted teen.

“Thank you, Kurosaki-san. That was …”

He was interrupted by the cracking thunder of buildings falling apart. The end of the soul king was the end of the world as they knew it. Without balance the worlds would spill over into each other and chaos and loss of everything they had would follow. But what could they do? He had done EVERYTHING to prevent Yhwach from actively merging the realms. He risked his life to do so. He gave up his friends’ trust. To ultimately save them.

Now it seemed that all of that was for NOTHING. The world was crumbling apart. Because he hadn’t been able to save the soul king. At the time, he had had no way to defeat Yhwach and it had been so important to stay in his graces to be able to kill him later, even if he knew now that his plan would have never worked.

Uryuu also needed to be in that position to be able to protect Ichigo and all the others, in attacking them without killing them he could give them a chance to survive because they too wouldn’t have stood a chance against the king of the quincies. It was only the arrow made of still silver that stopped Yhwach’s nearly-omnipotent powers of precognition and meddling with the future for a short while. At least he didn’t see the arrow coming.

It worked and Yhwach died, another king, on the same day on which that king killed his father. The enemy was dead and still the realms were falling, colliding. Why shouldn’t they, now nobody was there to balance them? Now that the soul king was dead and no replacement was in sight? Why hadn’t Uryuu thought of this problem earlier? He had focused too much on the active threat instead of the passive one of the empty throne! Maybe he had hoped that killing Yhwach would be it, that everything would resolve itself. He was a bit disgusted at himself. Nothing was ever so easy as just killing a nigh unstoppable semi-god. Not for them!

“Kurosaki, do the shinigami have a way to stop this?” Uryuu asked, slightly panicked.

“I don’t know,” the hybrid answered sombrely with despair in his eyes.

They heard another crash, felt the ground shake for a second. Everything felt untethered, as if the world could just dissolve any minute.

“Urgh.”

At the groan both teenagers swirled around, weapons ready in their hands. Surprised, Uryuu nearly let his arrow fly. It was Aizen, lying in rubble and Yhwach’s fading shadowy reiatsu, roughly where Ichigo had defeated the erstwhile king.

Uryuu hadn’t even noticed Aizen’s presence. His spiritual pressure was so minor that the remaining but fading reiatsu of the dead quincy king had hid the rebellious shinigami, who seemed to be unconcious. While looking at the scene, Uryuu noticed something else. The rubble Aizen was lying under was actually the soul king’s … frame? The two halves were somewhat disguised by the dark cloudy shadows made from reiatsu that flowed in or around them. Aizen was alive and reiatsu was heavy in the air. An idea struck.

“Kurosaki, I think when Yhwach died some of the beings and things he absorbed survived! Can you see or feel the soul king?”

The substitute-shinigami grimaced, reminding the quincy of his friend’s rather mediocre sensing abilities. If Uryuu couldn’t sense the soul king, Kurosaki’s chances were considerably lower to do so.

“No matter, let’s look!”, he shouted while running towards the pile.

“I can’t feel anything except Yhwach’s remaining reiatsu,” the orange-head admitted while following him. “Should we just search and clear this rubble?”

It seemed Ichigo hadn’t recognized the soul king’s shell. It was stained rather dark and somewhat deformed. But he had a good point. These things were large and the reiatsu shading them made looking under or between them impossible. The soul king was rather small for a god, he could easily lie under there.

(He must lie there. He must. They needed him too much. And Kurosaki always had inexplicable good and bad luck. Maybe that held true for this time as well.)

Uryuu took a breath.

(He had learned that even in the dreariest circumstances, loosing hope near Ichigo was nearly impossible.)

“Good idea,” he answered.

They split the work, time could be everything. Each one of them grabbed a half of the “rubble” to throw it away, but as soon as they touched it, an explosion of reiatsu engulfed them.

No! He should have known that Yhwach’s reiatsu wouldn’t just fade like any other beings!

“Ichigo!”

“Uryuu, are you alright?”

Ichigo was fine, was alive at the very least. Uryuu staggered, partly of relief, partly because of the explosion. He felt off and bludgeoned, but not wounded too deeply.

“I am alive. You?”

“Same.”

The quincy blinked, trying to get his eyes to work again. Right now, he was only seeing bright and dark splashes when he opened his eyes. Feeling helpless, he concentrated on his sensing abilities.

It seemed that Yhwach’s spiritual essence had finally fully departed and Aizen was still extremely weak. Being absorbed by a mad demi-god seemed to have depleted all his reserves. Good. It seemed there was no danger from that direction, at least not yet. They had a bit time to re-imprison him, if they survived the next hours. The question remained, was there a remnant of the soul king to save them from probable complete destruction?

Uryuu stretched his reiatsu feelers. Most of the reiatsu he had felt was gone but there was something near Kurosaki. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, why couldn’t he –

His vision cleared. Immediately, he hurried to his friend, worried. But there was nothing. Uryuu carefully scanned the area with all his senses. He saw nothing but there was a weird reiatsu signature around here… Aizen still lay on the ground, still mostly unconscious. The black clouds of reiatsu were gone, as was the “rubble”. It seemed the things had completely exploded. A wonder they hadn’t done more harm than short blindness and some bruises.

Where was the soul king? Admittedly, Kurosaki's immense reiatsu made sensing more challenging than otherwise, but Uryuu normally was quite good at tuning him out. It wasn’t very strong but so close to them. Still, he couldn’t see or sense anything around or above them!

Irritated, he turned around his axis, checking the ground. Maybe only a small or miniscule part of the soul king had survived. As he wanted to start inspecting the floor more closely, he was interrupted before he could stoop down.

“Uryuu! Uryuu! Can you hear me?”, Ichigo asked, flash-stepping before the raven and wildly waving in front of his face.

“Yes, Kurosaki. I can hear you. But don’t you think we have more important things to do?” the quincy answered irascibly, pushing his glasses back on his nose.

“Uryuu… are you feeling alright?”

“Yes. I already told you, didn’t I?” But maybe… “Can you hear me?” Uryuu looked at his nakama. And stopped short. His focus hadn’t been on him, but on the area around him and on dangers around them. Maybe that was the mistake. Ichigo was…

“Your eyes…,” he whispered. Their sclera was mostly a golden orange, with black edges, no defined pupil visible. Was there more? Quickly, he checked for more differences. Was his hair different? Or just wind-swept?

“Ichigo, your eyes… they are…”

The shinigami frowned and seemingly came to a painful conclusion. “They are mostly a white cross on black sclera?”

“No, they’re golden-black – ” Too late Uryuu caught on. He touched his fingers to the edges of his eyes and looked into his friend’s still warm but now also disconcerting eyes. “Me too?”, he asked, quietly.

“Yes. ... I guess,” came the answer.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Uryuu.”

Now that Uryuu had another place to look for the weird, weak foreign reiatsu, he found it. It wasn’t a separate source. What he had felt were small changes in his friend’s spiritual pressure.

Silent, they looked around and at each other; and the silence wasn’t interrupted by crumbling, falling buildings.

Chapter Text

It took a while for the others to find them.

It took a while to explain what had happened. Nobody had expected this to happen, nobody even knew it could happen, because the soul king had never died before. But the eyes made it clear something had happened with the power of the soul king. Nobody knew why it wasn’t Aizen that gained the eyes and presumably the power of the king. Was it because he was unconscious? Maybe because he had touched just one of the halves of the shell? Maybe he wasn’t fit for the position? Inheritors needed – something that he didn’t have? Or did the power transfer because there were two of them, one for each of the two halves? Or – and they were very wary of that option – was the real reason it fell to them because Yhwach as the son of the soul king named them successor and son, respectively?

It took even longer to discuss the repercussions because they could predict them even less than they could speculate about the reasons for all of this. The one brilliant thing on which all agreed was that now there probably was a way for the heirs to right the balance between the worlds and to keep that balance intact, even if those heirs had no idea how to do it.

Afterwards it took barely a day for this – legacy – to reveal itself.

Ichigo and Uryuu had reunited with their friends and allies, imprisoned Aizen again after assuring everybody that Ywach was indeed deceased, reported their version of the events of the last hours and days, took place in the following discussions, and after nobody had anything more to say, Renji and Rukia led the Karakura kids to free guest rooms, where they could finally relax after a long day and a longer invasion.

Both Shinigami stayed with them, not only as their friends but also as observers if anything were to happen to the substitute-shinigami or the quincy, a fact that Ichigo especially seemed to appreciate. Uryuu was just happy it wasn’t Kurotsuchi, who’d love to get his hands on them for probably ethically dubious experiments. It seemed that sometimes even shinigami could be considerate. Or rational. Because throwing them and the crazy twelfth division captain together couldn’t have ended well.

Then, Uryuu had the honour and privilege to be re-accepted into his group of friends. He apologized for the deceit. He had done what he believed to be the only chance. Sado was the calmest – as always. He had never doubted that he had good reasons for joining the Wandenreich. Ichigo and Inoue made it clear as well that they understood. Abarai just said that it was good to hear that his trust in Ichigo’s opinion on his friend wasn’t wrong. Kuchiki just punched him in the arm. It hurt a bit but with that he knew he could get all of them back. Even though he had left, had seemingly betrayed them, they hadn’t ever considered him lost. It was humbling how amazing these people, his friends were. Uryuu told them that.

Typically, they were half touched and half made fun of him for telling them because they knew that already obviously! And next time he should act like it – they could have helped, you know!

The next morning brought no new revelations regarding to their situation. A hell butterfly brought notice that the Central 46 had been informed of the end of the war and of the current situation of two people under surveillance having variants of the soul king’s eyes. However, they concurred with the captains’ decision to observe and only act if a threat from or to them arose.

Captain-Commander Kyoraku Shunsui came in after breakfast. He took off his hat, sat down with them and told them of the death toll. Ukitake, Nemu, Urahara, Unohana and nearly all of the Zero Division had died to save the realms, to save all life. Also, zombifications and dezombifications seemed to have happened so now some people were alive again – Uryuu would have to get the whole story at a later time. Right now, Inoue was crying into Ichigo’s shoulder, who didn’t look much better.

Uryuu himself was stunned. He hadn’t thought that the wily shopkeeper who had helped them so much, who managed to outthink even Aizen, would meet his match in this battle.

Rukia looked like she didn’t want to believe it. Her captain was dead. Renji lowered his and to her shoulder, and even stoic Sado let his head hang in empathy.

Kyoraku told them he was very sorry for their loss, he knew how hard losing treasured teachers and friends can be. There was no doubt that the captain-commander was in mourning too, he looked raw, smaller and much older than they were used to. He had been close to Yamamoto as well as friendly with Urahara and Unohana, and Ukitake had been his closest friend for many centuries. No wonder he was a wreck.

He then told Ichigo and Uryuu that their fathers had returned to the living world and that they sent their best wishes for their speedy recovery. They hadn’t yet been told about the eye-situation, just that they’d been injured and needed time to heal.

And he told them that grieving would have to wait. The balance of the worlds hung in, well, the balance. They needed to know if both or one of them could fulfil the duties of the soul king and what that would involve. They needed to know if this calmness was just the silence before the storm. They hadn’t yet come up with alternatives for keeping the balance except one. By killing people in whatever realm there was an obvious excess of people that provably tipped the balance, by purposefully letting souls hollowfy if necessary, and by sending people to the living realm, if necessary, the realms could theoretically be balanced. Nobody was looking at this very last of last resorts with anything but disgust, shock and horror.

“You can’t do this!“ Inoue screamed out.

“We may have to if no other resolution id found. This is why you have no time to mourn right now,” explained Kyoraku. “I am very sad to have to tell you all of this. But we need the balance in order to survive. And for our souls to survive this without any more tarnishing, for us to survive this without resorting to becoming monsters, we need you two to figure out how to use the powers of the soul king.”

He stopped and looked Ichigo and Uryuu in the black and gold, black and silver-white eyes. “I do strongly believe that you have inherited them, so please do us all a favour and find out how to use them,” he concluded with a half-hearted smile.

With that desolate message and sword hanging over their heads, Ichigo and Uryuu rose again to the occasion and tried to figure out if they got more than the weird eyes they couldn’t turn back in that explosion of godly reiatsu. Neither concentrating on specific aspects of reiatsu and reiryoku nor imagining something to happen or being attacked to act instinctively helped matters. Even different analyses of their reiryoku came up inconclusive. Their friends’, the captains’ and the scientists’ mostly well meant ideas got them nowhere. In the end, it was Ichigo, who had the right idea.

“Okay, how about this? I’ll ask Zangetsu if he knows anything. He should notice if something changed, right?”

“Ichigo, I didn’t know you are such a genius!” Renji interrupted. “Didn’t you notice that Ishida here also has the eyes but no inner world to go to, Strawberry, because you know, he is a quincy?!”

“Do you have a better idea?” the teen rebutted his friend, scowl in place. “Does anybody have a better idea?” he calmly asked the entire group, at this point only Uryuu, Inoue, Sado, Kuchiki, Abarai, Captain Hitsugaya and Ichibe Hyosube, the leader of the royal guard. No one did.

As Ichigo moved to sit down on the floor, Uryuu had a thought. It was right, as far as he knew quincy didn’t have inner worlds. But the soul king was a being as close to the shinigami as to the quincy, hollows and humans. If it was true that he had inadvertently or deliberately gained some parts of the king’s power, then he theoretically could have an inner world right now.

“How do you get into your inner worlds, anyway?” he asked the assembled shinigami while adjusting his glasses.

Ichibe looked at him pensively. “Normally through Jinzen, sword mediation,” he answered.

“Yeah, you concentrate on your connection to your zanpakuto and the sword itself and then you force yourself to become one with the zanpakuto. Visualizing it helps sometimes,” Abarai continued.

“Hmm. So, you clear your mind, focus on the source of your power and try to become one with it?” Uryuu checked with the redhead.

“Yeah, basically.”

“Hmm.”

He could try that too. He hadn’t ever tried to become one with his quincy powers, and during the little meditation he had done, he had always focused on the outside, on the reach of his senses and abilities, not on his power source or its connection to him. He sat down next to Ichigo, mirrored his meditative pose and summoned his bow, holding it with both hands as he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

As Ichigo saw this, he smirked. “Let’s try this.”

~ ~ ~

Ichigo was grateful that Rukia hadn’t had the time to prepare illustrations for that explanation. He had watched enough of them, even if they and the reactions of other people to them were somewhat amusing.

He also thought that Uryuu looked somewhat weird sitting on the tatami mats with his white outfit and bow in hands. It was a bit incongruous, even if his eyes didn’t clash with the rest of his normal appearance because he had closed them. Anyway, it was probably a good idea to see if Jinzen or meditation was a way for the quincy to reach his powers or the powers they might or might not have as well.

Ichigo wasn’t completely convinced that that was what had happened in the explosion. It seemed just too convenient. Bam, powers of a god and Aizen got none. Normally he had to work for his powers, he had to work hard to become as good as he was. Still, he guesses it was possible. So, he reached for his sword, placed it in his lap and slipped into his inner world with his next breath.

“Hey, King,” Zangetsu laughed as soon as Ichigo appeared in his usual place on the sideway skyscrapers. “It seems you finally got your crown!”

Chapter Text

It took Uryuu a while to clear his mind, too much had happened in the last days and hours, too much depended on them. Concentrating on his powers was easier, it came natural to him. His powers were always part of him and he had no problem connecting to them. He willed himself even closer, imagined a place where his power came from, imagined himself going, being there.

Suddenly he felt weightless. He opened his eyes and he appeared to be in a white space, illuminated by unseen means. It had worked! Uryuu didn’t know if he had always had an inner world, if everybody had one, or if this was a new development, but he managed to get in!

Now, to find something helpful. He turned around. There was nothing. He slowly inspected the place. It was just an endless white space. There were no buildings, landscapes, no doors, animals or people. Only a white expanse.

“Hello?” he called out.

No answer came. The quincy started to walk to search around. Then he stopped, berated himself, opened his spiritual senses and stumbled as he was nearly overwhelmed. The reishi in the King’s Realm had nothing on the concentration in here. It was extremely strange he hadn’t noticed it before. But then … it wasn’t pressuring him. It was just close and dense and enormous.

Uryuu guessed that this must be what the soul king’s power felt like. Through the shell, he hadn’t really been able to get a good read on it, but here it felt bright and dense and free.

“Here,” he thought. “Here is my inner world. That I have. This power is connected to me, as we suspected… but why couldn’t I feel it or use it outside? This doesn’t make any sense…”

He tried to concentrate on his connection to this foreign power, as Abarai had said to concentrate on the connection to the zanpakuto. It was there but it seemed fleeting, small and it only clung to him peripherally. It felt very far away from him, which might explain why he didn’t notice it and also couldn’t use it.

The only idea he had to make it his own was to collect this inner-world reishi like he had always done with the free reishi from the "real" realms with his quincy powers. Carefully, he reached out and tried to draw some into himself. The light brightened incrementally and he felt it work. It was stranger than anything else he had absorbed, from the sparse reishi in Hueco Mundo to the somewhat stale tasting reishi in the Wandenreich. It was heavier and as soon as he pulled it into him it, it mixed with his reiatsu. What. He took a second to recalibrate his brain. That had NEVER happened before! This wasn’t even supposed to be possible! Collected reishi was separate, had to be used pretty quickly, had to be kept in check as not to flow away again! It wasn’t supposed to stay.

But maybe … maybe here it was.

If he wanted to make the soul king’s power his own, if he wanted to preserve life and the balance, the power needed to stay, needed to be his own. Uryuu thought which consequences absorbing the power of the soul king – or at least half of it – would have. Then he thought of the potential consequences of not accepting these powers and the decision to go on was easy.

He reached out again, drawing on more reishi particles than before. It worked and it was quite easy to create a continuous stream towards himself because the reishi was so dense and abundant. Just the merging reiatsu-reiryoku inside him felt extremely strange. He felt strange to himself. After a minute, it got harder to accept more reiatsu. He felt full, but kept going. He absorbed the glowing reishi that made up this place, made it his own in a way that had never happened before, absorbed it and felt it changing him.

After an hour he began to sweat, it was nearly impossible to cram more power into himself. It started to hurt. He felt like he was bursting. But the reiatsu around him still felt overpowering and nearly as dense as before. So, he kept going.

“Until I can’t,” he said to himself. “Just until I can’t anymore.” He kept going for hours and hours, never stopping because if he stopped, he feared he wouldn’t be able to begin again. The pain grew but he didn’t black out. He nearly got used to it but then the pressure inside of him rose and he needed get used to that, again. His skin didn’t feel like it could hold back this immense power, he felt both extremely fragile, in pain and volatile as well as heady with energy he had never felt before.

He kept going. And when he faltered, when it got too much, when he doubted his capabilities to get through this, when he doubted his will, he thought of his nakama, thought of all the people who had no idea how close to destruction they were and didn’t deserve it, thought of Ichigo, who probably had to pass similar trials. So he endured and took a metaphorical, miniscule step forward, again and again.

He didn’t know how long he had stood there, absorbing godly reishi. He had lost all sense of time. It must have been days, or at least it felt that way. He was extremely exhausted.

But he also felt stronger, light, luminous and so much bigger on the inside. He felt as if he could touch the sky, as if he could sense the world in its entirety, a wonder of space, time and millions of sparkling souls.

He closed his eyes and visualised what he felt. There were three, four, no five distinct places he could sense, each with a different taste. The living world with vivid colours and the smell of oranges and kiwi was one side of a whole, soul society with its abundance of reishi and the thrill of a new morning and Hueco Mundo with cool sands and a hollow cry completed an entirety. The world, made up of different realms.

To Uryuu it felt like a disk balanced on just one point in the middle of it. It was a precarious balance.

Around the edges of the world he got the impression of movement and the taste of clear water – probably the precipice world. At the bottom, far under the world-disk, he felt ashes, desperation and hate and tasted blood – the realm of Hell.

He could also see the damage Ywach had done in attacking the pillars of Soul Society. While the process of degradation was stopped, if nothing happened, the pillars would crumble and the realms would fall into each other.

What could he do? He needed to do something, he knew it deep inside of him. Soul Society needed to be stabilized.

In his visualisation, he stood on the side of the living world. He walked towards the damaged parts of Soul Society. One step after another. Maybe he could do something.

Then he noticed that his weight seemed to affect the disk. With his last step, it had tilted.

Uryuu stopped ice cold and carefully stepped back. If he walked completely over to Soul Society he feared he would unbalance the disk entirely.

Oh no, no, no. This couldn’t be it.

Chapter Text

“You get it, because you’re the king? For now, at least,” the sword spirit continued. The substitute-soul reaper’s white copy stood alone before him, dressed in a pure black shihakusho.

Ichigo surreptitiously checked if he was wearing any silly headgear. Thankfully, there was none. He had never wanted a crown, a real crown anyways. He’d still like to be in control of his own body but he had never wanted power for powers sake. He wanted to test his limits, yes. To grow, yes. To help his allies, obviously. To save his friends? Always. But he needed no power to just be the biggest mightiest out there. Why would he?

But the reference to the crown… he still wasn’t sure what exactly was happening now. But together with his eyes, colour-changed twins to Uryuu’s and the soul king’s eyes, they foreshadowed a burden he didn’t really want to bear.

“Forget the crown, Zangetsu,” he said. “Did you notice anything new in here?”

“You mean aside from the fact that Ywach absorbed part of me for a while, that these buildings crashed and were rebuilt in a matter of minutes and that the nearly whole me returned with an extra?” the sword spirit smirked.

“So, something did happen,” Ichigo stated. Well, now he knew and he had a new goal (never stop and always go forwards).

“Yeah, Ichigo! Ain’t a wonder something happened, isn’t it! The power of the soul kind exploded in your face! And it found you compatible, haha-hahaha!” Zangetsu walked away and then looked back. He sobered. “Do you want to meet him?”

Steel was in Ichigo’s eyes and voice as he answered. “Yes.”

“Really? You just got a piece of your soul back, just got me back and right away you want another?! Did you even miss me? Or were you relieved to be rid of your hollow?” his angry voice rang through the cityscape.

“No! I don’t want to be rid of you! And yes, I missed you. Naturally I missed you, you are a part of me!” Ichigo shouted back, gesticulating and striding towards his sword spirit. “I thought we understood each other?”

“Well, now that the old man is gone and replaced with a newer, younger, god-damn godly version, don’t mind me asking,” Zangetsu deadpanned.

Ichigo had suspected something like this from the beginning. The hollow aspect of his powers was back but when he didn’t see the quincy aspect he thought that something must have happened with the old man. Zangetsu’s words from before corroborated his bad feeling and now proved it right. But… “I would never replace you, Zangetsu. Not for whoever came in, not even for the old man, you were both my zanpakuto!”

“Not even if the whole world’s at stake?”

“You know!” answered Ichigo accusingly and with hurt in his eyes.

“Hmpf.” They stared at each other.

Zangetsu grinned madly. “Well, if it’s like that, let’s see if you’re worthy of him, if you’re still worthy of ME!” he spoke and vanished into a flash-step.

“Zangetsuu!” Ichigo raised his sword just fast enough to parry the blow to his head.

“Oh, did you think this was going to be easy, King? That getting the powers of the most powerful being in existence would be easy?” Zangetsu laughed as he swiped at the substitute-shinigami’s feet while simultaneously firing a cero.

With a jumping turn Ichigo could evade and attack at the same time. “No, not really,” he answered, grimacing.

His opponent parried and tried to punch him. Ichigo sidestepped and quickly flash-stepped away to fire a Getsuga Tensho at his white copy. Zangetsu got away and rushed him again. The fight wandered from one skyscraper to the next, and many fell collateral to their flashier techniques. The sound of breaking glass and the clinking as it fell was continuous. The fight turned faster and faster. Bankai were released nearly simultaneously.

Their swords clashed. Suddenly, Ichigo realised what had been bugging him the entire fight. “You’re not Zangetsu.”

“Ah, finally you noticed. No, I’m not your zanpakuto,” the spirit spoke, nearly teasingly.

“What have you done with him? Give him back!” the orange-head demanded as they sprung apart.

“Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you? Well, do you know what I would like? Not having died in my previous incarnation, that’s what! Do you know what else I’d like? Not being stuck with my murderer!” With that exclamation, the spirit let loose a Getsuga Tensho directly toward the frozen Ichigo.

“What?” He managed fire a Getsuga of his own to parry and used the explosion as cover to flash-step right before him. Ichigo managed to catch the spirit’s sword arm.

“No. No, I didn’t murder you. Even if you are the spirit king or an incarnation of it. I’m sorry what happened to the soul king. I did everything to save him and I’m so sorry I came too late and that Ywach took over… I’m sorry you died,” he told him. “And if I knew how to make it better, I would. That is why I’m here.”

The spirit was still angry. “When you thought that I was Zangetsu you didn’t seem so happy to meet me! Sure, you did what you thought you must to save the world but your eyes were cold and when ‘Zangetsu’ asked if you would trade him for me, you said no.”

“And I wouldn’t!” Ichigo exclaimed. “But that doesn’t mean I would trade you away!” Only their panting and the wind broke the following silence. Their swords finally hung downwards at their sides.

“And if you had to choose?”

“You kn– Oh. Maybe you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t know. I have been here only for a day!”

Ichigo looked at him closely. “I can’t not give everything I have to save the world. But if it involves giving you up, it can still be the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I know that because I had to do it once before and it nearly broke me.”

“But if you had to choose!”

“I would choose you! Because… you’re here, you’re mine and you might not be Zangetsu but you have parts of him, correct?” Ichigo asked. He could see the looks, the voice, and even some of Zangetsu’s personality quirks in the spirit standing before him and his ability to use Zangetsu’s techniques really gave him away. “Are they truly gone?”

“Yes. And yes. Ywach took your hollow and quincy powers. As you killed him, all the powers he had absorbed were freed and contained only by the soul king’s seal.” The spirit looked away.

“The soul king’s seal?”

“I believe you called it ‘rubble’,” came the dry answer. “The construct that exploded as you touched it.”

“Ah. And then you…?”

“The remnants of your powers in the seal recognized you. So, your hollow powers returned to you, together with a grand dose of the soul king’s dead reiatsu. And here I am. Here with you, who is so ready to throw us, me away again.”

While the substitute-shinigami noticed that nothing had been said about his quincy powers and he wondered why they hadn’t returned to him, he quickly asked the more urgent question, “Will it be necessary?”

“NO!!” the spirit shouted. “No, it’s not necessary!”

“Then I wouldn’t give you up! Not voluntarily, not ever!” Ichigo shouted back. “I might not have known you for long, for any amount of time at all, but I don’t want to lose you too!”

After a short pause, he asked, “Why did you ask me who I would choose? Not once but thrice?”

The spirit turned dead serious. “Because just like your sword spirit and quincy spirit I needed to know too if you would accept me. If you could accept the loss of Zangetsu. If not, you would have no chance to accept the soul king’s powers and responsibilities.”

“Is this going to lead to a sword-in-my-heart situation again?”

“Yess,” the spirit said as he readied his sword. “This is how it has always been for you, thus it shall be so now.”

“Stop!” Ichigo interrupted him, just as the blade touched his breast. As the spirit looked at him furiously, he hurried to continue. While he was quite nervous to accept this sword because he hadn’t even begun to grieve for both parts of Zangetsu and he would never ever forget them, and while he also wasn’t very keen on being the soul king, he wasn’t rejecting this new companion. He wanted to accept him for who he was, not only because the balance of the world (probably) depended on it. But to do that, he needed …

“Please, just tell me your name first?” he asked with a crooked and sad but honest smile.

After a moment of shock and consideration, the spirit answered, “I am ********.”

Ichigo listened carefully. “Thank you, ********,” he said, as he hardened his resolve and stepped into the sword.

Chapter Text

Uryuu was low-key panicking. He had tried to inch closer to the crumbled bits, the wound in the fabric of reality once more, and once more he had only further unbalanced the world-disk. He didn’t know exactly when the continuum would fall but he knew it would be soon. He tried to infuse the disk with his reiatsu to spread it through the disk towards the broken spot and only realized that that had the same effect as walking towards it. What now?

“Hah!” his musings were interrupted by a soft noise and what seemed to be Ichigo standing on the other side of the disk. He looked a bit rumpled and like he had just finished a fight or a run.

“Kurosaki?” Uryuu asked.

The other looked up.

“Oh, Ishida. What’s up?” he said. Then he looked around and asked, “Where are we?”

Uryuu raised an eyebrow. Well, it seemed to be Ichigo alright. His reiatsu seemed a bit different but so was his, probably. He considered the questions.

“I believe we are in a place that mirrors the real world, with all its realms. I think you’re standing on Soul Society, currently. The issue, as far as I can discern it, is that crumbled place over there,” he answered while pointing toward the cracks to the right of the ginger.

Ichigo turned and after spotting them, he looked around himself and looked at the world around them more closely.

“Yeah, that looks … and feels wrong. Have you tried to fix it?” He seemed to be taking the fact that they were standing on a representation of the world quite well.

“Yes,” Uryuu answered.

“And?”

Uryuu didn’t want to admit that he got nowhere. But, wait. Now that they had two weights, maybe …?

“As soon as I stepped too close, or even moved my reiatsu towards the fissures, I tipped the entire disk.”

“Oh, yes, if this really is, like, connected to our reality, that could be … disastrous. But – now that we’re two –“

“Yes. I had thought of that too. One could try to balance out the other, while the other goes over there and tries to fix it,” Uryuu thought aloud. Was it worth the risk?

“Did anything else happen before I came here?” the substitute-shinigami asked.

“Well, I could enter what I believe to be my soulscape, my inner world after a few minutes. When I had finished absorbing the free reishi and looked outward, this place crystallised before me.” He continued, “The captain-commander was right, I believe. We did inherit the soul king’s powers. I feel it in me and you too feel slightly different to me, more there in a way. Am I right? Did you get the powers? You look a bit like you were in a fight.”

“Yeah to both,” Ichigo sighed. “Basically, I got the new powers in a fight, whatever they actually are. I couldn’t really try them out because the second I got them, I got transported here.” With that thought, Ichigo concentrated on his reiryoku and his sword – thankfully the latter had also made the journey. As he looked closer, he noticed a slight difference on the zanpakuto. While it looked like his first bankai, the chain was missing and he could see something written on the wrapping of the hilt. “King”, it read. “Duh,” he thought. His new sword’s name was Tenō no Zangetsu, Cutting Moon of the Heavenly King. So, the addition made a simple kind of sense, he guessed.

Still, while he was confident he could use all his previous shinigami skills, he didn’t feel anything else. Weird.

“Uryuu, did you find out how to use that reishi you absorbed?” he questioned the quincy.

“Not quite. While I believe that my range to sense reiatsu has exponentially widened and also that our feelings and intuitions about this place are connected to it, using it eluded me.”

“I guess we’ll try that balancing thing?”

“It seems as if it is our only option. But you go first. I think it’s, well, in your half,” Uryuu answered contemplatively, staring at the disk. It was fairly flat and regular and looked opaque. The cracks in it were still easier to feel than to spot.

What followed was a balancing act as much as a shouting match. Coordinating their movements was difficult because very quickly it became obvious that they had to move at the exact same time in order not to shake the platform. In the beginning, it rocked like a cradle.

They jumped back a lot, they hurriedly threw themselves in directions they thought might help, they screamed at each other when the other did something not expected. The disk swayed under their weight. Nerves were high-strung and with such a start it took them a few tries to let Ichigo come near the broken part. The damage was quite deep.

“This is deeper than it looks,” the soul-reaper substitute reported worriedly. “I’ll try to fill it with reiryoku,” he said as he laid his hands near the fissures and willed his power into the cracks. He could feel his reiryoku and reiatsu move but –

“This is not working.”

“Can you feel the cracks? Stitch them together, maybe?” Uryuu asked, wanting to help. Sadly, Ichigo couldn’t. They felt wrong and trying to push from all sides around the damaged parts was futile as well.

“Your turn, Ishida.” With that, Ichigo turned fully around, nodded and both inched across the world-disk to switch places.

At that time, they had had a bit of practice and while they still wobbled on the slightly swaying platform, Uryuu reached the border of what he called his half surprisingly quickly. Then he stopped because he couldn’t physically take one more step.

“I can’t go on,” he stated.

“Yes, you can, Uryuu,” Ichigo consoled. “Through some joke of the universe we two got divine powers and responsibilities and it might suck and be difficult, but I know you can do this. I believe in you.”

While that wasn’t at all what he had meant, Uryuu would not forget this. He would treasure this. It was really nice to hear, especially from Ichigo, who must have doubted him at least a little bit during the last days.

“I meant I feel like I am physically stuck here,” the quincy explained, quickly adding a fast and not-quite mumbled thank you. Ichigo looked a bit awkward as well but quickly recovered.

“Eh. Stuck? I didn’t feel anything.”

“It might have something to do with our sides,” Uryuu theorized. “We appeared on the exact opposite spots of this disk. If we drew a dividing line in the middle of where we stood, this –” and he gestured before his feet, “would be the line dividing our halves.”

They tested and verified that theory. Then Uryuu tried to reach the fissures with just his reiatsu. He could guide his spiritual pressure over the line. Interestingly, his reiatsu didn’t seem to affect the world-disk’s balance as much as before Ichigo had arrived. That was a very good sign. Their efforts had already moved them in the right direction. Towards a solution maybe, hopefully.

So, while Ichigo couldn’t do it, he managed it and when his power met the cracks, he could feel the form of the damage. Then he filled them with his reiatsu, with no results. Afterwards, he attempted to stitch them together, to suture them together like a flesh wound but still, nothing changed.

What else could they do?

Maybe … if Uryuu used less reiatsu and only moved a thread of it towards the cracks, the stability of the platform wouldn’t be affected at all. That was an idea. He tried it, after warning Ichigo about what he was about to do and that he might have to make a correcting step towards the middle. He concentrated and shaped his power into a thin, needle-like river that barely had any width. He directed it towards the damaged parts of the platform.

Uryuu was on the lookout for any changes. There were none.

“Does it work?” the orange-head asked.

“Yes!” Uryuu answered triumphantly. The disk didn’t shift!

That was brilliant because now they could both work on the problem at the same time. The world got more stable as the substitute shinigami entered this dimension. Just their being here, one on each side of the disk, was a stabilising factor. It wasn’t such a leap that both of their powers would be needed to fix the place.

Then, they tried it together; Ichigo crouched down next to the problematic area, Uryuu vis-à-vis on the spot that mirrored that position. When they attempted to work together, they clashed. When their two waves of reiatsu-reiryoku met, they got in each other’s way or cancelled each other out.

More careful manoeuvring took time. It took a lot of time and effort and patience. There were many failed attempts. Their power clashed or cancelled each other like opposites when they simultaneously sent it towards the damaged area, again and again. But neither faltered. They were both resolved, goal-oriented and extremely stubborn. Maybe more so in opposition to each other. Their rivalry was like that.

Finally, after expanding considerable amounts of their reiryoku reserves, they managed to close the fissures. Ichigo filled the damaged parts with power while Uryuu used his own powers to stitch the cracks together and to even out the scar-like remnants by blurring the old with the new parts. It was exhausting, it was delicate, and it was extremely rewarding.

After they had finished healing the cracks, both rested for a short while, then, as Ichigo stood up, Uryuu followed and asked him to move a bit closer to the middle of the world-disk, so they wouldn’t have to shout at each other to talk about what would come next.

As they did that, moved on the disk, they immediately noticed that it was much more stable. No wobbling around anymore, no hasty steps necessary to correct the swaying platform. They still knew, should they not move vaguely as each other’s mirrors, the balance would shift.

“This is a relief,” Ichigo muttered when they reached a conversational distance.

Uryuu nodded. He completely agreed. Thankfully, no one had lost their last meal; however, it still hadn’t been comfortable, even disregarding the complication of knowing that should they fail and fall, they would probably take the whole world with them.

He took a closer look at his friend. Ichigo still had the crossed eyes – his more literal than others’ – and his tattered clothing had recovered in the meantime. (Uryuu would love to have real fabric that could mimic that ability. Never again replacing lost capes...) Then he saw the shinigami grow quiet and shifting uncomfortable.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Do you think something is still a little off?” came from Ichigo’s direction.

Uryuu concentrated. The balance felt unstable, as it always had to him, but it was a lot better than before. There were no nauseously wrong places anymore and only a sense of unstable ground prevailed.

“Do you mean the instability?“ he asked.

“Yes. I don’t think it is supposed to be this way. I just feel it,” the ginger uttered.

Uryuu wasn’t so sure but he conceded. Better to worry and be able to act accordingly than not. Also, Ichigo had always been insanely intuitive. So, the bowman asked what he wanted to do.

“I think … I think here we should ask for help. It didn’t seem to be the time before but now I think we’ll need - Zangetsu!” and with his last word, Ichigo pulled on his sword spirit.

Instantly, a black and white version of Ichigo with an identical, if reversely coloured blade appeared next to him.

And on Uryuu’s side, a younger Ywach appeared.

Uryuu’s blood pressure rocketed. They had defeated Ywach! It should be over! Was some of the reishi he absorbed from the remnants of the Quincy King? Was this like when adjuchas had to defeat those they had eaten?? (He really didn’t want to be that hollow-like. No, no, no.) He needed to attack. To move. But the balance! He readied his bow – even though he had no still silver – and glanced towards Ichigo to coordinate their attack.

The substitute-shinigami felt the battle energies coming from his friend. “No!” he shouted. “This is Zangetsu! This is Zangetsu too!”

This wasn’t Ywach? Uryuu looked back to the figure, raising his bow defensively before his body, between them. The guy looked a lot like the dead monarch. But … he wasn’t attacking. Instead, he was solemnly looking at Ichigo.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I never wanted to leave you.”

What?

Chapter Text

Ichigo had recognised Zangetsu – was it Zangetsu, still? – the moment he had seen him. Even though he looked different. He looked closer to Tensa Zangetsu, had a lot shorter hair and was dressed in pure white clothing. It was still the old man.

Thus, when Uryuu looked like he was going to attack or going to have a heart attack, Ichigo quickly intervened.

As Quincy-Zangetsu apologized, Ichigo felt unmoored once again. He had thought he had lost both him and White-Zangetsu during the fight with Ywach. During the battle, he had had no time to contemplate it. Then the explosion happened. Then he learned that white Zangetsu had been returned to him in a cosmic coincidence, an explosion of preserved reiatsu of all things. Then, he thought that Old-Man Zangetsu was dead. Gone and lost forever.

Now, here he was. Back, but not. Because he was on Uryuu’s side, wasn’t he? And up to that point, that really mattered here.

He was happy, and sad, hurt, and ecstatic, mad at the circumstances, and didn’t really know how to feel about this at all, whatever this exactly was. But what he knew was this – “I never wanted you to leave either,” Ichigo answered. “Take care of Uryuu anyway?”

The spirit turned to Uryuu, who still had his bow out and interposed between them, confusion and caution palatable in the air. He gazed at him speculatively and answered, in Ichigo’s opinion, not without approval, “We’ll see.”

“However, right now you should have a different focus. You were right in calling Zangetsu, it is not done yet. You have found a measure of balance in working together. It is commendable how you managed to intuitively heal the broken foundation over there, it shows that you do have potential. Still, if you two don’t find your own balance, sooner or later one of you will fall and this will be all for naught. So find you balance!” the spirit commanded.

And with that, the world vanished.

It took him a millisecond to reorient himself. He was back in his own inner world, on the skyscrapers.

“Why did you pull me in here, Zangetsu?”

“Well, your own soul’s the best place to find your own balance, ain’t it?” his zanpakuto lectured him teasingly.

Well, that sounded reasonable. But, balance; oh, boy. Demonstratively and doubtfully, Ichigo stared at the scenery of gravity gone haywire before them. There hasn’t been much balance in his life. Not when he was little, not after his mom died. Not when innocent souls and his family needed caring, not when his friends needed help. There was always the danger of falling. And his powers had been unbalanced for most of his life, one side dominating the others at a time. Maybe his inner world represented a bit of all of that.

But he hadn’t been, wasn’t unhappy because of it. Barring his mother’s death. It was fine as it was. Except for the period after Aizen. That wasn’t good. Then he had felt like some of the ground he was standing on had been ripped away. But it was what it was. And he did find a balance between his powers for a short while. He just had no idea how balance would look for him in all other senses.

“Okay. How do I find balance?” the orange-head asked, uncertain how to go about that endeavour.

“Beats me, King,” Zangetsu said with humour, seemingly uncaringly. What –

“Gotcha, Ichigo, just joking. You should see your face! I’m balanced because I’m one who knows what I want and who I am – half by curtesy of being a zanpakuto spirit and part of the powers of the divine king. The rest’s just my awesomeness. So, don’t worry about me, kay? But I don’t think you really know who you are. Or want to be. Hard to balance if you don’t have that as a foundation, ne? Go look for answers, maybe they’ll help.”

“You are irritatingly unhelpful, you know that, right?” Ichigo responded, knowing he was being a bit unfair. Still, he wasn’t certain that asking himself would get him anywhere. Asking Zangetsu on the other hand – well, it had seemed to be the more reliant option. His sword often knew him better than he did himself.

“I ain’t here to do everything around here, am I? Fighting for you and lending you my power and answering all questions? Then who’d be king!” Zangetsu laughed. “We’ve told you enough. Now, do your own soul searching!"

The soul reaper sighed. He wasn’t wrong. This was actually not especially cryptic advice, even if getting anywhere with it might be difficult.

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the help. Are you coming with?”

“Sure,” Ichigo’s counterpart laughed.

And so, they went. The teen had decided that he would interpret the message both figuratively and literally to be sure, so he walked around, contemplatingly exploring his inner world.

It was quite interesting, actually. He had never had the time to just look around in here. From afar everything looked quite similar but when he looked closer, he could see details he hadn’t noticed before. A flower vase on the street. Graffiti on the concrete walls. A poster to one of his favourite bands.

He never really had been in the right frame of mind to do some deep soul searching either. Often there just had been no time. He acted if it was necessary. The other times he just didn’t want to, couldn’t think about the hard questions. He had been too emotional and had rather distracted himself by doing other things. Karate. Helping souls or shinigami. Ignoring and getting over things like his lost mother and friends. Finding a part-time job. He had just kind of lived day to day, reacting to what happened, without questioning where his path would lead.

But it had worked out fine, he had found interesting people and friends and in hindsight had also learned a lot about who he was, even if it, well’ mostly his dad, took a while.

Now most of that self-knowledge had been thrown out of the window because he had never seen his path climb towards the seat of the soul king.

Who was he? The soul king?

A shinigami? Yes. He had chosen that path over and over again to save his sisters, to save other souls, to save Rukia and then again for himself. (He could never regret that.)

A hollow? Maybe. Not by the normal definitions because he wasn’t that empty. But he was driven. Instinctive. Hungry for life. He enjoyed just fighting, going to the edges of his abilities for fun. So, he might be a bit Hollow. (Moreover, were it not the case, Shiro Zangetsu would never have accepted him.)

A quincy? It seemed he wasn’t anymore. It had been a short, fleeting connection to his mother but he had come to terms with that a long time ago. He wouldn’t miss the power but he would miss the old man as a constant advisor and companion. (At least he was still alive.)

A human? Yes, because he had never been anything but human, had never met anyone who wasn’t or hasn’t been. Not the shinigami, not the quincy, not the zanpakuto, not even the hollows who had lost all but the basest instincts were completely without humanity. (Humanity had many aspects – good and bad.)

A soul king? How could he be? How did one act as the soul king? Ichigo didn’t know. It was big, bigger than anything that had happened to him, on a scale he couldn’t even imagine. He just didn’t know. How could he? Nobody had really told him more than his function as a linchpin holding the realms and that he had some governing power. (Maybe nobody but the soul king knew how to do the job.)

As they continued to walk by the windows of the skyscrapers, they sometimes showed funky reflections, funhouse mirror style or with different backgrounds, or altogether different scenes. Some were from his far childhood, some from his more recent past. Some were dreams or ideas. He looked into them and walked along.

Who did he want to be?

A shingami, hollow, erstwhile quincy, human… soul king?

A protector. A good friend. Someone people could depend on. Someone who helped people, more than by saving them from megalomaniacs. Well, that too, but he wanted to be more than that.

He couldn’t just stay in the Royal Realm. Even if the others could visit, theoretically. He wasn’t made to sit still on a throne or to organize and direct people. To motivate them, to help them, maybe even guide them, yeah, he could do that.

Ichigo stopped. Well, then he just wouldn’t do what he couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Hah.

And with that decision, the looming throne grew less threatening.

He could nearly hear the memory of Old Man Zangetsu speaking to him. Abandon your fear, Ichigo. Move forward and never stop. Retreat and you will age, hesitate and you will die. Together, we will ascend and tear the very heavens asunder.

No, he would not fear the throne, nor the future.

He was going to protect everyone by being a soul king.
He was going help Uryuu, who had the same burden, by working together with him, best as he could.
He was also going to do something else because Soul King wasn’t all that he was or that he was going to be.

Previously, when he thought of the future, he had imagined himself and his precious people to be there laughing together, save. That had been it, the end of his vision because the danger of not making it back from whatever fight had always been there for each of them. The world was a dangerous place.

Now, right at that moment, when he looked into the mirrored windows, he saw that dream realised. Moreover, he saw himself as a doctor. His father was goofing around, in tears as he heard his son had gotten his degree, but that was how his dad was when he had the chance. Then Inoue jumped and hugged him and shouted that she’d known he could do it. Rukia said to him that even blind dummies could find gold, obviously mixing up living world sayings but she was as supportive in her own way as all the other people – and spirits – were that he saw around himself.

Ichigo considered the picture. It felt right.

Doctor, huh? Doctor and soul king. Healer and protector of many. Balanced in the living realm and the realms of the soul with all his connections. Balanced in creation and destruction.

He wanted that.

With that decision, he felt more grounded than in a long time. Gravity was more secure and the tilted world felt more natural than before, more stable. He hadn’t even noticed that his unclear future had been worrying him so much. The release of the unconscious stress was freeing and everything was optimistically, excitingly new.

Like the fresh breeze that he suddenly could feel on his face and the trees in the streets that rustled in the wind.

Zangetsu laughed.

“Finally!”

Chapter Text

After the clone of Ywach – Zangetsu? had finished speaking, Ichigo and his double vanished.

“What did you do?!”

“That wasn’t me, young quincy,” the white-clad man answered serenely. “Tenō no Zangetsu pulled Ichigo back into his inner world, where he must find his inner balance. I am here to help you achieve the same.”

Naturally, Uryuu didn’t automatically trust strangers just because they said they would aid him. He still had his bow prepared. However, Ichigo had said that this was Zangetsu, which was the name of his sword and sword spirit. But this one had called the being next to Ichigo Zangetsu as well. So, who was who? Uryuu was confused.

“If that was Zangetsu, Spirit-san, then who are you?” he asked.

“My name is of no importance. If you need to address me, call me Zangetsu or Old-Man, as Ichigo does. However, if you refer to my role in all of this, I am, was part of Ichigo’s powers, his quincy powers to be precise. Thus, the name and my appearance.”

Huh. A sentient manifestation of Ichigo’s quincy powers. The teen never ceased to surprise, didn’t he? Uryuu had never ever heard of anything like him. It probably had something to do with the orange-head’s hybrid status. But why was he here and not with Ichigo?

“And if you are questioning why I am here and not with him, I ask you in return; do you know how to achieve more inner balance?”

“No, not at this moment,” the quincy stated. Inner balance was a concept that could have many meanings. On the top of his head, he associated it with philosophy, psychological health, work and recreation, self-awareness and living a full and content life without missing some of it.

Right now, he was at a point where he didn’t know what the future would bring, he had just thrown everything into being a spy in the Wandenreich, cutting himself off from the living world, his friends (and Ryuken) and his normal life. Before that, his normal life included hunting hollows and regular fights against the odds. He had never searched for balance. It had never driven him. Revenge, pride, honour, justice and friendship did.

“So, you are here to help me, while the other Zangetsu helps Kurosaki-san?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“That is not an easy question, quincy.”

He faltered but then continued. “I can help you because I couldn’t return to Ichigo after Ywach’s absorbed powers reacted to compatible successors. The aspects and powers of the soul king were divided evenly between the two of you. Ichigo couldn’t return to being a quincy while you were one. Thus, I must be in here, the inner world of the soul kings. . .

I am helping you mostly because you need my help and the fate of the world depends on your success. I do not agree with Ywach’s plan to destroy life and death. You are also one of Ichigo’s friends and I am as loyal to him as you are. . .

Thus, I will help you, Uryuu.”

The quincy took a moment to consider this. He still wasn’t comfortable around this Zangetsu. (He wouldn’t call him Old-Man. Ichigo may be that brazen but this spirit didn’t look old at all and Uryuu was polite.) But the man seemed sincere in trying to help. He had offered explanations and motivations. That was something not even every ally had done for them. (Thinking of you, Urahara-san.)

“Can you explain something else?” Uryuu inquired. He wondered if there was still time for more talk or if the balance of the world took precedence.

“That depends on your question,” the spirit answered calmly.

“Why us?” That question had plagued Uryuu’s mind since he had woken up. The discussions about it had lead nowhere.

“You touched the seal and were compatible. Aizen isn’t. He is just a shinigami. While he is very powerful and has melded with the Hogyoku, he hasn’t nor ever had hollow or quincy powers and the soul king is a being of and for all.”

“But then why isn’t just Ichigo the soul king? He had a bit of everything, hadn’t he? Why me too?”

“Fate or luck, however you want to call it. As the seal was cut in half, any sole successor would have needed to touch both halves to inherit all the contained powers. Theoretically, Ichigo could have touched your half after accepting the powers of the first half. However, you touched the second half and you were compatible, so the powers went to you.”

Zangetsu looked at the disk. “Furthermore, the soul kings power is one of balance and thus it seeks to balance itself as well. Two kings, two pillars are more stable than one. You may not know how unstable the original soul king became after centuries but he was. His arms and a leg gained a separate consciousness each, some of which rebelled against him. After that the Shinigami needed to seal him in order to protect him from further splitting and unbalancing the world even more.”

Uryuu took a sharp breath. “Will this happen to us?” he queried.

“I do not believe so. The power of the soul king is already divided between you two, this time in a much more stable and distinctive manner. Ichigo incorporates the aspects of shinigami and hollow, while you have the human and quincy –“

“But – quincy are human,” Uryuu interrupted.

“Yes. But they are at the same time also separate aspects of the soul king. Human and quincy powers are incredibly different,” the spirit explained.

“What about fullbringers?”

“Their powers are constituted by a mix of the human and hollow aspects.”

“… and quincy have no equivalent. We are human and quincy and not a mix of anything else,” Uryuu concluded.

“Exactly.”

After that, there was a lull in the conversation. The teen didn’t know what to say and needed time to digest all of this. If Zangetsu sensed that and kept quiet because of it, he was thankful for it.

He was half of the soul king because of stability and the circumstance that it was him that touched the sealed power and not somebody else that was compatible. Was that better or worse, was he better or worse than any other quincy, fullbringer, arrancar or vizard that could have taken his place? Could they even have taken his place? What was it that made him compatible to the soul king? His quincy heritage? Having two aspects? Or was it because he was Ywach’s named successor as they had theorized earlier? Could others be compatible too?

“Maybe,” Zangetsu said. “Maybe not. I hope we will not have to find that out soon. What is done, is done. What you need to find right now is balance.”

Oh, right. Uryuu pushed his glasses back. It seemed he had said that out loud. Maybe the stress was getting to him.

“Don’t be nervous. At this point, you don’t need perfect inner balance in all facets of the meaning in your life. Just answer this question; who are you?”

“Ishida Uryuu, quincy,” Uryuu promptly replied.

“After what Ywach and all the other quincies tried to do, you still call yourself a quincy?” Zangetsu accused him.

Fighting his friends, killing so many shinigami and hollow, ruthlessly trying to end the world as it was… once Uryuu would have had no real problem with the second of the three points. But that was a long time ago and he would never stand for any of it now.

But nothing of that mattered. That wasn’t what being a quincy was for him. A quincy was who he was. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was and he wasn’t ashamed of getting rid of the hollows attacking Kurikara. He wasn’t ashamed of his grandfather’s teachings.

“Yes. I am still proud to be a quincy.”

The spirit looked over him and then gently observed, “But you aren’t a quincy anymore, are you? You are a soul king.”

Yes. He knew when Ichigo told him about his eyes that something had changed. He knew of the possibility when they talked with the shinigami and his friends. He felt it when he absorbed the divine reiatsu.

“But do you believe it yet?”

No. It didn’t seem real. Even when he felt reiatsu as he had never felt it before, even if he felt like he had swallowed a star. He was a quincy. (And a student and a friend.)

“What will you do as a soul king?”

He didn’t know. Fix the balance. Be there. Learn how to do this. . . Ask for help if he needed it. He had grown enough in the last years to be able to depend on others. Because this was important, more important than his pride or self-reliance, more important than anything else.

“What will you be?”

A soul king.

“Who are you?”

Quincy. . . . Soul King. Zangetsu had said something before, that he was something. The soul king of the human and quincy aspects.

He was the Soul King of the Living.

And he would do his best at his job, to care for them, always. His pride and heart demanded it.

. . .

Uryuu had to laugh. It seems it only took him turning into a semi-divine, not quite conventionally alive being of balance to fully commit to caring for the living, like his dear father had always wanted. Wasn’t that ironic.

Contentment washed over him as he sensed the reiatsu in the disk under him shift into a more balanced and stable form.

Chapter Text

Obviously, Uryuu noticed the change in the environment.

“So, is that it?” he asked Zangestsu.

“No. But it is nearly done. For now,” he answered. “We just have to wait for – “

In that moment, Ichigo appeared with the other Zangetsu, who was clapping the former’s shoulder. He didn’t look worse for wear.

“It’s done, Imposter-san! He did it!” the sword spirit reported.

Uryuu was confused. Was or wasn’t it done? The world felt different but he didn’t know how it was supposed to feel.

“Good. Congratulations, Ichigo,” black Zangetsu retorted. “And no, sadly it is not finished yet,” he continued after turning towards the archer.

Then Uryuu was even more confused. He definitely had not spoken that thought out loud.

“It’s not finished yet?” Ichigo interrupted. “We fixed the disc. And I guess this exercise in finding inner balance and accepting our new role was successful too. What else is there to do?” His voice was querying without being accusing. Even direr situations than the attempt of an aversion of the end of the world was now needed to make Ichigo use a harsher tone.

However, the raven-haired teen could only agree that they had indeed seemingly accomplished a lot and wondered what conclusions his friend had come to during his soul searching. He would ask later, when the conversation didn’t feel so intrusive.

“Do not fear, Ichigo. You are well on your way. You have repaired the balance in the soul realm. The next and last step is to transfer that balance to the other realms, so that they may rest in an equilibrium,” the quincy-spirit explained.

“So, how do we do that?” the substitute-shinigami demanded. Visibly a bit exhausted, a bit put out, that the process (of saving everyone) was still not over.

Uryuu understood. But he guessed that nothing worthwhile on that level was easy or quickly done. On the other hand, he was happy to hear that Ichigo automatically assumed that they would work together.

But before he would ask how to transmit something from the royal realm to the other dimensions, he really wanted to test something. This business of inner worlds was weird enough and while he had kind of made peace with the intrusive power and the responsibility, he needed to know not only what to do next but what it – the whole thing – would entail.

So, the quincy directed his concentration towards his intended addressee and said in thought, ‘White Zangetsu-kun? White Zangetsu-kun?

Black Zangetsu turned back to Uryuu and shook his head.

*Be glad that that will not work for you. And yes, I can in fact hear your thoughts. However, it is only me that you can reach and we can speak in this way only here. You are as quincy as I am and through that, additionally to our connections to Ichigo and this place, such communication is possible. It is similar to how zanpakuto can talk with their wielders if they listen, if not so in strength.*

Ah. So that was what it was. Uryuu nodded and mentally ticked off that concern. Then he looked to Ichigo, who was staring at them.

“What was that about?” he queried.

“Well,” Uryuu began, but stopped as Ichigo’s head swung back towards Zangetsu (-kuro). After a short while, his surprised expression cleared. The spirit must have filled him in about their connection.

‘Better him than me,’ thought Uryuu. He knew then that Ichigo could not only still talk with Zangetsu-san but also visit him in this world. Still, the change to having that part of him always there must be hard enough.

‘Shinigami were weird,’ Uryuu concluded. ‘Dividing their souls…’

But then he spotted how relieved and happy Ichigo looked at Zangetsu and thought that he could maybe understand the help and comfort a companion, teacher, and constant comrade-in-arms could bring.

“That’s … good, Old Man,” the orange-haired soul reaper said. “Now, how should we continue?”

“Yeah, let’s get this party started!” white Zangetsu cheered.

The following task was hard. Harder than the previous ones, which already had taken them to new (meta-) physical and mental heights and lengths. But making the spiritually rebuilt realm a reality for the other dimensions also felt easy because of how natural it felt; like they should, were supposed to act that way. The only hiccup was that their minds and spiritual powers weren’t yet used to those movements, which brought exertion and needed phenomenal effort on their parts. The strain of keeping the transfer up was great. It was conceptually easy but in practice a humongous hurdle.

No, it wasn’t easy. Uryuu and Ichigo both struggled and staggered once in a while, internally cursing the endless seeming task and even the spirits let a grimace or a snippy comment escape, when the draining stress on all of them continued to continue and continue and continue and continue, on and on and on, and how could the previous soul-king do this on his own? This was hard enough for two, for four – and it continued and continued to endlessly continue

to continue to continue and

continue, continue and

go on

and

stop.

Only desperate gasps for air could be heard. The world stood still and in balance. The weight of it divided between the two friends.

“Now, Ichigo and Uryuu, it is done.” The sentence echoed through the sparsely coloured world, finished by both Zangetsu.