Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stop crying.”

He blinks through his tears and turns towards the voice. A giant of a man stands over him, and he stares up stupidly at him. The huge “69” tattooed onto the man’s bare chest is dwarfed by the intimidating eyes focused on him.

He has absolutely no idea why he’s here crying, or why there’s a giant, scary man with silver hair glaring down at him. Still, the guy seems more concerned than angry. He hiccups and continues staring.

“There, see? No reason to keep the water works going,” the man says, satisfied.

He takes the moment of silence to figure out what’s going on. His toes wiggle against grass, and he comes to the realization that he’s somehow not where he should be.

“Kensei!” An annoyingly shrill voice calls.

“Mashiro, where were you?” The man, Kensei barks.

“In the bushes,” a tiny woman pops up next to them while clutching something.

“I found this!” The woman, Mashiro exclaims, “See!”

She brings up a black robe, and he stops listening. There is something vaguely familiar about this, and he’s starting to realize something is truly, terribly wrong. He rubs his eyes with his sleeve and contemplates his current setting.

For one, his balance is off. His body doesn’t feel right, and the small, thin hands tip him off to the fact the man isn’t a giant. It sounds weird, but his body may have somehow shrunk.

He’s in a forest instead of at a bar or passed out in his bed. He has no idea where he is, and he is not known to sleepwalk. He doesn’t know where the too-short robe he wears comes from, but the people around him wear robes as well.

Also—and this one might just be all in his head—it’s possible he’s hearing and understanding another language. He’s not completely sure about that one, but it feels like his name will roll off his tongue awkwardly.

It’s enough to make his head hurt.

Conversations float around him while he continues to make his observations. Some of the words pierce through his dazed brain, such as “Soul Reaper” and “Sereitei,” and it makes his brows furrow. Weren’t Soul Reapers a big thing in—

He’s pulled out of his musings by a shadow falling over him, and he looks up.

“Kid, go home. You understand?” Kensei orders before marching off.

He watches as the man’s back grow smaller and wonders where “home” is supposed to be. He doesn’t live close to a forest, so he knows that his apartment is nowhere near here.

Left alone and unable to think of anything better to do, he turns on his heel and walks. Nothing around him looks familiar in the slightest. The plants look completely different to what he’s used to, and there are trees everywhere when he should be able to see the sky touch the earth.

The sole of his feet are thick enough to walk without pain, and he’s grateful for that. It’s the only thing he’s thankful for considering he doesn’t know where he’s going, or what his game plan is. Hunger hits him, but it feels odd, muted somehow.

In the end, he keeps moving forward even as night falls. A feeling of disconnect keeps him from understanding his limits, and the last thing he sees is a glimpse of a town before his legs give out on him.

He blinks and suddenly everything is different. Sitting up, he realizes he’s been placed in a—futon? Is that what it’s called? He doesn’t recall making it into town before he fell, so he doesn’t know how he could have wandered into someone’s house.

The niggling sense of things being familiar gets stronger—he’s pretty sure the house is styled after Japanese culture. Having only a passing knowledge through manga, he’s not entirely sure.

An old woman, dressed in what he now realizes is a kimono, kneels on a straw mat across the room, far from his prone form. The wrinkles on her face are striking, and he recognizes them as lines born from hardship.

“Are you well, child?” The old woman asks while looking at him as if he’s about to spontaneously combust.

He takes a moment to think about things.

“No,” he says honestly.

“You were found unconscious near my house,” the old woman tells him with a frown.

She waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t know how to explain. So he doesn’t.

“Well, child, you may stay here for as long as you need to recover, but I have no room for leeches,” she says finally.

Child. It strikes a nerve, and he flinches. He wishes this body wasn’t so small or so young. He hasn’t been a child for a long time, and he hates being treated like a particularly dim one once he asks about food.

His savior educates him about the world with reproach and scorn. It gives him a shock, and he almost pulls the blanket over head in denial.

He’s dead.

He’s in the afterlife, and the old lady tells him he’s probably just arrived. He’s not supposed to have memories of his life from before, and he’s glad he’s kept his mouth shut.

Food is not needed here, she tells him next. Hunger is only for people of importance, and by her standards, he’s not hungry.

Try telling my stomach that, he thinks sourly.

The old lady is sympathetic to his ignorant plight but only to a point. She doesn’t tell him everything, and he has to work to make up for being housed. He cleans and cleans until he thinks his tiny, little arms are going to give out.

The old woman throws him out onto the streets when he’s done enough. Not once did she ask him for his name. Maybe he should be feeling hurt, but he’s been around to know better than to see the good in people like her.

Fortunately, he’s quick to adapt. The streets aren’t dusted with snow, and he remembers how to throw a punch at people twice his size. He can work with it. The beatings delivered by the local gangs are painful, but he eventually finds the rhythm of the town, learns how to get left alone.

Food is as scarce as people’s good will, and material possessions are a myth. He drags himself through this new life by his fingernails and considers it punishment. Clearly, the Owl Woman—death’s judge—denied him access to his ancestors’ afterlife and sent him to hell.

He eventually learns the name of his hell. He laughs when he hears it, but District 69 is no joke.

(Something inside of him is telling him he’s right to laugh; that he’s missing the joke.)

There’s one thing that bothers him as he attempts to fit in, something that keeps coming up whether he likes it or not. He doesn’t have a name to go with the new body he’s found himself in. Stripped of everything that used to label him—his dark skin, his long, oily black hair, his face—his old name doesn’t feel right and neither does a new name.

One day, when he’s biting into a hard-earned piece of fruit, two children approach him without an ounce of hesitation. These children are forgettable and uninteresting, but the amount of courage they have to approach him is staggering.

He watches them warily, assuming these two children desire his food. It’s a nasty shock when they begin to cry of all things. Even infants know better than to cry in this hell.

“Shūhei! Shūhei!” They blubber through their tears.

“Who?” He asks.

The children are taken aback that he doesn’t remember them. They tell him the name of his body, Hisagi Shūhei. They plead for any shred of recognition, and he shrugs. When they begin wailing, he has to bite back the urge to tell them to get lost. As far as he’s concerned, this boy, Shūhei, is gone, replaced by someone who can’t pretend otherwise.

“But Shūhei, we’re your friends,” they tell him, despair written on their tiny faces.

They tell him of a monster attack and the death of their other friends. He vaguely recalls something of a mess when he first arrived, but he hadn’t been concerned with much except getting home in those days. He knows better now; he has no home.

“I don’t really remember anything. Trauma, I guess. Sorry,” he says detachedly.

It’s as much an apology as it is him trying to be left alone. Thankfully, the children give up after two days of begging him to be someone else. He lets out a sigh of relief once they’re gone. These children don’t deserve to know that another friend is dead. Well, that and their high-pitch voices were getting annoying.

(That niggling sense of familiarity is getting stronger.)

He spends many years in a haze. It’s a mixture of doing what he can to survive and ignoring all his problems. He learns to be both kind and cruel, to read the situation and react accordingly. He gains a new motto of feeding the useful and ignoring the weak.

It’s only once he realizes that there must be sixty-eight other districts, that he gains something of a goal. It becomes his motivation to keep seeing the next day: see how far down he can go before dying again. He greases the right palms and picks the right fights.

It’s a surprise, his bloodthirst. Every time he goes to beat up “troublemakers,” he finds a spark of life inside of him. People begin fearing his grin, but even he has limits. For all that fighting becomes such a part of him that he actively seeks it out when he’s bored, he disappears the moment someone mentions “Soul Reaper.”

Due to this, he becomes a person that is all at once brave and cowardly. It’s not that he’s scared of these so called Soul Reapers; it’s more that he fears what they represent. He’s gotten very good at repressing memories from his previous life, but every time he hears the words “Soul Reaper” “Soul Society” “Rukongai” or “Seireitei,” he can’t stop the whispers in the back of his head.

He refuses to believe that his afterlife isn’t anything but a punishment, refuses to believe that he’s not at fault. The name Hisagi Shūhei sounds familiar, but he clenches his teeth and thinks, absolutely not.

It’s not until he gets into a shouting match with a Soul Reaper in District 40 that he realizes he can no longer run from it. If only because the Soul Reaper in question kidnaps him and forces him into the Soul Reaper Academy without his consent.

(He forever remains confused over how an argument about food leads to being slung over the man’s shoulder and forced into Seireitei.)

No one bats an eye when he’s taken to a small room, or when he’s dropped to the ground like a rotten sack of potatoes. He fights down the nausea caused by the Soul Reaper running faster than human ability.

“New applicant, show us why you should be accepted into the Spiritual Arts Academy.”

He blinks up at what he guesses are his exam proctors before looking back at the Soul Reaper who kidnapped him. Narrow eyes on a scarred face somehow become even narrower.

“Show them,” the Soul Reaper orders.

Show what, he wants to ask. The hell I am, he wants to say next. He settles on making a confused face instead. He’s currently at a disadvantage; it’s best to play stupid.

There’s an uncomfortable atmosphere as the three people overseeing his test glance at each other in silence. The Soul Reaper takes a deep breath before pointing at him.

“Your face is hideous, and your hair looks like a boar’s,” the man says.

He feels his eye twitch. Don’t rise to the bait, he tells himself. He’s in dangerous territory—the world of the Soul Reapers.

“Strawberries are awful and should be thrown out,” the Soul Reaper sneers.

Anger stabs through him like a hot knife. Apparently their argument from before isn’t over. He thinks of the two times he’s been able to eat his favorite fruit in this world and feels murderous rage building up in the pit of his stomach.

“The hell they should be you privileged, over-grown ape,” he snarls.

“We should replace them all with persimmons,” the man utters.

The rage settles onto his shoulders like a well-worn blanket. He can feel himself falling into the calm state he gets where the world slows down, and it’s time to fight to kill.

“Draw your sword,” he tells the Soul Reaper, “you’re going to need it.”

He expects hostility. He expects the fight of his life. To his confusion the Soul Reaper instead glances past him with a smug look.

“Applicant accepted, please fill out your form.”

What now? He blinks, and his rage breaks into pieces. The Soul Reaper handles everything from there, and he’s left staring blankly once he’s shoved into the main hall for orientation. Someone shoves a uniform and a practice sword into his arms. He looks from his ratty kimono to the crisp uniform with befuddlement.

He follows his guide mutely to his dorm room. He doesn’t have a roommate yet, but that’ll probably change by tomorrow, he’s told. A bundle of papers are given to him, and he finds himself standing alone in his new room. Throwing everything onto the floor, he sinks onto his new bed and laughs.

He’s Hisagi Shūhei, and he lives in a manga book. He’s going to become a Soul Reaper. He laughs until he cries.

He doesn’t know how he ended up in Hisagi’s body, or how he ended up in Soul Society. He certainly doesn’t ever remember wanting to be a Soul Reaper. This isn’t hell; he’s not even sure he actually died to get here.

(Will the ancestors still welcome him when he dies in this life? Does he still have a chance? He’s wasted so much of this life, of Shūhei’s life.)

He only lets himself freak out that one night. Come morning, he reads through his papers, dresses into his uniform, and follows the instructions to tie on his sword. He’s going to learn, and he’s going to survive.

He gears himself up for years of long, boring study, but the Soul Reaper Academy turns out to be far more interesting than he thought possible. He’s always hated school, but what he learns here is actually useful. As a bonus, it adds badly needed structure to his life. He takes to learning in a way he never has before.

He goes through his textbooks eagerly, asks questions, and manages to pay attention to most lectures. It’s bizarre, but he’s able to sharpen his mind as well as his body. While his fighting skills aren’t anything to sneeze at, they’re rough. The Academy refines his movements into something far more elegant. His classmates learn to fear sparring with him.

Out of all his classes, Kido is the one he was most excited for. His enthusiasm wavers when he realizes he’s not very proficient in it. While Kido is still interesting, it turns out swordsmanship is where his talents truly lie.

The fear his classmates have for sparring with him soar to new heights once he figures that out. There’s nothing better than crossing blades, he finds. Fighting dirty and getting away with it is even better. He can’t stop the thrill that goes through him, and he doesn’t want to.

He can hear whispers of “11^th division for sure” being made behind his back, but he pays them no mind. He concentrates only on getting stronger and faster. At the rate he’s moving, it’s only a matter of time before he unlocks his Zanpakuto.

When he finally hears his sword spirit, he’s surprised to find Kazeshini. Even though he’s in Hisagi’s body, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t share the same soul as him. He expected to get a different Zanpakuto, but maybe they’re just that compatible.

It also turns out learning to hear his Zanpakuto is completely different from getting to know the sword spirit. Kazeshini is—well. The spirit is nothing like he was expecting. The Zanpakuto spirit is both dangerous and frightening.

Kazeshini only resembles the traditional grim reaper; the spirit enjoys cutting and severing in a way a personification of death never could. It takes him a while before he’s comfortable accepting Kazeshini completely, but when he does it feels right. He should probably be scared, but...

He refuses to run from himself any longer.

He finds himself needing a counterbalance to the bloodlust. He goes picking through the propaganda until he finds something that resonates with him. He finds it in the word “Protector.” He likes the sound of it.

He dives into the pride of being a Soul Reaper despite knowing they’re full of shit. They’re his people now; he won’t die again thinking he has nothing. He begins learning the—heavily altered, he’s sure—history, and when he’s going through a list of squads and their captains, he spies an older version with captains that have been removed. He thumbs through it and freezes. He recognizes one of them.

9^th division, Captain Muguruma Kensei.

It’s the man who was there when he first appeared in this world, and who had apparently saved his body beforehand. He has no doubt about where Hisagi’s tattoo came from and why he would have aimed for the 9^th division.

He is not that Hisagi. He admires Muguruma certainly—those eyes make his insides twist for some reason—but it was the other Hisagi who’d been saved. In another life, it would be that other Hisagi who would wear the infamous number.

He refuses to get the tattoo.

He studies hard and four years pass by without incident. Well, maybe not completely without incident. He doesn’t get a fancy nickname, but he’s well known for his love of saying whatever he feels like and backing it up with fists or swords.

He doesn’t ever say anything he doesn’t mean, but he doesn’t go out of his way to antagonize either. He makes no friends, but he makes no enemies even with the constant fighting. It’s a gift.

The Academy is truly a blessing. He’s no longer scavenging to survive; he’s no longer worried about what tomorrow will bring. It does have one little side effect though. Kazeshini is an ever-present force that whispers death and sings songs of blood in the back of his head.

It’s an interesting life if nothing else, and he settles into being Shūhei. His classmates and teachers begin calling out his name on a daily basis; in Rukongai, he barely ever heard it said, and he begins to associate the name to himself. He slowly begins realizing he’s Hisagi Shūhei.

He is Hisagi Shūhei.

At graduation, he changes his mind and gets the “69” tattoo on his face. Whether he likes it or not, he owes his life to both the Soul Reaper and the child associated with that number. It’s not a debt he can throw away. Of course, it makes his decision easier knowing there is absolutely no social stigma around the number sixty-nine or, well, tattoos in general.

Apparently Soul Society is frozen in a time where tattoos haven’t been used for criminals and gangs. He considers getting more before deciding against it for now. He’s got all the time in the world to get as many tattoos as he likes.

The 11^th division seeks him out before he even makes an application. They send a huge group to test his fighting prowess, and it goes swimmingly—at first. The moment he uses a low-level Kido spell to mess up one of the 11^th member’s motor skills, is the moment that it all goes downhill.

The test comes to a screeching halt as the group of men act like a bunch of offended peacocks. He feels that familiar form of anger settle over him the moment they start scolding him as if he was some misbehaving child. He hasn’t been a child for a long time.

“Sorry,” he tells them, “it’s not going to work out.”

He rubs a finger over Kazeshini’s blade fondly. The cackling in his head grows louder, and he feels the connection to his Zanpakuto growing stronger.

“I love fighting,” he confesses, “but I’m going to fight my own way.”

His smile is all teeth.

“And I’m not going to let a bunch of no-brain, no-ball bitches tell me what to do.”

The fight these words start is almost legendary. Kazeshini laughs in his head as he cuts them all down. He thinks he laughs too. He doesn’t make it to the 11^th, but he thinks he sees fear in their eyes whenever they see him. It cheers him up.

He ends up applying to the 9^th. It’s not because of Muguruma or a desire to follow a script. He simply wants to be a protector, and the 9^th division specializes in protecting Seireitei. He comes to regret his decision shortly after he’s accepted.

Tōsen Kaname is—well. He’s certainly…something.

It turns out they don’t get along. At all. It’s true he’s Hisagi, but he’s more than that. He’s bloodthirsty, highly-opinionated, and completely sure of himself. Tōsen doesn’t like him; he’s not a good fit for the ideals of the 9^th division, the captain tells him.

Still, even with his strong connection to his inner self, he’s tempered by the desire to protect and uphold the laws of Soul Society, and they reluctantly find an even ground. Captain Tōsen keeps his distance, but promotes him to 5^th seat when it becomes clear he’s too competent not to be a seated officer.

Thing is, even though he’s currently ranked as 5^th seat, everyone treats him as if he’s the lieutenant. There is an unfortunate reason for that. It’s weird, but no one in this division seems to have it together.

Captain Tōsen is blind. Dictation requires more time than anyone is willing to give. Not only does the captain’s paperwork have to get done, but so does every single shred of paperwork in existence. The other divisions send their paperwork onward to the 9^th to get processed, and no one seems to be able to handle it.

3^rd seat, Yoshitoshi Fujita, is a brilliant tactician and can formulate strategies in a heartbeat. 4^th seat, Ako Amari, is as much a warrior as she is a philosopher and poet. Both of them deserve their seats and somehow manage to get along well with the captain.

Thing is—

Paperwork? Regulations? Meetings? Social interaction? They are so wildly incompetent; it’s enough to make one cry.

There is no lieutenant. The 3^rd and 4^th seat are useless, so naturally it all falls to him. If he gets a bit cranky, well, that’s just part of life.

(9^th division has learned to fear him, but it also seems to garner him a fair bit of respect; it’s rather confusing.)

“I’ve got to what,” he says blankly, brush hovering over a report.

“You’ve got to write next issue’s haiku,” 3^rd seat, Yoshitoshi Fujita repeats, holding up a submission form.

He watches in disbelief as the Soul Reaper places the paper onto the edge of his desk. So far, he’s gotten out of actually writing for Seireitei Communication—Captain Tōsen doesn’t want him poisoning people with words—but now they want him to write a haiku, really?

“Why isn’t Amari doing this? She’s the poet. Actually, why aren’t you doing it?” He questions with the tone of the desperate.

“I am helping the captain write his ‘Recipe for Justice’ article, and Ako has just left for the human world to clean up a mess. You’re it, Shūhei,” Fujita tells him far too cheerfully.

The 3^rd seat vanishes before he can argue. The submission form for the magazine floats off and back onto his desk like a leaf, and not for the first time, he curses the art of shunpo.

He leans back in his chair to glance around at the piles of paperwork in his office. He wonders what will get done first: the paperwork or the poem. He considers the idea of getting banished to the human world. It’s not like he doesn’t know how to live there.

Kazeshini’s furious screaming in the back of his head stops the idea in its tracks.

Fine then, he’ll just have to hope for the best. Pinching the submission form between his fingers, he throws it onto the floor. He’s got a month; he’ll come up with something by then.

A week goes by, and he knocks back a drink in the corner of a bar. He doesn’t often get the chance to unwind from the 9^th division’s shenanigans, but it feels amazing when he can. He stares into his cup of wine and wonders if inspiration for a haiku can be found there.

It would piss off the captain for sure. The soothing sound of a shamisen drowns out the thought, and he puts the poem to the back of his mind.

Two more weeks go by, and he stares up at the imposing device the 12^th division has placed in 9^th division’s barracks. It looks like a cross between a lightning rod and a clock. He looks from the device to the faces of his Soul Reapers begging him to do something.

“What the hell,” he says flatly.

“Allow me to explain,” a 12^th division member says, shifting her ominously shining glasses. “This device is powered by Reiryoku from those sleeping—”

The device begins shrieking and, for some Soul King-forsaken reason, begins spitting out mannequins resembling the Soul Reapers inside the room. The creepy faceless mannequins unsheathe copies of their Zanpakuto, and he lets out a sigh. It’s going to be one of those days.

He rushes forward, not even bothering to hold back from using Kazeshini’s Shikai. Idly, he thinks he has something important he needs to be doing. He’s overcome by familiar bloodlust when his copy meets his scythes with a similar set.

Oh well, guess it’ll have to wait.

“Shūhei, here’s the other divisions' forms for Seireitei Communication. I’ll place yours with them,” Fujita announces.

He pauses in reading 9^th division’s accounting for the month. He looks over to the 3^rd seat with wide eyes. Fujita, arms full of papers, gives him an uncomprehending look.

“Well, shit,” he says.

“Shūhei,” Fujita says warningly.

“I’m going to go get Amari,” he says, mind working quickly.

If he bribes her with an expensive blend of tea, Amari will do pretty much anything. He heaves himself up already calculating which tea to buy.

“Shūhei, you were supposed to do it. Sit down!” Fujita orders with a pulse of Reiatsu

“You dare,” he spits, Kazeshini’s whispers getting louder in his head.

Fujita must realize the mistake; the 3^th seat goes stiff as he digs his nails into the wood of his desk. It’s rare for Fujita to make such a tactical error. He’s actually more amused than angry. That doesn’t stop him from unleashing his own pulse of Reiatsu.

Fujita falls over unconscious, and the papers are tossed all over his office. His fingers drift to Kazeshini’s hilt, and the Zanpakuto sings in delight.

“Hisagi.”

He freezes mid motion as the temperature decreases suddenly. Reiatsu much stronger than his force him back into his chair. Captain Tōsen calmly steps over Fujita’s prone figure and into his office. The man manages to avoid stepping on the scattered papers to loom over him.

He avoids Captain Tōsen’s unblinking stare. He feels like an idiot considering the captain’s eyesight, but he’s ninety-percent sure the captain knows exactly how to stare subordinates down.

“Write the damn poem,” Captain Tōsen orders before leaving.

He watches the captain’s white haori disappear with a feeling of despair. He slams his head into his desk. He does it again and again in the hopes to knock himself out. He thinks he succeeds once everything goes black.

Chapter Text

Life is far more peaceful for a Soul Reaper than he thought it would be. Granted, the 9^th division mostly handles internal affairs: paperwork, Seireitei’s art culture, and breaking up fights. There’s not much for him to protect to be honest.

He sometimes asks Captain Tōsen for missions to eradicate Hollows, but he’s rejected each time. When that happens, he makes sure to be a few days late on his reports.

(“Does he realize that it is assumed another division is responsible for our delay?” Fujita asks hesitantly.

The 3^rd seat eyes the towering stacks of papers that are bundled up for easy transport. There are deep scratch marks on Shūhei’s desk and ink splattered on the wall: a clear sign that the 5^th seat is angry.

“No, and he’s not to know about that,” Captain Tōsen warns.

Hisagi Shūhei’s reputation as responsible but unfriendly remains.)

When Kuchiki Rukia leaves for a mission to the human world and doesn’t come back, he begins packing his metaphorical bags. He doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary, doesn’t avoid his captain any more than usual. Instead, he begins picking out hiding spots.

He finds three different places that are hard to sense Reiryoku from. He places emergency supplies in all three spots as a precaution and begins making contingency plans. He has a rough memory of what’s coming, and he intends to take cover.

Call him a coward, but he has no intention of sticking his neck out for Aizen. There’s no guarantee he’ll be safely kicked out of the fight, and he’s not a lieutenant which means the only ones who will miss him is his own division. It’s easy enough to fool them considering they’re all idiots.

(Is that on purpose Tōsen? For the division responsible for guarding Seireitei from outside attacks to be so pathetic?)

He’s not a sociable guy; he doesn’t go out for drinks, gossiping about other divisions after dark. He’s not a lieutenant either. He should have never known about Rukia’s reappearance or her sentencing to go before Central 46.

He stares at the report in his hand. Kuchiki Rukia remained in the Human World longer than the time limit. Kuchiki Rukia gave her spiritual power to a human. The words never change. He gently places the report into the correct stack and moves on.

Kuchiki Byakuya’s handwriting is impeccable as always. 6^th division’s paperwork is usually one of the easiest to review as the documents are always well written and on time.

He visits the bar after work. He takes his customary seat in the corner where no one bothers him and orders his favorite wine. It tastes sour that night for some reason.

He avoids leaving his office once word spreads of Rukia’s imprisonment; far too much gossip floats around for his liking. He drowns himself in papers and ink even as Kazeshini scoffs at him for looking away. The day the alarms come to life is the day he sighs in relief.

“Shūhei, we must rise above the oncoming evil and shower the world in unbending light,” 4^th seat, Ako Amari cries, lifting her Zanpakuto dramatically.

“Yeah, sure. Where’s Fujita?” He doesn’t shout, but the blaring alarm makes him want to.

As much as the theatrics horrify the 3^rd seat, Fujita is usually close by to stop Amari from contaminating the rest of the division. Case in point, Amari’s personal squad is spouting dramatic one-liners about giving their lives somewhere behind him.

“I do not know where that useless Yoshitoshi is,” Amari says crossly, “but perhaps our great captain shall know.”

“Right, I’m going to go look for him. By myself. Because it will be faster,” he says blandly.

Amari nods as if that makes sense. Never mind that it’s against protocol, and she outranks him. Sometimes he wonders if this is the result of being under Aizen’s illusion. If the traitorous captain finds it amusing to make him the only smart one amongst idiots.

Amari sees him off with a, “May we see each other again in whatever way the world wills it! Go now in your devotion to duty!”

He waves a hand over his shoulder with a promise to talk later. He doesn’t mind if Fujita gets killed, but it’d be a shame if anything happened to Amari. She makes him laugh.

It’s not a straight walk to his hiding spot; he knows better than that. He keeps a frown in place and a hurried pace to make it seem like he has somewhere to be. His crazy route to the nearest hideout—he zigzags instead of circles—ensures no one follows him. When he arrives, he sits down and waits.

And waits some more.

He rather hopes that Central 46 is dead—it’s not like he can check—because he’s pretty sure abandoning his post is a highly punishable offense. Despite his contingency plans, he finds a reason to be worried about being found out.

“You’re bothering me. Either sit down or go away,” he says irritably.

Kurosaki Ichigo makes a choking sound, and he takes a bite from his homemade jerky. It’s not that great, but it’s edible and long-lasting. Also buying jerky is way too expensive for his taste.

“You,” Kurosaki pauses, “you’re not going to fight me?”

“Nope,” he says, “now get lost.”

Unfortunately, Kurosaki doesn’t take that as a hint to disappear. Instead, the–fake? substitute?—Soul Reaper takes a seat across from him. It’s a cramped space; this used to be an alleyway before getting walled in. A bush hides the broken entrance and something about the buildings next to him make sensing Reiryoku difficult.

There’s barely enough room for the two of them. He doesn’t appreciate the company.

“Why?” Kurosaki eventually asks.

Kurosaki hasn’t stopped staring him down like a wild animal, but there’s no hostility in it. Admittedly, the scuffed, bloodied appearance hardly screams “threat,” but he knows better.

He chews on a piece of jerky while thinking about what’s really being asked.

“Because it’s stupid,” he settles on. “Kuchiki’s crimes don’t warrant execution by Sokyoku. Demotion or a punishment overseen by her captain maybe, banishment at the worst.”

Never mind the fact Rukia’s from one of the four noble families who tend to get lighter sentences. It really does frustrate him that no one questions a Kuchiki getting such a severe sentence. Not even that clan’s worst offenders got hit with soul eradication.

“It’s obvious something’s wrong, but no one cares enough to do anything about it,” he continues bitterly.

He thought he didn’t care either, but his hangover told a different story. Seems Captain Tōsen really is rubbing off on him if he actually cares about justice of all things.

“Then fight,” Kurosaki says as if it’s that simple.

It probably is, but he knows his own limits. He doubts his captain will be lenient enough to simply throw him in jail. He doubts he can actually do anything of real importance.

“I can’t,” he shrugs.

Injustice or not, he needs to look out for number one first and foremost. Still, that doesn’t mean he can’t do something. He tosses a first aid kit to Kurosaki who snatches it with a frown.

“Clean yourself up,” he says bluntly.

Kurosaki scowls at him but digs through the kit without a word. His unwanted companion disappears soon after, and he leans back against the wall, pretending he can’t hear Kazeshini’s whispers calling him a coward.

It doesn’t take long before he breaks like wet tissue paper. In the end, Kazeshini’s mutterings make him leave his nice, safe hiding spot. Honestly, he gives the sword spirit too much leeway.

Blood for the innocent, the Zanpakuto cries, blood for the damned.

The hideout keeps him from sensing Reiatsu, and he almost falls over the moment he steps out. The amount of energy coming from the execution grounds is staggering.

“Guess I know where I’m headed,” he mutters.

He touches the tattoo on his face and remembers the few times he’s had to deal with Aizen. Remembers how many people has fallen victim to the sociopath. Remembers all the creepy articles he had to review for Seireitei Communication.

“I am not paid nearly enough,” he says with certainty.

He’s no shunpo master, but his speed isn’t anything to sneeze at. He all but flies to the execution grounds, going faster than he ever has before. His severe case of tunnel vision gives him a moment’s pause, and he blinks.

Kurosaki and 11^th’s Abarai Renji lie in a puddle of blood. Captain Tōsen stands over Kurosaki, and Aizen is standing far too close to Rukia for comfort. At first, he doesn’t know who to strike at. Captain Tōsen unsheathes his Zanpakuto, and he thinks, that’ll do.

He dashes forward to intercept. He doesn’t recall Captain Tōsen ever lifting a blade to Kurosaki, but it’s not like manga pages are burned into his brain.

“Reap, Kazeshini,” he utters, throwing a scythe at the back of his former captain.

Captain Tōsen blocks both his initial and follow-up attack, and he expects it. He doesn’t bother screaming out the “whys” or some other sentimental crap; he’s too busy surviving. The strength between a captain and him is obvious; he gets his ass kicked hard. To be fair, he expected not being able to land a hit and the blade between his ribs.

But maybe he shouldn’t have said,

“I fight for justice, but it’s too bad you’ve lost sight of it.”

He probably deserves it when Captain Tōsen throws him off the cliff.

(It’s obvious that Tōsen made himself a target, dragged Shūhei’s attention to him. Was the captain protecting Aizen or simply trying to put a misbehaving dog down?)

He marvels at waking up in the 4^th division’s infirmary. He’s been there often enough, just never in the recovery ward. He’s pretty surprised at being alive.

Itchy, stiff sheets make him shift in discomfort; he hisses as the movement causes a sharp pain from his stomach. He screws his eyes shut as light shines in through the window covered wall next to him. He doesn’t deserve this much agony.

“Thought you said you couldn’t fight,” a familiar voice suddenly says.

He carefully turns his head. Kurosaki sits in a chair, wrapped up in bandages and reading an old issue of Seireitei Communication. The man lifts an eyebrow, and he tries to get his tongue to work. It’s difficult as his mouth is as dry as a desert.

“Yeah, well, when you have a murderous bastard screaming inside your head all day, you start to think differently,” he says hoarsely.

“I knew there was something off about you,” Kurosaki says dryly.

Blessedly, Kurosaki scampers off to get a 4^th division member instead of attempting to talk more. He manages to fall back asleep despite the pain. If he did so to avoid dealing with the healers that much longer, well only he and Kazeshini know.

He can’t stay unconscious forever though. As the only functional member of 9^th division, not even being laid up stops the paperwork from being carried in.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Fujita says without even a hint of resentment.

“Yes,” Amari agrees serenely, “my soul is filled with wonder and happiness to you, my oath brother.”

He looks up from the papers stacked around his infirmary bed. The two seated officers don’t get along—Fujita having once been insulted by Amari’s poem and in turn insulting her—but neither seems ready to bring out the Go set to battle. How strange.

Their words finally pierce through his brain.

“What,” he says dumbly.

“It was a long time coming, Shūhei. I could never understand why the captain wouldn’t,” Fujita trails off awkwardly.

Amari lets out a sniffle, and to his horror, Fujita’s eyes begin glistening. Both officers look ready to cry, but he’s the one who’s just had responsibility of the 9^th division dumped on him. If anyone should be ready to turn on the waterworks, it should be him.

“Shouldn’t Fujita be the lieutenant?” He asks desperately.

“No, I wasn’t asked,” Fujita says with a strained voice.

“Neither was I,” Amari admits, shedding a few tears.

“Why?” He asks again far more irritably.

Amari lets out a dramatic wail while Fujita spins to kneel unmindful of the sword attached to him; he has to save the paperwork resting on the small table next to him. Why didn’t he sign up with the 8^th division?

The no-nonsense Ise Nanao would have never given him so much trouble.

“Shūhei, we have shone your light onto all of Seireitei. Your name, no longer hidden by shadow, is known to all! You finally receive the admiration and recognition you deserve,” Amari says.

He looks to Fujita for a clearer answer. The 3^rd seat avoids his eyes.

“We were questioned after the,” Fujita struggles, “event. Captain-Commander Yamamoto was interested in how you held the division together while being at odds with Captain Tōsen.”

Fujita hesitates, and he can already see that just saying their former captain’s name is going to be close to taboo for the 9^th.

“Everything about our division was thoroughly researched, and it was decided you were beyond capable for the position.”

While the rest of 9^th division was left wanting, Fujita doesn’t say.

He lets out an aggravated sigh. Maybe he can get the captain-commander to reconsider. Perhaps if he shows that he’s the last person that should be placed in charge. His willingness to run away during an invasion should be proof enough.

Captain-Commander Yamamoto smacks him gently over the head and pardons his crimes. Too useful, the old man says. A good judge of character with the ability to lead idiots is highly valued at this time. They are also counting on him to undo the brainwashing on his division.

Blood runs down his face, and he’s left standing outside 1^st division as Lieutenant and Acting Captain of the 9^th. He supposes his first act should be to go to the 4^th and ask for help; he needs both healing and counseling tips.

“I feel like this is Kurosaki’s fault,” he mutters.

Kazeshini has nothing to say to that.

Leading the 9^th isn’t as frustrating as he thought it would be. Without Captain Tōsen giving the orders, he’s able to do the one thing he’s never done before: delegate.

Not the paperwork obviously, there’s no way he can trust these idiots with that, but everything else that needs doing is pushed to someone else. He even manages to wrangle the worse of his head cases into the 4^th division’s tender care.

He’s also taken to reading up Muguruma Kensei’s old reports in his spare time. Though dry, the man left a good amount of information of how to effectively run the division responsible for protecting Seireitei.

Using Kensei’s ideas as a base, he starts slowly changing the 9^th’s ideals from justice and peace to one of protecting. His Soul Reapers respond positively to the new direction, and they take their training and drills far more seriously.

He doesn’t have the heart to tell them that they aren’t trusted to defend Seireitei, or that the 10^th division is taking over. After all, 9^th division still has the chance to prove themselves.

And as acting captain, he’s going to beat the idiocy out of them.

His new workload means he takes whatever breaks is offered to him. He drinks a bit more and begins taking walks into isolated places to scream. When a reminder for free food comes up, he puts the brush down and strolls over to the 4^th.

Spiky strawberry blond hair pops out against the sea of black uniforms, and he does an about face. He should have known better than to think he could get a quick snack and not run into annoying acquaintances.

Curse free doughnut day. Practically everyone shows up. It never dissolves into a fighting mess because of Captain Unohana’s frightening sharp eyes, but her presence somehow makes everyone want to socialize. It’s awful.

“Lieutenant Hisagi?”

Damn it, he thinks.

Slouching, he turns around to face one of his underlings. Dark eyes shine up at him innocently, and he struggles to place a name. Short and with a squeaky voice, it’s definitely Sawa-something.

“I was wondering if—”

“Yo, Shūhei.”

Sawa-something lets out an “eep” and runs off.  He doubts the Soul Reaper had anything important to say, but there’s an itching sensation at being interrupted.

“Kurosaki,” he says curtly. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the human world?”

“Kūkaku’s responsible. I don’t know why I’m here,” Kurosaki replies with a frown. “Hell, I don’t even know how I got here.”

He tries to figure out whether that means Kurosaki’s here as a guest or an intruder. With Kūkaku that could go either way. He should take the man back to Shiba clan ground, but he’s currently on a well-deserved break.

“You ever had a peach doughnut?” He asks.

He leaves Kurosaki to his fate once time is up. He’s got too many things to do, and too many brats to babysit as it is. He refuses to include this troublesome guy who’d probably break the space time continuum accidentally.

(He hears some explosions in the distance later that day and knows he made the correct choice.)

“Shūhei, I need your help.”

Kurosaki is like that friendly neighborhood stray that keeps going back to the houses that fed it once, and no amount of shooing makes them go away. Soul King help him, he tries to get Kurosaki to leave him alone, but the idiot keeps coming back.

“What?” He says without looking up from one of Kensei’s old reports.

Being both captain and lieutenant is getting old real fast. He can’t wait until the man comes back to deal with this crap. He’ll make sure to throw a party when it happens.

“Orihime’s been—”

Oh, hell no. He slams the report down to look Kurosaki in the eye. Kurosaki’s gaping expression would be funny in any other situation.

“Does this look like the face of a main character?” He demands.

“It looks like the face of a bar boy,” Kurosaki says irritably.

He has absolutely no desire to infiltrate Hueco Mundo. His duty is to watch over Seireitei, and Orihime is not one of his. Even Kazeshini is silent on the matter. Still, Kurosaki’s kicked dog expression is making him feel things. Damn stray.

“I can’t leave my post, but I can give you some expensive tools and supplies we’ve confiscated as ‘dangers to Seireitei,’ ” he compromises.

Many a fool tries to sneak in bombs and homemade weapons to “better kill Hollows.” There’s no telling what his division has seized at this point. He’s supposed to destroy these items in a safe and orderly manner, but he just doesn’t have the time.

How strange that he can arm Kurosaki and friends while getting rid of dangerous items. It’s a win-win either way.

“Can you do that?” Kurosaki wonders.

“So long as everyone in this room keeps their mouths shut,” he replies evenly.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible one?” Ichigo mutters.

He pretends he doesn’t hear it. He undoes the seals on his desk and searches for the key to the storeroom. He grabs Kurosaki by the shoulders and steers the man out once he finds it. The substitute Soul Reaper grumbles but stops flashing those puppy dog eyes at him.

He manages to avoid every battle and crazy antic that would threaten his life through sheer skill. For some odd reason, people’s opinions of him keep going up. Kurosaki doesn’t bother him to do more, and the other lieutenants want to hang out.

Sometimes he even catches the attentions of captains. It’s not too weird considering his current status, but the only one that doesn’t bother him is Captain Komamura.

(He sips a cup of wine from the corner of his favorite bar. Next to him, Captain Komamura tentatively sips from a large saucer of sake. Captain Komamura’s wolf appearance garners a lot of side-eyes. He glares at anyone who looks ready to say anything.)

Kazeshini’s so silent it’s about to drive him crazy. He’d be worried if he didn’t already know that the sword spirit is biding its time, waiting for Tōsen. Paradoxically, he wishes time would both freeze and move faster. He doesn’t want to face his former captain, but he’s also tired of waiting.

No matter how much he trains, he knows he can’t take on a captain alone, but he can’t not try to kill his former captain. There’s too much between them. If he’s going to die, he’s going to die without regret.

The day comes, and he’s sent to the fake town, ordered to protect a pillar. Kazeshini’s excitement makes it hard to stay still. It’s almost a relief to be attacked by Hollows. The ensuing battle with the Arrancar is barely worth mentioning. Kazeshini’s disappointment rings through his soul, and he promises the Zanpakuto Tōsen’s head.

He will kill the man before this day is over. He will have the fight of his life. He will bathe in traitor’s blood.

He gets a glimpse of Muguruma Kensei, and a rush of giddiness hits him. Just a little bit more and he can finally be relieved of his duties to the 9^th. It’s almost over.

(He will either die or be forced to step down. Either way, he’ll never be stuck in an office again.)

Captain Komamura faces off against Tōsen while he’s in the middle of getting healed. Kazeshini screams, and he tugs his arm away from Kira Izuru to dash off, leaving the other lieutenant sputtering.

Mine, Kazeshini screeches.

Ours, he thinks.

“Reap, Kazeshini,” he utters, throwing a scythe.

Tōsen blocks both his initial and follow-up attack but does not expect his third attack. Wrapping Kazeshini’s chains around his opponent, he slams his head against Tōsen’s.

“You left me,” he growls. “You left me to do the work all alone.”

The fight sort of dissolves from there. He thinks Captain Komamura attempted to step in a few times, but the bloodlust takes over; there’s no more thinking when he channels his built up rage into every swing of his scythes.

He’s almost in disbelief when he stands over his fallen opponent with Captain Komamura alive and well, standing uneasily beside him. Kazeshini's screams have finally stopped.

“Captain, back then, you knew I’d oppose you. Why didn’t you kill me?” He asks the dying Tōsen.

To call Tōsen a captain is an honor the man doesn’t deserve. He just wants to spare Captain Komamura’s feelings and maybe get an answer to a question he’s always wondered about. There were so many chances for Tōsen to strike him down.

(If a part of him sort of liked the guy, neither he nor Kazeshini will ever tell.)

“Because you—” Tōsen’s soft voice stops suddenly.

Against his will, he leans towards the broken body on the ground. The man mouths something, and he debates kneeling to get closer. Could Tōsen have cared about him after all?

“Because you were the only one who could do the paperwork,” Tōsen says flatly.

He feels a vindictive pleasure when Tōsen suddenly explodes.

There’s not much to do once Aizen’s taken care of. He gets patched up and leads his division for hopefully the last time. He finishes the remaining paperwork with a smile on his face and prepares to empty his office.

“So you’re the kid from that time,” his new captain says.

It’s startling, but he swears that this is the exact same glare he saw when he first got here. Captain Muguruma’s shorter than him now, but those brown eyes haven’t lost their effect one bit. He’s a bit transfixed.

“Ah, yeah,” he says, scratching his face tattoo awkwardly.

The captain’s eyes go straight for it, and he tries to figure out an explanation, a way to convey what the numbers mean to him. Even a simple thank you would probably get his point across.

“I deeply admire you and got this to remember you by. I’ve been reading your reports too, so I know you will be better than Tōsen. Please treat me well,” he blurts out.

He goes bright red and chokes out an excuse about paperwork. He thinks he hears something about “taking responsibility” from Captain Muguruma as he flees. Kazeshini’s unkind laughter and rude comments about wanting to get stabbed by his captain force him to the bar. He’s going to need a lot of alcohol to erase today’s memory.

(He doesn’t curl up with a bottle of wine, but it’s a close thing.)

He begins packing his bags. Kuna Mashiro’s return signals the end of his tenure as lieutenant. He can’t say he’ll miss it even if he has to move back to the barracks.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Captain Muguruma growls.

“Uh,” he answers eloquently.

His captain stares him down, and he grips his bag tightly. He wishes Captain Muguruma would stop that; it’s making him feel weird.

“Little Shūhei cleaned out his room,” Lieutenant Kuna laughs from behind him.

He jumps at the sudden noise and accidentally drops the bag containing his clothes and knick-knacks. Captain Muguruma catches it, only to sling it over a shoulder.

“Good thinking,” Captain Muguruma nods, “Mashiro needs that room. You’ll be bunking with me for now until we get you a lieutenant’s room.”

He’s going to what now? With who? He runs that order through his head multiple times as Lieutenant Kuna raves on about painting her new room in the background.

“Wait a minute, lieutenant?” He gapes.

“Be a shame to knock you down, kid. You ran this place all by yourself,” Captain Muguruma says. “Worked it out with command. You and Mashiro will both be lieutenants.”

“Yay! I get my own lieutenant!” Lieutenant Kuna throws her hands up.

Visions of his freedom from paperwork disappear into a cloud of smoke. Worse, he’s filled with visions of Lieutenant Kuna destroying and defiling the paperwork. He pales rapidly.

“No, it’s okay. Why don’t you make me a seated officer instead? We’ve got a position open,” he pleads.

The unmoving face of his captain fills him with dread. He desperately tries to think of a way out. Kazeshini’s only advice is to run far, far away.

“You know what? Just transfer me out, simple as that!” He tries.

Lieutenant Kuna jumps up to pat him on the head, cooing over his adorableness. Captain Muguruma grabs him around the middle, and he lets out an embarrassing squeak.

“Let’s go, Lieutenant,” Captain Muguruma says.

He wants it on record that he is not blushing.

Chapter Text

With Aizen bound and sealed into the lowest prison, Muken, Seireitei attempts to rebuild and reorganize. Busy days mean he can put off thinking about Aizen’s inevitable escape. His knowledge of future events have long since ran out, but he knows the type of story he’s in.

Kurosaki losing his powers is tragic, but he has his own problems to deal with. For whatever reason, Captain Muguruma keeps him close alongside Lieutenant Kuna, and he’s usually running around putting out the fires they cause.

“These guys are wimps,” Captain Muguruma scowls.

9^th division’s training session doesn’t meet its captain’s expectations, and he winces as a small Soul Reaper gets sent flying by an enthusiastic, equally tiny lieutenant. He can understand Captain Muguruma’s scorn; his division is mucking up worse than newbies.

“Tōsen did a lot of damage,” to their abilities, to the heads, to their feelings, “and I think you’re confusing them. They weren’t this bad last time.”

“Confusing them?” The words sound like an angry echo, but the captain is simply prodding for a more in-depth explanation.

Holding the division together with tears, sweat, and plenty of metaphysical duct tape doesn’t make for fully functional Soul Reapers. Captain Muguruma’s way of running 9^th division is completely different from Tōsen’s, and it’s making them stumble around blindly.

“But they all believe in protecting. The ‘what’ is different to each of them, but you can see it in their eyes. How they’re not giving up no matter how badly they’re doing,” he says.

As his Soul Reapers continue to stand through their injuries, a small feeling of pride wells up inside him. No matter how terrible their wounds are, no matter how stupid they are, these are his people who refuse to stay down.

“Come on, kid. Let’s go work on your Bankai and leave Mashiro to them,” Captain Muguruma suddenly says.

“What, why?” He squeaks out as a hand grabs his waist.

Captain Muguruma pulls him away from the training area and into a nearby forest. He can do nothing when he’s in this type of hold which the captain full well knows. Damn him for learning such a nasty trick.

There’s no point in arguing once Captain Muguruma dumps him on the ground and points what looks like a knife at him. He knows better of course; that knife is Captain Muguruma’s Zanpakuto in its Shikai state.

“Hold back and you’re dead.”

He gets exactly one warning before the ground explodes. Thankfully, his skills in shunpo leave him uninjured, and he’s quick to meet Captain Muguruma’s blade with Kazeshini’s own released form. A cackle rings out in his head, and he can’t stop the bloodthirsty grin pulling at his lips.

Fighting against Captain Muguruma is so frightfully intoxicating; it’s not possible for him to hold back. He tries not to think about why that is.

He doesn’t manage to draw blood, but Captain Muguruma does go into Bankai to slam him into the ground. He considers it a win even as he lies there unable to move.

“How do you not have Bankai?” Captain Muguruma mutters with narrow eyes.

These training fights set up by the captain get rougher by the day. He likes to think it’s because he’s improving, but it might be because he’s pissing off everyone who works hard to help him achieve Bankai.

Considering both the captain and the “super” lieutenant are growing impatient, he doesn’t doubt he’ll be facing their wrathful masked forms soon. He wonders if their hollows scream as loud as Kazeshini.

“Captain, do you realize that my Shikai is double-bladed? One end is pointed to the enemy, and the other side is pointed at me,” he says out of the blue.

There’s no way his captain doesn’t know, but it’s a fact that escapes most people despite it being so obvious. His Zanpakuto wants blood, and it doesn’t care whose it is.

“Let’s get you back to the room so you can sleep it off,” Captain Muguruma sighs.

Captain Muguruma throws him over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and he does his best to keep his hands from touching anything. He retreats into his inner world when it gets too, ah, hard.

“Weak. Stupid,” Kazeshini scolds while pulling on his cheeks.

Kazeshini puts him in a headlock and continues to belittle him. He sighs and lets the Zanpakuto do what it wants. He might give Kazeshini too much leeway, but he knows when to dig his heels in. Kazeshini wants his inner world to rain blood, but the sword spirit will just have to keep wanting.

“We should slit the annoying one’s throat. Have him all to ourselves. Then we should bleed him dry,” Kazeshini croons in his ear.

“We like Mashiro,” he reminds the spirit dryly, “and I don’t think killing the people you like is the sane way to deal with things.”

Here, in his head, he calls nearly everyone by first name. The only one he doesn’t dare to utter is Captain Muguruma’s. In his inner world, he is completely honest with his Zanpakuto and himself, all but for one thing.

“Kazeshini, has it woken up yet?”

His inner world is what you’d get if you slammed the 9^th division, Rukongai, and the American Midwest together. In the plains area, under a ragged tree from Rukongai, is a skeleton wrapped in a buffalo blanket. He used to think it was a product of his grief-stricken mind, but it’s begun to move recently.

“It continues to sleep,” Kazeshini reports before whispering something in his ear.

“Are you sure you should be telling me that?” He asks but the Zanpakuto doesn’t waver. “Your dedication to killing is a sight to behold.”

He hopes he never has to use his new knowledge, but the spirit only laughs at his thoughts. If there’s something terrible coming, he has no other way to prepare for it. Frankly, trying to keep up with Mashiro and Captain Muguruma is a monumental task that consumes most of his days.

How long can he keep on pretending? He’s heard of Soul Reapers having breakdowns over going into battle with the people they’re infatuated with. Maybe it’d be best if he—

“Is something bothering you, Shūhei?” Captain Komamura asks.

“Nah, it’s nothing. Just thinking about something stupid,” he says, avoiding the captain’s eyes.

Long after Tōsen’s death, he somehow keeps going out for a drink with the captain. There’s something soothing about Captain Komamura, and he hopes the other feels a little less lonely with their frequent bar trips.

“Could you be thinking of Ichigo?” Captain Komamura prods tentatively.

“I’m sure that idiot’s fine,” he says as a non-answer.

He’s been thinking of trying to leave 9^th division actually, but it’d be trouble if Captain Komamura questions the why. The wolf-like captain is the only one besides Captain Muguruma that can get him to spill his secrets. He has a soft spot for dogs apparently.

As if hearing his traitorous thoughts, his own captain begins awkwardly praising him during work. Captain Muguruma pats him on the back—hits more like it, he thinks with a wheeze—and lets him know how valuable he is by dumping more and more paperwork on his desk. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

“New assignment,” Captain Muguruma grunts at him. “Head to the gate. You’re going to the human world.”

“What’s the details?” He asks, tidying up his desk with a frown.

“Classified. You’ll get your assignment as soon as you get there,” Captain Muguruma says, tone a little off.

Warily, he goes to get his power limiter stamp and a Hell Butterfly. The most anyone says about it is Lieutenant Kuna, who wishes him luck with a very strange smile. He travels to the World of the Living and tries to figure out if he’s done anything wrong.

“Hello,” Urahara Kisuke meets him with a grin and wave of the fan. “How were your academy scores?”

Yeah, this is going to suck.

He can’t say the human world is exactly as he remembers it; he never went to Japan, and the memories of his old life have become blurry over time. Still, the modern houses, roads, and lights give him nostalgia. He drinks it in while he waits by the school gate; he wasn’t able to the last time he was here.

“Oi, what are you doing here?”

It’s said more out of surprise than the irritation he expects. Kurosaki’s hilarious gaping face can’t hide the dark circles under his eyes. He crosses his arms and pretends he doesn’t care.

“I’m vacationing, isn’t it obvious?” He says with a huff.

Kurosaki’s expression changes to one of dubious quality. When it looks like Kurosaki is leaning towards believing such a stupid statement, he opens his mouth to make a less sarcastic response.

“I’m here to help you get your powers back obviously,” he lies with a straight face. “Now show me how to do the school thing. I don’t have a clue.”

Kurosaki immediately brightens, and they’re trading insults like they see each other every day. Truth be told, he doesn’t actually know why he’s here. The only thing Urahara said was to, “keep Ichigo company while your overprotective captain beats up everyone requesting your transfer, simple ne?”

Obviously, that means his mission is so secretive, he’s not to know anything about it. Because being sent to the human world for such an inane reason can’t possibly be true.

Kurosaki shows him where to go to get his school schedule and where the offices and bathrooms are. Neither of them is in a rush to get to class.

“What happened to your tattoos?” Kurosaki asks.

“It’s a custom gigai. I put down the request to have one made without the tattoos a long time ago.” He can’t help but think Urahara tampered with this one though.

Ah, yeah, before he forgets—

“Let me stay with you while I’m in the human world,” he says.

“Are you trying to mooch off me? You Soul Reapers are all the same,” Kurosaki scowls.

“Do you want to stay with Urahara?”

There’s a pause as both of them recall the man with the hat and the wooden clogs. He tries to picture waking up every day to Urahara waving a fan with a mad glint in his eye; he shudders. Kurosaki must picture the same because he grimaces.

“Hope you like closets,” Kurosaki says.

“What, too ashamed to have someone so sexy in your room?” He bites back.

He’d feel bad about Kurosaki’s room being considered a Soul Reaper’s luxury suite, but Kurosaki doesn’t actually seem to mind. He looks around for a loud plush toy he vaguely recalls, but doesn’t find it. When Kurosaki actually does try to shove him in the closet, he puts the guy in a headlock until they work out a better agreement.

Of course, since he’s living so brazenly in the Kurosaki residence, he has to deal with the rest of the family. He’d been gearing himself up for a confrontation with Kurosaki Isshin, but one glare from Kurosaki had the man giving him a quiet, “You’re welcome to stay.”

No, the real trouble was the sisters.

“What is this?” He asks blankly.

Taking in the streamers and the decorated cake on the table, he says goodbye to his day off from school. Kurosaki was supposed to take him to sightsee. Visiting an internet café will have to wait another day.

“Our big brother is so much happier now that you’re here. I thought we should celebrate,” Yuzu says with a bright smile.

“Don’t get a big head. You’re not that important to Ichigo,” Karin scowls at him.

Two faces—one angelic, one demonic—convince him that if he wants a peaceful life, he’ll have to stand here and celebrate Kurosaki’s happiness. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

“I didn’t think he swung that way. Guess I should have known when not even Orihime’s boobs did anything,” Karin mutters under her breath.

He pretends not to hear as he stomps back up the stairs to grab Kurosaki.

Of course, he can’t spend all his time with Kurosaki. There doesn’t appear to be any threats, and it’s not healthy for either of them. Reluctantly, he allows Urahara to use him as free labor. He does put in a request for necessities such as more clothes, money, and a cellphone.

He didn’t need the phone, but Seireitei doesn’t know that. Urahara hooks him up, and he has something to fiddle with during the lulls in school. His manga keeps getting taken, but this device is so much easier to hide.

“Give me your phone number,” he says, flipping his phone open.

“I don’t want to,” Kurosaki says flatly.

He kicks the chair leg out from underneath Kurosaki. There’s a brief fight after that, but it ends up with him getting Kurosaki into another chokehold. Without his prompting, one of Kurosaki’s friends rifle through his pockets for his phone, and he gets both Kurosaki’s phone number and email address.

That is, of course, another thing he must deal with: the friends. Kurosaki’s completely human friends pretend he’s always been there but keep a wary eye on him all the same. Kurosaki’s friends that go into battle with him, who actually know who he is, are downright weird.

“Don’t think we don’t know why you’re here,” Ishida warns him with shiny glasses.

“You got me. I lied to Kurosaki. I’m only here so he can cry on my shoulder,” he deadpans.

“I don’t think Ichigo cries,” Sado muses.

“The poor aliens with their experiment,” Inoue gasps randomly.

When they aren’t bugging him about getting Kurosaki’s powers back, they alternate between treating him like a respected Soul Reaper and, well, one of them. Considering he regularly becomes the victim of a drive by fashion expert, he doesn’t know which is worse to be honest.

If he were to compare what the next two months in the human world feel like, he’d say it feels a lot like a daily life arc. He promptly hides that thought away because only bad things happen after daily life arcs. He’ll just enjoy his part-mission, part-vacation while it lasts.

“How’s Rukia and Renji?” Kurosaki asks him quietly.

He keeps his eyes closed and wonders if anyone knows that Kurosaki gets so damn chatty at night. He regrets putting the futon so close to the bed; it makes it easier for certain people to keep talking.

“How should I know? We don’t exactly hang out,” he bites out. A painful silence follows, and he sighs. “But I heard they’re busy trying to find a way to restore your powers. They must care about you a lot.”

The silence isn’t quite so heavy after that. He almost manages to go back to sleep.

“How come you’re not like the others?” Kurosaki questions. “Rukia didn’t know what a juice box was, but you didn’t even have to ask.”

It’s a good question; he probably did take to life in the 21^st century better than most, and he didn’t have it in him to pretend otherwise. With so many vending machines around, how could he? They have everything. Maybe he can convince the 12^th that they’d be a worthy investment.

“I’m just that amazing. Now shut up and let me sleep,” he says.

Kurosaki doesn’t ask again after that, but the midnight conversations don’t seem to lessen at all. Damn needy mutts.

At least school isn’t too bad. He’s terrible at math—that’ll never change—but without the pressure of needing to do well, he actually enjoys some of his classes. For the classes he doesn’t, the teachers give up on him after he gives one wrong answer too many, and he either doodles in his notebook or visits his inner world.

“It’s awake,” Kazeshini hisses in his ear.

The skeleton wrapped in a buffalo blanket is sitting up now. Its teeth grind against each other, and he gets the feeling it’s staring at him even without eyes. Kazeshini refuses to go anywhere near it.

“Kazeshini, let’s make the most of it,” he says without understanding the words that leave his mouth.

“We’ll take the blood of fate itself,” the Zanpakuto agrees, and he knows he’s missing something.

He puts it out his mind for now. He gets the feeling that his peaceful days are at an end, and he wants to enjoy being human for a little while longer. Unfortunately, it appears Kurosaki’s friends do their absolute best to mess things up for him.

Inoue calls him to the school roof during lunch break, and before he can even question it, Inoue congratulates him on a successful love life with a fragile smile.

“I,” here the girl looks worryingly tearful, “I hope you and Ichigo are happy.”

“What,” he says.

Inoue bursts into a rapid-fire list of “wonderful things about Ichigo and what to do to make him smile.” He’s completely overwhelmed as the girl keeps spitting out things he never wanted to know about Kurosaki.

Even though his brain feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it, he gets it to work long enough to understand what Inoue’s getting at. He puts a hand over her mouth when it appears she’s never going to stop.

“We’re not together,” he says, grimacing at the thought.

Soul King save him from the teenage drama.

“Look, I know you like him. Everyone knows. Only the idiot in question hasn’t noticed,” he says, stepping away from Inoue who looks at him with wide eyes. “But how is he supposed to notice if you don’t tell him? You’re afraid of being hurt, but will it be worse to see him with someone else knowing you never tried?”

“I,” Inoue trails off.

“Take some time to think about it. Spend some time just talking to the guy if it’ll put things in perspective.”

“I can’t do that! He’s busy and—” Inoue waves her hands in a fluster.

“Relationships need a foundation. If you can’t communicate with him here, you won’t be able to communicate with him later,” he says ruthlessly. “Just go talk to him. Do you think so lowly of him that he wouldn’t make time for you?”

He leaves her on the rooftop and decides to skip the rest of school. He sends Kurosaki a message and leaves to find a quiet café. It’s only when he’s sitting down, sipping on bitter coffee, that it hits him.

Well, shit. He’s going to have to take his own advice, isn’t he?

He makes the resolution to confess to Captain Muguruma. It’ll end horribly of course; he doesn’t have a chance like Inoue. But he needs to know. If it had simply been a crush, he could have easily put it out like the small flame of a candle.

After having spent so much time by his captain’s side, he can safely say it’s not a crush. Love is an emotion that sticks and no amount of distance or time can stop it. Not even another lifetime takes it away.

He’ll probably end up transferred to another division. The thought hurts, but it’s probably for the best.

Maybe one of Kurosaki’s friends can offer advice on how best to approach this. He doesn’t exactly have friends of his own. Inoue, the clueless girl is out. That leaves Sado, Ishida, and Tsukishima. His phone rings.

“Shūhei, where are you?” Kurosaki asks, voice desperate.

“What happened?” He’s already running back to Kurosaki’s house.

Kurosaki meets him before he gets an answer, bumping into him and grabbing onto the front of his jacket like it’s a lifeline. One of Kurosaki’s friends catches up, and the hands on his jacket grip it so tight he thinks the material will break.

“Ichigo’s mind has been messed with,” Tsukishima warns. “He thinks I’m dangerous.”

“Don’t listen to him, Shūhei! You don’t actually know him,” Kurosaki begs.

He removes Kurosaki’s grip on him, and Kurosaki looks at him in betrayal. He tucks the phone away in a zipper pocket. He looks at the fragile, concerned face of Tsukishima and considers things. He punches Tsukishima in the face.

“Okay, Ichigo. What am I fighting against here?” He sighs.

“You believe me?” Ichigo gapes.

“You’re an idiot. A thorn in my side. A mutt that keeps coming back. But I’ll side with you every time. Even against the people I love. Even against the captain,” he states, keeping himself between Tsukishima and Ichigo.

It probably sounds more heartfelt than it should; he’s only following “Kurosaki Ichigo is the main character” logic. It doesn’t make his words any less true, but he’s not exactly leaping on blind faith.

“He’s a Fullbringer. They have powers—I, it’s how mine have been returning,” Ichigo tells him with reluctance.

He had thought that was Urahara’s doing. Oh man, he’s in for a very big reprisal once he hands in the reports. His attempts to leave his gigai get waylaid by two swords aiming to take his head. He finds himself pinned to the ground as Kazeshini screeches death threats.

“You would mess up my plans Soul Reaper,” the man stepping on his neck spits.

“Shūhei!” Ichigo calls out in a panic. “Stop it, Ginjō!”

“I’ll have to move my plans up,” Ginjō says darkly.

He’s suddenly stabbed through the back with a blade, pinning him to the ground. Somewhere above him, Tsukishima laughs. He loses focus, and he only gets pieces of Ginjō’s lengthy monologue.

Ichigo screams, and he takes a deep breath. Gigais are simply holders that contain the spirit. There’s nothing chaining him; there’s no need for a pill to push him out. He can leave anytime he wants.

Through sheer willpower, he manifests outside the gigai and slaps Ginjō away from Ichigo.

“Get to Urahara,” he orders, but the powerless Ichigo can’t see him.

Tsukishima and Ginjō drive him into a corner by targeting Ichigo, and he knows he’s on the losing end. If he truly believes in Ichigo’s power as the main character of fate, then there’s only one thing left to do. Kazeshini grows silent in his head, and he takes it as reluctant acceptance.

“I’m going to want this back,” he says, standing behind Ichigo.

Pulling up all his power and pushing it into his sword, he stabs Ichigo. In a flash of light, it feels like every ounce of energy he possessed is gone. Spiky strawberry blond hair pops out against a black uniform, and he passes out before he can see the rest.

Standing in the plains area of his inner mind, under a ragged tree from Rukongai, is a skeleton wrapped in a buffalo blanket. It points at him.

“Die,” it rattles with a familiar voice.

“Well that’s not ominous at all,” he says.

The skeleton doesn’t move after that, but no matter where he goes, its bony finger stays pointed at him. He doesn’t fear it though; the skeleton feels like it belongs here, somehow. With nothing to do, he begins cleaning up. Brushing dirt off a mat is harder than fighting his captain, but he enjoys the challenge.

“We could have ripped their eyes out,” Kazeshini appears with a sneer.

“It wasn’t our battle. We can’t break the chains of fate. Not yet,” he says.

With Kazeshini back, that means his powers have returned to him. Which means Ichigo won or else he’d be dead. Leaving Kazeshini to curse by itself, he braces himself and wakes up. He comes to in a dark, empty room. He’s lying on an infirmary bed with his Soul Reaper clothes.

He’s been tucked away somewhere in the 4^th division. Explosions and screams echo all around him, and he realizes something important. There’s nothing stopping him from turning back and staying in bed. No one knows he’s up. He won’t be held accountable for not reporting for duty.

He goes to find his captain.

A mirror on a wall stops him in his tracks, and he stares at the skeleton wrapped in a buffalo blanket pointing at him.

“Die a worthy death,” the skeleton says with clacking teeth.

Without meaning to, he reaches out to the mirror, and he suddenly finds himself in a strange place. With purple sand trailing on endlessly under a starless night sky, it’s definitely not Soul Society or Earth.

A structure resembling a castle juts out as the only thing here. A long straight staircase goes from the sand to its roof. He climbs it slowly, steadily. With each step, the memories come back, and he knows what he’s supposed to do.

“I don’t understand. The Soul King was right here!” Yhwach shouts.

In front of the man is Ichigo, covered in blood and holding a sword defensively. Ichigo’s eyes dart around, and he supposes even he’s confused. How strange it must be for fate to suddenly be wrested out of everyone’s hands. The only thing left to do is for him to take control of the story.

“Bankai,” he says, and a chain wraps around his neck.

“Shūhei?” Ichigo gasps.

“You think such a thing can even affect me? From such a lowly person as yourself?” Yhwach says, batting away the chain reaching for him.

Unfortunately for Yhwach, any attempts to steal or destroy his Bankai are nullified in this place. A chain latches onto his opponent, and a cage of chains keeps Ichigo away from them. Kazeshini appears in his hands as twin scythes.

The Zanpakuto’s excitement of the grand finale makes him smile. For all that the sword spirit did its best to threaten him, Kazeshini’s true powers had always lain in the chains which would heal him if he got injured. Kazeshini’s always been a softy, really.

“This is our Bankai,” the Zanpakuto had whispered to him, “it will drain you dry, healing both you and your opponent until you find yourselves joined together in death. Use it wisely.”

“Let me die a worthy death,” he says.

He feels the blanket settle over his shoulders, feels the skull fit over his face like it’s always belonged to him. But then, it has, hasn’t it? This is the other part of his soul; the part that’s still attached to his old world. He’s complete for the first time since he woke up in Soul Society.

“I cannot see you,” Yhwach says in shock.

“You shouldn’t be able to,” he comments idly.

His existence is one that currently does and doesn’t exist. His very being hangs between one universe and another. Yhwach can’t see him because he’s currently outside the flow of life, death, and everything in-between.

“Kazeshini, reap death itself.”

The command is short and simple, but his entire soul goes to his Zanpakuto. His twin scythes transform into a single large one with the blade only going one way. There’s no need for Kazeshini to threaten his life now. This is the end.

He swings Kazeshini forward in a wide arc. Yhwach attempts to kill him before he finishes the slow attack, but everything the man tries phases through him. The scythe pierces the man’s soul and rips it in half. It is the twisted face of a man who thought he could never lose that disappears from this world. The amount of Reiryoku dispersing is enough to bring Ichigo to his knees.

“Does the bell toll for me?” He asks as the scythe in his hands dissolves.

His body begins breaking apart, but he feels no pain. He doesn’t feel anything as a matter of fact. He thinks Ichigo is running to him, but he can’t be sure as his vision grows dark. Is this death, or is he going back home, he wonders. Either way—

“We had a hell of a time, Kazeshini, Ichigo,” he smirks before disappearing.

A torso of a man morphs into an old woman wearing an owl’s mask. Eyes with ever shifting pupils look back at him, and he suddenly realizes he has a body. One of his hands is pale; the other is dark. His tattoos shine in the absence of light.

“Did I do it?” He asks, voice traveling everywhere, yet nowhere.

He remembers now, here in the absence of everything: the Soul King, who saw all of time and grabbed wandering souls to break through the cycle of its own death. There are so many other Soul Societies tied to this one, each with someone trying to destroy its chain of fate. He is but one of many that was tasked to break the cycle.

His first death had shamed him, and he had jumped at the chance to die again. This time a warrior’s death instead of drowning in his own vomit. He would die gloriously instead of surrounded by beer cans, he thought. But he feels the furthest thing from triumphant.

“You’ve done well,” the Owl Woman says. “Would you like to go home?”

Home, where is that exactly? He flexes his different colored hands and considers things. A red road shines beneath his feet, and he knows he only needs to walk it to go back from where he came.

“Can I take a raincheck? I’d like to go back, but I’d like to continue living here more.”

His regrets are nothing to a deity, but he can’t find it in himself to nod his head and agree to die quietly. He wants to see the Soul Reapers learn and change, wants to find out what living without doom hanging over his head feels like. He wants to see where Ichigo’s life goes from here.

He’d liked to move on and find love even if that isn’t with Kensei.

“Your soul is too weak to go back to Soul Society, but there is an anchor among the humans. When you are ready, I will be here.”

So saying, the Owl Woman knocks him off the road and into the black.

He wakes up human. No, that’s not completely correct. He wakes up in his gigai, powerless, and unable to leave it. He’s stuck pretending to be human. His back aches from whatever he’s lying on, but his soul aches more.

The quiet strikes him suddenly, fiercely. Kazeshini’s disappearance leaves a hole so wide and gaping, he actually cries. For a sword spirit that seemed to do nothing but scream, the silence in his head makes him regret every bad thought towards his Zanpakuto. He wallows until he gets beamed by a bag of trash.

“What the hell are you doing in a dumpster?” The person with the trash demands.

“Someone probably thought I was dead,” he answers blandly.

His grief will have to wait. Survival comes first, and he shoves down the memories of Rukongai. He’s not that Shūhei anymore; he won’t actually murder someone for food, but he needs to get a move on if he doesn’t want to head straight back to the Owl Woman.

Evidently his body had not been in Karakura Town, and he walks around skyscrapers and narrow alleyways in an attempt to figure out his location. It’s possible that he’s near Karakura, but he can’t be certain. His senses are as dull as a normal human’s.

His phone has been smashed to pieces, so that’s out. Luckily, his money is still tucked away in a zipper pocket, and he has an idea.

Internet cafés are a marvelous thing, and it doesn’t take too long to find one. He can rent a cubicle with a computer for 24 hours, get a free shower, and have a light snack for no more than the change on him.

Stealing some tourist clothes from a nearby shop, he showers before settling into a large office chair. He sends an email to Ichigo with the café’s street address, so optimistically, it shouldn’t take too long. Assuming Ichigo checks his email. Assuming Ichigo isn’t dead. Assuming—

Yeah, he’s just going to go to sleep now.

He hangs around the internet café for the better part of the next day. If Ichigo doesn’t get him by tonight, he’ll start the journey himself back to Urahara’s. He really should be making the attempt now, but he’s so tired.

“Shūhei.” That’s not Ichigo.

He lifts his head off his knees and blinks the sleep from his eyes. A man with silver hair glares down at him.

“Captain?”

Those eyes are still so mesmerizing. He tries not to fidget as they scan him intensely. Kensei crosses his arms with a frown, and he wonders if the captain’s realized it yet.

“You were unconscious last I checked. When Ichigo came back from the Soul King’s Palace, he claimed you were there, killed Yhwach, and disappeared.”

“How are you here, Captain?” He asks wearily.

“After I was cured of my own ailments, I came here to look for you. I happened to be with Ichigo when he saw your email. Now explain,” Kensei glowers at him.

He’s not sure he can. No matter how much time he’s had to sit here and think, he just can’t come up with a reasonable explanation that makes sense.

“The Soul King gave me a power up?” It’s said as a question more than an answer, so he tries again. “I had an agreement to become that guy’s special reaper before I even met you.”

He hopes the Royal Guard won’t try to execute him for the blasphemous words, but it’s the truth. He was tasked to kill Yhwach before he was even Shūhei.

“Not that I remembered until it was almost too late,” he mutters that quietly before leaning back with a sigh. “My soul’s all used up. I can’t leave this gigai, or I’ll die. I don’t know what happens from here, but it was an honor working for you.”

For better or worse, he’s human now. He should have taken school more seriously, he thinks with a grimace. He’ll have to study hard for the exams, figure out what he wants to do in life—oh damn, he’s probably stuck with Ichigo’s friends for the rest of his life.

“Stop that. We’ll think of something,” Kensei hits him gently on the head. “Don’t think you’re off the hook about any of the shit you pulled either.”

Kensei pulls him up and hails a cab when his knees give out. He thinks about the resolution he made before everything went to hell. Figuratively, of course. Should he wait on it until a better time, or should he blurt it out now. He’ll have to break his heart eventually.

“Let’s get you back to Kurosaki’s. Ichigo nearly tore me in half when I stopped him from coming,” Kensei says, helping him into the cab.

“He what?” He blinks as Kensei slides into the seat next to him.

“Almost lost control of my hollow. That’s some boyfriend you got,” Kensei remarks low enough so the driver can’t hear.

“Some what?” He shrieks, horror striking his heart at the thought. “He’s not my boyfriend! I don’t even find him attractive!”

He’ll give the cab driver credit; the guy’s eyes don’t even flick to the rearview mirror. Kensei doesn’t resist as he grabs him by the collar to pull him close. In sheer outrage, he blurts out in a fierce whisper,

“Is that why I was assigned to keep him company? Don’t be stupid. I am only attracted to one person, and that’s you.”

He has no idea what Kensei’s thinking, but the sound of a phone ringing breaks the tense atmosphere. He lets go of Kensei to let his head fall against the window. Whatever happens from here, at least he said it. It doesn’t stop him from suddenly wanting to open the door and jump out though.

“Yeah, I found him,” Kensei frowns into the phone.

Whoever’s on the other end of the phone call is shouting angrily. It sounds like Ichigo. Well, Kensei’s too serious to make jokes, but he had hoped the captain had made an exception this once. He can only hope Ichigo won’t turn that anger on him.

“Are you sure you’re not in a relationship with him?” Kensei snaps the phone shut.

“Definitely not. I don’t think my sanity could survive it,” he admits. “There’s really nothing going on between us. Ichigo’s just like that with all his friends.”

It’s true too. It seemed like every other word out of Ichigo’s mouth had been a name of a friend. He’d go so far as to say Ichigo runs on friendship like coffee. What a strange creature that’d make him if that were literally true.

When the cab drops them off at the Kurosaki residence, he doesn’t expect the sheer number of people waiting for him. He thinks they’re all gathered for something else, for Ichigo, but Yuzu brings out a cake with a bright smile. He belatedly realizes Inoue is snapping a party hat on him.

“No bell is tolling for you yet,” Ichigo says, kicking him into a chair.

“How exactly did you do it?” Ishida asks him with crazy eyes.

He takes a sip out of the juice Sado hands him in lieu of an answer. Mashiro swings by to mess up his already messy hair, and Kensei helps him sidestep probing questions from Urahara and Isshin.

Being human might not be too bad, he thinks. Even so, he’s overjoyed when the combined efforts of Urahara and 12^th division get him his Soul Reaper form back. He’s weaker than what he used to be, but he can’t bring himself to care. When Kazeshini reappears, he cries once more.

“Weak,” Kazeshini scoffs as he hugs the spirit tightly.

Unlike any other time, the Zanpakuto doesn’t shove him off. Kazeshini really is a softy when it comes down to it.

There is no skeleton wrapped in a buffalo blanket in his inner world, but there is a small red road that leads on past the boundaries. He knows better than to follow it before he’s ready.

In the end, the only ones who know about what he did in detail are the captain-commander, his captain, and Ichigo. No Royal Guard comes for him, thankfully.

Against his expectations, he does not end up transferring out of 9^th division even as other squads literally beg for him to. The fact that there is always a paper in his hands even as he sleeps tells him why he’s so badly wanted.

Rebuilding Seireitei from the Quincy attack requires heavy lifting and mountains of paperwork, but this isn’t the first time they’ve had to do it. Procedures made from Aizen’s attack make things go smoother, and the workload gradually decreases until they can take things reasonably easy.

“Captain, an order from the commander requesting an update on—” the paper is snatched out of his hands.

He blinks as his captain throws the super important orders onto the floor.

“Clear my schedule, Mashiro. We’re going on a date,” Kensei declares, grabbing him around the middle.

“What?” He squeaks.

“Good luck, Little Shūhei,” Mashiro laughs at him.

Chapter Text

Soul Society is a world frozen in time, unchanging and stagnating. For those who keep the order in this world, who slay monsters and enforce the law, their time for relaxation is a precious moment not to be wasted. There’s plenty to do to unwind from a hard day’s work: games, drink, reading, gardening, art.

But even the most steadfast Soul Reaper gets bored of playing the same board game for five thousand years. Perhaps that is why gossip and rumors are so prevalent, so exciting.

There are a handful of rumors about anyone and everyone going at any time. The higher up the rank a Soul Reaper goes, the more whispers are spoken behind their back.

Hisagi Shūhei is no exception. Since the moment the man had been brought into Seireitei over someone’s shoulder, he’s been the topic of much casual gossip. The speculation about the tattoo on his face is by far the most prevalent of the rumors.

(Is it a reference to a lost love? How many people he’s killed? His gang name? No one asks him about it. That would spoil the fun.)

Or rather, Shūhei’s tattoo had been the most prevalent rumor about the man. There is a new one making the rounds at lightning speed, one that makes many a romantic sigh with wistfulness.

Hisagi Shūhei, one of the most dedicated and responsible Soul Reapers, is in love with a human, one Kurosaki Ichigo, also known as chaos incarnate. It was love at first sight, only growing deeper as they got to know each other. Whether it is a mutual love or not depends on the rumor.

The point remains though; any relationship between the two is doomed from the beginning. They quite literally live in two different worlds.

The poor guy, people whisper into their drinks, glancing over their shoulder to the corner of the bar where Shūhei drinks all alone with a distant gaze, he must be suffering so much.

This is all, of course, bullshit. Hisagi Shūhei would rather date the captain of the 11^th than date Kurosaki. At least with Kenpachi, he has a chance of not being dragged into Hell. His chance of dying is also slightly lower.

The rumors of forbidden love start like this:

Hisagi Shūhei is dragged kicking and screaming into the Academy. It isn’t the first time a rough and biting brat from Rukongai is placed into the Academy, but this one gets the dubious honor of being too unsociable to make any kind of connections whatsoever.

Shūhei is as cuddly as a chestnut, his classmates say with humor, but as long as you don’t step on him, he’s fine.

The rumor mill loves to come up with various criminal pasts for Shūhei, but since all the man does is study and keep his head down—unless someone goes picking a fight, in which case Shūhei is more than happy to oblige—interest in him becomes as quiet as the man’s social life.

Shūhei’s reputation remains for a long time as thus: he’s unfriendly, loves fighting, doesn’t do jokes, and is content to be utterly alone.

Tōsen Kaname does not accept Hisagi’s application at first. The only thing noted in Hisagi’s report cards from the Academy is a recommendation for 11^th division. Oddly enough, right under that recommendation is “banned from 11^th division.” This tells Tōsen everything and nothing at the same time.

Upon meeting in person, Tōsen is more than sure that his division has no need for Hisagi Shūhei. The man is violent, uncouth, blunt in the worst of ways, and lacking a sense of justice. He is unfit for 9^th division. Tōsen’s attempts to reject Hisagi are waylaid by what can only be called an accusation.

“I thought this division focused on being protectors,” Hisagi says in that infuriatingly offhand manner. “I’m looking to get stronger by defending others. Guess any division could protect Seireitei though.”

It is the way Hisagi says it, as if any other division can do what Tōsen's does—can shed the light of justice on Soul Society—that keeps him from dismissing him.

“What does being a protector mean to you?” Tōsen asks, damning himself in the process.

He can’t see Hisagi, can’t see how he stares at the ceiling as if lost in thought, but he can feel the way the Reiryoku around them seems to still and wait.

“I don’t actually know what I’m supposed to say,” Shūhei admits after the long silence. “Upholding Seireitei’s laws to the best of my ability? That’s a given. Those laws are there for a reason.”

“But I could uphold laws anywhere. What I want to do is use my thirst for hurting others to, ah, not hurt others. I want to have something to come back to. To stop for. I want to have something to protect.”

It’s not the most eloquent speech, but it’s real, spoken directly from the heart. It moves Tōsen just enough that he thinks there might be a way to fix Hisagi. If there truly is a desire to shed the worst of himself in the name of justice, then Tōsen’s training program should get through to him.

(“Captain, Hisagi’s beating up members of 10^th division again. Something about protecting our paperwork!” Fujita shouts, throwing the door to his office open.

“He was supposed to be studying the rulebook and writing a report on it,” Tōsen says flatly.

“Oh, he finished that a long time ago,” Amari speaks up from her desk where she’s been reading the reports out loud. “He offered to go with Sawako to retrieve paperwork from 10^th division since she was so distraught about it. Such a dear!”

“Ah,” Fujita and Tōsen say to that.)

Not too long after Tōsen accepts Hisagi into his division, he comes to regret it. Hisagi does too if the way the man slams his head against his new desk is any indication, but there’s simply no way to avoid giving Hisagi such a high rank as 5^th seat.

Truthfully, Hisagi’s too good to even remain as 5^th seat for long. Strong, intelligent, rule-abiding and competent—Hisagi would have made a great lieutenant if he wasn’t such a hardheaded brute who casually dismisses justice as unrealistic.

As it is, Tōsen doesn’t want Hisagi anywhere near a true position of power. The lower ranks already look up to him too much as it is.

For the most part, rumors about Shūhei stick around 9^th division, and it’s only in whispers when his back is turned. Shūhei’s unfriendly reputation carries over, but now the Soul Reapers add on that he’s scary, unflappable in the face of getting yelled at by the captain, and ridiculously good at writing things that make complete sense while being as infuriating as possible.

Hisagi Shūhei is also a good nut underneath his spiky chestnut exterior. That one, a former classmate says one day while drinking, but the idea behind it sticks because Shūhei is actually pretty nice when they all begin thinking about it.

If someone has a problem, they can go to Shūhei who will fix it no questions asked—with a heavy sigh and a “Really?” but that’s all—and if someone is unable to fight back because it doesn’t quite fit the requirements of self-defense, Shūhei will roll up his sleeve and say, “Stop crying. I got this.”

Of course, one can only keep sending so many people to the infirmary before other divisions start listening for a certain name. When 9^th division realizes that they get more alcohol poured into their cup if they talk about their 5^th seat, exaggerated stories of the God of Paperwork start circulating.

It’s not the worst reputation to have spread to the rest of the divisions, but it does make a few captains give Shūhei considering glances. Tōsen has to give a few subtle threats more than once to avoid losing his best paper slave.

Aizen Sōsuke is not one of these captains thinking of poaching 9^th division’s 5^th seat. No, at first, Hisagi Shūhei is nothing more than a face in the crowd. The Rukongai brat shows no real potential during Academy days, makes no connections with anyone, and shows no ambition beyond becoming an average grunt.

Hisagi isn’t even worth being a pawn on this grand board he’s set up. Aizen turns his eyes to the outstanding Academy students, to the ones with connections to the noble houses, to the friend of the friend that can influence without thought. He continues making his moves with his ever present smile fixed firmly in place.

He is almost surprised when Hisagi, uncultured Rukongai brat, ends up going into 9^th division. There was no prior indication that Hisagi wanted to be anything but a brawler from the 11^th, and Hisagi makes 5^th seat only because Tōsen doesn’t want him to become lieutenant.

The rate at which Hisagi learns and adapts is astounding for a Soul Reaper. Whatever he finds interesting, he learns until he’s mastered it thoroughly, never taking the hundreds of years others would. He follows orders and patterns set out for him while poking at all the right places to change it just enough to suit his taste. It is solely the lack of motivation and ambition that stops Hisagi from being a step behind a prodigy.

The whole situation catches Aizen off-guard, and that is unacceptable.

He begins loading down Hisagi with paperwork and orders Tōsen to keep him chained to the desk all day, every day. He even makes a few messes to keep the 5^th seat busy. Keeping an unpredictable pawn distracted is just good sense.

If he smiles smugly over a cup of tea while Hisagi wails as emergency paperwork gets hauled in by the barrel load, well—

He is a man that can find amusement in the pettiest of things.

And just like that, Hisagi Shūhei’s reputation changes ever so slightly. He is prickly, but soft in his own way. He toes the line of delinquency but is the utmost responsible when it comes to his duties. He is The God of Paperwork, and those who mess up his domain intentionally deserve the beat down.

The one thing that doesn’t change in the rumors spreading around is that he is still utterly alone.

Kurosaki Ichigo calls bullshit on that last one. At first, he doesn’t know who Shūhei is when he slides into the boarded up alleyway to catch his breath. He doesn’t care to know either when the only thing the Soul Reaper does is throw a first aid kit at his head.

(“If you’re not going to fight for Rukia who’s innocent, then this is where you belong.”

These are the words Ichigo wants to say, what reverberate through his soul. He doesn’t say them in the end because the man sitting in front of him looks so tired, looks so unwell in a way Ichigo can’t quite describe.

And well, he supposes not fighting in a military dictatorship is fighting in of itself.)

It’s only when the Soul Reaper appears to save him from Tōsen that Ichigo realizes that this is a man worth knowing. Stabbed and thrown off a cliff, he thinks the worst until he sees the man lying on a stretcher; a healer hurls curses down at the unmoving body which means he’s fine. Probably.

But it’s unbelievable that Ichigo has to ask three separate people just to find out his name. Hisagi Shūhei. That’s the man who said he couldn’t fight but came running to save Ichigo anyway. He’ll remember it.

Ichigo is forced to stay in the 4^th division infirmary even though he is fine—no, really, stop with the bandages—and there isn’t a whole lot to do other than to talk and read. Renji doesn’t know much about Shūhei, but there turns out to be a lot of rumors attached to Shūhei’s name once he finds the right people.

Responsible. Serious. Unfriendly. Beats up people. God of Paperwork. Always alone.

Yeah, no. Shūhei isn’t alone in the slightest. There’s a freaking murderous Zanpakuto inside his head that tells him to do things. He doesn’t know how Seireitei missed that one, but they better thank their lucky stars that Shūhei’s a good person.

The Zanpakuto explains a great deal about Shūhei’s violent reputation despite his reluctance to actually fight.

Shūhei also isn’t unfriendly so much as he is socially awkward. Worse than Ishida by far. Hundreds of years alone with a sword spirit screaming murder inside his head probably didn’t help. Ichigo can barely tolerate his inner Hollow screaming; imagining Old Man Zangetsu doing it too terrifies him.

Ichigo can honestly relate to Shūhei from the way they’ve both been type casted against their will, to the screaming spirit inside them wanting to hurt, to the insane urge they have to protect. It’s like looking at himself in a weird, warped way.

Perhaps that’s why they get as close as they do, why Ichigo looks for Rukia and Renji first, then Shūhei second.

Of course, that’s when those weird rumors about the two of them start.

It’s not any one person’s fault. Someone makes an offhand remark, another person repeats it. Someone else decides to embellish a reaction Shūhei made to something Ichigo did, and then it takes off like wildfire.

The forever alone Shūhei—the prickly, bristly Shūhei who drinks by himself—has finally fallen. Why else would he forsake the duty entrenched into his very being? To go against his captain for some weird human in Soul Reaper skin? No one else can get a reaction out of Shūhei like Ichigo can. The way his eyes glint every time Ichigo’s name is mentioned—it must be love.

That also explains why he doesn’t react to Rangiku’s breasts. Clearly, he’s gay.

(He’s actually demi-sexual, but asexuality isn’t something well-known in Soul Society. Not that this rumor is the one Shūhei would be most upset about.)

To be fair, the rumors become so convincing even Muguruma Kensei believes them. Most of the captains already believe in it before the rumor comes into its crescendo, which in turn, causes the newly reinstated captains to completely accept the idea that Shūhei is in a relationship—or at least love—with Kurosaki Ichigo.

It’s Kensei who keeps Shūhei from being targeted by mischievous Visored captains and lieutenants wanting to put him to the test for Ichigo’s sake. To them, Shūhei is a Soul Reaper whose worth is unknown, but to Kensei, Shūhei’s still the kid he saved from the scary monsters all those years ago.

So he’ll keep protecting his new lieutenant for as long as possible even if those monsters now look an awfully lot like Shinji.

Ichigo will also probably tear them all a new one if they mess with his boyfriend. The guy seems like the protective type. So, in a weird way, he’s also protecting Shinji from the monster known as Ichigo.

He just has to keep telling himself it will all blow over soon even as he keeps breaking his office out of anger.

(“Hahaha, ow, my sides hurt,” Mashiro continues to slap the desk as she gasps for breath. “Who knew clown-face had it in him?”

He scowls at the disciplinary report. It calls for punishment for 9^th division’s Hisagi Shūhei to be overseen by Captain Kurotsuchi Mayuri. It’s for destroying valuable equipment. That was stored in 5^th division. Where Shūhei hasn’t been near because something about 5^th division spooks him.

Thinking on it, Shinji did have a recent meeting in 12^th division, but even he wouldn’t be heartless enough to send the kid to Mayuri of all people. The 12^th division captain must be trying to kill two birds with one stone: pin the blame on Shinji and take the God of Paperwork for himself.

He doesn’t know who started that goddamn rumor, but it’s driving him crazy. How the hell did Tōsen keep Shūhei from getting kidnapped?

“Mashiro, lose this one like the rest,” he orders, holding out the report.

“Burn, burn, burn!” Mashiro chants, snatching the paper.

The lieutenant is talking about the report of course. Mashiro has fun destroying every “lost” report; she tends to blow them up in spectacular ways. This time even the ashes catch on fire. It gives him an idea on how to deal with 12^th division.

“Can’t poach other’s lieutenants if your division’s on fire. Not a bad idea,” he nods, fiddling with his Zanpakuto.

It’s the Hollow in his head that laughs back.)

The headache of keeping Shūhei around—which is all thanks to others despite what rumor says—is worth it. All the paperwork is done and filed correctly, it’s true, but more than anything, the kid cares.

Shūhei doesn’t know everyone’s names, doesn’t even try to learn them, but he works himself to the bone trying to put 9^th division back together after the mess Tōsen made. He looks at each Soul Reaper and figures out what they need.

It’s thanks to Shūhei’s patient, hard work that these weaklings find their inner strength to keep getting back up. It’s amazing considering Kensei’s own recommendation would be to scrap each and every one of these brainwashed stooges.

Shūhei is a protector to his bones. 9^th division already had a guardian watching out for it long before Kensei came back. He doesn’t know why no one else sees that, or they’d know Shūhei would never leave the division.

He’s going to have to take drastic measures to get it through to the others that they can’t have Shūhei.

But the kid needs to learn to protect himself. No one will be able to mess with him once he learns Bankai. The first step to achieve that is training. Which gets real weird, real fast.

(“Harder,” Shūhei chokes as Kensei punches him into the ground. “Do it harder.”

“You’ll break if I do it any harder than this,” Kensei says, voice distorting slightly.

“Don’t care. Make me bleed,” Shūhei grins with a wild look in his eyes.

When Kensei doesn’t so much as move, Shūhei throws Kazeshini’s chains around the back of Kensei’s neck and pulls him in close to bite him. It is the first and last time Kensei underestimates Shūhei.

A strong hit knocks out Shūhei quickly, leaving Kensei to rub his neck with a wince. Alright, so Shūhei’s warnings about bloodlust beforehand were greatly understated. He’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.

He frowns. For a second there, the violence emitting from Shūhei felt similar to a Hollow’s. His own inner Hollow nearly came to the surface to answer it. He casts an uneasy look down at Shūhei’s body. Without realizing it, he shivers.)

It’s not the last time Shūhei’s actions leave him feeling uncertain. Sometimes he thinks the lieutenant is flirting with him, but the moment Kensei stares a little too long after an off remark or smile, Shūhei very quickly turns sour.

Little things add up over time—buying him his favorite drink, leaning in a little too close, the blushing—but every time he thinks he’s got tangible proof, Shūhei bristles up like a cat whose tail was stepped on.

At some point, Kensei, does in fact, get scratched. Mashiro applies the bandages to his arm while laughing. He can’t figure out if Shūhei likes or hates him. Or hates that he likes him.

(“You’re not going crazy,” Mashiro says, patting him on the top of his head.

Kensei stares at her blankly. His paperwork he’d gone to sleep dreading has already been filled out and stacked correctly. Next to it is a cup of tea that Shūhei knows he hates. It stinks up his entire office.

“Little Shūhei is just high maintenance,” Mashiro says airily, still patting him.

“That’s rich coming from you,” he says irritably.)

Whatever is going on, it’s trouble. It’d be very bad if Shūhei decides to cheat on Ichigo. He doesn’t think he can protect Shūhei from all of Soul Society.

He needs to get the lieutenant down to the human world and fast.

But while he’s doing that, it can’t hurt to show everyone what happens when they try to take away what’s his.

“Mashiro, get the procedures for civil war out. We’re cleaning house,” Kensei says firmly.

“To war!” Mashiro grins, plopping an old human war helmet onto her head.

Soon after dealing with Yhwach, rumors go around stating that Hisagi Shūhei is an unknown piece of the Soul King come to life. That he can reap death itself. Those rumors quickly get overshadowed by rumors that someone saw Captain Muguruma kissing his lieutenant in a bar.

Shūhei’s reputation from there evolves into something straight out of a drama series, but that’s what happens when one Kurosaki Ichigo tears down 9^th division by accident while trying to rope Shūhei into something stupid.

Chapter Text

Paper after paper is tossed onto the tiles of the school roof, and a steady stream of excited rambling accompanies the scratching of a pencil against a sketchpad. Quick strokes and a frenzied flurry end with the sketchpad held to the sky for all to see: there’s a figure with a skull mask holding a scythe being overtaken by yellow dots.

“And so Mr. Hisagi began fading away as the power of the Soul King’s shadow released him! With tears in his eyes, he said ‘This is the end of our journey, partner’ to Kurosaki before closing his eyes and smiling. He then exploded in a shower of dust, and the bad guy cried tears of blood as his arms began disappearing—” The sensational retelling is suddenly cut off by a hand covering Inoue’s mouth.

“I don’t ever remember doing that,” he tells her firmly.

Inoue blinks up at him with large eyes but makes no move to lower the drawing she’s holding over her head. Ishida elbows him in the back hard enough to send him flying away from her, and he pushes himself up to glare at Inoue, who beams back innocently. 

He’s on to that act of hers.

“I think you were more of a dramatic bitch,” Ichigo says sharply from where he’s hunched over with a workbook in his lap.

Taking a bite out of a piece of bread, Ichigo pens down another sentence while Arisawa balances a textbook on the tip of her finger next to him.

“I think it’s a great story, Orihime,” Arisawa says loyally, “but it’s a good thing Keigo isn’t here or you’d scare him witless with the whole ‘Reaper who Reaps Death’ thing.”

“It’s also good that Kojima is absent. You’d be giving him enough fuel to give Asano nightmares for weeks,” Ishida says.

The tone Ishida uses implies he doesn’t actually care about the fate of his classmate’s theoretical sleep, but the way his lips curve ever so slightly says otherwise. Combined with glasses that glint in the sunlight, he’s pretty sure Ishida is having a good time imagining such a situation.

“Are you okay?” Sado glances at him with a furrowed brow.

“My back may never recover,” he says while rubbing his side petulantly, “but a drink might cure it.”

“As if I hit you that hard,” Ishida scoffs but throws a can of tea at him.

They don’t normally eat lunch on the roof—especially since the days are growing colder—but he’d drifted to the rooftop to escape the annoyances known as “Ichigo’s friends.” He just hadn’t counted on them following him.

“Not that.” Sado shakes his head. “Are you okay with the story?”

He stares at the can in his hand and wonders if it’s supposed to feel colder than it does. Gigai are amazing, but no matter how advanced they’ve become, they just can’t replicate a human body perfectly.

“Yes and no,” he says after a beat too long. “I can’t tell you guys anymore than I already have in case someone comes looking for details, but I don’t actually mind telling it.”

“You’re like the others. You don’t trust us,” Arisawa says with narrow eyes.

Trust has nothing to do with what he tells people. It’s not like he and the Soul King are now friends that can chat at any time, or that he retains any of the Soul King’s Reiryoku inside of him. Everything that happened has no bearing on the future whatsoever.

But it’s not like everyone will believe it. Someone like Aizen will pop up again, and they might go looking for details that don’t exist.

“That’s not it,” Ichigo says without looking up from his workbook. “Don’t bug him.”

The serious words snap the rising tension, and everyone looks away with varying faces of guilt or resignation. He takes a sip of tea—yuck, it’s bitter—and wonders when Ichigo will realize he’s basically the alpha of a wolf pack.

“After what happened to Aizen in that weird world,” Ichigo says nonchalantly even as his pen stops, “you’re better off not knowing.”

It takes a second for the words to process.

“You let Aizen out?”

The awful tasting tea that he’s been sipping on is violently spewed. Sado wordlessly hands him a napkin, and he half-mindedly dabs it against his now stained uniform.

“Okay, I’m aware I’m missing a couple of months of time, but what the hell?” He asks.

Ichigo snorts but says nothing. The rooftop remains silent until Ishida raises an eyebrow at him and says,

“It was the height of desperation by stupid people.”

Which is telling considering Ishida still goes blank-faced whenever his attempt at infiltrating Yhwach’s army gets mentioned.

“What are you going to tell me next?” He asks with a huff. “Did Captain Kuchiki finally marry his calligraphy brush? The King of Hell popped in before taking one look and leaving? Soul Society is actually just a giant Zanpakuto?” 

“There’s a King of Hell?” Arisawa asks while Ichigo blanches at the thought.

He takes another swig of the bitter tea instead of deigning that with a response.

“Oh, I know! Your captain was a zombie for about a month,” Inoue says cheerfully before throwing her arms up and making a moaning sound. “Like this, ‘Brains, bleurgh!’ ”

He chokes hard enough that Sado leans over to smack him on the back. Which hurts far more than the lack of air.

“I hope that’s just from her imagination,” he says, wiping at the tears in the corners of his eyes.

“It’s not.” “It isn’t.” Ichigo and Ishida say heartlessly at the same time.

(It’s confirmed to be true after a call to one Urahara Kisuke. Kensei turned into a freaking zombie before Captain Kurotsuchi reversed it somehow. Just what happened in the war against the Quincy?)

After the fall of Yhwach, he spends most of his boring human days at Ichigo’s house or Urahara’s shop. When he’s not being poked and prodded for experiments, he’s studying his ass off on the slim chance that his Soul Reaper form can’t be recovered.

He should be happy to never go back really. In the human world, the only thing he has to worry about is school grades, and there’s so much to see and do compared to his former military lifestyle.

But there’s an itchiness under his skin. It’s like it all feels wrong, and the silence in his head makes him want to scream. Sometimes everything feels too much, yet not enough.

“You got almost all the answers wrong. Are you even trying?” Ichigo glances down at the test paper with a single, red digit on it.

“Shut up, Kurosaki.” He scowls and crumples up the paper.

The students remaining during the classroom break watch them openly and without shame. It’s bold for a bunch of morons who think them to be scary delinquents. He glares at his classmates until they fearfully turn away.

“Probably would help if you didn’t always have those in your ears while studying,” Ichigo points to his ear.

He reaches up and pushes the earbud in deeper out of spite. The heavy metal practically vibrates through his skull.

“You’ve been wearing them more often,” Ichigo notes with sharp eyes. “Even when you’re going to bed.”

He’s not surprised to see concern from the doctor-in-training. He really only takes the earbuds out for lectures, or when his phone is dying. It wouldn’t be healthy for a normal human, but gigai don’t suffer from the same amount of damage.

“It gets too silent,” he says while tapping on his forehead.

Ichigo doesn’t say anything but his face twists into a grimace, no doubt recognizing what he means. Ichigo is the only one who knows the truth about Kazeshini and the murderous screams that ring in his head on a daily basis.

“You’re quieter without him,” Ichigo admits in a low voice. “A lot more still.”

He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but the teacher returns before he can ask. Ichigo slinks back to his seat without saying another word.

He’d like to say that music was the answer to all his problems, that with it blaring in his ear he no longer suffered from being unable to keep up with his studies.

Reality is a harsh mistress.

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t ever catch up. Considering he’s supposed to be graduating in a few, short months, it all feels so pointless. 

No college will take him at this rate. He’s going to have to take whatever job he can get so he can stop freeloading from the Kurosakis. Hopefully he can find a legal one.

Even so, a part of him doesn’t give up, doesn’t want to admit that he’s just a stupid brat from Rukongai, who can’t do simple math. He studies like his life depends on it even though it really doesn’t.

If he could get white hairs from stress, he’d have a handful of them by now.

It’s not just from studying. His head is empty, his skin doesn’t feel right, and the closest things he has to friends are a bunch of traumatized teenagers.

A message from Kensei about a possible cure sends him over the edge.

“Shūhei, why are you up here—wait, are you drunk?” Ichigo asks incredulously.

The roof above the Kurosaki clinic doesn’t get hit with a streetlight, but somehow the beer cans surrounding him still shine in the dark anyway. He chugs the rest of his current can before pointing up at Ichigo.

“Why are you on the roof?” He narrows his eyes in an attempt to focus on that glower he’s sure Ichigo has.

“I asked you first.”

“I am ru-ruminating,” his tongue stumbles, “over my life choices.”

Ichigo gives up staring at him in disappointment to take a seat next to him. Long legs stretch out against the rough shingles, pointedly pushing off unopened beer cans to the ground below.

He gazes at the darkness below him with wistfulness. He probably should care more about the loss of his drinks than he does.

“What’s got you like this?” Ichigo looks up at the starless sky.

Many things, but the most prevalent issue at hand is—

“I did the one thing you should never do,” he sighs, feeling it reverberate in his soul. “I told my boss I liked him. Sexually.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“You told Shunsui you liked him?” Ichigo yelps, almost falling off the roof.

“What the hell. No, you moron!” He screams back just as wobbly. “Not the captain-commander! My other boss!”

“Mashiro?” Ichigo says dumbly.

“No, Kensei!”

“What about me?”

He freezes at the familiar dangerous voice. With stiff movements, he folds his legs in and plants his face onto his knees. He knows exactly who’s standing behind him. This is the worst.

“Ah, yeah,” Ichigo rubs his neck with a wince, “I was going to tell you Kensei’s here.”

“I hate you,” he says fervently.

Chapter Text

Sharp eyes burn against him from somewhere above; the night air feels suffocating despite the chill. Pain races through him, and he has the thought that he should have never come back. He should have let the Soul King send him on.

“Little bastard,” he snarls, “I won’t forgive this. I’ll feed you to the fishes.”

Metal pierces flesh in the light of the lone lamp. Blood drips from his finger, and he feels a vindictive pleasure at the silent screams permeating the air.

“It’s just a grasshopper,” Ichigo sighs from beside him, slouching further into his hoodie.

“It bit me!” He shakes the impaled insect viciously.

“You were grabbing it by the head.”

“Shut up and fish.” Kensei smacks them both with an empty bucket before taking a seat to his other side.

Glancing right―potential hostile―then left―also potential hostile―he makes the wise decision to follow orders. Gently casting the fishing rod in his hands, he stares out into the darkness without saying a word. A second plop of a fishing line is soon followed by a third.

Awkward silence fills the air. He reaches for the earbuds he keeps in his pocket before remembering that he left his music player in Ichigo’s room.

"Let's talk somewhere else. I know a guy who owes me a favor," Kensei had said before grabbing him by the arm and dragging him away from the house.

Now here they are: asses on top of small, cartoon-covered crates, leaning over a tiny pond in the dark with fishing poles in hand. For some reason Ichigo is here.

With the racket they’ve been making this early in the morning, it's a wonder the cops haven't been called on them. Then again, this Karakura Town; the people are used to looking away here.

"So how long have you liked Kensei?" Ichigo breaks the silence in the most infuriating way possible.

"How long have you been unaware of Inoue’s feelings?" He shoots back.

“Don’t change the subject,” Ichigo says.

“It’s a shitty subject. But if you want to hear about my sexual awakening, it started when I was nine―”

“Choose a new topic,” Kensei demands chillingly.

Even though he can’t sense the captain’s Reiryoku, the amount of displeasure in that voice makes him blurt out the first random thing that comes to mind.

“I think Ishida is gay.”

No one says anything to that, but he can faintly see Ichigo rolling his eyes. They go back to the awkward silence. The wind pulls on his line, making him think he has something for a brief moment.

“If I can get my powers back, Shūhei will be able too as well, right?”

Perhaps seeing him with all those beer cans did something to Ichigo; he’s holding nothing back tonight. His grip on the fishing pole tightens to a near painful point, and he has to consciously control his breathing.

“We’re not sure. His soul is kind of,” Kensei pauses, “shredded.”

It’s what he was expecting, but his stomach still drops at the confirmation. The Soul King’s Reiryoku burned through his soul like holy fire, leaving nothing but ashes; the only reason he’s still here is solely thanks to Urahara’s tinkering with his gigai.

Apparently he was the non-consenting test subject to a new type that snaps the user back into the gigai instantly on command. While there are many, many ways that could have gone wrong, he’s never been more happy to be Urahara’s guinea pig.

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s barely hanging on; he’s got more holes in his soul than swiss cheese.

“I’m going to grow moldy,” he mourns.

“You're still drunk?” Ichigo side-eyes him.

“I never was,” he says indignantly.

Even if he had been drunk, it’s far too cold to remain so. Despite the jacket he has on, the cold breeze hits like a truck.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Ichigo says.

“Only one thing?” Kensei asks flatly.

Ichigo contemplates that with furrowed brows. No matter how hard he tried, he’s fairly sure no one understood his explanations other than “the Soul King did it.” The captain-commander being the sole exception with that unfathomable smile of his.

“You never explained. That place. It wasn’t the Soul King’s Palace. What was it?”

“We had a hell of a time, Kazeshini, Ichigo.”

The memories of purple sand and endless stairs, of fading out of reality and the loss of Kazeshini, give way to a more somber silence.

“A trap?” He hesitates, trying to find the words. “For Yhwach? It’s kind of like the negative zone below the Palace, but it doesn’t actually exist. It’s sort of a one time event.”

The realm that lied directly between his old one and the current one, composed of his own memories and the Soul King’s desperation, and linked by his soul―how could he put it into words?

“Kid, everything out of your mouth only makes things make less sense,” Kensei sighs.

“It’s like this,” he tries again, “the other Soul Societies needed to split off into their own timelines, but in order to do so, a contract was needed, so―”

Attempting to clarify things only furthers the confusion. He supposes that starting with the other versions of Soul Society was a mistake.

“Other Soul Societies? You mean like the one in England?” Kensei frowns.

Ichigo’s fishing pole wavers as if he’s only now struck by the thought of what happens to the deceased outside of Japan. Frankly, that’s one can of worms he’s not going to open.

“No,” he shakes his head, “our Soul Society, but with other you’s and me’s. Except not me, I’d be different.”

Just as he’s here, somewhere out there is a different Kensei and a different Ichigo, each with their own mission to stop Yhwach. Now that he’s succeeded, the mission is technically a success except in the matter of that Kensei and Ichigo’s timeline.

He decides to condense the explanation into the most basic it can go.

“If the Soul King can stop its death no matter which Soul Society, then it can’t die. It’s simple,” he says.

“Right. Simple.” Kensei makes a noise of disbelief.

Pleased that he's finally found the right word combinations, he almost misses the tugging on his line. Unused to fishing, he almost lets go of the pole entirely in his excitement.

“Oh, hey, I think I got one!” He reels in the line slowly.

“Really? I was beginning to think there wasn’t anything here,” Ichigo says.

As if out of spite, the fishing line pops with a snap. Before he can let loose a complaint, Kensei holds up a hand to stop him. Noticing the captain’s tense shoulders, he keeps his mouth shut obediently. Kensei and Ichigo's fishing poles are reeled in and put away.

“What is that? It doesn’t feel like Hollow,” Ichigo frowns.

“It’s not. That’s a Soul Reaper on a warpath,” Kensei says with certainty.

There’s a tense beat and then―

“It’s too close. I’m going,” Ichigo says before collapsing like a puppet whose strings got cut.

“I’ll go too.” Kensei’s body falls backward, and he’s left all alone.

No matter how much he strains his senses, the only thing he can hear is the sounds of frogs and crickets, and the only thing he feels is cold. He throws down the now useless fishing pole.

It’s fine. He doesn’t care. Without Kazeshini, the itch to fight has all but left him. All he needs to concentrate on is finding a job and living out a fulfilling human life. He can pay the Kurosakis rent until he finds his own place.

He doesn’t need anyone. He's been just fine by himself.

Still the words slip out accidentally,

“Should I really have stayed?”

The words are rhetorical in nature; a sigh from the depths of his soul. The answer he’s given chills him to the bones.

“No darling, you should have ran.”

He throws himself forward just in time to dodge a tree branch to the back of his head, but there’s no avoiding the pointy heel of a shoe digging into his neck. He keeps still under the pressure threatening to paralyze him.

“Can I at least get a name?” He tries to stall for time.

“No.”

The tree branch doesn’t miss this time, and he’s out.

When he comes to, he is tied to a chair and facing the window of a skyscraper. Tokyo lies somewhere beneath him, shining in the light of day. He can’t move his head, but he can hear those high heeled shoes clicking away behind him.

He tenses as slender arms wrap around his neck. The scent of an old-fashioned perfume is so strong he gags.

“Really, darling, don’t be like that. Fall Amongst the Spring Leaves, tenth edition. You used to compliment this one.”

“Lady, I don’t know you,” he says with tears in his eyes.

How could anyone compliment such a terrible odor? It smells like burning wood mixed with tar.

“Oh, how I wish we could go back to those olden days of tea parties and late nights together,” the crazy woman sighs in his ear.

“I think you’ve really mistaken me for someone else,” he tries again, but the next words cause him to give up.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that Kurosaki Ichigo’s appearance is identical to Shiba Kaien?”

Oh, damn it all.

“Is it a coincidence if they’re related?” He asks with a sigh.

Sharp nails pull at his hair harshly before turning into loving strokes, but the vileness of the act destroys any pleasant sensations coming from his scalp.

“Kaien only had eyes for his dear wife, which means you must be Miyako.” The lady croons in his ear. “My dear Miyako, it’s been a while.”

Thankfully the hands don’t wander any lower.

For the next hour and a half, the lady regales him with whimsical tales of her youth alongside her beloved Miyako. Every now and then, a dark mood overcomes the clearly insane woman, and she begins ranting about Shiba Kaien, most beloved golden boy of Soul Society. Clearly no one saw his real face, she tells him; his was the face of a demon that held his wife prisoner before letting her die.

And now, all her hundreds of years of hate is being directed towards Ichigo. Thanks to certain rumors, he’s caught in the crossfire as Miyako’s supposed reincarnation.

So basically this is all Ichigo’s fault.

Of course it is.

When Kensei and Ichigo find him, he’s strapped to a machine with his soul about to be fused with some bizarre crystal. One positive thing during the process is that he’s able to see them kick ass in their Soul Reaper forms.

The downside is the excruciating pain and the uncertainty of getting killed as collateral damage.

“If you could hurry up, that would be great!” He shouts as the machinery beneath him hums ominously.

“Working on it!” Ichigo destroys the ceiling overhead, and he nearly gets beamed in the eye by the broken pieces.

The machine shows no sign of stopping, and the sensation of something filling him up to the breaking point makes him squirm. Perhaps he’s going to burst like a balloon only for Miyako to step out of his gory remains. He laughs hysterically at the thought.

“You always took everything of mine, Kaien!” The crazy lady shrieks with Zanpakuto held high. “Miyako was mine long before she was yours!”

“For the last time, he is not Kaien!” Kensei roars around his Hollow mask. “Ichigo is Ichigo, and Shūhei is mine.”

Everything turns white, and the machine disappears. The relief from the bloated feeling leaves him on the verge of passing out. Strong muscles slide under his legs and back. He blinks.

Oh.

It appears he’s in Kensei’s arms. Holding onto Kensei, he presses his face into the man’s neck and hopes futilely that this moment will never end.

Because once this moment does end, there will be no end to the mocking; he’s currently wearing a slutty version of a woman’s wedding kimono, complete with garter belt and stockings. Not to mention the lacy panties threatening to crush his lower region.

Distantly, he thinks he can hear Kazeshini’s shrieks of delighted laughter.