Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It felt good to stand in the sunlight. 

Ichigo had spent so long in Chaldea it felt good to have the sun on his skin, warming him from the outside in. 

He had gotten so used to having the solid presence of his Shielder at his side that standing alone on the platform from the train felt more like standing naked in the streets of his hometown. Not a pleasant feeling. His family wouldn’t be there to see him, and they weren’t. He wasn’t supposed to be home for a few more days at least. How could it be that everything that happened to him, all of the fighting and all of the bloodshed and all of the war would have happened in the span of just a few days? How could his years have been spent and yet nothing but him had changed? 

It was enough to make his head spin.  

He needed to get home.He didn’t think he could ever really finish explaining everything that had happened to him, but he would tell his family the truth. There had been an accident at the facility, and he was home early. 

Even though it had never been an accident. 

*

There was smoke. Smoke and the scent of blood and spilling gas lines and raw metal twisted beyond recognition. 

He barely heard Dr. Roman yelling at his back, telling him to come back. Ichigo had never shied from danger and he wasn’t going to start now. He dove into the smoke, choking him and clinging to his clothes. Pods of people were disarrayed around him, their bodies still and blood leaking out like creusom caskets. He couldn’t get their doors open, no matter that he tried, but there was one person who was not there. One person who wasn’t him, blocked from the first mission for his bad attitude towards the Director. Nevermind that the director was just a kid herself. 

“Bulkhead closing in 180 seconds. All Devision 2 personal, evacuate immidiately-” 

Ichigo didn’t understand what that meant. He didn’t know what most of what had happened today meant, just that his little summer internship wasn’t even remotely what was on the flyer. But he didn’t pause as he scrambled over and massive chunk of rock, stuck through with wires that cut his hands like an oversized porcupine. 

A flash of white out of the corner of his eyes gives her away. 

There, lying under the debris, her small body crushed an broken and leaking blood, was Mash. 

It was Mash but all he could see was Yuzu, her wide eyes huge and terrified and filled with tears. Not a girl he’d met an hour before, after passing out on the floor. Not the best meeting. 

The ground was slick with blood and water, turning Ichigo’s white shirt a pale pink where it splashed on it when he dropped to his knees next to her. She was trapped, and the rock was too big for him to even be able to budge it. 

That didn’t stop Ichigo from trying. 

The overhead voice was still talking, and Mash was muttering at him, her voice too weak to make much sound. She was dying. Dying, her tiny body crushed until she coughed and more than just blood came out. 

Ichigo howled with rage and denial and shoved harder, harder. It was hot and smouldering and his hands blistered and blackened with burns. The light above them changed from blue to red and it burned into his retina until he couldn’t see anything else. Just red. Red blood, red light, and his body gave out. Too much smoke, he couldn't breath, he couldn’t see. He was helpless. He couldn’t do a single thing and its burned more than fire. 

Mash’s small hand found his. Her grip was weak, but she was alive. She was still alive and he couldn't just let her die- 

He grabbed her hand with both of his. Holding tight. 

The overhead was still talking, her voice robotically calm and detached. Small paws from the ferret, or whatever it was that had brought him to Mash landed on top of their joined hands. 

“Sen-pai,” her voice was a whisper, and wet with blood. The smell was making him sick. “Please… r-run.” 

“No way,” he denied firmly, gripping her hands tighter. “Not without you.” 

“Senpai…” 

Someone else is yelling at him. A ripple in the air. White hair and panicked eyes. The director, the one Ichigo had pissed off. He reaches for her without thinking, and his hand grasps hers. 

And then he didn’t see red. He saw blue, light that poured across his skin and came from beneath it, rushing like water across the burning room. A circle in the sky, a hollow moon of blue and Mash’s hand in his. 

* *

He knocks on the door, feeling more stranger than family. His key is long gone, he’d dropped it somewhere in Rome, he thinks, but its hard to keep track of trivial things like that when emperors are trying to gut you like a fish. 

It’s Yuzu that answers and he can’t help it. 

The second she’d within his sights he drags her into the fiercest hug he can manage. He’s gotten taller, he realizes. It’s not a surprise. He spent three years in less than a week, and even if he hadn’t… 

“Ichigo?” Yuzu doesn’t fight him, and he’s grateful for it. She must be confused, because as much as Ichigo loves his sisters he’s not the most physically affectionate person in the world. 

“Hey,” Ichigo doesn’t let go for a long time. “Sorry I was gone so long.” 

“Huh? But you’re home early…” 

Ichigo doesn’t say anything. He’s loath to let her go, but eventually he has to. Karin is at soccer practice, of course she is. 

Ichigo feels his dad coming at him from a mile away, trying to sneak up on him from the clinic next door. He’d seen Isshin through the window, a glance in the corner of his eye and the flying kick thrown at him isn’t stopped with violence for the first time in ten (thirteen) years. 

Ichigo catching him around his middle, holding him off the ground, and Isshin has little choice but to hand there, his arms around Ichigo’s head. 

“Son?” there’s a question or two or a thousand, but Ichigo doesn’t know how to answer all of them. He doesn’t put Isshin down until they’re in the living room and even then he sits right next to him. Knee to knee. Yuzu brings in a can of tea for him. 

“There was an accident,” he tells them. “Chaldea, there was an explosion. So everyones been sent home.” Everyone who survived. Everyone who made it through the initial explosion and wars that followed. 

“Huh? I thought it was supposed to be a security organization, and there was an explosion?” Isshin scowled. 

It was sabotage. It was death. It was the world turning red and the future being stripped away from human hands. 

“It’s fine,” he says, even though it wasn’t even remotely. There were a million things wrong with what has happened. “I’m not hurt.” Which is true enough. He can see his dad sizing him up, trying to read between the lines. He had to look older. He’s taller, his cheeks are sharper and he’s lost baby fat. He’s always been fit, but now he's stronger, built for endurance and running for weeks on end. Tempered by wars and helplessness and a desperate bid to save the world. 

“I’m fine,” he said again, and Isshin let it go. Ichigo didn’t exactly know how to feel about that. 

He spends the rest of the day flitting from family member to family member. School starts again in four days and he heavily considers skipping it to hang around his dad of all people. 

He can’t help thinking about Mash. She didn’t have anything like this. 

* * * 

They move from one fire to another. 

Ichigo knows if he stays among all this smoke he’s going to end up with permanent damage. Because you know. Fuck him. He has no idea what happening, just that he thinks he’s teleported and apparently magic is as real as ghosts are. And he’s not dead, Fou sits on his shoulder. 

He doesn’t know where Mash went but he doesn’t have time to worry about it. Some kind of skeleton gang, at least five of them are approaching. Skeletons, living, breath - well, moving in any case, skeletons. Half of them have swords. One has a spear. 

Ichigo thinks he’s broken his hand when he throws the first punch, but the skeleton crumble into a strange yellow powder that tastes like what Ichigo assumes a graveyard would. Death an d decay and strangely damp. 

He can’t stop with one but by the time he’s kicked the absolute shit out of the last of them the sky lights up with another shade of red. Like a handful stars falling from the sky, and he realizes belatedly that there’s no way for him to block whatever the fuck is flying at him. 

So he tries to run, but there’s a flash of purple and pink and Mash is in front of him. Only she’s taller now, older, and she’s holding a shield bigger than her body is. She’s not alone. White hair, snake-yellow eyes. Olga Marie, the director that had been pissed at a ‘commoner’ like Ichigo was with her too. Only, she wasn’t really there. 

It had been years since Ichigo hadn’t been able to tell the dead from the living, but this time it takes him a few minutes to realize that Mash is very much alive, if not apparently a magical girl, and Olga Marie is anything but alive. 

They don’t have time to worry about it, because they’re under seige and Ichigo is apparently a wizard . 

He should seriously be more surprised. 

But he’s not. It explains a few things. Like how he can see ghosts on the regular, and why his punching skeletons actually works. 

They pick up another stray on their way, a wizard named Cu Chulainn. He and Mash swear themselves to Ichigo as his ‘servents’, familiars who he supplies with energy and they fight on his behalf. It almost reminds him of Chad, except here he’s entirely outclassed. 

The helplessness tastes bitter and vile. 

A third servent appears, a woman this time who likes to turn people to stone. 

“You’ll all join my garden,” she tells them, hanging off a petrified man. Ichigo can vaguely remember reading something about a person like this. The eyes, he thinks. It’s her eyes. 

He meets them squarely and bonks her harmlessly on the head. He’d have more luck punching the statues than her. 

“Hey,” his voice is gruff. “Stop being a lunatic. We’re all getting out of here. So either come with us or let us go.” 

“You- what?” Everyone is staring at him. Bewildered, but Ichigo had never done what he was supposed to. He does what he wants, and even though she’s threatened them somehow he can feel her. Like the rush of scales across his skin, cool and potentially threatening but if she really wanted to kill them- 

Well, they’d just been hanging out by the river. If nothing else should have taken his head off with her curved spear. 

“Am I gonna have to repeat myself? Damn, I said we’ve got bigger things to do than fight you, lady. So just come with us, or let us go!” 

“Master!” Mash takes a startled step towards him. “Please step away from her! She could kill you!” 

“Why would she do that?” Ichigo demanded, turning towards them, “We haven’t even done anything!” It’s not like he’s against fighting. He fights all the time. But they need to get out of here. He needs to get back to his family, to his own damn time . 

Besides that, he can see her power. He isn’t sure how, but he can see her strength and that of the two other Servants. Not see, maybe, but he can feel it. Like he can feel ghosts even with his eyes closed. Either way, she’s not strong enough to beat both of the others at once, even if Mash is a novice. 

“This is a war…” 

“Look,” he spun to face her, staring fearlessly into her eyes. “Just say yes or no already!” 

She blinks. Once, twice, thrice. 

“Yes?” 

So with three servants in toe, he sets out to fight the ones who holds the holy grail. All of this destruction, a city of fire devoid of the living and ghosts both... Only servants and masters remained, all because of a cup. 

All for the sake of a wish. 

Was it really worth it?  

* * * *

Ichigo’s bed is equal points familiar and foreign. 

He ends up going to sleep on the floor, the bed too soft and too warm and he feels like he’s going to suffocate. 

All he can think of are late nights spent in Chaldea with Mash, with Roman, and Di Vinci, and countless others. He misses the solid presence of Mash and her near encyclopedic knowledge of history. Everywhere , everywhen they went. He misses the sharp bite of Mordreds tongue betrayed by her sea-dark eyes. He missed the quiet, hulking form of Asterios, always well within reach. He missed the sharp bite of his guard dogs tongue and the quiet prayers of the saints at sunset. Even Kiyohime, her claws digging into his arm, afraid she’ll be abandoned again- 

He’s up before dawn. 

Ichigo puts together enough breakfast for twenty people. Rolled omelette and rice and foreign things. Shakshuka and fried green tomatoes. 

His family stares when they come down for breakfast. 

Ichigo stands, in his dads ‘kiss the cook’ apron, with a bowl of matcha stirring swiftly in his hands. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Karin asks, looking him up and down, trying to find something. Isshin’s stare is particularly disconcerting. Like a scientist trying to understand something new, he’s never seen his father look that way, especially not at his own son. 

Ichigo has to turn away from their staring. 

“The time is different there,” is the understatement of the century. “I wanted to make breakfast.” 

“There’s enough here for an army!” Yuzu cries, gesturing to the spread out in front of them. 

Or enough for two Berserkers. 

“We can have leftovers for lunch?” is about the only explanation he has. How does he explain that he used to cooking with EMIYA enough for an actual army? 

“Yeah… I guess so,” Karin is still staring. 

Isshin pitches himself at the portrait of their mother, sobbing grossly. 

“Masaki! Our son is growing up so fast!”  

* * * * * 

Lev Lainur has an ugly smile. Everything about him is slimy and distrustful and Ichigo has seen enough ghosts to know, just by looking at him, that he is not human. 

So when Olga Marie tries to go running to him, Ichigo wraps a firm arm around her middle and holds her back. 

“Let go!” she shrieked, clawing towards the slimy man, “It’s Lev! Lev will fix everything he’ll-” 

“He’ll kill you.” 

Olga Marie freezes in his arms, looking towards Medusa. Rider. Her eyes are narrowed and her hair writhes with snakes, hissing a spitting venom. 

“Kill her?” Lev laughs, a sound like metal grating and children screaming. There’s nothing pleasant about it. “I already have! I planted that bomb directly under her feet, I have no idea how she’s even here!” 

Ichigo knows. 

It’s because of him. Because of his interference in the explosion. The other hand he’d grabbed, it must have been Marie’s. And they’re all here together. 

“W-wait, no. I’m not dead! I can’t be!” But the fight goes out of her. She lets Ichigo hold her, and when Lev beacons gravity shifts and the world tries to pull Olga Marie from his arms. He tightens his hold and barks at Medusa. Chain snake out, lashing them together and to the ground and holding them there, even as Lev pulls until it feels like his skin will come off. Ichigo can feel it again, the drain on his energy. Mana, magic energy, pulled when the servants fought. He has no idea how much he has but it must be just enough for Lev to scoff. 

He shows them the red earth again. The world, the future. Humanity, all gone. Destroyed in an instant, and they the only survivors. All of the past, all of the future. 

There is nothing left of it, save him, Mash, and the ghost in his arms. 

Something inside him writhes and snarls, thirsting for vengeance and at the same time is keens a wailing cry of anguish. 

It’s his mother all over again. Laying on the riverbank, bleeding out and Ichigo helpless in her arms. 

It’s Mash in the command room, crushed under burning stone and Ichigo only able to hold her hand. 

No, no, no, no! 

He won’t allow it. He will not let himself be so useless . 

There’s a flare of energy and Medusa gasps. Mash and Cu straighten up like dogs that heard a whistle and their fight turn on a dime. The archer falls, and his king a second later until all five of them stand before Lev. United. 

* * * * * * 

School starts. 

The world turns on. 

Everything is the same, and nothing is at all. 

* * * * * * * * 

Chapter Text

May. It’s May already, and Ichigo has made it approximately a month and a half without getting himself into some batshit insane situation where he almost dies. 

Then Rukia Kuchiki comes along and all of a sudden he’s not a wizard he’d a fucking Shinigami. Which is cool, and a lot easier if he’s being honest, and the world itself isn’t at stake this time so. 

Cool. Cool cool cool.  

It does mean that Rukia, stubborn and snappish and almost as brash as he was, will be sleeping in his closet for the foreseeable future. 

At fifteen Ichigo would have flipped out about it. At eighteen he’s spent months at a time bunking down with Mash and whatever other servants there were. Everyone from Asterios to Medusa to Shirou Amakusa Tokisada, crammed together in a tent or settled around campfires. 

So he snatches his sisters pajamas and lends them to her and their life begins. 

And it would be fine, really, he doesn’t mind fighting. He likes fighting by himself than having to rely on the others to do it for him. It eases the bitterness of weakness that’s been festering in his heart for years. So it would be fine, really , if it weren’t for the fact that all of these hollows that he’s fighting have started to target his friends, too. They’re not even safe at school. 

Orihime was attacked by her own brother and it makes him sick. How could someone attack their own sister? Even warped and twisted? 

It was worse than Mordred and Artoria. At least they had always had a strained relationship, but Orihime’s brother had loved her. 

He sat with her after the fact, his hand on her shoulder while he slept against his leg. Rukia had erased her memory, and his families too. He didn’t like it. 

“Everyone has the right to choose their life. And to remember themselves,” he told her solemnly. “It’s how humans grow and change. It’s how we get stronger. These bonds that we make with other people, and even the ones that we break…” 

Rukie eyed him speculatively. “I never would have pegged you for a philosopher, Ichigo.” 

“I’m not.” But he’s got his ideals, and Ichigo is unbending. War has tempered his spine from bone to steel. Idly, he braids a long strand of Orihime’s hair while Rukia is busy changing Tatsuki’s memories. Maybe it will be easier for them not to remember this, but Ichigo will not take back what he said. 

So many friends have forgotten him, so many have never met him to begin with and only his memories live on of their time together. He really hates this… 

But Rukia is his guide in this case, and there’s nothing he can do for now. “This is how it has to be, Ichigo. There is no other choice,” she says firmly, like it’s an absolute truth.  “This is the life of a shinigami.” 

Ichigo lets Orihime’s hair fall into place and lays her on the floor before he stands and turns to Rukia. 

“ Chacun voit midi à sa porte,” he says it mostly to himself, but it bewilders Rukia. 

“What?” 

“It’s nothing,” he shakes his head. “Let’s go. 

* 

Ichigo has never been out of the country before he’d signed up for an internship at Chaldea. It was supposed to be two weeks studying with the security organization, and the poster at the bus station by his house hadn’t said anything about mages, or time travel, or masters or servents. Di Vinci tells him later that its spelled so only mages or people with potential to be mages can even see it. 

He shouldn’t have seen it to begin with, totally untrained as he was, but somehow he did. Because he did have magic circuits, even if they weren’t used often or much. So hed loaded onto a plane with a half a dozen other master candidates from all around japan. His dad had agreed, all to easily. And now he stood in a breakroom with Romani and Mash, and Medusa and Cu and Olga Marie all standing around him. 

“I don’t get it,” Medusa says, eying the phantom speculatively. “If she’s dead, how is she here?” 

Ichigo shrugs. “ I have no clue. I’ve always been able to see ghosts but I don’t know anything about them.” 

“H-hey what do you mean by that?” Roman asks, turning towards him. “You can see dead people?!” 

“Well, yeah,” Ichigo sort of shrugs. “That’s not the weirdest thing happening here, ya know.” 

Roman can’t really argue with that. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Olga Marie crosses her arms over her chest, looking down at the two gingers in front of her. Ichigo, sat on a couch, and Roman next to him. They both look at her, clueless until she rolls her eyes in aggravation. 

“It’s just like what happened with Mash. When the bomb exploded and I-” she falters, her yellow eyes darting around before she gets herself under control. “After the explosion, I found the two of them. At the same time Mash formed her contract with him, I must have done something similar. There’s two types of energy,” she goes on. “The energy of the physical world, Mana, and the energy of the soul. Reitsu. Just as Caster, Rider, and Mash are drawing on his Mana as servants, I am now bound to his Reitsu as a soul-based familiar.” 

“Such a thing is unprecedented,” Roman argued, looking somewhere between stunned and frightened. They were all standing on that blade right now. The world had ended and they, a group nowhere near qualified to save it, were now in charge of stopping it. 

“Ah, nae as much as you’d think,” Cu said, his voice lilting and accented. “My teacher, Scáthach, she ‘ad shades an’ such.” 

“The queen of the shadow lands?” Mash clarified, which meant nothing at all to Ichigo. Cu nodded. “It would make sense for her to have such things…” 

“Ah, does that make the director Ichigo’s servant now too?” Roman asked. 

Olga Marie bristled. “I’m no ones servant! I’m still the director here so you better show me proper respect!” 

Ichigo couldn’t help snickering at her. “Man, you’re so full of yourself.” 

“What did you just say?!” 

“Are you dead and deaf? I said you’re full of yourself,” he grabbed her cheek and pulled it until she shrieked and lashed out at him, beating her fists against his chest. Mash did her best to cover her laughter in the background, hands over her mouth. 

“Even still,” Roman stepped between them, carefully extracting Ichigo from Olga Marie’s fury, “This doesn’t explain everything. When someone ray shifts, it’s their spirit that manifests in the location, while their physical body stays in chaldea. So how can two different energies both manifest like that? I don’t understand…” 

Olga Marie puffed her cheeks out. “The answer to that is much more technical. Even though it’s the spirit that is sent back it's still a physical body that a mage has when they interact with the time period around them. It is… a reversal of the third magic, so to speak. The opposite and the twin of Heaven’s Feel, it is your spirit and your soul and your life, but your body is left behind while Ray Shifting.” 

This must have made sense to Roman, but Ichigo was, to put it mildly, completely lost. 

“What’s the third magic, what’s ‘heavens feel’, and what’s ray shifting?” Ichigo asked. Olga Marie face planted, and started cursing his very existence. 

* *

“I must say, I didn’t expect you to be this good with a sword already,” Rukia admits, watching Ichigo snap the practice sword around, knocking aside each tennis ball she sends shooting at him through the pitching machine. 

Ichigo stands, light on his feet with a sword roughly the size of a claymore. It was heavy and the reach was long but awkward. He’s used to holding broad swords, mimicries of clarent and excalibur while his Saber’s try to beat their lessons between his ears. It feels strange to hold something so long and so heavy. More than that, it feels like something is missing. Like the sword is a couple inches too short, like it doesn’t fit his hands quite right. 

He has to remind himself that it isn’t his sword at all. This power is Rukia’s, not his own. Was this how Mash felt, their whole time together? Borrowing another person’s power to boost your own. It made his skin crawl minutely. 

“I've been in a few fights,” Ichigo says, looking towards her with a shrug of his shoulder. “I’ve got friends who are in the kendo club.” He works mostly off of instinct. He always has, and it hasn’t failed him yet. He blocks each tennis ball, and those he can’t block he dodges swiftly, until Rukia finally calls it a day. 

“You should get some rest while you can,” she advises. “We’ll be out tonight hunting hollows, no doubt, and you still have school work to do, don’t you?” 

“Well yeah, but school feels so unimportant now…” It has since he’d gotten back. What was a test in the face of someone trying to blow up the whole of human history? 

Rukia smacks him hard over the head, until he yelps in offense. 

“Hey!” He rubbed the bump on his head, glaring balefully at the short shinigami. Rukia is, of course, utterly unaffected by it. 

“School is important! You have a life to get back to after I get my powers back, and you need your grades to do it!” 

“Geez, you’re so rough… And fine,  but you’re gonna help me study for friday. You have to take tests too.” 

Rukia looks startled, but she nods all the same, and they walk home together. Ichigo considers telling his dad what’s happening. There’s a strange girl in the house, and Ichigo is putting himself in pretty serious danger lately, but it barely makes a difference if he does. What will Isshin even do? He can not stop them from fighting, and he cannot help them in this fight. He can’t even see spirits. 

These kind of things, he understood, were hereditary. Being a medium, and being a mage both were things that were handed down from parent to child, though they were kept largely separate. Mages dealt in living energy, and usually had little to no spirit energy, and vice versa. He could see spirits, and so could Karin, and even Yuzu could sense their presence from time to time. Yet despite all three children being sensitive to the supernatural, Isshin had no idea. 

Which meant, more likely than not, his mom had been able to see them too. 

She’d never said anything about it, but Ichigo had been so young, where would she even start? 

And now, there was no way for them to find out. Ichigo has questions, but no one has answers. 

“What are you thinking of?” 

He startles, looking down at Rukia. He’d been so caught up in his own thoughts, he’d almost missed the house entirely. 

“I was thinking about my mom,” he admitted. “I was wondering if she could see ghosts like me and Karin can.” 

“Your mother?” Rukia repeated. She touched her chin in thought. “I suppose it’s not unheard of. There used to be quite a few humans who could see spirits. Some could even utilize enough reiryoku to actually combat hollows. But those died out some time ago.” 

“Oh yeah?” Ichigo leads her inside. His sisters were out somewhere, and his dad was upstairs in his room, down the hall from Ichigo’s. They jog up the stairs together, Ichigo’s back thumping hard against his back. 

“Yes. They were called Quincy. They could manifest reitsu into weapons to battle hollows with. But unlike shinigami, they didn’t purify the souls. They destroyed them.” 

“Thats kind of fucked up.” 

* * *  

Ichigo still can’t tell if he’s here as a spirit or as a physical body, but it’s his living energy, his mana, that Mash is feeding off of when they start their first fight with the locals in domremy. They’re only human, so Ichigo fights too, and runs at Mash’s side when they chase the French soldiers back to their fort. 

It’s there that the monsters attack and Ichigo gets his very first look at a saint. 

She’s barely older than he is, fierce and terrible and humble all at once. She leads with utmost confidence and does not falter, even in the face of terrible odds. She’s… weak, for a servant. Far too weak. 

There is something very wrong with france. 

Ichigo is broken from his thoughts by Roman coming over his wrist communicator. 

“All right, fine job everyone! I was watching with sweaty palms and sweets in my hand! The director is tending to other matters right now, so I’m in the command chair again!”

“Doctor,” Mash began, looking towards his hologram. “Those were the sweets that I got, right?” 

“Huh? What? ls that right? I found them in the Command Room next to the tea, so I thought…” 

“...I got them as a token of gratitude, for when we return from this Order,” Mash was actually starting to look irritated for the first time since they’d met. “ Needless to say, they weren't for you, but for Senpai, who no doubt fought bravely on the frontlines!”

“Mash... you've become such a thoughtful person!” Roman smiled proudly at her and, shamelessly, shoved the rest of the candy into his mouth. “I must say, these are some really tasty sweets. I'm sure Ichigo will be thrilled, too!” 

Mash turns towards Ichigo, her mouth drawn in a line. “...Master. When we return to Chaldea, please reserve enough combat resources for one attack. I've registered one more enemy that I'd like to hit with the "back of my blade.".” Which was apparently something a shield had. 

“You’re more violent than I thought you were…”

Then someone was screaming a ‘dragon witch’, and they retreated again, to the forests outside of vaucouleurs. It takes a while to get their bearings, but Ichigo understands. There’s two Jeanne d’arc’s. The saint that stands before them and a witch that is trying to destroy france. That’s what’s causing the world to fall apart here. So that’s who they have to stop. Only… 

She’s about a hundred times stronger than they are, and she has an army of dragons, and dragon themed servants with her. By the end of the second day Ichigo finds himself with a saint, a queen, a musician, a pop star, and a dragon all following him around like puppies. 

At night he finds himself sitting by the fire, with Jeanne, Ruler, sitting across from him. Kiyohime, a princess out of a story he’d read ages ago is curled up on his lap like a cat instead of a dragon. Her horn pokes at his hip irritatingly, and on his other side Mash has fallen asleep as well. 

He should be more worried about the fact that she’s somehow convinced herself that he’d Anchin, considering the fact that she burned him alive in a bell tower, but thus far all she’s really done is hold onto him a little too tight. 

Jeanne is looking at him too. There’s something about her, a charisma that makes Ichigo want to follow her off a cliff. And he probably would, if he wasn’t so damn stubborn himself. 

“Yeah?” he asks, breaking the silence. “What, is there something on my face?” 

“Oh!” Jeanne turns away, shaking her head. Her strange headpiece glints read in the firelight. “No, it’s only that you seem very close to her.” 

“Who, Kiyo? We just met. She’s the one that latched onto me.” 

“No, not her. Mash.” 

Ichigo looks again at the girl sleeping on his other side. She looks older as a demi-servant, someone halfway possessed by a heroic spirit, but her face is the same. She’s still filled with wonder and innocence. 

“Oh yeah. Well, I’ve got two little sisters at home. Mash reminds me of the youngest one. Yuzu. They even have the same hairstyle…” 

“That explains it, then,” Jeanne’s smile is soft. “I’m the youngest. I had three brothes, and my sister as well. I imagine they’re still in Domremy. Although my two oldest brothers came to fight under my flag, so they might be travelling still.” 

Ichigo tried to think of that. Tried to think of letting anyone in his family get even close to a battlefield and found himself shaking his head. “I couldn't do that. I want to protect my sisters. I wouldn’t be able to put them in danger.” 

Jeanne peered at him over the fire, her smile still somehow serene. It must have to do with being a saint. 

“I wished to protect them too, of course. They are my brothers, and war is a bloody, gruesome hell to walk into. But sometimes we must have faith. In the Lord to guide us, and in the people around us to stand at our sides and watch over us.” 

“Didn’t your people, ya know, burn you alive?” 

“Yes,” she allows, tilting her head towards the sky. “But still… I hold them no ill will.” 

Ichigo decides, then and there, that Saints must be insane. 

The first person they lose, the first person he loses in these wars, is Marie Antoinette. She dies to protect him, and the stinging, bitter taste almost makes him claw out his tongue. 

* * * *  

“Do you know where you are?” 

Soft fingers run through his hair. Something tickles his nose and he’s assaulted by the smell of roses and daffodils. 

“I’m in a dream,” Ichigo says, huffing irritably. His eyes open slowly, and he finds a deceptively soft smile hovering above him. Ichigo would believe it, if he didn’t know him better. As it is, he tugs at a long strand of off-white hair that falls across the man’s shoulder. 

“Ouch. You’re right, this is a dream. However did you guess? I thought it was a rather good one…” 

Ichigo rolls his eyes at the Caster. He can see his staff, wrapped in ribbons, stuck into the earth beside them. This man was always dramatic. 

“There’s nowhere else I would see you, now is there?” He sits up slowly. His companion doesn’t move back, and in a minute they’re hip to hip, facing eachother. 

“Ah, That is true. You never know, I am a rather famous mage. Mayhaps I teleported you here for my own amusement.” 

“That does sound like you,” Ichigo allows. He paused, squinting. “Did you just say ‘mayhaps’?” 

“You don’t like it? I thought it was eloquent.” 

“Stop acting so weird,” Ichigo scolded, knocking their heads together lightly. “It hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you.” 

“On the contrary, it's been over 4,500 years.” 

“You never change,” Ichigo rolls his eyes, and his visitor smiles, soft and fake. 

“Perhaps I don’t. One of the aspects of immortality is that people tend to stay the same, you know,” he teases. 

“I don’t, but I guess I’ll take your word for it,” Ichigo figures it’s easier than trying to fully puzzle out the man. He’s always been bewildering, ‘beyond human comprehension’ or something. Ichigo isn’t totally human anymore now. He sits, dressed in black next to his companion cloaked in white. 

“I thought you were supposed to disappear from my memory,” Ichigo says abruptly. He’s not sure what kind of explanation he’s looking for. 

A shrug is what he gets. “I told you once. That’s one thing I can never get used to. Perhaps it just didn’t work this time.” 

“Right,” Ichigo says dubiously, “it’s got nothing to do with us being friends. “

The mage says nothing, but his smile thins at the edges. He’s still on about it then. ‘I can never truly close the gap, and be friends with a human’. It’s bullshit, because they’re friends and ichigo knows it, and so does he. He’s just stubborn and stuck on the idea of being the mysterious wise man figure in Ichigo’s ever evolving life story. 

“Where are we?” Ichigo asks, letting the tension drop for now. The sky is the palest blue and there’s flowers as far as the eye can see, pink and blue and yellow. There’s no horizon any way he looks, and he realizes belatedly that they’re sitting on top of a tower. 

“Isn’t it obvious? We are on the reverse side of the world. Where there is no beginning and no end, this is the very edge of paradise.” 

The air tasted like sunlight and hope, but Ichigo isn’t fooled by the prettiness of it all. He knows this man. Better than he wants to be known, certainly. 

“Maybe someday I’ll save you from this tower, princess .” 

“That is quite impossible,” still a  warm hand lands on his, a strange kind of thanks. 

“I’ve done impossible things before.” 

And he would do them again. 

* * * * 

Ichigo was starting to think that everyone here was made of tragedy. 

France was bad enough. Between executions, and curses, and people just doing their best for others, Ichigo is starting to wonder how any fairy tale ever had a happy ending, for the figures of myth certainly had none. Not Jeanne, the Saint of Orleans. Not Elizabeth Batharoy, the wannabe pop star and future vampire. Not Kiyohime, who had followed him all the way back to Chaldea and now was stuck waiting for them to return. 

And now, Euryale, and Asterios were the same. They were hardly the monsters out of legend. They were just people. Just people clinging to each other, like wreckage in a storm. 

Ichigo leans forwards against the railing of the Golden Hind , watching the moon dance across the water. They’re pretty screwed, he realizes. Heracles has to be killed twelve times for them to succeed, and they’d almost all been killed on just the first try.  They’d only escaped because a labyrinth had sprung up out of nowhere, glowing green and winding their way to the center of safety. 

The heafy thump of footsteps on ship wood brings his attention to his newest servant. Asterios. He towers over all of them, almost ten feet tall if you counted his horns. He should have been terrifying, all hard muscles and hulking power. His long hair is matted like it’s never been brushed out properly, and his eyes are a red that seemed to glow in the starlight. 

“Hey there,” Ichigo waves at him, and he comes to a halt at his side. He looks at him, and shifts from one foot to the other. There’s manacles on his arms, and his ankles as well. “Why don’t you sit?” 

Asterios did as he was bid. When he was sitting, he still came up to Ichigo’s shoulder. 

“It’s a nice night, huh?” It was peaceful, sailing on the endless sea. They have a lot of fights ahead of them but for now… He breaths in the sea salt air, and the cool darkness. 

“Yes… It is… free ,” Asterios speaks slowly, like making words is a chore. Has he ever really spoken to humans, before now? 

“Yeah. I guess it is,” that’s what Francis had said. The seas were freedom for her and her men. The King of Storms, the endless oceans bowed to her and the Golden Hind .  “Have you been here long, Asterios?” 

He perks up when he hears his name, looking up at Ichigo with the strangest expression. Ichigo has no idea how to place it. Hope? Happiness? Either way he’s smiling now. 

“No… Want to … stay… with euryale and… everyone.” 

“I get it,” Ichigo nods to him. “It’s nice to hang out with friends.” 

“Friends…” 

“That’s what we are, right?” 

Asterios smiles at him, and nods. “Yes… friends.” 

* * * * * 

“Honestly… I thought you were supposed to be helpful,” Ichigo knocks on his own bodies skull, watching his dopple ganger wince away from him. “But all you’ve done is get my body torn up and cause a mess. You’re screwing up my ‘cool guy’ reputation!” 

“Hey! It’s not my fault, I wouldn’t have jumped in if you weren’t so slow! Those kids would have died if I hadn’t jumped in!” 

“Oh yeah, and you kicking that hollow again, to protect ants, what are you a saint?!” Ichigo yanks him into a headlock, roughly shoving his fist into his hair. It was weird to be fighting with himself, but honestly? Not even remotely the weirdest thing to happen. 

“Get off!” The mod soul tries to kick him in the face, but Ichigo takes him to the ground in a rough grappling hold. He’s not too worried about his shoulder. His body is strong enough to handle being roughed up, and he’s taken worse hits than that. 

“Let me go! I’m not gonna let you kill me but-” His voice wavers before growing vicious with conviction.

“I’ll never sit by and let another creature die!” 

Ichigo is so surprised he lets go, sitting above the trouble maker. He won’t make eye contact, his voice dropping low and rough. His hands are shaking, Ichigo realizes. 

“Right after I was born, the soul society they- they decided that the mod-souls had to go. The day after I was born I was chosen to die! Everyday I watched them kill off my brethren. And even after I escaped I still lived in fear, everyday that I would be discovered and killed… And I decided. That I was born, so I have the right to live and die freely, and so does everything else! So I won’t kill and I won’t let even ants die!” 

This mod soul. A creature made to fight, made to die, made to kill all without a single choice. Ichigo’s hands tighten into fists. Just like Mash. Just like Fran. Just like Mordred. A living weapon. Ichigo lets him sit up, and sits back on his heels. The mod soul grips his shoulder, grimacing. It must hurt. This is the first time he’s ever felt human sensations. He was fast, fast as the wind. 

“So that’s it…” 

Abruptly, the tip of a cane shoves straight through his skull, and the pill that had started this whole debacle comes popping out the other side. Ichigo reacts, snatching it out of the air before anyone else can. They’re not alone anymore. 

Ichigo finds himself looking up at a pair of grey eyes half hidden under the brim of a striped hat. They’re looking right at him, even though he’s no longer in his body. He knows, with great certainty, that this man is not human. 

“I’ll be taking that back now,” he says, holding his hand out expectantly. He looks almost harmless. Almost. But Ichigo can see the calluses on his hands and the hardness in the back of his eyes. Whoever this is, he’s a fighter. Even with the geta sandals, he hadn’t made a sound when he was approaching. 

“Hell no!” Ichigo clutches the pill tighter and straightens up. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” 

“He’s just a greedy salesmen,” Rukia comes to stand at his shoulder, her eyes narrowed at the stranger with the unsettling eyes. She'd watched the whole exchange between them, between Ichigo and yet another tragedy.

“I get it. He’s the one who sells you your supplies here, isn’t he?” Ichigo stands, slowly, keeping his hold on the pill tight. This guy had made a mix up, and if he thought Ichigo was gonna let him take this mod soul away, he had another thing coming. 

“My, my, you’re a perceptive one,” the man pulled a fan out of his sleeve and snapped it open over his mouth. “I’m Kisuke Urahara. And these are my associates.” 

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out,” Ichigo said blandly. “She said you're a salesmen, and she has to get her gadgets from somewhere.” 

“Either way, I should take that product back. If it’s compensation you’re after-” 

“I already said no!” Ichigo snapped, anger rolling under his skin like a fire. “People aren’t products and I’m not giving this one back to you!” 

“Ichigo,” Rukia cut in, her voice cool and firm. It's ice on a bruise and Ichigo let's her step before him, her dark eyes on the salesman. “It’s fine. I’m satisfied with this purchase, and you don’t exactly work legally. So whatever happens, it’s not your responsibility anymore.” 

Even though he remains largely impassive, this Kisuke guy still stares at them, trying to read between lines that don’t exist. Ichigo is honest, and Rukia has his back in this case. 

So he and his associates leave, and Ichigo pops the soul back into his body once their gone. He finds brown eyes staring up at him, his mouth open in confusion. 

“You didn’t… send me back?” 

Ichigo knocks his head again. “Don’t be stupid. If you give me a dumb speech like that, how can I sit by while you get smashed up?” 

“I - you’re kinda crazy.” 

“I know,” he had to be. “So, do you have a name?” 

“A name? No, no ones ever given me one of those…” 

“Alright then,” Ichigo tilts his head, thinking. A mod soul, a kaizo konpaku… He could go with Kai. But that sounded too cool. He was wind fast, and if he remembered right the inca wind was called… “Kon. You’re in charge of my body while I fight hollows. You can explore, and try new things, but don’t go destroying property or getting peoples attention. Or hurting my body! Deal?” 

He held out his hand, and Kon reaches up and grasps it. 

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Ichigo wonders, more often than not, why it is that even though he can see ghosts, he never sees the ones he wants to. His mother, and now his friends from Chaldea. He can’t see them anymore. The singularities are gone, and humanity has returned to the way it always was. But it’s missing so many people, from his own point of view. Olga Marie isn’t bound to him anymore. She’s moved on.  And the rest… 

Ichigo sits in front of his mother's grave with his dad at his side. Karin and Yuzu have gone for drinks, leaving them alone for the time being. Rukia, and Kon too, sit on a hill, watching over them and waiting for trouble. He doesn’t want to admit it. He’s carried the guilt in his heart for so long, but now… it’s possible that Rukia is right. That the reason his mother is dead is because… 

“Hey, old man,” Ichigo looks towards his dad, who’s been acting weird since he’s come back. More than once he’s caught him just staring. Like he’s trying to figure out what changed his kid so much. As if they were ever that close in the first place. Ichigo let’s him. There’s no way for him to understand what’s changed Ichigo into the person he is now. It’s not something that can be easily explained, and in any case the Mage's Association was pretty clear. No one is supposed to know that magic exists. Including his own family. Anyone who finds out must be killed. 

“Yeah?” Isshin looks his way, away from the grave that reads his mother's name. 

“About mom. Could she ever see ghosts, do you know?” he looked right at him. Testing Isshin, watching his eyes. He’d never noticed before… 

That his dad was hiding behind a dozen walls. And they all started to come up when Ichigo asked his question. Ichigo has spent years with master assassins and traitorous knights. He can see clearly now, for the first time ever. His dad isn’t such a colossal goof off after all. 

“Why are you asking this all of a sudden?” he asks and it hurts . It hurts more than Ichigo thought, to know that he was keeping this secret for so long. To know that he could have told him, that both of them could have told him when he was young and he couldn't tell who was alive and who was dead, that he wasn’t alone in it. Karin had always had him, and they’d learned together after their mom had died, who was real and who was not. 

Why? Why had they hid these things from him? And could he trust their dad to tell them the truth now? 

“... No reason. I was just thinking about her.” 

No, he decides, looking back at the headstone. He can’t trust his old man to tell him the truth. So, he’ll have to learn it some other way. 

* 

Sometimes, Isshin looks as his son and he sees a complete stranger. 

He’s still brash and angry, and he would die for Yuzu and Karin, might have while Isshin wasn’t looking, but he’s not himself. He isn’t the same son that had climbed onto a plane for what should have been a simple job months ago. He’d only been gone for a week. How could he have changed so much? 

He was taller, for one thing, and yeah teenagers have growth spurts but they don’t grow three inches in seven days. Their hair doesn’t grow out in a week either, and they don’t get so strong or so self assured that fast. 

More than that, his son has this look in his eyes… 

A terrible age, even though he’s only fifteen. He looks at them like he’s afraid they’ll disappear. He looks like he’s always waiting for something. For something to go wrong, for the other shoe to drop. 

Even before Rukia had shown up and given her powers over to him, and then started living in his son’s closet of all places, he’d been the same. On edge. And the way he’d greeted them… 

Ichigo did a lot of things when Isshin attacked him. Hugging him wasn’t one of them. 

On top of all that, he’d gone to see Kisuke, to ask what was going on in the spirit world, where he could no longer see, and it turns out that Kisuke agrees. There’s something strange about Ichigo. He’s stronger than he should be, and stronger than he ever was, even without Rukia. And he doesn’t know what exactly happened between Kisuke and Ichigo, but it’s enough that now the old captain is interested in him. 

It’s not nearly as comforting as Isshin wishes it was. When Kisuke got involved, things rarely went well. No matter how good his intentions were. 

Then he asked about Masaki, and Isshin had faltered. 

It was time, it was the perfect time for him to tell him the truth. To sit him down and explain what had happened all those years ago, and tell him about the kind of heritage he had, and what it might mean. He’s wondered, whose power did he get? Isshin, or Masaki. Shinigami, or Quincy? Or both? Or hollow? It’s hard to tell. 

But he chickened out. The words got stuck and the world closed off and Ichigo turned away from him. The moment was lost, and now Isshin doesn’t know what to do. It’s so much easier raising daughters than sons. 

* *

By the time his ridiculous duel with Uryu is over, Ichigo is willing to bet money that his mother was a Quincy. 

Ichigo ends up sitting on a bench, breathing fast but he’s not so exhausted nor so beat up as Ishida, who sits patiently while Ichigo carefully stitches up his arm. It’s easy enough to pass this particular skill off as one he learned from his father and not knee deep in a war, trying to help Roman with the dozens of injured Chaldea staff. 

“Isn’t your dad a doctor? Wouldn’t it be better to have him do than let me?” Ichigo finds himself asking They’re lucky Uryu had a needle and thread on his person, even if they did have to bend the needle in an awkward, sloppy approximation of the ones used for real stitches. 

It’ll do for now. 

“It’s best if my father doesn’t know about this,” he says simply. 

“Oh yeah?” Ichigo grins at him. “I take it that means he doesn’t want you doing this kind of stuff then.” 

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Uryu sniffed at him stubbornly. Ichigo glowers at him, and pulls the next stitch harder until Uryu yelps. “Hey! Watch it!” 

“Of course it’s my business. This whole stunt that you pulled was insanely dangerous.” 

“Are you admitting that you’re weaker than I am,” Uryu lifts his chin, his nose in the air, and Ichigo has to stop himself from karate chopping him in his throat. 

“It doesn’t matter if I’m weaker or not! What matters is that we’re not the only people in town that you could have gotten killed with this stunt! Didn’t you notice? There’s hollows that disappeared that neither one of us took out.” 

He snaps the thread and grabs Uryu by the front of his shirt, watching his blue eyes go wide and realization dawn for what is apparently the first time. “That means other people are fighting. Other people might be dying. My sister has high spirit levels too you know?! When you pull shit like this you’re putting the lives of everyone around you into the same danger, without even telling them about it! How can someone with top grades be so damn stupid?!” 

Ichigo forces himself to lean back, anger still bubbling under his skin. All this trouble because Uryu hates shinigami, and Ichigo isn’t even a real one. 

“ Listen ,” he leans in , forcing Uryu to bend backwards over the back of the bench, “I’ll fight you one on one any time you want. But this hollow fighting isn’t a game. And if you ever put other people in danger unnecessarily again, I’ll beat your goddamn face in.” 

“Y-you!” Uryu pushes against his chest but Ichigo is immobile, stone and still. 

“Do you understand, Uryu Ishida?” 

“I. Yes,” he says at last, looking down and away. Only then does Ichigo let him go, leaning back and letting out a grunt when it pulls at his shoulders. He’d over strained himself, just a little bit. 

“Hey, Kon!” Ichigo waves his body snatcher over to the pair. “Gimme my body back already, huh?” 

“Ah, you’re no fun,” Kon whines, but he sits on the bench and lets Ichigo slide back in without a fuss. Ichigo pulls Uryu up off of the bench and gives him a shove. 

“C’mon. I’ll walk you home.” 

“I don’t need you to do that!” 

“Well I’m doing it anyways. You’re injured, what if there’s still a few more hollows lingering around, huh? Just shut up and start walking.” 

Uryu scowls, but starts walking forwards anyhow, with Ichigo in his shadow. During his whole trauma speech and background story Ichigo’s mind had been turning over and over. His dad was a quincy too, even if he didn’t want to admit it, and if Uryu was to be believed, they were the last of them. 

Goat-face isn’t going to answer his questions, so Ichigo follows Uryu home, to a house that far too big for just two men alone. He feels old, walking into it. It’s fanciful, but he’s seen the theatres of Rome and the courts of King Arthur. 

Ichigo will never be a sensor, but he’s gotten used to trusting the sense inside him that says when someone else is around, and even though it took him a while he’s good enough to be able to follow it if he has to. He didn’t know about the spirit ribbons. Ichigo is used to being clueless, but he’s not stupid. He files the information away for later, and quietly memorizes that feeling of Uryu. It’s more like a taste, clean and sharp, and vaguely like citrus.  

His father is much the same. And he is utterly unimpressed by Ichigo arriving on his doorstep with his son in tow. 

His eyes are colder than ice, not exactly something Ichigo would want in any doctor he has. 

“Hey, old man,” Ichigo raised a hand and, with his usual level of tact, asked ever-so-discreetly, “Did you know my mom?” 

* * * 

“Do you know where you are?” 

The scent of roses and daffodils and the feeling of soft worn wool brushing against his cheek. A ribbon made of magic brushing his nose. 

Ichigo opens his eyes and looks into a pale blue sky, wisps of cotton candy clouds stretching across from one horizon to the next. 

“I am in a dream,” he says dutifully. 

“Very good Dolores.” 

Ichigo punches him in the stomach, sending the mage doubled over in a fit of coughing and laughing together. A smile that’s far too mischevious to be soft is aimed at him. 

“You have an amazon prime subscription out here?” Ichigo asked, sitting up slowly. The tower still floats, through the sky at the end of the world. 

“Well yes. I do run a blog, you know?” though it’s said with a straight face he can see a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, where even eternal youth hasn’t been able to curb laugh lines. He’s good humor, and a good company. 

“Seriously?!”

That gets a laugh out of the mage of all mages. He lays back in the flowers that climb and bloom, thriving in his very presence. He is life and light and mischief, a watcher and a strange sort of guardian. 

“Well yes. I can’t spend all of my time merely watching people. The internet made things much more fun! Humans are such innovative creatures, even without magic to help them along.” 

Ichigo nodded along with him. “Does that mean that you can email me instead of hijacking my beauty sleep?” 

“Oh, you mean you don’t enjoy my company, oh great Master of Humanity?” 

Ichigo scowls at him, but there’s a smile trying to pull at his mouth. He struggles to squash it, and he can tell from the glint in his companions eyes that he fails. 

“Stop calling me that,” he says for a millionth time. 

A firm hand pushes him back into the flowers, under the warmth of the sun in the soft crush of fragrant petals. There’s no perfume that could ever compare. This is a strange place, a beautiful cage, and Ichigo doesn’t fully understand how he can be here and home at the same time. Not that that’s new. He’s been in two places at once more times than he cares to count, and he still only vaguely understands how it’s possible. 

“I understand that your life is interesting once more.” The mage stretches out beside him, taller than he and cloaked elegantly in his same old robes. He’s showy and modest at once and it hurts Ichigo’s eyes to look at him for long. 

Ichigo groans. “If you mean my entire existence is one giant clusterfuck then yeah. It’s real ‘interesting’ again. But I’m not time travelling again yet so…” 

“Poor little master. Your life is so very hard…” 

“I’ll hit you,” Ichigo threatened. “Master mage, but a shit fighter. I can take you.” 

The laugh that he is granted is bells on the wind. 

“True, true. But I believe that things will get worse before they get better. Perhaps you should begin your mage craft training once more.” 

“You know I always sucked at that. I could only use real magic if I had a mystic code. Every other time, it exploded in my face. I’m a secondrate mage, that’s how it’s always been,” he says it all simply. 

“That is true… Isn’t it funny how that works out? A boy who cannot cast a single spell without assistance ends up defeating the most powerful mage in history. You really are a remarkable human, Ichigo.” 

“And you’re trying to get me to do something for you, aren’t you?” 

“Aha! You do know me! Yes, I need you to mail something very important to me…” 

“You get mail here?!”  

* * * * 

It’s the tenth time he’s been thrown into the dirt today. 

A normal person would have given up and packed it in. A normal person would have humbly accepted that the strength of these titans was beyond their abilities to keep up with. 

Instead, Ichigo stands again. 

He picks up his borrowed practice sword, dulled so no one can get hurt, and faces his opponent once more. 

Mash, Cu, and Medusa, his constant companions, watch him narrow his eyes and plant his feet again. 

“One more time, Nero!”

“He’s stubborn, if nothing else,” Medusa mused, not quite out of his earshot. Cu nods his agreement, his eyes never wavering. 

“Tha’ll help him,” he said simply. Ichigo didn’t know why but his accent seemed to change just a little each time he opened his mouth. Sometimes he was barely understandable. Sometimes it is perfect english. Or whatever language the magic was auto-translating it to. Japanese for Ichigo, english for Mash, and probably latin for Nero and the surrounding soldiers. 

“ ‘He’ can still hear you!” He glared halfheartedly at the pair of Servants, who looked perfectly innocent. The longer he was around them, the more familiar he was with the small changes in disposition and expression, their likes and dislikes. And, to his eternal surprise, the feeling of them. 

Cu Cullain felt like trees. Like thick moss on a stone, and early morning mist rolling through thick, ageless trees. His presence was as familiar as an old, trusted hound. They’d only been together for a few months, but his spellwork and the steady draw of his mana felt as natural as breathing to him. 

Medusa was the deep ocean, power beneath every surface but beautiful to behold. A crash of waves against the stony shore, her every touch fleeting and feather light while her chains lashed with horror and the chthonic strength born in the age of gods. She was the smooth brush of scales against his wrist, the flash of teeth behind a sweet smile, and gold eyes in the darkness that Ichigo alone did not flinch from. 

Theirs was a tenuous relationship. She kept looking for him to stab her back, to cut her head and use it as his weapon. Ichigo was still half expecting to wake up as a statue one day. They only had the barest trust between them but… 

She hasn’t let him down yet, and Ichigo endeavours to repay that much if he can. 

He raises his sword and barely blocks a vicious strike from Nero. She was shorter than him by far, but he had no chance matching her for raw strength. Or speed. Or her damn near perfect swordplay. 

“Focus on the performance at hand,” she orders, her mouth curved in a strange smile. Ichigo didn’t totally understand her. They’d been travelling with her for over a month now, on the way to reach what would one day be london. 

“Right,” Ichigo lunges for her, his strikes quick and hard. He’s not worried about hurting her since he can’t even hit her. 

It’s graceful, elegant, and nearly effortless for her to knock him flat on his ass again, smacking the flat of her blade against his chest so hard he sees spots. He’s left sucking desperately. His nails bite into the dirt and his grip on his sword tightens until the leather wrapped around the hilt creaks. 

“That’s enough for today, I think,” Nero decides. Ichigo wants to argue, but he doesn’t have any breath for it. So he groans like a dying whale and lays in the dirt, his hands shaking, his body refusing to move at all. 

Nero lowers herself to the ground, on her knees beside him and how strange is that? A goddamn emperor kneeling with him in the dirt. A demi-goddess, and a druid, and a demi-servant. And Ichigo, just human. But Nero is human too. She’s as alive as he is and she is wiping the fucking floor with him. 

“You’re a - fuck,” he wheezes and finally gets his elbows under him so he can sit up. 

“Now that’s very rude to say, considering that I’ve been training you out of the goodness of my own heart,” Nero sniffs at him, tilting her chin to the sky. 

Why did Ichigo always get stuck with these kinds of bewildering people? Everyone he knew was so weird… 

“Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Nero.” A perfectionist and slave driver, but Ichigo was getting better every day. By the time they reached their destination, maybe he’d even be able to land a single blow per bout. Ichigo had never expected to get along with a roman emperor of all people, but even outside of fighting Ichigo has always been, if only mildly, interested in the arts, and Nero only stokes those embers. 

Nero smiles beatifically at him. “You have the makings of a fine performer. Even without an Imperial Privilege. I enjoy teaching you.” 

Her smile is interrupted by a pinch of her brows and purse of her lips. 

Ah, another headache. 

It’s very strange, trying to reconcile the young woman in front of Ichigo with the tyrant from history. She’s put her people ahead of her at every turn, and helped Ichigo and his friends. She’s under no obligation to teach Ichigo swordplay but she does, even after long days on the march. 

At the same time, there’s a reason Boudica is only her reluctant ally. Nero cared for her people but she was, in another word, a merciless bitch when she put her mind to it. But she was on their side, for now, and Ichigo is learning not to look gift horses in the mouth. So he gets up and goes to her side, and shows her how to press her fingers into pressure points on the back of her neck, and hold it for a few seconds until the headache goes away. 

He’s made an archduke for that one. 

* * * * * 

A rift forms in the Kurosaki household. 

It’s always been there, a cut stitches tenuously together by blood and loyalty, and reinforced by love, but now it’s split. 

A gaping chasm, and Ichigo doesn’t know what to do with it. 

It feels like it’s not something he can bridge. Like this is one obstacle that even he cannot conquer. Master of Chaldea, Final Beacon for Humanity. Commander of Heroes, Beloved, the First Guardian. 

He is a hundred things but at the end of the day he is still. 

A teenager. 

Fifteen and eighteen and four thousand at once. 

His dad had lied to him. If not directly, then by omission. For years, for so very long he’d let Ichigo hold the responsibility of Masaki’s life in his hands, had kept quiet when he grew frightened and dark and closed off from the living, so preoccupied was he with the dead. 

Never once did he offer reason. Never once did he show his care or cradle his son, or tell him that the monsters were real and it wasn’t his fault . 

Not once, in six, seven, eight, nine years did he tell Ichigo that he was not alone. That he and Karin were merely Masaki’s children. That they were born of quincy blood, even if that never put a bow in their hands. 

Half the blood means half the power,” That was what Ryuuken had said. And how sad is it that Ichigo had had to hunt down a veritable stranger, once who’s son had spent the entire day bickering and competing and hating his guts, to get answers from? 

“ Does my old man know all of this?” Ichigo had asked. 

Ryuuken was honest, even if he didn’t want to get into the tangled web of family drama. “Yes,” He’d said, “ But it’s more complicated than that. Isshin has the entire story.” 

And he wouldn’t tell Ichigo. 

He didn’t tell him on the bloody banks of the river, when a child wandered in desperate hope of finding a phantom of his mother. 

He did not tell a ten year old at the foot of a grave marker. He kept silent at eleven, at twelve, thirteen, fourteen. 

Fifteen. Under the watching grave of his mother Ichigo had asked. And Isshin had not told. 

The house is tense like it hasn’t been since Ichigo got back. It’s tense like a storm, cracking along the edges of the walls and windows. Tense like there’s no coming back from this and Ichigo cannot take the building static in his veins or the hissing of betrayal in his ears, like snakes. 

He misses Medusa, suddenly. She would take his pound of flesh for him and then some. 

Ichigo go knows, for certain, that if he stays in this house he’ll go mad. Yuzu and Karin, they know something is up. Ichigo’s pretty sure Karin saw the hollow, Grand Fisher, at the grave site. Dead now by his blade, but the vengeance tastes like ash on his tongue. His mother is still dead. His father is still a liar. 

His sisters still love them both. 

Ichigo loves them, too. More than anything in the world, he fought gods and demons for their sake. For them to be born for them to have a future. 

But he can’t spend all of his time at home, and Chad is starting to ask questions that Ichigo has a difficult time answering. 

Not ‘was that a demon ghost you just punched in the face’ hard. That answer is ease. ‘Yes’. 

But ‘is everything alright at home’ hard. Chad had asked the first time he saw Isshin launch himself at his son in a surprise attack and he’s about to ask it again, Ichigo can feel it in his bones. 

So he makes a phone call. 

The rest of the world will never know what they did. 

The world will not know about him or Mash or Roman or Olga Marie, or the countless others that built Chealdea and kept her running. They’ll never know how much they fought, how much they bled, how much they sacrificed for the sake of the future. 

It’s fine with him. 

But there are some who know. The Mage's Association, and the United Nations. And a select few people from the Clock Tower in London, where Ichigo has already been offered schooling and job. They know that he stopped the incineration of humanity. 

And they owe him. 

Three years of pay for working in Chaldeas, and even more for everything else he’d done. 

He finds a backpack while he waits for a familiar voice to answer. 

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” There's a shuffle of sheets and a groan in the background and Ichigo barely pays it any mind as he stuffs a hoodie into his bag and goes looking for his running shoes. 

“Not a clue,” he said blandly. “But listen, Waver. I need a favor.” 

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

Night has fallen on Chaldeas. Though the globe still casts its red glow across the room, the doom of humanity, it’s too late and Ichigo has been awake for too long for the grief to wash across him like so many waves right now. 

He’s summoned another servant today, with the help of technology and Saint Quartz and Cu Chulainn, of course. It was maybe his fault that he now had two celtic servants. One a caster with vicious loyalty but a habit of hitting on girls, and another that avoided women like the plague and followed Ichigo like the most desperate of puppies. 

So now he has four servants to keep up with, and so he’s tired . 

They go off to the next singularity soon. Somewhere in England, in the late nineteenth century. He should really be resting. Getting ready for the next fight. Letting Olga Marie try an fail to teach him even the simple but powerful magecraft that she and Cu specialize in. 

Instead, Ichigo finds himself standing in the doorway to the Chaldeas observation room, looking not at the ominous depiction of their future, but the man standing in front of it. 

Romani Archiman. Dr. Roman. His shoulders are tense and drawn and his hair is out of its usual pony tail. He looks as tired out as Ichigo feels. When no one’s watching, right now, his green eyes are dull and his humor has faded. When had he last slept? When had any of them? 

Mash kept reminding him how important it was to get proper sleep, and maybe it was easier for demi-servants than it is for humans. He doesn’t know. He never thought to ask. 

Ichigo comes to a stop beside him. 

It is a testament to his exhaustion that Roman doesn’t even notice Ichigo enough to react until he’s been standing there for nearly a full minute. When he does he jumps, startling and in the space between breaths Roman’s demeanor shifts. His eyes crinkle with a smile and he turns to Ichigo, a dozen times more cheerful than he’d been mere seconds before. It’s a startling contrast. From one face to another in less time than it took Ichigo to even realize he’d seen him looking so serious. 

Roman was not a serious man. He had a tendency to jump around and get overly excited over seemingly nothing at all. Like cake, and slacking off and a blog he’s obsessed with that is, somehow, still posting online even though the world outside is nothing more than ash and fading memory. Ichigo personally suspects that it’s a prank put together by Da Vinci. 

That artist is something of nuisance. 

“Ichigo!” Roman’s smile is hard to spot as a fake, when Ichigo doesn’t know to look for it. Now that it is, it’s still hard but he can see the slant to his eyes, the tiny purse of his mouth. Ichigo is no genius, but he likes to think Roman is his friend. And so he does his best to learn to read him. 

“Did you need something?” Roman asks, peering curiously at him. Something under Ichigo’s skin hums and crawls. The hiding sets his teeth on edge. Maybe it's because Ichigo himself is such a straight forward person, but he doesn’t much chair for people who hide like this. 

And maybe it’s hypocritical, but at the moment he, frankly, doesn’t give a shit. 

“You need to sleep,” Ichigo says, his jaw set in a stubborn line. 

“Oh! Ah, I just have a little more work to do here before I can do that. See, Sonya wasn’t feeling well earlier and-” 

“Roman,” Ichigo grabs his elbow and watches the man jump, like he’s been shocked. He acts like no one’s ever laid a hand on him before in his life.  “Go to sleep. We’re not going to a singularity tomorrow. You can afford rest.” 

Still, Roman’s smile turns, tilts, like he’s confused, and this close Ichigo realizes that he’s thrumming with anxiety. 

No wonder he can’t sleep. 

Ichigo is not a genius. And he’s not the best at offering comfort, especially not at times like this. This is a time when they have to step up, when there is no other choice for them than to stand together, and he can’t say he’s entirely sympathetic with the doctor. 

But he pulls him, by the elbow, not giving him time to argue as he manhandles him towards the hallway that leads to the dorm rooms. Most of them are empty now, their occupants frozen in cryogenic coffins. Anyone who isn't working is frozen, in fact. All of the staff that had died during the initial explosion had been dragged out, sometimes in pieces, and laid in the snow and ice outside the facility. It would preserve them for the time being. And with Ichigo around, so too were the ghosts. 

It had started with Marie, but by now most of the dead staff have started to drink in his reitsu, to supplement themselves. If they take enough, they can even interact with the world around them, though it leaves Ichigo exhausted if too many do it at once. It’s like vampires, but they're eating his soul instead of drinking his blood. And in any case, it keeps the chains in the chest from eating their way up. 

Marie had explained, very vaguely because her family specialized in astronomy not ghosts, that if those chains vanished entirely they would have less ghosts and more ghouls. Which was bad. 

They pass twelve of them on the way to their destination. 

“Ichigo, please,” Roman tries to tug his arm out of Ichigo’s hand, but out of the two of them it’s no contest who the stronger one is. “I have work-” 

“You’re no good if you work yourself to death!” Ichigo snaps. He closes the door behind them with a tap to the pad on the wall and tosses Roman bodily onto the bed. 

Roman scrambles to sit, blinking at their surroundings in confusion. 

It’s almost the same as the last time they’d been there, during their first meeting ever. The only difference is that there’s a pair of jeans in the corner and a picture of his sisters and his mom on the desk under the window now. 

“This is…” 

“My room,” Ichigo finishes for him. He runs his fingers through his hair, his customary scowl in place. This was probably stupid but- 

“You said you come here to relax, right? To goof off and slack on your duties. Well, relax. Marie’s still around so it’s not like you’re the acting director anymore.”

Roman gapes at him like a fish. 

“But- But-” 

“Shut up,” Ichigo orders tersely. He’s already second guessing his initial reaction but he wasn’t gonna leave Roman there to stare at their doom and he doesn’t have the damn poetry of words to convince him that they’ll rise above their challenges. “And go to sleep. Chaldea will be here in the morning, and so will the past.” 

Roman slowly gathered his limbs together underneath him. He looks at Ichigo, confusion written across his face and it’s all Ichigo can do not to snap at him. Roman is a doctor and grown ass man. He should know better than to neglect himself. 

To be fair, Goat Face is also and doctor and grown ass man, and Ichigo doesn’t trust him to so much as feed himself. 

“O-kay,” Roman says at last, drawing the words out and his face finally softens, with fondness and truth. Some of the lie slips away. “Okay. But what about you, Ichigo? You need to sleep too. You’re supporting multiple servants and multiple ghosts, now.” 

Ichigo hadn’t even thought about that. 

He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I dunno. I can just sleep in a chair or something.” 

“No!” Roman shakes his head. “No, that’s not acceptable. As your doctor I have to advise against it.” 

“ ‘as your doctor’? What the hell kinda crap are you going on about?” Ichigo scowls deeper. 

“You need to sleep, in a real bed. Honestly. We can just share.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Like a sleep over in a movie!”  

“... You were homeschooled, weren’t you?” 

“Eh?!” 

“Fine, whatever,” Ichigo was too tired to deal with this. In the morning he’ll kick himself, and maybe Roman, but for now all he can think of is turning the lights off and getting some sleep, at last. 

And if it’s easier to sleep when the living are next to him and not when he’s haunted only by figurative ghosts instead of literal ones, no one will even be the wiser. 

* 

It’s not so much a house as it is a room where he can simply exist. 

It’s small, single story and a basement that still smells faintly like lightning and copper and a strange magecraft. One that he can’t quite place, one that he’s never encountered before. 

Ichigo doesn’t ask about the old owners and Waver Velvet, who gets pissed every time Ichigo doesn’t call him something stupid like Lord Elmeloi the fifth or whatever, hadn’t volunteered any information. 

Ichigo spends a few minutes looking around. There’s a fold out couch in the living room and the kitchen is stocked with none perishables and frozen meats. The bedroom has runes carved above the door and the window, offering Ichigo a modicum of protection from what might be out there. There’s a bed big enough for his whole family and then some, and the closet has a few changes of clothes. Three suits, of all things, and a familiar mystic code. 

White and black, it’s a body suit he’d been given early on. His Chaldea combat uniform. 

The material feels like silk but Ichigo knows better than to think it is. It’s tough enough to hold up to arrows and fire and more than he wants to think of. He’d only taken blunt force trauma when he’d worn it. There were three spells woven into the fabric, and Ichigo wonders what it will be like to wear it again before he dismisses the idea. 

Ichigo wonders just what Waver had thought Ichigo was going to be doing here, that he needed this. 

He goes to the basement. 

It’s bigger than he would have expected, and there are weapons lined on the walls. Spears, swords, and bows, and a range setup with dummies stuffed with straw. 

There are no windows, to hide him from curious eyes. Any non-mags who finds out about magic is sentenced to death, and that is part of why Ichigo hasn’t told his family about his escapades. His wars. 

Kon walks past him at the foot of the stairs. Along another wall is a shelf built into the stone foundations, filled with texts and materials that Ichigo can recognize instantly. 

He’d never been good at spell work on his own, but he can use the magic equivalent of chemistry just fine. And, on top of that, after Babylonia a certain goddess had magnanimously taken time out of her ever so busy schedule to teach him the graceful art of gem magic.

Or rather, a stuck up deity who Ichigo had bribed to be his friend had taught him how to shove magic energy into rocks he could throw at people to blow them the fuck up. 

Combined with the runes that Cu had spent years drilling into his head, Ichigo could survive a regular mage battle fine on his own, if he had time to prepare. And war has made him paranoid, so he starts taking stock of everything that he’d been given. 

Evil bones, dragon scales, eternal gears, crystals of several types and a mystic gunpowder. A few feathers, and a jar of scarabs. Chalk, too, and strong thread that’s more like fishing line. 

There’s also, definitely for the best, a fire extinguisher in the corner. 

“What kinda place is this, Ichigo?” Kon finally asks. He pokes at a jar of red liquid on top of the thick desk that Ichigo has been given. It’s all and all not very personalized, but for Ichigo’s purposes it’s more than enough. Especially given that Ichigo’s purpose was to sit somewhere where his dad wasn’t. Where he didn’t have to think about the spirits or the hollows or the shinigami, however briefly that might be. 

“It’s just a house, Kon. A… friend of mine owns it. Think of it as our secret hide out,” Ichigo waves his hand around, idly.

“A secret hide out huh… I get it!” Kon bounced towards him, his soft paws scuffing lightly on the concrete floor. “This is a place to bring girls!” 

Ichigo snorts and punts the plushie towards the stairs. “What girl is gonna hand around a creapy basement with you, huh? What are you a serial killer?” 

“More like a lady killer! Or I could be, if I just had a body to call my own. Hey, you said I could borrow yours, remember!” 

“I didn’t forget. Sorry, we’ve been busy,” Ichigo steps over him and climbs back up to the totally normal looking house above, with Kon on his heels. He lets out a soft breath. It feels too warm above ground, but Ichigo opens the windows and lets the sunlight pour inside upon his skin, lets the wind pull at his hair and dance through the drapes. “I’ll let you have it tonight, okay?” 

“But nothing in this town ever happens at night!” Kon whines. When Ichigo sits on the couch he climbs up to flop across his lap, pouting. 

“Just try to stretch your legs, and you can have some time on the weekend, deal?” 

Kon considers him suspiciously before he nods, once. 

“Deal.” 

They sit together in the sunlight, in the foreign house, with the spring air cooling them until his phone goes off. Rukia, of course, because work doesn’t give him much of a break. 

It’s alright. Sometimes a few minutes to breath is enough. 

* *

Rukia Kuchiki is not the first Shinigami that Ichigo has ever encountered. 

There was another, a man who had taken to following their group around North America. 

They met in 1783. He was… strange. And admittedly, it was a strange situation that they had found each other in. He’s pretty sure Shinigami don’t normally hang around Alcatraz, but what does he know? The island is infested with all sorts of monsters and guarded by one of the oldest heroes of written legend. 

Beowulf. Powerful and vicious, battle hungry but not necessarily cruel. He’d even let them pass into the fortress after just a ‘test’ fight against a dragon. 

They, or rather Ichigo, find the Shinigami with Sita, sitting next to her in the deepest prison of Alcatraz. Florence Nightingale is somewhere above them, charging headlong after him with Rama strapped to her back. He’s in bad shape, his curse slowly consuming his body, and Sita is their only chance to save him. Even without Beowulf the prison is crawling with dangerous creatures of all types. 

Ichigo finds Sita first. 

But she is not unguarded and Ichigo curses himself for leaving his servants upstairs to handle the chaos there. 

Ichigo is more than capable of handling celtic soldiers, who fall beneath his vicious attacks and his steadily strengthening magic. The more he uses it the stronger it gets, and his body is adapting quickly to the strain it puts upon him. It’s only been a year or so and he can already go toe to toe with most average mages. A simple soldier with a spear is well within his abilities. 

This man, Ichigo can tell with a second of inspection, is not. 

He doesn’t have the same energy as a servant. And he’s dressed in clothes that aren’t celtic or american. He’s dressed like he’s from japan. 

A black kosado and hakama. All black, with curly brown hair that’s nearly past his shoulders and brown eyes that almost fool Ichigo into thinking that he’s harmless. 

But people are more themselves when they aren’t being watched, and this man, older than Ichigo and, he realizes, most certainly dead, has no idea he’s been seen. 

He looks at Sita like she’s some kind of puzzle, like some game that he doesn’t know all the rules to. Ichigo stays a moment, and watches him watch her until Sita realizes that she has a visitor. 

“Oh!” 

She leans forwards on the bed, and right through the stranger, who half turns to look at Ichigo over his shoulder. He’s not interested in him though, not really. He can see it. 

Roman is hiding something. 

Something important, and he doesn’t know what but he does know now how to recognize when someone is hiding something. Even if it wasn’t for Roman, it’s not only heroes he’s summoned. There is an assassin class, and his heroes have their flaws. Their secrets. Each singularity is it’s own mystery and they are full of liars and tricksters and more than ever before Ichigo has a bone deep appreciation for people who are plain and true. 

Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest and stares right at the ghost. 

“You’re Sita, right? Rama’s wife?” 

“My Lord Rama? Is he here?” she rushes to her feet, all red hair and fire the flutters like an ember on the wind. Not like Rama, who burns anything in his path if he must. 

Ichigo nods, once. He lets the stranger inspect him too. There’s the smallest amount of stubble around his chin, like he hasn’t shaved in a while. And he’s armed. Saber class. 

“Yes. But he’s injured. We need your help to heal him.” 

Ichigo finally breaks eye contact with the ghost. He steps backwards and points his fist at the lock on the door. Sita hurries to brace herself and he shoots it off with a vicious Gandr. When he uses them on living things, he’s lucky to stun them. On inanimate objects, they blow up. He doesn’t get it, but that’s his life. Becuase fuck him, obviously. 

“Yes!” Sita agrees eagerly. Her smile is equal parts soft and fierce. “If I can be of use to him, then I’ll do whatever I can.” 

“Okay,” Ichigo stands away from the prison door. “Stand back,” he orders, and she steps back into the cell, against the door. The ghosts watches him raise his hand, holding up his fist at the door. The mystic code hums across his skin and he feeds his own mana into it. There’s a flash of pale blue and red and the lock explodes in shards of steel, just as they’re joined by others.

Rama comes stumbling around the corner, his fine clothes stained with blood and his body frayed at the edges. He looks bad. The hold in his chest is starting to gape and glow gold at the edges. 

Ichigo hears the ghost suck in a sharp breath and he takes a step towards Rama before Ichigo cuts him off, blocking him from his friends. Sita rushes to him. 

“Sita!” Rama reaches out around him and Ichigo can’t understand how he’s even on his feet. How deep does his love for his wife run? “Damn it, my vision is blurry. I can’t see anything…” 

“I’m here!” Sita falls to his side as Rama collapses, finally succumbing to his festering wound. Ichigo watches, his hands clenched at his sides as Mash explains about Cu Chulainn Alter, and his Gae Bolg. 

Ichigo stands back, with his Cu at his side. The caster leans on his staff, watching Sita gently stroke her husbands hair. They will never meet, and it drives pain into Ichigo’s chest on their behalf. 

“Well. Fuck.” Cu says bluntly. 

Ichigo snorted. “Yeah. That sums it all up pretty well.” 

The ghost tries to take another step, but Ichigo catches his hand. 

He spins, his brown eyes wide. “You- You can see me.” 

“Well yeah. No shit,” Ichigo says aloud. Caster peers at him curiously, but Ichigo just taps the corner of his eye. A ghost, and Cu nods and leans back again. Even amongst his heroic spirits he’s an oddity. Not all of them can see ghosts. Only the ones that attack them, and more than once has Ichigo had to forcibly guide them into striking true. 

Cu is a bit better. He hasn’t told him explicitly but Ichigo suspects that Scathach is somehow related to the afterlife. The land of shadows sounds like it should be full of ghosts. 

Ichigo let’s go when the ghost pulls at his hand, peering at Ichigo. It’s funny, watching someone pull a metaphorical mask onto their face. This one is a kind person, someone who’s harmless, but Ichigo can still see them. He is armed and his eyes betray him, as eyes so often do. 

Sharp and intelligent. Like a cat watching him. 

“I suppose you do have some reitsu. But to be able to see me, is still not an easy feat.” 

Ichigo frowns. “I do? It feels like all of it’s being sucked out by everyone at Chaldea…”

“Excuse me?” he blinks at Ichigo a couple of times. 

“Nevermind. There’s just some people who are sucking up my reitsu so they don’t disappear, you know?” 

And now even the ghost was looking at him like he’s crazy. Great. Awesome. 

The glittering glow of Sita’s body dissolving interrupts them, and Ichigo turns to face his servants with a hard clench of his jaw. Rama slowly sits up, sorrow over taking his features. Even in a holy grail war, he will never meet his wife again. 

“We should go,” Ichigo says quietly. “We still have to go east. We have to finish what we started. Rama, are you ready?” Ichigo goes to him, and offers him his hand. Rama takes it and stands. 

“Yes. My body does not falter. I renew my vows now, Master of Chaldea. I, Rama, King of Kosala, will fight at your side. I shall not be defeated again. This I swear!” He bows his head to Ichigo, this proud, powerful king. 

“Yes,” Liz steps up, a noble countess with her chin lifted and her eyes defiant. “We will win, for you our master!” 

“We will rip out the root of the infection,” Nightingale agrees, smacking her hands together. Her red eyes burn with a ferocity that would make lesser men tremble. 

Mash nods, shortly and firmly. “I will put my faith in Master, and follow his lead.” 

“You already know that I will strike down your enemies,” Medusa adds, her long hair swaying with the promise of poisons. 

“Lead the way, Master,” Cu claps his shoulder and Ichigo looks each of the mover in turn. Finally, he speaks. 

“I swear I told you to use my damn name. You’re all so dramatic.” 

Cu laughs at him, and Ichigo starts the long walk. From Alcatraz to Washington. 

Only now they have a tag along. The ghost insists on following them along, because apparently Ichigo and the singularity is dangerous enough to warrant his attention. Which is great . 

“What do I call you then,” Ichigo asks, side-eying his newest companion. 

He tilts his head, sending brown waves spilling across his shoulders. 

“Mmmm. Kyo,” he says after a minute. 

“...That is not a real name.” 

* * *

“So, your friend, the Lord, how do you know him?”
 

Ichigo looks up at Rukia. She’s standing over his bed that night. Chad is asleep in the corner, passed out after a study session run long. 

“Who, Waver? We met a while ago.” 

Ichigo scoots back on the bed, until his back is to the wall and he can sit, criss cross, looking at her. Waver had come to town earlier, on business as much as to see Ichigo. They’d talked, briefly, in front of the school earlier until Ichigo had had to rush off. Not before Waver had extracted a promise to meet up with him a few days in the future. Apparently there was some weird shit going on in town that had nothing to do with Ichigo and his friends, but was now his problem because he was a mage. 

A two bit one, but still. 

“How?” Rukia asks, narrowing her eyes at him if only slightly. 

Ichigo considers telling her everything, but it’s a bit too much to believe. 

‘I time travelled for three years trying to stop the incineration of humanity and I met him as a demi servant and his old servant because he fought for a holy grail and oh yeah did I mention i punched god?’

Yeah, no. Even shinigami didn’t go time travelling. He’d checked. It didn’t help that most shinigami were so out of touch with the living world that even three hundred years ago they didn’t know much about human magics or the goings on. Before the fall of the age of gods humans and spirits had been closer, had almost lived together. Ereshkigal had told him some of how it worked, four thousand years ago, but he’s certain things have changed. For one, she is clearly not in charge of the afterlife anymore. Which begs the question of just where she had gone. 

To the reverse side of the world? Or somewhere else entirely? 

“After Chaldea,” he says instead, picking over his words with as much care as he can, “After the explosion of Chaldea, their patrons, the Clock Tower in London, sent someone to see what was happening. And to take stock in the situation. Waver was the one that they sent. 

“Apparently he gets the ‘problem children’ a lot.” And that was what they were, really. He and Mash, they were just teenagers. Even now. Eighteen…. 

Eighteen is not enough years for what he’s seen, what he’s done. For the choices he’s had to make. 

“No wonder they sent him for you,” Rukia snorts at him, but there’s a smile at the corner of her mouth and Ichigo fights not to return it. Instead he scowls, as he usually does. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves his hand dismissively at her. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you wanna come with?” 

“No,” she shakes her head and he stands and leaves her in his bedroom. His dad is in the clinic. He’s been avoiding Ichigo for weeks, ever since that day in the cemetery and Ichigo is fine with that. He’s still angry. 

Yuzu and Karin are up in their own room, and the lower half of the house is quiet. Ichigo pours himself some water and takes a few minutes to calm himself. Waver has him on edge, and more than that… 

Something is coming. He doesn’t know what, yet, but his instincts are hissing in the back of his mind, louder and louder ever since he took Rukia’s power as his own. Something is something. Something dangerous. Something deadly. Some change he has no idea how to see or stop. 

His cup is covered in a thin layer of frost. 

Ichigo stares down at it. 

The cold spreads across the surface, white eating over the glass. Elegant swirls of frozen leaves spread out from his finger tips. 

He pours out the water and puts the cup away, trying not to think about it. 

Because even with Ichigo, even with magic and ghosts and all the other shit in his life, he’s never frozen anything. He isn’t fucking Jack Frost. 

He goes back upstairs, trying not to think about it, and helps Rukia rouse Chad to send him on his way home. There’s work to be done. A smarter man would ask about the ice. Would mention it to Rukia. Would wonder if the two aren’t connected. 

And Ichigo is not stupid, but he’s maybe a little too used to strange things happening and learning the why at a later date. 

* * * * 

The acrid smell of burning flesh sears into his mind. Into his soul. Choking him, smoke curled into his lung like an ash made cat that tears claws into the soft tissue. 

It’s red. Red, red, red everywhere. Fire singes along the edges of reality. The earth hovers, red and burning and doomed from the start. Doomed from babylonia, doomed from the present and the now. 

Mash lays in front of him. Crushed, broken. No shield, no armor, just a dead little girl, reaching for his hand. 

Yuzu and Karin are sprawled apart from eachother and they never should be, never should be, because they are twins, they were born together nothing should ever tear them apart- 

Isshin. Isshin and his mother, they lie beside a river that runs with fire instead of water. Bloody, broken, staring at Ichigo. 

The air shifts and the glittering shine of gold spins around him with a scream. His servants, his friends, cut down and torn apart and left only as glitter that roars their betrayal at him. At his failure. He is the master, the center of power, but he cannot fight on his own. He is powerless in the face of the hulking monster that drags itself out of the rubble to kill him. 

He takes a step back, fear clogging his throat. Lahmu crawl across the broken rubble of Fuyuli, of Uruk, of Rome and London and Camelot. His foot hits something. He doesn’t look down, he doesn’t need to. Orange and green and white. White and gold and black. Romani, laid to waste. 

He is helpless. Powerless. His command spells are gone and he has failed. Lost. 

Fire roars at his throat and- 

He’s punched in the face by the smell of perfume. 

Ichigo looks up at the sky. Pale blue, a few whisps of cloud floating across it. 

He drinks in air. Air that tastes like flowers instead of ashes and death. 

Something soft touches his shoulder and it’s only familiarity that keeps him from lashing out. 

Lavender eyes peer down at him. It’s his hand on his shoulder. His Caster. 

His Merlin. 

“Wha- I’m in a dream?” Ichigo sits, slowly, and Merlin helps him up. A warm hand on his shoulder and guilt in his eyes. 

“Yes. I’m sorry,” Merlin shakes his head, mournfully. “I normally call you here before they can set in, but I was distracted this time…” 

“Distracted,” Ichigo repeats dumbly. “Wait. So every time you’ve brought me here, it’s because I was going to have a nightmare?” 

“I did tell you, once. Incubi are made of dreams. And I, as half of one, gain my sustenance out of them as well. Bad dreams are sour, so I don’t want yours to-” 

“Cut the crap,” Ichigo elbows him lightly in the side. “Just tell me the truth. We’re friends and you don’t want to see me suffering.” 

Merlin can only stare at him for a second. “... I always forget how brazen you are, Ichigo. You never have minced your words. You really consider me a friend, do you?” 

“Of course I do! And don’t try to give me any shit about we can’t be friends because I’m human. I’m not anymore, remember. I’m a shinigami.” 

“Yes, yes. And isn’t that ironic? I, unable to die, and you a creature made of death.” 

“You make a bad philosopher. Stick to being a dreamer, Merlin.” 

Merlin merely laughs at him, a softness in the wind, and Ichigo sits with him until the sun comes up outside his bedroom window. 

* * * * * 

What was with people and coming in through his window? 

Ichigo stares at the man, Urahara, that is sitting on his window sill. Kon is having a minor panic attack in his arms, flailing around. Rukia has left. Vanished with only a note to tell them not to look for her and if she thinks Ichigo will listen to it, she doesn’t know him very well at all. Ichigo has never been one to abandon his friends, even if they don’t explain what’s happening or why they’re in trouble. 

Ichigo will go after her, but first he needs to figure out how to turn into a shinigami again. Kon is no help, he’s too busy running around for Ichigo to dig his pill form out of his plush body. And this man… 

His timing is too good. Is he some kind of clairvoyant, like Gilgamesh? Or just a man with far too many cards in his hand to play? 

Whatever the case, Ichigo is strangely glad that he’s here. Without Rukia’s glove and with Kon losing his mind, Ichigo needs help to get out of his body. 

“So you’ll pop me out of my body,” Ichigo says, eying his cane, “Just because Rukia is a regular customer. Is your shop really that slow?” He definitely has too much time on his hands. 

“That’s right!” the man practically sings and Ichigo could swear for an instant his eyes were lavender instead of grey. He’s like a strange mix of Merlin and Da Vinci. 

And isn’t that a scary thought? 

“...Yeah, okay. I’d appreciate the help.” 

Kisuke pushes his cane through Ichigo’s chest and he pops out the other side like a weasel. 

Ichigo carefully lays his body in bed and covers it up. It’s almost two in the morning and normal humans are asleep, including his family. He picks a few small rocks out of his school bag, simple stones with straight lines carved onto them. He eyes Kisuke, still sitting in the window. 

“When I get back from this, I’ve got a couple of questions for you,” he says, marching up to Kisuke, who flicks his fan out over his mouth. Only his eyes are visible and those are still hidden in shadow. 

“Oh? I can’t imagine what you’d ask a simple shop keeper like me…” 

“Plenty,” Ichigo says plainly. He plants his hand next to Kisuke’s head and leans over him. “But for now. Get out of my room.” 

He pushes him straight out the window, and onto the lawn beneath. Ichigo figures that he’s probably tough enough to take a little tumble. He trusts Kisuke to be fine before he jumps out the window after him. He needs to get to Rukia. He can feel it. Something is happening. 

His instincts hiss that he needs to move . 

He follows the feeling of coolness and wind and snowflakes that he can almost see. It’s joined by another feeling, something clean and pale and just a little bit angry, thin threads that wrap together to be stronger.. Uryuu. 

He needs to hurry. 

Ichigo sprints across the city, pouring on his speed. Faster and faster until he swears he’s running on the wind. 

He turns the corner. 

Uryu on the ground, Rukia not far. Two Shinigami. Red hair and black. The red head with his sword lifted above Uryu’s head, ready to strike. 

Ichigo swings his sword off his back and the streets cracks and erupts beneath the sudden force of his power. It throws the shinigami, Renji Abarai, off of his feet. 

“Huh? Who are you? Who’s orders are you here on?” he barks. 

Ichigo ignores him. He touches Uryu’s shoulder, making sure he’s still in one piece, and pours Mana into his human body. It should be enough to jump start his own healing process. Mana transference is about all Ichigo is good for anyhow. 

“What did you…?” Uryu looks up at him, bewildered. 

“Later,” Ichigo says. He blocks the blow that comes from behind, bracing himself against the ground. 

“I get it,” Renji pushes down hard, his eyes wild. He feels like fire and venom and bone. “You’re the one that stole Rukia’s powers! Because of you, she’s going to be executed!” 

Ichigo’s blood runs cold. Rukia. Executed? For helping him? For giving him the power to protect his friends, his family? 

No. He will not allow it. 

“That’s bullshit!” Ichigo throws him back, power surging through him. His own anger and the energy that Rukia has given him. Cold coursing through his veins. “Rukia was just helping, she saved us! Isn’t that what your job is?!” 

“She broke the rules is what she did. What’s a few human lives to a shinigami? She should have never done that.” 

A few human- 

Ichigo throws himself at Renji with vicious abandon. Renji is fast but Ichigo is strong, Rukia is strong, and it’s her power that lets him swing his sword with utmost surety. 

Still, it’s hard to keep up when Renji won’t shut up. Something about menos and children and then he asks Ichigo’s swords name. 

He frowns and racks his brain. That feels like something he should know. On the tip of his tongue. His sword. Rukia’s sword. Does it have a name? 

Renji takes his silence for ignorance and he’s not wrong. 

He puts his sword in front of him and it glows faintly red. The taste of fire and bone is stronger. 

“A shinigami’s zanpakuto is the true form of their soul, it’s their true power. And this is mine! Now Roar, Zabimaru!” 

Ichigo watches the sword change, grow fangs and cracks. A Noble Fantasm? No, it’s much weaker. He looks at Renji, looks harder at his power. He’s strong, probably stronger than Ichigo but is he stronger than Ichigo and Rukia together? This will have to be a battle where he can’t rely on brute strength.

The sword swings and the cracks pull apart until it’s a glorified whip with teeth and Ichigo jumps back to dodge it. The stones weigh heavy in his pocket and his mind whirls. No longer a saber, no longer capable of simply attacking and slashing until he’s won. 

“Give up already! You’re 2000 years too young to beat me!” 

And maybe Renji would be right. Maybe he would be too much for Ichigo to handle, in another life. Maybe if he really was just a fifteen year old kid, shihakusho more green than black, he would leave him laying in a puddle of blood without breaking a sweat. 

But Ichigo is not fifteen. He is eighteen and he has fought eight wars. He has ended extinction and walked the land of the dead, and demons, and stood amongst stars. He has fought and bled and killed and died, and he has done it all for his family, his friends. 

And now. 

Now these two are trying to take another friend. They are trying to steal Rukia, to punish her for saving him and giving him strength enough to fight. 

And he will not allow it. 

His temper howls, blood rushing into his ears and battle fury washes over his skin. 

Beneath it, beneath that hot fire that has driven him for so much of his life there’s something else. Something cold and foreign, frost on a window pane in summertime, snow floating around a campfire. 

He lunges for Renji. 

Renji is forced to release his noble phantasm, his zanpakuto. It lashes out, a segmented whip that bites the pavement with terrible teeth. Ichigo takes it in stride, catches it’s glinting teeth in his own too-long blade and twirls it like spaghetti around a knife. The teeth catch and hold, Renji’s eyes go wide and Ichigo yanks him forward with his zanpakuto. 

He takes one hand off his own sword and drives it into Renji’s jaw. His teeth click and blood spurts between his lips before he drops like a lead balloon. 

With Renji at his feet Ichigo turns to face Rukia and the man in the white cloak. He tilts his long blade, letting Renji’s zanpakuto slide off. On the ground it glows faintly red and returns to its original form. 

“Are you next then?” Ichigo asks, his voice careful and calm even as the wrold inside him rages. Plans pick up and he reads this mans strengths. He’s leagues ahead of Ichigo but even still… 

Ichigo is not the type to run. He is not the type to give up. No matter that Rukia is screaming at him to. He won’t- 

He twists and blocks the blow he had barely ever seen, his sword moving faster than his mind. 

Surprise registers on the man’s face, muted and little more than a twist of his mouth and a twitch of his eyes. Ichigo shoves him away, but he wasn’t fast enough. 

Blood seeps out of his back. The cut it shallow, it won’t slow him down but the fact remains. He got hit. 

Faster, whispers a voice in the back of his head. A memory, a premonition. He blocks the next attack but only just and under the force of the drawn sword, his own begins to crack. No. No, he will not lose, not like this. 

He shoves the man back and flings one of the stones at him, shooting a burst of Mana through it. The man in white has to move fast to avoid the fire that erupts in front of him. 

“Ichigo?” Rukia stares at him, her mouth open. “What was that?!” 

“I’m not that great at magic,” Ichigo admits, tossing another stone up and down in his hand. He never takes his eyes off of his enemy. “In fact, I wouldn’t even call myself a real mage. I’m pretty second rate at this stuff. But this much… This much I can do.” 

He shoots another stone at the shinigami in front of him, who’s name he never did get, and grins when he’s forced to release his own zanpakuto. He’s glad about it, but Rukia is screaming at him. 

The air fills with glittering flower petals and Ichigo tastes steel, feels the weight of ‘Duty’ and ‘Honor’ and the scent of sakura blossoms wash across his skin. 

They surge at him, a tidal wave of power, danger. Each one is a blade and Ichigo cannot dodge of block them all. Even still, he will not run. He will-

Protect Rukia! 

Fine. 

Cold chases through his body, Rukia’s power surges. Ichigo gives his strength over to it, pours his reitsu into the sword as he once did his saber’s and the sound of bells echoes around him. 

A ribbon flutters graceful in front of his face and he swings, running on instinct alone. 

The wave of flower petals is stopped in its tracks. Frozen in a circle of ice that reaches towards the sky. 

Ichigo is aware, from the shock on the faces of the people around him, that he’s just done something impossible. Again. 

Oh well. 

He turns again to the Shinigami, bringing his blade in front of him. Not his, Rukia’s. He was going to save her- 

“Rikujōkōrō.” 

Ichigo shouted when light, six straight rectangles of it, slammed into his stomach. He froze, unable to move. The ice shattered and the blades inside of it floated back to their master, reforming into a single sword. This time, Ichigo couldn’t block. He could do nothing as the blade pierced him twice, and the light faded. 

He tried. He did. He would crawl if he had to but- 

“Stay alive, for just a little longer, Ichigo. And if you follow me, I will never forgive you.” 

He can recognize what she’s doing. She’s drawing the man, Byakuya, and the newly awakened Renji away from him. She is protecting him, and the helplessness is acid on his tongue. 

He was left, bleeding, dying, on the streets of Karakura. 

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

Mash was turning out to be a real heartbreaker.

Right outside of Alcatraz and they’ve been accosted by Fergus and Diarmud, who is a Lancer her and not a Saber like Ichigo was used to. Not only were they now fighting two servants, but Fergus had the gall to propose to Mash.

Which is how Ichigo ends up breaking all rules of a holy grail war and he, the master, stomps over to their opponents and punches Fergus on the head as hard as he can. He would have done more damage to the brick walls but he thinks he gets the point across because -

“She’s a kid! Don’t go proposing to someone like that you goddamn creep! I’ll kick your ass!”

Medusa has to catch him in her chains and forcibly drag him back to the group while he threatens bodily injury to the opposing servant.

“And for that matter stop being a dick to Diarmud! Asshole!”

“Well now that’s a foul mouth. Are all masters like you?” Fergas rubs his head, looking unruffled and honestly? Ichigo’s pretty sure he just broke his damn hand. Totally worth it.

“There are no other masters,” Ichigo scowls. The ground rumbles as a whole army of celtic warriors crest the hill. They’re caught, between the sea and the army and the servants. And to top it all off, there’s a crack in the sky. Along with the ring of solomon, a jagged smile rips through the sky and crawls with dark teeth. A monster crawls out and Kyo grimaces.

“If you keep releasing your reitsu like that, you’re going to summon a whole army of them here,” he said frankly. Ichigo stares at him.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t even notice, did you?” Kyo looks him over, something thoughtful in his eyes. “I suppose you wouldn’t. You’re only human, isn’t that right?”

“Uh yeah. Just human.”

“Master,” Cu elbows him, “It’s time to fight.”

“Right,” Ichigo turns to the living and clenches his fist in front of his chest, his command seals burning against his skin. “Let’s take them down! Rama, show us what that sword of yours can do!”

“Yes!” Rama helfts his blade and fire erupts, scorching and hot. He grins, a king and a warrior at one and-

Throws it like a frisbee.

Ichigo stares, mouth open, as it rips through the enemy like an overpowered saw blade. That was on fire.

“So that’s his Noble Fantasm, huh?” Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair. He can feel it draining his mana, but he could probably stand for it to be released a few more times before he collapses.

“Okay,” Ichigo focuses on the battle again, his mind whirling. Two lancers, and they have one Saber, one Berserker, on Lancer, one Rider, one Shielder, one Caster and Ichigo himself. Lancers were weak to Sabers, and strong to Archers, which they don’t have.

He can work with this.

“Mash, get ready. Cu, you too,” he keeps his plan quiet, his directions firm and the world focuses down to this point, this battle. Diarmund and Fergus are stronger than them by far but Ichigo will not accept defeat or failure. Together, they can drag victory out of their jaws.  

By the time the fight ends he realizes that Kyo is staring at him intently. Ichigo scowls at him in return.

“What?” he asks irritably.

“I was just wondering… What on earth is happening here?”

“Huh? It’s a holy grail war,” obviously. But the ghost just stares at him, and Ichigo realizes that he’s going to have to explain. About the singularities, about the incineration of humanity. About the end of the world that they’re trying so hard to prevent.

By the time he’s done, Kyo is pale and his mouth is drawn tight.

“That’s- that’s insane! If the living world ends, so will the worlds of the dead!”

“Oh yeah?” Ichigo hums. “That’s fucked up. But, we’re not gonna let that happen. Even if our assination attempt failed, we’ll just have to meet them head on.”

“You say that like it will be easy,” Rama comes to his side and looks vaguely in the ghosts direction. “The truth of the matter is, even with all of us, our chances at winning are still going to be slim.”

“So?” Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest. “This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ll win. We have to.” He says it like it’s simple. And to him, it is.

“If that’s the case,” Kyo eyes Ichigo speculatively. “You might want to suppress your Reitsu. How you still have it when other people are eating it is beyond me… You’re like a fountain, still bubbling up even as everyone drinks from you.”

“Couldn’t you make a less weird analogy?” Ichigo frowns at him. “And how do I do that?”

“What do you mean ‘how’? You take your reitsu and draw it into yourself.”

“... I have no idea how to do that.”

“Well, if you don’t figure it out you’re going to keep attracting those monsters,” he nods towards the fading corpses he’s left after his fight. Ichigo recognizes the dust they leave as a type of magic ingredient. Void dust. How weird…

“Fine then. I guess until I figure out how to do that-” Ichigo grabs the ghost by the wrist and starts dragging him towards the east. They need to find Robin, fast.  

“You’re coming with us.”

*

“Sorry but, uh, who the fuck are you?” Ichigo asked when he finally regained consciousness. “And more importantly why the fuck are you in bed with me?!”

Which is a sentence he never thought he’d have to say. But here they were. Because fuck everything.

Instead of answering him the man, one of Urahara’s associate’s if he remembered, started shouting right next to Ichigo’s ear for ‘Tenchou’. Whoever that was, Ichigo planted his foot into the man’s chest and shoved him viciously off. A twinge of pain shot through his back, but he pushed past it. He was well on the mend, and he’d always healed fast.

He closes his eyes and takes a breath. The coldness of Rukia’s energy inside of him is gone, and he’s only a human once more. A human with high reitsu, but still a human nonetheless. What had happened?

Ichigo looks up when a more familiar face walks into the room. Urahara.

“You shouldn’t move around too much. Your injuries could still kill you.”

Ichigo snorts derisively. “Not at this point. If I was gonna die, I already would have. You were the one who saved me, right? There was someone else there too, another kid about fifteen-”

“He’s fine,” Urahara interupts. “I fixed him on the spot and he left. In fact, he asked me to take care of you.”

“Huh? Uryu did?” Ichigo can’t help the start of a smile. “I knew he liked me. He was just in denial.”

“He also said, ‘the only one who can save Rukia is probably Ichigo’.”

“Ah? That’s a lot of faith,” Ichigo crosses his legs under the sheets, staring down at the wrinkles in them. Uryu didn’t even know everything he could do, everything he had done. No one alive did and he was starting to regret it. To save Rukia though… How was he going to do that? “I’ll have to find a way to Soul Society… And, I couldn’t do it on my own. I wonder…”

He didn’t have enough mana to keep a servant around full time. Normally the holy grail maintained most of them. And during his tenure at Chaldea Chaldea’s system had managed about eighty percent of the upkeep. He definitely didn’t have the mana for a summoning, which took more all at once than just having a servant by his side. Otherwise, he’d have called someone to his side ages ago.

It didn’t help that he didn’t really have any catalysts. Almost everyone he’d ever summoned had been pure luck. And now he had nothing of any of theirs. Waver might have something, but still.

Would he even be able to take his servants into the afterlife? Or would they be drawn back to the throne of heroes?

What about Ereshkigal? Where was she in all this? The age of gods was over, and they had faded from the earth, but was she toiling away in the afterlife? Trying to bring beauty to Kur?

“I should have asked Rukia…”

“If it’s any consolation, I know a way into Soul Society.” .

“Do you?” He wasn’t even remotely surprised. No, this guy seemed like someone who would know a way to traverse dimensions.

Ichigo made a private vow to never let him anywhere near Merlin.

“I do,” Urahara was giving him a strange look from under his mask, but Ichigo was too tired and in too much pain to care. The only thing that mattered was saving Rukia. Once he figured out how to get there, he could set about figuring out how to get his servants too. If Renji and Byakuya were any indication, he should be able to make it with most of his closest allies. Assuming he could summon them.

“Alright. And what do I have to do to get you to tell me? I doubt you’ll do that for free, even if she is a regular of yours.”

“Oh my, do you really have such little faith in me?”

Ichigo just gives him a look, and the airy smile starts to fade.

“Alright. The condition you have to meet is simple. Starting now, for ten days, you have to train with me.”

Ichigo cocks his head. “Do I have that much time? Rukia’s supposed to be executed.”

Urahara breaks down the timeline for him. A month, he has one month to get strong enough to beat Byakuya without Rukia’s powers to help him. Ten days to train, seven days to get there, and thirteen days to save her. There’s something else going on, Urahara has no need to help him this much, but he’s learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

There’s definitely something going on here that he doesn’t understand. And Urahara is using him for something else. But…

‘A scumbag who will do anything to win.’ That was what Roman had called Merlin. And this man, his eyes are just the same. Willing to do anything to win. To win what? He’s missing something big. Had Rukia had something important to him? Was she more than just a customer?

So far, Urahara has done nothing but help him. So Ichigo has no reason to distrust him.

“Alright. How do you plan on training me? With weapons? Or magic?”

“Shinigami call it Kidou,” he says helpfully, but Ichigo knew that already.  “And if you must know, I plan to restore your shinigami powers.”

“That’s not possible. Rukia’s powers are gone from me now. I can’t feel them anymore. It’s not cold like it used to be.”

“Cold? I see. So you could feel her zanpakuto the entire time. That’s quite impressive.”

Ichigo just shrugs. “If you say so. I was only a demi-shinigami, so it’s only natural that I can’t feel her power inside me anymore.”

“A demi-shinigami? I’ve never heard it called that before. Substitute is the proper term.”

“I don’t really give a shit. The point is, I don’t have those powers anymore, so there’s no way to ‘restore’ them.”

“That’s true. Perhaps I should have put it this way. ‘I will make you into a shinigami in your own right’. Without Rukia’s powers. Only your own.”

Ichigo freezes. Because what? How will that even work?

“My own power.” He repeats. He’s never-

The concept is so foreign. Never has he fought only with his own power. It’s always been someone else's. Mash’s, Cu’s, Medusa’s, and the dozen other servants that have fought at his side. Rukia’s power, snow through his veins.

To fight with just his own power… To go toe to toe with Byakuya and Renji using his own strength.

Is it even possible?

“Aren’t Shinigami dead?”

Urahara is strangely quiet.

“Yes. They are.”

“So for me to be a shinigami, you would have to kill me.”

“Yes.”

He’s honest, at least. “Give me a day to consider it.”

A day to talk to Waver, a day to try and summon his friends, a day to decide what he’s going to do. Because Servants run on Mana, life energy, and if he’s dead-

Will he ever see any of them again? Will he ever dream of Merlin again? Will he be able to keep his promise to him, and break him out of his prison at the end of time?

“Of course. Go to school, have some time alive. Then come back tomorrow, and give me your answer.” It sounds like Urahara thinks he already knows the answer. And maybe he does, but Ichigo needs a while.

He leaves an hour later, wrapped up like a mummy.

* *

Ichigo is a time traveler. He is in the middle of time travel right now. So, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that alternate timelines, along with time travel, are a thing.

That doesn’t mean that he expects to be pulled into one in the middle of an already difficult singularity. He’s still not one hundred percent sure who is one his side, if anyone is besides the three he’s come with, but Nightingale seems to be willing to follow him, and Rama as well. And Liz is here, again, and as much trouble as she can be she’s still pretty reliable in a pinch. And Kyo was at his side now too.

So there’s a few people on his side, and he’s glad for them, but the american’s are a pain in the ass and the celts are trying to end the world, and he’s had a hard enough time falling asleep when an honest to god dragon appears before him (in his dream, he thinks) and whisks him off to a castle and a city and an alternate timeline where apparently Fuyuki never even happened and instead a bunch of giddy millenials (or whatever the fuck their names was) stole a grail and fought a saint and now inside the grail the war is starting again.

Which - what?

How is this even his life?

But the dragon turns into a human, and then there’s a sorta-centaur trying to teach them how to fight and Achilles is so. Very. Gay.

“A chariot isn’t meant for just one,” and a cocky smile and Ichigo is pretty sure he wants to punch him. But he takes his hand instead, stands at the head of the chariot with one arm buffering him on each side and they fly.

They’re lightning in the sky, all divinity and invincibility and power. They mow down the opposing faction like they’re cutting down grass instead of heroes from ages past and Ichigo knows at once that as soon as he can he needs to find a way to summon this hero.

Even if it meant dealing with bad flirting. And his weird aversion to fighting with women. And his stupid, cocky attitude.

Ichigo can work with a lot of things. Plenty of people (mainly Kiyohime) are already trying to get in his pants. What’s one more person? Especially such a powerful rider.

Powerful Rider.

And that puts mental images in his head that he did not need, thanks all the same. He can’t look at Achilles for a full three hours afterwards.

The dragon, Seig, turns out to be a homunculus, created by the Young Millennials or whatever as a sort of battery to power their mage craft. Which is beyond fucked up, and Ichigo privately vows to strangle any of the ones he meets.

On top of that, when he wakes up the next morning there’s a little kid at the edge of his bed, covered in scars, not wearing any proper clothes and calling him ‘mommy’ and Ichigo decides then and there that alternate universes are more trouble than they’re worth. This kid, he's met her before. Jack the Ripper, and she calls him 'mommy', again.

“I’m not even a girl damn it!”

But the kid’s persistent, and cute in a really creepy way, so Ichigo can’t really do anything besides constantly telling her not to call him ‘mommy’. But that works as well as trying to get anyone else to use his given name instead of ‘Master’.

They end up having a picnic in a garden hosted by a berserker and a Saber he’d met in london. There are a lot of people he'd met in London here. The little girl, Jack, the Saber, Mordred, and Fran too of course.

They didn’t recognize him. Why would they? These were memories of servants, and technically they’d never met Ichigo at all being from another timeline. And only existed in the dream he’d been having for like three days.

He was going to make his head hurt if he kept thinking of all this.

They fly to the Hanging Gardens, and take their owner onto their side. Ichigo is starting to get used to the idea of beating someone’s face in and them being his friend afterwards.

Together, they finally reach the center of the chaos. A mad man who had turned himself into a servant before being killed. Darnic Prestone Yggdamellenia. One of the people who had made and tried to kill Sieg. Ichigo has to fight not to strangle him when he offers to fulfill the wishes of all of his friends. Bribing them with what they want most, if they only surrender to him.

It’s Achilles who steps forwards.

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m gonna have to pass. I woudln’t really be a hero if I went along with you now, would I? We’re meant to live life to the fullest. If we stumble along the way, that doesn’t invalidate what happened before the fall, or after. And reproduction or now. Servant or not. As long as I’m still me…”

“I’m not doing anything a real hero wouldn’t do!”

Mordred scoffs at Ichigo’s right. “For once, you carrot looking weirdo, we’re on the same page.”

“Carrot looking weirdo?!”

“I can’t exactly say I got the cleanest hands around here, but there’s still no way I’d side with you! Even I’d feel gross going along with your plan, asshole.”

They each step up, one after the other. Denying their dreams, denying immortality, for the sake of staying true to themselves. What is a dream worth if you lose yourself along the way?

They fight. They fight against the castle, they fight against themselves, they fight against reproductions that will not quit spawning, one copy after the other until even Mordred is nearing exhaustion. But they do not falter, they do not stop.

And in the end, they are saved by a vampire. The Gardens collapse and the dream has to end, but before they leave, they say their goodbyes, their thanks.

Achilles even goes so far as to pull his orange sash off and drape it around Ichigo’s neck like a scarf that matches his hair.

“You know, it’s kind of nice,” he says, his smile half cocked. “Even though this is the end of our time together… When I was alive, I never could relax after a battle because I knew there was always going to be another one on the way right after. But now…”

“I’m satisfied. We won, and there’s no civilians around so we didn’t have to worry about massacres or any other atrocities. That’s nice. Oh, and Hektor’s not around! That’s good.”

Hektor. The one who’d shot him down.

“You must hate him, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Achilles frowns, “But if you ever summon us at the same time, I’ll find a way to get around it. We’ll work it out, we just have to think positive. But,” he shakes his head, “That’s not what I really want to say.”

“Then just spit it out already,” Ichigo orders. Achilles grins at him.

“I’m trying to say, I hope you summon me again. It’s been fun fighting alongside with you! So if you ever find yourself in a tight spot in Greece, just call for me and I’ll come running no matter when or where you are. And that’s a promise!”

Achilles grins at him, and disappears in a cloud of gold glitter.

When Ichigo wakes up, the scarf is still around his neck, and Kyo is staring at him like he’s grown a second head.

* * *

There’s a cat across the street from his house.

Not his house, but the house that is his and not his families. The one that is empty, and not meant to be lived in. It’s… hard, to be around his family. To be around people who don’t understand war and pain and loss and trying, trying, trying, and still losing so much even if you win in the end.

There’s a cat across the street from his house and a plain brown package on the doorstep.

Ichigo pauses, the keys in his hands, and turns to the cat. Pitch black, with gold eyes. It trots across the street towards him, neatly avoiding the only car coming along, and Ichigo kneels down in front of it. He offers his hand, and the creature gives him a dainty sniff.

It doesn’t have mana.

Any mana.

That is… not normal. No mana but reitsu. A soul in a body?

“Oh. Are you a familiar?” he runs his fingers along the crest of the cat’s head, scratching carefully behind the ears. “You’re not Wavers. Or anyone’s local. Are you from the Mage’s Association?”

Ichigo stands and moves to the house, picking up the box on his way in. The lock turns with a click and hums with magic before it let’s the door swing open.

“I hope this isn’t a bomb,” he says idly. “That would be a really sloppy way to assassinate someone, don’t you think?”

How mad must he look, standing on his doorstep and talking to a black cat.

To be fair, the cat seems to nod at him before making his (?) way into the house. A discrete glance and Ichigo changes his assessment. Probably a her cat. A lady cat? Did female cat’s have a particular name? Like a bitch or a cow or mare?

He shuts the door firmly behind him and makes his way into the kitchen, where he sets the package on the table. He puts a kettle on to boil water and pulls out a small carton of milk from the fridge for his impromptu guest.

Ichigo does not have a familiar. He had been lent Fou for a long, long time but he’d never had one of his own. They’re an extension of their master, an extra eye and ear and, Ichigo privately thinks, a way to battle off loneliness.

Mage’s are strange creatures.

Typically, they only have one or two children. An heir and a spare, no more. And even then, only the most promising of the two is taught the family mage craft and given their magic crest. Mage’s are viciously protective of their secrets and their magic, even amongst their peers, and Ichigo has seen the life as lonely.

Ichigo, contrarily, is a pack animal.

He’s no chatterbox. He’s not bubbly or outgoing or honestly all that talkative, but he thrives on other people being nearby. They give him purpose and drive, they strengthen him.

That might be why he’d clung so hard to Rukia Kuchiki.

She had given him power, yes. Power to fight on his own, power to save his family, and for that he would always be grateful. But she was also a warrior, a survivor, and something in her was jagged and fierce. She was a survivor, even if he didn’t know what of.

She was, just a little bit, like him. In a way that no one else he knew was.

Ichigo was alone.

He had his friends. He had his family but they didn’t understand, they couldn't understand.

They wouldn’t understand his sudden need to sit with the door in plain sight and the window’s far from his back. They wouldn’t understand the abrupt change in his priorities list, that put ‘survive’ on top of everything else when it used to be ‘take care of the girls’. They would not understand the sudden feeling of weightlessness that comes from stepping out from under the weight of the world for the first time in years and loss that came with that same victory.

He has no servants. He has no Romani, no Da Vinci. No Mash.

Ichigo is utterly alone.

He is alone, and Rukia had alleviate that in a way that even Chad, his best friend, his partner, couldn’t.

War has alienated Ichigo from the very people he fought in it to protect and doesn’t that just fucking figure?  

Ichigo stands in the kitchen, watching the cat finish her milk.

“I’m going to bed,” he announces. Maybe Merlin will have some ideas.

He completely forgets about the package that is hopefully not a bomb.

* * * *

Ichigo is getting sick of all of their potential allies trying to kill him at first.

It seems like every time they turn around someone wants them to ‘prove their worth’ or test them in battle or something equally annoying. It doesn’t help that this is scathach and the second she showed up Cu started acting like a totally different person.

And by that, he means he’s jumpy like a beaten dog and ramrod straight like a student on the shit list.

And, she can totally see Kyo.

Even if all she does is throw him a wink that had him bristling.

She’s… bewildering. She’s fierce and vicious and Ichigo is very glad she’s not the enemy. She’s one of the only people he’s seen that might be able to go head to head with Cu Alter and win. Instinct tells him that she’s dangerous, that she’s darkness in a way that threatens to draw him in. He can see, in the way they move, in the way they fight, how she might be Cu’s mentor.

The queen of the shadow lands, and doesn’t that have Kyo’s attention?

“That fool,” she looks to the east, “That pitiful fool. I’m sure he’s only this way because of the wicked queen’s wish. He found one thorn unbearable. To be covered in them must be torture. He must he out of his mind, burdened with a thousand.”

“But by paying that price, he has surpassed even me. They say an idiot without hesitation is strong, don’t they?”

A warm hand lands on Ichigo’s shoulder and he looks up, to his Cu, his faithful watchdog, his Caster. “All power has their price, Master. Think about the weight of a sword before you draw it.”

All Ichigo can do is nod. What is he meant to say to that? His heart hurts for the Cu so alike and so different from his owns suffering. He didn’t ask for his position anymore than Ichigo did. But, he will not hesitate when he has to fight him. He needs to win. He needs the grail.

If he doesn’t win, he’ll never see his friends again. He’ll never see his family. His father, his sisters. They’ll all be gone. And he won’t let that happen, no matter what kind of sympathy he might have for the enemy.

“Right. We should get moving soon. Before the enemy catches up with us.”

It still doesn’t sit quit right with him.

“You’re troubled,” Kyo notes, falling into step with him.

“Yeah,” Ichigo can’t deny that. “Each one of these wars gets more and more complicated, and each time the people we face are stronger. I feel like I’m trying to pull apart headphones from my pocket sometimes.”

“...excuse me?”

Ichigo ends up explaining to Kyo, and apparently to everyone else too, how headphones work, what a cell phone is, how they work (and honestly all he knows is there’s satellites and that brings about a whole other conversation) and by the time he’s exhausted his already limited understanding of radiowaves and electric currents they’re in the desert and Scathach wants him to fight a pack of wyverns off with his bare hands.

He (somehow) manages not to die, and he suddenly understands Cu’s attitude towards his teacher.

* * * * *

“Do you know-”

“I’m in a dream, Merlin,” Ichigo interrupts him before he can even get the full sentence out out, and the mage cocks a brow in question. Ichigo sits up and leans on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“My, your life never is dull. Why don’t you tell Merlin all about it?”

“...Are you going to start talking in third person if I do?”

“No. You’ll probably hit me.”

Ichigo manages a wan smile. “You know me so well.”

Ichigo does end up telling him what happened with Rukia. About almost winning but getting his ass kicked and his borrowed power ripped away. And Urahara’s offer to kill him.

“If I die, would I even be able to see you again?”

Merlin cocks his head. “Well. If you’re asking me what happens after you die, may I remind you that I am one of the least qualified individuals to answer that question, being an immortal. If you had more time I would suggest you make a trip to scotland, or even greece. Places where the afterlife have been reached in the past. But, I suppose that’s out of the question.”

“He said I have a month before she’s executed.”

“You’ve done more with less time. ”

“And significantly more backup.”

“True. You could always ask that Quincy boy to give you a crash course in your mother’s powers. Although…”

“What?” Ichigo narrows his eyes at him.

“This man said he can give you Shinigami powers. I doubt that they’re something that can just be taught. Like mage craft, I’ll bet it has to be inherited, or brought on by mutation. Perhaps it’s only a lingering spark from your little friend, but in any case, I don’t see why you’d need to die. You’ve projected your soul out of your body a half dozen times before.”

“This isn’t ray shifting. And even if it was, I don’t have Chaldea or a coffin to help me.”

“No. But I suspect that the answers are somewhere inside of you, instead of merely with this shady shopkeeper.”

“... like you have room to call anyone shady. “

Merlin laughs, a soft breath on the wind.

“No, I certainly don’t. “

He’s still staring at Ichigo.

“What?” It makes his skin crawl when Merlin does that. When he seems to read Ichigo like he’s a book. Easy to flip through and find the information he wants.

“That’s not all that troubles you, is it? I know you’re not afraid of dying, but you’re hesitating. You never do that. “

“It’s just like I said.” Ichigo draws one leg up to his chest. “If I die for real, I don’t know if I’ll ever see you, or any of the others again. I don’t have enough quartz to summon someone to help me, and if I let Urahara do what he wants, it might not matter. I can’t summon my friends if I don’t have any mana. “

“But if you don’t, another friend might die. Quite the dilemma. “

“You could stand to sound a little more torn up about it!”

“Huh? But I don’t even know the girl! Besides, you’re not exactly weeping yourself. “

Ichigos mouth shuts with a click and he looks away, his stomach turning. Merlin isn’t wrong. He’s not crying. He’s not even panicking.

“... Ichigo?”

“It’s. It’s pretty fucked up. But when she showed up I was relieved. For the whole tone between Chaldea and her I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the next disaster. Like I was gonna get a call saying there’s another singularity, or someone else was trying to end the world. Going to school? Eating dinner with my family? I just felt lost. I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t even remember what I wanted to do when I graduated anymore.”

“But then Rukia came. And I fought hollows but they’re not strong enough to give me a real challenge. And then she was taken and everything is just-“

“Clicking into place. It’s horrible, but it’s been so long, I don’t remember how not to fight anymore. I don’t know how to not be at war. And this… this choice between life and death. This mission to save her. It’s almost comforting. Isn’t that fucked up?”

A warm hand cups his cheek. Long sleeves, heavy with the smell of gardenias, brush across his shoulder.

“Ichigo,” Merlin begins, his voice strangely genuine. “Whatever happens, I know that you’ll figure it out. And that eventually, you’ll find your place. You always have one more crazy idea, one more play, one more chance. Once you get your friend back, you’ll figure out how to be human again. Or, something close to it. In the meantime, you can always find me here. I can’t exactly leave.”

Ichigo is so struck by Merlin, if all people, being candid and complimenting him that he wakes up catching flies. But, he at least has an idea on what to do now.

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

The answers might lie within. 

Great. Now the problem is, how does he find those answers at all? How does he go ‘within’ when most of the time he’s going ‘outside’ of his body. Projecting his soul was one thing. He’d done it a dozen times, if not more. Going inside of it? Or his mind? Or whatever within the cryptic asshole of a mage had suggested, was a totally different matter. 

“Fucking everyone’s so damn cryptic all the time,” Ichigo scowled, pacing around the house. The cat was still there, watching him with her tail twitching back and forth. 

Ichigo still doesn’t know who she’s working for. 

There’s about three mage families in the country that are prominent. Tohsaka’s work with gems, the Matou are mostly fallen, and he doesn’t know anything about the other one. Ichigo should probably be more concerned, but he’s got bigger things to worry about right now. 

Mainly, figuring out how to find his answers on the inside. 

Inside. 

Ichigo kept walking in circles, trying to figure it out. Over and over, he walked around and around. In a spiral. 

Finally he sat hard on the floor and leaned back. 

Jeanne would pray. But she was guided by a god, and an Agent of Counterforce (or some approximation of it).  Sanzang followed the voice of buddha/her future self. And Ichigo… 

Ichigo has an ever cryptic sage telling him to look inside himself for answers, like something out of a bad movie. Hell, his life at this point might as well be just that. Who else gets into these kinds of situations constantly? 

Just him, that’s who. 

Ichigo tilts his head back. He’s spent time outside his body. How will he get inside it? 

“A backwards… Rayshift?” 

Is that even possible? It’s the best idea he has. Ichigo closes his eyes and thinks of Rashifting. The first time it had happened, he had been on the verge of death. Mash had been all but a corpse at his side. Fire had licked across them and CHALDEAS had glowed bloody above their heads. It had vanished, the red turned blue and bright and the fire clearing for a few brief seconds between Chaldea and Fuyuki. 

Ichigo breathes, focusing on that.

On the blue, the soft light and the feeling of being weightless. On the knowledge that someone, even if it wasn’t Roman anymore, was out there looking after the integrity of his soul. He breathed in, tasting the air, tasting no ash. 

Ichigo breathed out. 

He thought of the feeling of Rukia’s gloved hand pushing him out with a rough pop. He thought of the feeling of Kon, sliding into his limbs and chest and head until he was squeezed with no room and no place to go but out.  

Ichigo felt the swirl of the shift, the gravity, the whirlpool of energy. 

The swirl to the halo of the past. Out, out, out. 

Ichigo breathed in and pulled the whirlpool with him. He inverted the spiral of blue and white and light and gravity and twisted it not out of himself but in .  

It was the feeling of falling. It was the feeling of flying. It was a pull that he didn’t quite understand, the tug of his instinct dragging him out of danger. 

It was the feeling of cement under his feet. It was the feeling of glass against his cheek. 

It was a pale blue sky, with smokey puffs of rain clouds floating high above him. 

* 

“The fact that you are not more afraid of this man really only leads credibility to my idea that you are insane . He’s at least ten times stronger than all of your companions.” 

Ichigo glances sideways, and Kyo. He leans against the wall, watching Karna with something like respect, or maybe admiration in his gaze. Ichigo can understand. Even from as far away as they are, he can feel the heat radiating off of the son of the sun god. It blooms against his skin, but doesn’t scorch him. Not yet, in any case. 

It feels strange. This Karna is not the Karna that Ichigo had met and fought against and within his dream of Trifas. They were the same, at their core, but this one didn’t know him. This one wasn’t his friend. This one hadn’t fought a vampire and a near endless supply of false Servants with him. 

Instead, this one was here to stop him from going to Edison. To stop him from forcibly beating sense into the insane american presi-king. 

It would have been intimidating, but even now Ichigo can tell that Karna doesn’t actually want to kill them. 

Like all of those heroes born in the Age of Gods, Karna is insanely powerful. Before him Ichigo is little more than an ant to be stepped on. This Hero of Charity is a legend in every sense, and his reputation is earned. The spikes on his collar speak of danger and death. The spear in his hands pulses with the power and radiates heat like pavement on a summer day. 

Karna is the child of a god, and they are, in the end, little more than human. 

Kyo isn’t. He’s strong, Ichigo knows that too. He’s at least as strong as some Servants, and Ichigo is certain he’s stronger than he’s letting them think he is. Not only is he strong, he’s smart, and good as playing at being harmless. Even if Ichigo is the only one who can see him regularly, he won’t drop the fake smile on his lips. 

How annoying. 

“You should withdraw at once!” Nightingale calls to their foe. Ichigo has no intention of letting him stay an enemy, but for now he can’t do anything. They have to beat him first, and then beat Edison over the head. 

“Perhaps you’re right. I am infected by an illness called ‘loyalty’. Figuring that out so fast, is it because you’re a nurse?” his head cocks just so. 

Nightingale huffs. “No. You’re just easy to understand.” 

Ichigo watches Karna deflate, looking upset. “Oh no, we ruined his mystery,” Ichgo couldn’t help teasing. 

Mash looked equally put off. “He seems somewhat depressed…” 

“Thank you for pointing that out. But no matter. He asked for my help first, and that is all I need to know. The king of inventions knelt before a worthless man like me and asked my help. Besides,” A smile, as warm as his magic, spread across Karna’s face. “He reminds me of a friend. And I am only human, don’t forget.” 

“‘Only human’ says the demigod,” Ichigo mutters to Kyo, who snorts elegantly. “We should get this over with.” 

“You can’t hope to win,” Kyo argues, but he’s clearly getting used to ichigo’s stubborn nature. 

“Fucking watch us.” 

Ichigo draws up, prepared to fight- 

And Karna turns and walks back down the hallway, called away by Edison. 

“Huh. So it’s going to be a trap?” Ichigo muses. 

“ ‘ow can is be a trap, if ya know i’s gonna happen?” Cu asks, propping his elbow on Ichigo’s shoulder and leaning on his master. Ichigo scowls at him and shoves him off, but it’s more playful than anything else. 

“If it is a trap, it’s wiser for you not to spring it,” Kyo ads. 

“Okay, fine. You’re invisible. Go in there and see what we’re up against.” Ichigo points towards the high door to the throne room, at the end of the hall. Kyo just gives him a look. 

“Do I look like a servant?” Kyo arches a brow at him regally, and Ichigo shoots him a baleful glare. “Fine. But I expect you to do something for me, in return.” 

“Oh joy,” Ichigo rolls his eyes as Kyo walks through the walls, towards the presi-kings throne room. Now he owed a dead man a debt. Just once in his life couldn't one of these people be cooperative? He’d kill to have Chad here with him, even if it was just as emotional support in all this madness. 

“Poor master,” Mash mourns. “You look rather mad when you stand there talking at thin air.” 

“Hmm?” Medusa cocks her head. “I don’t know, the longer I’m attached to him, the more I think I see faint shadows about where he’s talking at. But that could be my imagination…: 

“It could make sense,” Ichigo admitted, “I have poison resistance thanks to Mash. Maybe you guys get to see dead people.” 

“Master,” she says slowly, “ We are dead people.” 

Ichigo scowls. “Don’t be a smart ass.” 

“It’s better than a dumb ass.” 

He jumps when Kyo’s voice comes from behind him, smooth and full of amusement. Ichigo turns to scowl at him, but the man is unphased. 

“It does seem like it will be a straightforward confrontation. My, you must all be terrible at assassinations.” 

Ichigo smacks his arm when Robin winces, missing the fact that Robin must have been able to hear the jibe at his failure. With a frown at Kyo, he leads the way to battle. 

* *

He’s laying on a building. Sideways on a building, if he wants to be picky about it. 

Ichigo sits up, slowly, looking down at the streets. It’s not the weirdest thing to ever happen. But still weird. Below him looks like a small Karakura town, and outwards are other skyscrapers, and towers of stone and glass. He can recognize turrets of castles that crash haphazardly into pillars of a familiar roman theatre. A flag with a fleur de lis floats in the distance, small atop a dusty building of the Old West. Between some wind long mountain roads that hitch into the metal and stone unnaturally. He can’t see the street, it’s flooded with water and dark shapes move beneath the surface. 

Ichigo stands, slowly, trying to focus on staying attached to the building he’s on. He doesn’t dare jump. He might die. 

He might actually be dead for all he knows. Did he just accidentally kill himself? This doesn’t look like any afterlife he’s ever heard of… 

It was certainly not Kur. Ichigo hopes he hasn’t died. He has promises he needs to keep, and dying would be a conflict of interests right now. 

All around him are remnants of places he’s known, of his home and the lands he’s seen. The sky scrapers reach high into the sky, like the fingers of some great giant trying to grasp the clouds themselves. 

Ichigo turns his face to the sky. There’s no sun, and far off in the horizon storm clouds brew in dark, angry shades of grey. 

“Okay. This is not great,” he says at last. “Where am I?”

Something ruffles the back of his neck, like wind only the air is still and he spins around on his heel, until he sees something dark and flicking behind him. A person. A man, in a black coak that billows around his ankles. It’s edged in red. 

“Hey, old man!” Ichigo spins to face him fully. “Who are you?” 

“Who am I? I am _____” 

Ichigo stares. He couldn’t hear him. He heard every word but his name. Why? What cut it off? There’s no wind, no sound, nothing that would do that. 

Even though the strangers face is largely impassive, Ichigo can still see the slightest slanting of his eyes. His disappointment. 

“I see. How sad, even now you can’t hear my voice. You, who knows me better than anyone else.” 

“What are you talking about?” Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest as the man walks down the pole he’d been standing on and onto the side of the building in front of Ichigo. The distance between them feels like a chasm. “I’ve never met you before.” 

Snow flutters around them, small flakes that stick to nothing. It’s just a playful flurry, flickering cold across his skin before it disappears again. 

“You’ve known me all your life, even if you don’t know it. And I have known you. I know why you’re here. You’re looking to become another Shinigami, aren’t you?” 

Ichigo pauses, but nods in the end. Who is this man? How does he know this? He does feel familiar. More familiar than Chad. More familiar than Mash, even. Why…? 

“The old man in the hat said it’s possible, but I have to die. And I can’t do that. I have a promise to keep, so I have to stay alive and save Rukia before I fulfill it. And to do that, I need power I don’t have. Rukia lent me hers, but that’s gone now. There’s no one else anymore.” 

No Rukia. No Mash. No Medusa, or Cu. No Romani. 

Just him. 

“I have no one else to rely on. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to fight with my own two hands.” 

“That’s not true.” 

The man walks towards him slow, his heels clicking on the glass of the building. 

“Rukia’s power may be gone, but Urahara Kisuke was no wrong when he declared that you have your own Shinigami powers. And you do not fight alone, Ichigo. I fight with you. I always have.” 

There’s a vicious vow somewhere in his level voice. A yearning that Ichigo almost misses. 

“I don’t understand. Who are you?” Ichigo shakes his head, trying to make sense of everything that’s happening. 

The man looks at him, and opens his mouth to repeat his name. 

“I am _____” 

* * * 

They’re the only ones awake. 

Ichigo is used to late nights. Sleep is hard to come by these days, and he usually only gets it when he’s too tired to even think, or when Mash’s solid shield lays beside him. The others are doing better than he is. They’re heroes and legends and myths. They have stronger hearts than he does. 

Ichigo walks quietly, not so far from the camp that he’ll get himself killed, but far enough that his movements won’t disturb his friends. Medusa is on watch at the perimeter, and she tosses him a somewhat concerned look, but doesn’t try to interrupt him when he sits beside Kyo. 

He’s got questions. About a million of them about the afterlife, but he doesn’t really have time for all of them at one time. 

And one top of questions about the afterlife, he has just as many about Kyo himself. He’s a mystery. He’s not a heroic spirit. And really, he has no reason to be following Ichigo around besides the fact that Ichigo has forcefully dragged him along. 

Not that Kyo couldn’t get away if he wanted to. Ichigo is no fool. Everyone here could kill him with a napkin. 

Kyo doesn’t acknowledge him when he sits beside him. Instead he keeps his eyes on the sky. On the stars haloed by the light in the sky. Even with it, there’s a thousand stars in the sky that Ichigo would never be able to see in Karakura. There’s too much light, even in a small city to be able to see this many stars. 

The whole milky way stretched across the sky, a painted band of blue and white and pink towards the edge of the horizon. 

“Is it the same?” he finds himself asking. Kyo makes a sound of question in the back of his throat, so he elaborates. “The sky. Is it the same where you’ve come from?” 

“Seireitei,” Kyo says the words slowly. “The stars are the same, but that’s about it.” 

“How do you mean? Isn’t it supposed to be a paradise? Like, Heaven? Elysium? Tian? Valhallah?” 

“Are you going to keep listing off afterlifes until I give you a real answer?” Kyo cocks his head, looking somewhat amused. 

Ichigo shoots him a crooked grin. “I absolutely will.” 

“My, you’re a pest.” 

“And you’re rude. Fields of Yula, asphodel, f olkvangr- ” 

Kyo claps his hand over ichigo’s mouth to finally shut him up, and Ichigo scowls at him without heat and with smugness. 

“Soul Society isn’t exactly like those stories,” Kyo’s smile is somehow soft and bitter and sad at once. Ichigo doesn’t know what to make of it. 

“So it’s no paradise,” Ichigo surmises. 

Kyo’s brow pinches and his mouth twists. “No. Not quite.” 

“Is there some rule saying that you’re not allowed to tell me?” 

“No,” Kyo says slowly,” But it is, ill advised. We are taught to tell the souls to pass on that they will find a good place in the next world. A paradise. So they don’t fight us going into a world not so unlike their own. “ 

“Wow you make death sound inviting,” Ichigo says dryly. He manages to startle a laugh out of Kyo before he sobers again, looking to the stars. 

“The closer to the seireitei you get, the better the quality of life. In the first few districts people generally want for nothing, and are elbow to elbow with nobility and their retainers, if they aren’t one of those things already. Most nobles live in Seireitei itself, safe in their walls. But further away…” 

“Further away you find the poor, the downtrodden. Poverty is prevalent. Rukongai is separated into districts. Past the fifty ninth districts, most people can’t even afford sandals.It’s violent and bloody out there, and the people who have the most power are the ones least likely to help.”  

Kyo’s hands curl and his mouth twists. 

Ichigo leans back on his hands. “You should get tips from Robin for overthrowing governments.” 

“I couldn’t do that,” Kyo shakes his head, but there’s a light in his eyes that makes Ichigo think that the idea has already crossed his mind at least once. “This is actually my first trip to the human world. I was supposed to arrive in Kyoto, but something went wrong, and now I’m here.” 

“It’s probably because Kyoto no longer exists,” Ichigo figures, solemnly, “The only land that exists at this time is here. The United States. Everywhere else has been completely obliterated.” 

They had to reverse that. They had to stop this war. 

* * * * 

They’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Literally. 

Ichigo and his Servants, minus Scathach who’s gone ahead of them, are cornered by monsters only Ichigo and Kyo can see and touch. 

Kyo is strong. Incredibly strong. He’s already cut down more of the swarm that Ichigo would have ever imagined, and blasted even more with fierce spells of blue and red energy. Yellow chains, and dark crescents. But they just keep coming, and now there’s even stronger ones ripping their way through the sky. They’re smaller and more distinct than the first wave, and as powerful as fifty of them combined. 

Even Kyo is struggling against the dozens of them that rip through the sky. 

Then it happens. 

One of them targets Ichigo and Kyo appears in front of him, striking it down. A second comes screaming in from the side and tears into Kyo’s sword arm. 

Blood splatters against Ichigo's cheek. 

“Kyo!” Ichigo lunges for him, but Kyo puts up his good hand, stopping him. 

“Stay where you are! You’ll only get in the way if you can’t fight. Damn, why are they all here at once?” Kyo grits his teeth and lifts his left arm, shooting off more spells, but without his sword, he’s struggling more to keep up. 

Ichigo burns with the feeling of being helpless. He can’t stay there and do nothing. 

So he does the only thing he can do. 

He shoots forwards, to Kyo’s back, and claps his hand on Kyo’s shoulder. He pours all the spirit energy he possible can into Kyo’s body, until he’s glow with it, blue and white. Kyo looks back at him, stunned. 

“Don’t just stand there!” Ichigo barks. “Hit them!” 

Kyo nods, once, looking dazed, and lifts his arm at the monsters closing in on them. 

“ Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens.” 

Blue swirls in front of him, a ball of raw power that flashes and lashes out at the edges, dragging burn scars into the ground and drawing blood off of Kyo’s arms. 

“ Hado seventy three! Soren Sokatsui!” 

It tears away from Kyo and Ichigo in a devastating force, ripping through the ground and shredding all the monsters in front of them into nothing more than burnt husks. 

Ichigo has time enough to register Kyo looking at him with a new light in his eyes before he falls to the ground, the world going black. 

* * * * *

“I see.” 

The disappointment is back in the man’s face, and it makes Ichigo’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know why. This is a perfect stranger, he shouldn’t care so much what he thinks about him. But he does. It feels gross, a bur under his skin that he just can’t shake. 

“You still cannot hear me. Very well then. Perhaps you will hear my voice once you have unlocked your Shinigami powers.” 

“Uh huh. I don’t suppose you have a key for that, do you old man?” Ichigo asks, crossing his arms over his chest. The man cocks his head ever so slightly. His hair waves in time with his coat and he taps the window beneath him with the toe of his shoe. 

“This world exists inside of you. Inside of your mind. Inside of your very soul. Somewhere in here, somewhere in all these windows and bricks and everything else you’ve ever made a home for in here, you will find what you seak. You will find your shinigami powers somewhere here. Somewhere within.” 

“Just like that man said…” 

Ichigo is glad for the opportunity, but he doesn’t want to be the one to tell Merlin he was right. The Mage of Flowers will be even more smug than he already is, and Ichigo does not need that at all. 

“Fine. I just have to find it then.” 

He had no idea how he would do that. If this was inside of him, what would happen if he broke something? What would a shattered window do to he himself? He could only speculate, and he didn’t like any of the things he thought of. So he’d have to go by it delicately. 

Was that possible? The only way into the buildings would be through doors that are now thoroughly covered in water.

Needle in a haystack much? 

Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair and tilts his head, closing his eyes in thought. 

If he was shinigami powers, where would he hide? 

Nowhere in the brackets of mountains. Nor in the theatre, or the tall castle towers. Nowhere that he was a Mage. 

That ruled out a lot. 

This guy said he’d always been with him. Did that mean he was a shinigami this whole time? Why hadn’t they come to him earlier? During the wars? In Kur? 

On the banks of the Karakura river. 

Ichigo shook his head and opened his eyes again. The old man was staring at him. Waiting. Watching. It was a little creepy. Ichigo’s hair brushed his shoulders when he turned his head to the side, looking down at the water. 

Somehow, he had to find his Shinigami powers. 

It had to be somewhere in these blue buildings. Maybe… 

Ichigo knelt down, knocking at the window under his feet curiously. It was totally solid. There didn’t seem to be so much as a hinge to open it. But inside, there, something white fluttered around. 

“...fuck it.” 

Ichigo punched his hand through the glass, ignoring the way the shards bit into his arm, and grabbed it. When he pulled his hand back he found a ribbon in his grasp. 

White ribbons. Like the ones Uryu had shown him before. 

That's it! 

Ichigo jumped back, as high up as he could. He landed on the air, the way he had as a shinigami. This was it. This was how he could find it. He scoured the building, the windows, looking for anything that wasn’t blue and white. Anything. It had to be somewhere. 

C’mon. Red, red, red- 

Ichigo drops back onto the building, understanding dawning. He makes his way over to the strange man and reaches out, grasping the straight sword he’d been standing on before. He pulls, and in his hand comes away a red ribbon that wraps around his wrist. As he pulls the sword from its sheath it flashes with pale blue light, until he’s holding a massive sword almost as long as his body.  

Ichigo grins sharply at the old man, a name blossoming on his lips. They speak as one, voices merging. 

“Zangetsu.” 

Ichigo swings the sword to the side. It feels effortlessly light despite how large it is. It isn’t the foreign feeling of Rukia's power. This is his, and his alone. 

When he looks down, he’s wearing Shinigami clothes again. If Kyo could see him now. 

“Congratulations, Ichigo. You are, again, a Shinigami.” His voice is low and even. Ichigo glances at his eyes, half hidden by sunglasses. 

“Thanks. Although to be honest…. I was kind of hoping I’d be a Quincy, like my mother.” 

He doesn’t miss the startled jerk of Zangetsu’s head.

Chapter Text

Ichigo sits by the river again. The day is dawning, pink in the east. 

He can’t see the sword any longer, not since he stumbled back into his body from his inside. His inner word, Zangetsu had called it. 

Even still, he can feel it’s phantom weight, familiar and comforting in his palm. It feels like all he has to do is wrap his fingers around it and pull and the sword would be in his hand, gleaming and ready to swing, to block, to guard him.  Holding Zangetsu had felt like coming home. 

Despite that, it had also felt like there was something missing. Like his other hand was empty. 

Was that what Diarmund had felt whenever he put one of his swords or spears down? 

He could hear all of Achille’s dumbass bisexual jokes at his expense. 

Ichigo leaned back on the damp grass, drawing in steady breaths, one after another. Up the incline he could see people waiting for him. Elmelloi, and a happily familiar face and pale hair. 

Waver Velvet, or Lord Elmelloi II and his apprentice, a phenomenal mage and prodigy Flat Escardos. Waver had said there was something strange about the town, and now Ichigo has to wonder if he’s not partially to blame. Because of his fight with Uryu and massive monster had tried to crush the city. Because of him and Rukia some high class shinigami had come to visit and started causing trouble. 

Ichigo wants to help. Really, he does.  He likes Waver even if he is grumpy. He’s one of the few people Ichigo knows who’s just as shit at actual magic as he is. Waver, like Ichigo, makes due with other means. 

He’s an alchemist, and a detective. With no magic lineage to fall back on, and no innate talent for mage craft he uses outside forces to get things done. He draws his power from ores and reagents and uses reason to puzzle out what the best course of action is. Without the ability to fight head on Waver relies on other people for combat, and merely acts as their guide and support. 

The one thing Waver truly excels at is teaching. 

It takes him no more than a glance to understand how a spell is cast, and minutes to figure out how to teach someone with the right type of circuits how to use it as well. And how to strengthen and improve it. 

Waver cannot perform his own magecraft, but he can strengthen and support others. 

He, above all others, is one person who understands Ichigo’s abilities. 

They are peas in a pod, and it’s almost scary. 

Ichigo lifts himself up from the banks of the river and picks his way up to the pair. Flat is as exuberant as ever. Even in snow, surrounded by recovered corpses of Chealdeas, he’d been delighted to be there. 

What a weirdo. 

“Hey,” Ichigo raises his hand to them. Waver grunts. His long red scarf shifts when the wind changes direction. The breeze comes with the smell of smoke and cardamom. 

“Ichigo. You disappeared.” 

“Sorry,” he’s not, “Something came up. I’ll be gone for about a month.” 

Waver scowls at him.”We need you here. We’re investigating changes of ley lines around the city. Your city. And you know how I feel about this place.” 

Yes, he does. Ichigo’s never gotten the full story, but he knows ten years ago something happened that left Waver embittered to the entire country. The fact that he’s standing on japanese soil in the first place is frankly bewildering. 

Ichigo doesn’t say so out loud. 

“A friend of mine needs help,” he says instead. “So I’m sorry, but I need to go to her first. I appreciate your help with the house, but this is important to me.” 

Waver frowns at him, and even Flat’s smile tilts sideways, like he’s not sure he understands. Ichigo doubts that he does. This child is a freaky innocence that isn’t innocent at all. Somehow he can look at pain and suffering and still thing its ‘cool’. 

Ichigo does not envy Waver. 

Waver must know Ichigo well, for he looks at him and his stubborn jaw and his hard eyes and he grunts irritably. 

“Fine then. There’s no changing your mind,” he knows. “We’ll handle this matter. You help your friend.” 

“Not like I needed your permission anyways,” Ichigo points out, but it’s not really angry. For all he’s a cantankerous old guy in the body of a man not even thirty Waver is good natured and nurturing in his own way. Even when he was summoned a servant (and Ichigo still doesn’t understand how exactly that happened) he’d been the same. Maybe that’s why Ichigo is so biased towards him. 

“Good luck,” Waver says instead of anything else. 

Ichigo nods to him, ruffles Flat’s hair, and makes his way to the Urahara shop as promised. 

*

By the time he comes too, Ichigo feels less like a mage and more like a pile of recently tenderized meat. 

The sky is burning pink and purple and night air is slow to fade to day. There’s dew settled into his bangs that glistens when the newborn sunlight hits it. 

It would be lovely, if it wasn’t for the fact that ichigo could barely lift his head to shake the moisture off. 

It’s a bone deep ache. 

A lightness in his body that makes him feel like if he isn’t careful he’s going to go flying off into the sky, an empty void of a man. 

Mash’s worried face poked in from the side of his vision. 

“Master?” her voice is terribly soft, tumultuous with worry. Worry for him. 

Ichigo pushes himself up slowly, only his own pride and stubbornness keeping him from falling right down back into the dirt. 

Mash rushes to him to help, and her strong arms around him help to ground him back down. He still feels drained and hollow, but the warm hands that hold him steady are a help. They make his body feel more reel. And less like he’s not tethered to reality. 

“Hey Mash. How long was I out?” He can’t quite remember what happened. There was a swarm of demons, and Kyo couldn’t handle all of them. Ichigo had- 

What exactly had he done again? 

Right, he’d shoved all of his reishi into Kyo, so he could cast a spell and destroy the monsters that had been coming at them. Where is Kyo, anyhow? Where are any of the others? 

“Mash?” Ichigo asks, touching her side. “Where’s everyone else?” 

“Oh,” Mash slowly lets him go, looking off to the side. “We got a cart to carry you in, since we can’t really stop right now. We’re in that now, and the others are laying down outside.” 

Ichigo looks down to see that it’s not dirt he would have fallen into, but a scratchy brown blanket. 

“How long was I out?” 

“The rest of the day and all of the night. About eighteen hours in total. Nightingale wasn’t happy,” Mash grimaced. “She couldn't do anything to help you. No one could.” 

Mash suddenly scowls at him and tightens her hold to the point of pain. “You could have been hurt! Master, you need to stop being so reckless!” 

Another voice joins in. “Master is awake?!” 

The cart rocks and Ichigo finds himself being shaken back and forth by hand so strong they could break his shoulders. “What did you do that for! You could have died! You fool!” 

“Me-du-sa. Can’t. Breath.” Ichigo choked. She didn’t loosen her hold but she did stop shaking him so he could catch his breath. He put his hand on her elbows and looked at those ethereal golden eyes. “Sorry. I’m not going anywhere, promise. I just got overzealous. Are you okay?” 

“Are we-?!” she bristled. “We’re fine! You were the one that almost shoved your soul out of your body!” 

Ichigo blinks at her. 

“I did what?” 

“You almost shoved all of your reiryoku, your spirit energy, into me.” 

Ichigo looks to the side, where Kyo is perched on the edge of the wagon. His dark eyes are fathomless, searching for something in Ichigo that Ichigo isn’t sure he has. There’s a light in them too, one that Ichigo can’t for the life of him decipher. 

(Years later he will recognize it as hope.)

“Okay,” Ichigo takes Medusa’s hands from his shoulders and guides her to sit next to him. She looks into the seemingly empty air, but they are all beyond questioning him when he talks to nothing. “It still worked, didn’t it?” 

Kyo’s brows furrow minutely. “It did… It was still reckless. I’ve never seen someone do something so utterly foolish in my life. You could have more than died. You could have destroyed your own soul doing that. Feeding your energy into spirit beings is dangerous, there is a reason it isn’t done. Even these heroic spirits contracted to you are a risk. Whether drawing on your life energy or your spirit energy, you put yourself in tremendous danger.” 

“I know,” Ichigo tells him truthfully. Kyo is closer than he ever has been, like some wall he’d set up is starting to crumble. His mask is cracking. “I know it’s dangerous. Everything we do is dangerous, but if I don’t do it then everything will end. Everyone will die. All of my friends, all of my family will be gone. I can’t fight on my own. All I can do is strengthen others, even if I have to pay a price for that I will.” 

“That’s very noble but-” 

“Don’t make me into a saint,” Ichigo cut him off swiftly. “I’m not. If you want one of those you’re in the wrong singularity. I’m doing this because I want my sisters back. I’m doing this because I want to stop fighting and go home already. Every motivation I have is entirely selfish, Kyo.” 

Medusa smacked the back of his head. 

“Hey!” 

“He may make you into a saint but you make yourself a sinner!” She snapped. “In Fuyuki we were on opposite sides of a war. You should have killed me. Even if we weren’t enemies I was, am, darkened by the cursed mud of a corrupted grail. In stead you told me to stop being a lunatic and poured your power into me, so I could stand at your side. You trusted me with your back when I could have easily stabbed it.” 

“Medusa-” 

“No! You may not be a saint like Jeanne but you’re a good, stupid man!” 

Ichigo is so stunned by the fact that Medusa of all people has called him a good man that he doesn’t even notice the fact that she has heard Kyo as well. 

It tops as one of the weirdest days of his lives. 

* * 

Ichigo finally finds himself standing in front of the Urahara shop, the old sign hanging above the doorway. It’s out of the way, stuffed between two towering modern buildings. If one didn’t know what they were looking for they would never find it. It was just an old shop tha hadn’t been converted yet. They’re not common but they’re also not so out of place that anyone would bat an eye if they happened to see it while out and about. 

It’s exactly how mages run things and not for the first time does Ichigo wonder just what in the world it is that Urahara is. A mage? A shinigami? Something between? Ichigo can’t get a good read on him, but to be fair he hasn’t really been looking. 

He knows his half hidden eyes and he knows he’s willing to help Rukia and help Ichigo. That’s enough for him for now. 

He raises his hand and knocks firmly on the door. On the third knock the door slides open, revealing the tall man from before. Tessai. 

Ichigo can’t get a good read on him. His glasses bar him from seeing his eyes and the eyes are the window to the soul. Never the less, Ichigo can still see his strength. A hundred times stronger than Ichigo, and now that he’s of a clearer mind when he looked past the man to Urahara he realizes that he’s stronger still.

They aren’t as strong as someone born in the Age of Gods, but they’re at least on par with weaker servants. 

How had he missed that before? 

Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. 

“Hey. I’m here for my training.” 

They let him inside. Underneath the shop there happens to be a massive chamber, stretching out in all directions. A mockery of the sky spreads across the ceiling, painted with fluffy clouds that almost seem to move across the sky. 

Whoever this man is, he’s not a mage. A mage would never have something so cheerful in their home. Mages were creatures of darkness and shadow. Lonely beings of solitude. 

Urahara was no such thing. 

He had children, for one thing, and his assistant (husband?) seemed utterly devoted to him. He did not have the cold air of a mage obsessed only with legacy and the enhancement of his crest. No. For all Urahara reminded him of Merlin, he was certainly not a mage. 

“So. What do we do first?” Ichigo asks, turning his sights from the sky to the man in front of him. His hat shadows most of his face, save the strange smile beneath that darkness. 

“First, we would need to return your shinigami powers to you-” 

“Yeah. I already did that part. What’s next.” 

Ichigo was treated to the sight of Urahara tilting his head and blinking rapidly at him. It’s the only real sign of surprise on his face. 

“You… already did that?” he repeated. He lifted his cane, exposing the flaming skull on the underside, and drives it into Ichigo’s chest. 

Ichigo pops out the other side, in a familiar shihakusho with a sword strapped to his back. Zangetsu is actually less of a sword and more of a giant cleaver as long as his body. The curve of the red mark that sits above his heart just barely crests over the white folds of his clothes  

Urahara’s mouth opens but no sound comes out for a few long seconds. Ichigo scowls at him. 

“You said I needed to get my shinigami powers and I did. Now hurry up already. We’ve only got ten days before I have to go save Rukia. So what’s next, huh?” 

Urahara recovers (not very) gracefully, clears his throat and stands straight. 

“I see. So you managed to do that all on your own.”

“Not really,” Ichigo isn’t one to brag, or take undue credit. He touches Zangetsu’s hilt lightly, fingers running across the bandages. “Zangetsu helped me out.” 

“You know his name as well? Then I suppose we can skip three whole lessons.” 

Ichigo doesn’t like the sudden, calculating look in Urahara’s eyes, but he can’t say anything about it. He understands he’s just done something expected, but doesn’t he always? He’s used to the staring, to the incredulousness of people who are just meeting him. 

He misses the familiar presence at his side, at his back. Guarding and guiding him. But with Zangetsu in hand the void where his friends had once been is lessened, even if it’s not entirely gone. 

Zangetsu has always been with him. That’s what he’s said, isn’t it? 

“Then we’ll move on. Ichigo, your first task is to knock this hat off my head.” 

“...huh?” Seriously? What kind of bullshit is this? 

Ichigo squinted at him while Urahara drew a sword from his cane and pointed it towards him. A straight blade, thin and deadly he can feel the barely restrained bloodlust from here. 

“Awaken, Benihime.” 

The air sings with danger and a thrill shoots up Ichigo’s spine. Red light flickers, bloody and dangerous, across the blade until what’s left is no cane but the unmistakable sight of a zanpakuto. The hamon is straight, the tip is sharp and straight instead of tapered. 

“There’s no timelimit. So try as hard as you can to knock this hat off with your sword.” 

“That sounds like a good way to loose an eye, and if you do I can’t fix that,” Ichigo warns even as he pulls his sword from his back. The ribbon flutters off, wrapping drawing back to reveal the deadly curve beneath. It’s not the type of sword ichigo is used to holding. He’s used to something shorter, but the blade is as light as his own arm in his grasp. Is’t a part of him, he knows for certain. His instincts flare and he dodges just in time, avoiding a strike that leaves a deep gauge in the rock behind him. 

“You should really be worrying about yourself,” Urahara says. His voice is deceptively soft, his smile is just as mild, and the shadow of his hat hides his eyes. 

As if that would hide from Ichigo the singing his sword does for his blood. 

“Fine,” Ichigo adjusts his grip, bounces on the balls of his feet and swings. 

Their swords come together in a clash of metal against metal and power against power. Ichigo is raw strength poured forth and an unbending will, straight forwards and unyielding. 

Urahara is swift and sharp and takes jabs at any opening, no matter how small. He is powerful, stronger than Ichigo, and when he’d released his sword that strength had more than doubled. There’s no doubt that he could go toe to toe with Diarmuid. 

That’s fine. Ichigo meets him blow for blow. 

He doesn’t run. He won’t wear scars of shame upon his back. He can’t go backwards now, not when he’s set his sights on his goal. Not when Rukia needs him. 

Even with all that, he’s not winning. 

He may not run but he’s being force back, further and further with Urahara taking every inch given for his own, eating the ground as he cuts at Ichigo’s defenses. 

Ichigo keeps an eye on his unused hand. He knows these men are tricky. He knows shinigami can use kido, and he won’t be taken by surprise again. 

Urahara shifts his stance and Ichigo lunges for the opening. Too late he realizes it’s a trap. 

He takes a hard blow to his side, and blood drips down into the white fabric beneath the black. 

Ichigo jumps back, a hand on his side, and hisses with the pain. It’s shallow. Not even enough to pierce into anything important. When he looks to Urahara he sees not the man but a predator stalking towards him. He’s not even close to running out of energy. Neither of them are, but now Urahara has drawn first blood. 

Ichigo remembers red. He remembers the red of Fuyuki, the terror of the grail and the fallen kings. He remembers the blind desperation of the fight with Lev, and barely keeping Olga Marie from being dragged into the red earth. Red was raw destruction, blood and death. 

Ichigo is beyond being afraid of it. 

“Zangetsu,” the name comes to his lips. Zangetsu. He’s always known it. He’s always had this sword at his back, and now a phantom hand lays upon his shoulder. His partner. His weapon. The means by which he will protect all he loves. 

“Forget fear,” his words echo, and a second hand touches his on the hilt, “ Look forward. Walk forth. Never stop. If you look back you are lost. If you are afraid you’ll die. Swear, Ichigo.” 

He does. 

“I’ll never run. I’ll never be afraid. Even if I have to tear the heavens apart, I will win! Zangetsu!” 

Power swirls around his sword, Zangetsu squeezes his shoulder and falls into the blade, still crossed with Benihime. They sing together, a song of the hunt and a refusal to die. A cat and the moon, Ichigo pushes everything he has into the sword. Into Zangetsu. He trusts him. 

Silver light rips out of the blade. He can see the moment of Urahara’s briefest panic and the last-second switch of his sword. From offense to defense, but it’s not enough to save his hat from the wave of raw energy that shreds from Zangetsu. 

Ichigo catches the hat as it falls to the ground, a good sized chunk now missing. 

He can’t help the grin that splits his face when he sees the land past Urahara’s red barrier has been torn into a fissure that stretches all the way out to the seemingly endless walls of the room, and cracks it’s way up towards the ceiling. 

He lays Zangetsu back along his back and walks over to Urahara, twirling his hat around one finger. It feels good. Fighting with his own power, nothing has never compared to that. Nothing ever will. 

Ichigo eyes the cracks and crumbling edges of the red shield Urahara has erected to guard himself, and eyes the sword in his hand. The bloodlust isn’t gone, but there’s something else in it. Ichigo touches that blade, drawing Urahara’s attention away from the new canyon in his basement. The touch is all Ichigo needs for a proper reading. Confusion, curiosity, and off all things hope. 

There’s definitely something weird going on here. 

Urahara pulls his sword back from ichigo delicately and sheathes her again. “You should be careful,” Urahara warns. “Benihime isn’t nice.” 

If zanpakuto reflect the soul of their wielder, does that mean Urahara is also ‘not nice’? 

Ichigo hands him his hat. “I think I passed your little test.” 

Up close, Urahara isn’t nearly as old as Ichigo first thought he was. He almost looks young, somewhere in his later twenties. Most questions, no more answers and no time to ask them. 

“I’d say you did,” Urahara takes it from him, futility knocking dust away from it. “Ichigo, you are one scary kid.” 

* * * 

“Do you know where you are?” 

“Are you going to ask me that every time?” 

Ichigo isn’t surprised to see where he is tonight. There’d been a creeping dread that had begun crawling up his throat the closer and closer they came to the day he was to leave. 

Merlin toys with a strand of Ichigo’s hair. It’s finally grown past his shoulders these days, and Merlin seems to take some small pleasure in the tactile sensation. 

If Ichigo was trapped at the edge of the world for over 1500 years he’d probably be starved for new sensations himself. Or even something as simple as the presence of someone familiar. 

He is reminded again that he has sworn to free Merlin from his prison, even if he has no idea how he’s going to do that. He’ll figure it out. 

“Perhaps. It’s consistent if nothing else.” 

“Everything here is consistent,” Ichigo retorted. “You’ll stop once you get tired of Westworld.” 

“Maybe I’ll start with the Game of Thrones references then,” Merlin teased. Ichigo shot him a scowl. 

Merlin laughed it off easily. 

“Okay, something else then. In the meantime, how has your training been going?” 

“My training? It’s fine. It’s mostly been Urahara fighting me. He hasn’t taught me much of anything, but I’m catching up to speed with my new sword at least.”

“Ah yes. And how does he fight?” 

“Urahara? I dunno. Sometimes he moves like Kojirou, sometimes like Mordred.” 

“Those are very different fighting styles,” Merlin mused, tapping his fingers along his staff. Ichigo nods his agreement. 

“It is. More than anyone though, he reminded me of Okada,” and you . 

“A man slayer?” Merlin pretended to startle. “A man equally capable of saber and assassin techniques. What a terrifying concept.” 

Merlin didn’t know the half of it. 

“Do you fear him?” 

Ichigo paused. “Huh? No. I probably should but… he doesn’t mean to hurt me, or my friends.” 

“My, my. You always have had a knack for judging people.” 

“Don’t make it sound like I’m some kind of mind reader,” Ichigo groans, falling back into the flowers that perpetually bloom aroun Merlin. It really is a very pretty prison. 

His gaze wanders to Merlin’s staff. 

“Those ribbons,” he says suddenly. “Are they soul ribbons?” 

“Hmm?” Merlin follows his gaze and delights. “Aha! No, not quite but they are very close. They’re designed to keep my staff from being stolen or abused. I suppose, in some ways, they’re the essence or the soul of my staff. They work a bit like command seals.” 

Merlin was being weirdly forthcoming. 

That only happened when it was something Ichigo really needed to know. Why would he need to know that much about Merlin's fancy magic stick? 

If he tries to ask, he’ll just be brushed off, so he doesn’t. Instead he engages Merlin in a game of twenty questions, to pass the time until he must leave again. 

“Are you worried?” Merlin asks abruptly, breaking their game and starting a new one called ‘try to get Ichigo to talk about his feelings’. 

“Why would I be?” Ichigo replies, narrowing his eyes. 

Merlin holds up his hands placatingly. “This will be the first time you go alone into something like that. I would think you would be frightened.” 

“I’m not alone,” Ichigo says evenly. “I have my zanpakuto, Zangetsu. Besides. This way I don’t have to be so careful. I won’t be leading anyone except for myself, and anyone who inevitably joins along while I’m there.” 

“Your charisma is the stuff of legends.” 

“I’m not charismatic!” Ichigo argues, scowling again. “People just like to glue themselves to me, it’s not my fault.” 

Merlin laughs and Ichigo shifts uncomfortably in his seat, crushing more flowers around him. They’re replaced in second by yet more. 

“Will I see you while I’m in the soul society?” Ichigo asks, peering at his friend. 

Merlin considers this. “Most likely not. It’s a different world, and the realm of the dead at that. I don’t think I can reach you there.” There’s sadness hidden in his eyes. Ichigo scowls at him for a long moment before he gives in and hugs the grand mage. 

Merlin stiffens in his grasp, his air leaving his lungs for the long seconds before Ichigo starts to fade away, back where he’s come from. 

If he doesn’t come back, he won’t have Merlin doubting their friendship. 

* * * *

Seven days. Seven days, and Ichigo is on his way out of the house. 

There had been a festival earlier, and he’d wanted to go with his sisters and give them one last memory, before he potentially ran off and got himself killed on a rescue mission for a girl they didn’t even remember exists. 

The fireworks stopped him. 

He’s already on edge, already gearing up for a fight, for an infiltration (for a war). He doesn’t want to know what the sound of the sky cracking open and lights and fire roaring over his head will do to him at a time like this. 

Instead he’d waited for them, and tucked them in when they’d been too exhausted for anything else. He left breakfast in the fridge so Yuzu didn’t have to worry about it in the morning, and when Urahara’s creepy ass blood message came through the window he switched bodies with Kon and was on his way. 

Along the way, he bumps into Orihime. 

And at Urahara shop Chad is waiting. 

Uryu shows up last and when the door opens he grabs Urahara by the collar and drags him inside. The door shuts soundly behind them. 

Ichigo spins them around and shoves Urahara against the wall, baring his teeth at the man. “What the hell are they doing here?!” 

Urahara is completely unaffected, and it kind of pisses him off. 

“What do you mean? They’re you’re friends, they’re here to help you. Isn’t that obvious?” 

“Yeah, I know what they came. I wanna know why you let them?! I’m not letting them come along. They’ll be in danger. I’m not taking them with me!” 

“Then what was your plan?” Urahara asks, his playful voice overturned with one that Ichigo has never heard. Dark and serious, with the same edge as his blade. The hat tilts and Ichigo can see his eyes. Old, and intelligent. He’s reminded, once more, of Merlin. 

“They’re not strong enough for this,” Ichigo insists. “I would have made friends while I was there to help me. At least three.” Usually closer to ten or twelve. 

“That’s the most naive thing I’ve ever heard. Why would anyone turn their backs on their home, on their captains and friends, to help a stranger like you?” 

Ichigo bristles. “I don’t know.” But they always do, for some reason. “Rukia has to have friends. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is wrong and people will fight for what’s right if you push them to it-” 

Urahara catches his hands and pushes him back. “You can’t rely on a strategy like that. You can’t count on peoples ‘better natures’ or you’ll always be disappointed. Your friends have come to help you, and they are stronger than you’d expect. Likely they’ll be the ones you can rely on. Do you understand?” 

Ichigo narrows his eyes at Urahara. “I’m relying on you, aren’t I?” 

The air crackles with tension between them, until the door slides open and his friends step inside. They freeze at the picture; Ichigo looming over Urahara, who’s got pinned to the wall. 

“Uh.” Says Ichigo eloquently. 

“Oh dear!” Cries Urahara, snapping his fan in front of his grinning face. “Whatever shall we do, now that we’ve been caught. Oh Ichig -ow!” 

Ichigo elbows him in the side and lets him go. Fine. They were already here, and Ichigo can see their own stubbornness. Chad and Uryu aren't going anywhere, and Ichigo knows even Orihime can fight. He’d been there when Tatsuki was training her. Even with her ability, her personality will be the biggest problem. 

Already he feels himself shifting. This is no longer just about him. This is the team he’s been given, and he reads over their strength as best he can. It’s not as clear as a servant, but he’s working on it. 

Chad he knows is a brawler, brute strength and fierce dependability. Close rang, and he’s got an insane pain tolerance and durability. He can tell by looking, Chad is stronger now than he was even a week ago. Fine. 

Uryu is an archer, through and through. Long rang, he’ll be at a disadvantage if they have to fight up close and personal. He also knows basic first aid. He’s maybe the best person to counter Ichigo, to bring with him. The biggest problem might be his hatred for shinigami. People do stupid, impulsive things when they’re filled with animosity. 

Your anger keeps you warm now, but it will leave you cold in your grave. 

Orihime. 

“Orihime,” he speaks to her for the first time, startling her out of whatever daydream she’d been having. “What exactly can you do?” 

“Huh? Oh well I guess I’m pretty good at math, and I get good grades in gym class too. I won a volleyball game last year and-” 

“I think he means your powers,” Chad corrects quietly. Powers. Good god, what have they gotten themselves into? 

“Well?” Ichigo presses. Orihime touches her hair clips, the ones she always wears. 

“Well um. I can make barriers that bounce things off of them. And I can shoot Tsubaki at people like a laser light beam. And I can heal too!” 

Ichigo doesn’t know who or what a Tsubaki is. He doesn’t know what powers Chad has. 

Fuck he hates this. 

But healing and shielding are something he can work with too. That’ll make Orihime their third tier, a support class. 

Damn it. 

And damn Urahara for not telling him about this! 

“You need to calm down,” says someone new. Ichigo looks down, and finds the cat from before peering up at him. Golden eyes, and black fur. 

“...Oh. You’re Urahara’s familiar.” 

The cat shakes her head. The masculine voice throws him off for a minute. 

“No. I am Yoruichi. Kisuke is just an old friend of mine, and asked me to train your friends. The only person here who might have a familiar would be you, Ichigo.” 

“I see,” Ichigo says. He looked at the other three, stronger than he’d ever seen them but so inexperienced. He doesn’t want to bring them to this. He doesn’t want them to have the paranoia, the nightmares, the noose around their neck that comes with constant fighting and desperate attempts to win. But there’s no going back now. They’ll follow no matter what he says. 

Ichigo bows shortly to the cat. 

“Thank you for helping them, then, Yoruichi.” 

The feline preens and licks at her paw. “Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when we get back with Rukia.” 

“Right…” 

He still doesn’t know exactly what he’ll do once she’s safe with them. Probably he’ll have to call in one of those favors from the clock tower. So be it. 

“Okay,” he shot one last look at Urahara. “Let’s go.” 

Urahara leads him down into the training grounds. The fissure Ichigo had created has been fixed by now, leaving the ground flat and dusty once more. There are conspicuous stitches across the ‘sky’. Everyone else is to busy marvelling to comment. 

Tessai goes to get a large square of hollow stone set up in the corner, while Ichigo’s friends watch on. He can feel Urahara come to stand behind him. He’s good, but he’s no King of Assassins. 

“You seem to be thinking awfully hard there, Ichigo,” Urahara says. If he expect Ichigo to jump, he’s disappointed. 

Ichigo presses his lips into a line before he answers. 

“It’s heavy,” He says at last. 

“Heavy?” 

“The weight of their lives.” 

Urahara is silent when Ichigo leaves him behind to stand at Chad’s side. 

* * * * *

Ichigo is confined to the cart for the rest of the day, regardless of how he’s feeling or how stubborn he is. No one can outstubborn Florence Nightingale. Not that even Ichigo is stupid enough to try. Not after Medusa offered to chain him to the cart if he didn’t behave himself for her. 

He was at the mercy of the nurse. Rama looked smug at the fact that it was finally someone other than him that she was fussing over. When Nightingale’s back was turned Ichigo made sure to flip him off. 

The only person who rides with him is Kyo, his legs cross with a his sword in his lap. 

Ichigo eyes is speculatively. 

“Why don’t you draw your sword when you fight?” he asks at last. 

Kyo looks up at him, his brown eyes startled. “Well,” he considers his words, “Mine is not a sword for combat.” 

“...what the fuck does that mean?” 

“My sword, this zanpakuto, is capricious, and not always friendly towards those that are even my allies. My Kido serves me well enough, and if I’m honest I try to keep her abilities a secret.” 

“Oh,” Ichigo says, looking down at the sword. He can’t help being curious. Kyo is such a walled off person, even if he pretends to be friendly. 

“It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” Kyo says suddenly. “You’ve proved that you’ll go to great lengths to help me, even if it to save your own skin. And whatever you say, I can tell you’re loyal and your morals are rigid.” 

“It’s fine,” Ichigo waves his hand in dismissal. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t.” 

“Ichigo…” 

“It’s fine,” he says ago. “You’re not in the wrong. Everyone has secrets, and you’ll only know us until we return to our own time. In 2018.” 

“I’ll still be around then, if I’m not killed,” Kyo tells him swiftly. “Shinigami age much slower than humans. At least a tenth as fast, if not slower than even that.” 

“That’s great,” Ichigo says, “But honestly it won’t matter if you’re alive or dead. Truth is, you won’t remember us.” 

“What?” Kyo’s brows furrow and he sits up straighter. 

“You’ll forget about all of this,” Ichigo says again, “When we set the world to right, everything that we’ve done here will be erased from history. Including your memory. There’s nothing we can do for it. We’ve seen it in people we knew before. We met Nero when she was still alive, but as a servant she’s forgotten all about us. The same will happen to you.” 

“No,” Kyo shakes his head, narrows his eyes. “No. I won’t! And if I do, you must remind me!” 

“How would I do that?” Ichigo asks, leaning back lazily. The idea makes his chest clench and ache. No one will ever remember him or Mash. They aren’t in this for glory. They won’t find any. All that will happen if they succeed is he will return to his family and Mash will return to Chaldeas. 

“Find me. Tell me.” 

 “Tell you? Tell you that I’m a time traveller and I met you two hundred years ago but you can’t remember because we stopped the apocalypse?” 

He doesn’t say aloud that if they fail it won't matter. Kyo won’t remember them because Kyo won’t even exist anymore. 

Kyo narrows his eyes in thought. He runs his fingers through his curly hair, brushing it away from his face where a single strand likes to fall nearly to his chin. 

Finally, he snaps his fingers. 

“I’ll tell you something no one else knows,” he announces abruptly. He leans forwards, grasps Ichigo’s hand and brings it to his blade before he whispers into his ear a truth that Ichigo will not fully comprehend for centuries. 

Not until he stands on a cliff and looks upon his once friend, flanked by a man with silver hair and a person whose eyes are hidden with thick glass. 

* * * * * * 

Chapter Text

When they are tossed unceremoniously out the gate of the Dangai (and hell, Ichigo never thought he’d miss the vertigo of a Ray Shift before) Ichigo and Yoroichi are the only ones who land on their feet. Orihime breaks their fall with one of her barriers. Seeing it in action, three pronged and glowing, helps him file away what she can do for later. 

He starts looking around. 

They’re in a village, one that’s empty and devoid of life. Seemingly. Ichigo sees shadows move in the buildings. Okay. Not ideal. Nothing good comes from dropping right in the middle of civilization. It always leads to a fight. London had been a shit show and a half. 

At least he can see now. And what he sees, down the road, is unmistakable. 

“Is that Seireitei?” Ichigo asks aloud. A sprawling city with the harsh edges and an oppressive aura of order and structure. There was a thin line the separate the streets there, shining and well kept, from even the nice enough streets they stood upon. Ichigo knew it for what it was even if Kyo hadn’t told him about it before. He can recognize a military compound for what it is. 

“Yes,” Yoruichi comes to stand at his feet. “Right now we’re in the Rukongai, the outskirts of the soul society. This is the part of the soul society where the most souls live, and also the poorest part.” 

Ichigo doesn’t respond as Yoruichi explains it to his friends who don’t know. 

He eyes the line in the ground. 

“They’ll know we’re here,” he said abruptly. “We need to move away from here. Our entrance was too flashy, and the people in these houses probably won’t keep us a secret. Yoruichi, the Seireitei. Does is have some kind of bounded field?” 

There was no way a military complex didn’t have defenses, no matter how it looked right there. 

“...Yes. There’s a wall that will fall should anyone try to cross the threshold without a permit. On top of that, there’s a gate guardian who will not let anyone past him.” 

“That’s fine. Okay,” Ichigo ran his fingers through his hair, gathering it all to the back of his head. He tied it into a tight, short pony tail. “We need a base of operations so we can figure out how to get in. We’re short on time but still… I’d like to avoid rushing in head first.” 

If it was just him, he probably wouldn’t be so cautious. If it was him, Mash, Cu, and Medusa he would have no hesitation. Break in, make a fuss, and disappear into the veritable maze he knows stretches out. Kyo had told him once how easy it was to get lost if you didn’t know where he was going. 

Joy. 

Yoruichi is giving him the strangest look, but she doesn’t argue. 

“You’re right. Come with me. I have a friend nearby who I believe will be willing to help us.” 

“Sure.” 

Ichigo casts one last look at the Seireitei and follows after the black cat leading their path. 

Just wait for me a little longer Rukia. I swear. I will come save you. 

*

Three days.

Kisuke has been training Ichigo Kurosaki for three days when Yoruichi finally comes back from where she’s taken his two young friends for their own training. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, this whole plan. 

Not their ages, though they are infants by shinigami time. Smaller people than them are made killers, as Kisuke himself well knows. He was barely taller than Jinta when he had met Yoruichi, and scarcely five years older than that when she first handed him envelope of thick, expensive paper. The parchment itself had been worth more money than he’d seen in his entire first century of after-life. The life inside of it, worth somehow more and less. 

He knew, understood intimately, how far a person could go for their friends. As far as follow them into a dark, dangerous new world. 

They don’t have a lot of options, other than to train these teenagers to the best of their abilities. He, Tessei, Yoruichi and the Visord are all banned completely from the Soul Society. Shy of destroying the defending, interdimensional barrier that binds them, there’s no way for them to go in. 

While he could, if he did then they would be faced with Yamamoto and the terrible two, Ukitake and Kyoraku, the second they stepped foot in rukongai. Even Kisuke, with his clever plans and deadly edge, can’t stand against the overwhelming power of Yamamoto’s burning blade. 

That’s not even to mention the other two captains, who are kind only when they can be. 

Kisuke had been young still, just a tetchy little first year in the academy, who hadn’t yet learned to hide completely behind his smiles, under Shihoin sponsorship the last year of the Quincy war. 

He can remember intimately, horribly, the dark look in Yoruichi’s eyes when she walked back into the Shihoin manor with the two trailing after her. It had been the first time Kisuke had ever seen the two, and the affable captain of the eighth and the gentle commander of the thirteenth were no where to be seen. 

They were commanders in a war of extermination, with shadows in the their eyes, and a hand on a blade at all times. Everything about them had been dangerous, weary dogs barely leashed to their master. Ready for the next fight, ready for the next kill. They hadn’t had the luxury of mercy then. 

If any of them are caught in Seireitei, there will be no luxury allowed from the Central 46. 

But these teenagers are young. The old guard, Yamamoto, Unohana, and Yamamoto’s first two students like to pretend that they’re no longer wolves. Kisuke is forced to bank on the idea that they will go after these children with as much mercy as they will be allowed. 

That was the plan. 

It had started as a contingency plan when Masaki and Isshin had first come to him with news of her pregnancy. A dark scheme that he wanted to discard, but he wasn’t able to. A child with the blood of a great shinigami line and a long standing quincy one. Half blooded on both sides, with the potential of a natural born hollow inside his soul. 

(Kisuke’s hands have itched for years to see this boy, to find out what he could do, where his tendencies lay. 

Then Masaki had died, and Isshin had forbidden any of them from coming near the Kurosaki house. Even Kisuke has enough respect for that.)  

The plan was a hail mary that banked on the better nature of war veterans and murderers, and Yoruichi’s ability to train and keep track of human teenagers. She’ll have more luck herding cats. 

Was . 

Now, things have changed. 

Ichigo lies a hundred yards away in a crater, his arms stretched out and his breathing even. Even asleep, he’s not let go of his sword. 

Yoruichi sits at his side, her tail curled around her front paws. 

“He really just meditated and woke up his powers?” Kisuke has to ask again. It’s the second time. Rarely does he need something repeated but this… This is a bit different. 

“Mmmm. He was in a house that wasn’t his families. It only smelled like him and the mod soul, Kon. I didn’t get to see everything, obviously. I’m not sure what he did. He said, and I quote, ‘Fucking everyone is so damn cryptic all the time’. And then, ‘a backwards ray shift’. After that he slipped into something like jinzen. His reitsu changed while he was meditating, and you know the rest.” 

Kisuke frowned deeply. “Who was being cryptic?” 

“I couldn’t tell you,” Yoruichi shakes her head. “He’s a strange kid, Kisuke.” 

“That’s putting it mildly. Have you seen him fight? I’ve never seen anyone that refined and that coarse in the same time.” 

“He doesn’t have a single particular style,” Yoruichi agreed. “But it’s clear he knows several different ones, and is at least proficient in each. Did you notice he’s ambidextrous?” 

“Mhmm. I did. Did you notice his soul looks older than his body?” 

Kisuke is reluctant to admit it, but he might have to talk to Isshin about this. 

He should be more worried. He is, his mind spinning a hundred paranoid ideas. Everything from Aizen has already gotten to Ichigo, even though he knows that’s impossible right now, to Ichigo has been replaced by a clone that Kisuke didn’t make. 

* * 

They finally lure the people out of hiding so Yoruichi can ask the leader of the village for someone named Kukaku. 

Shiba Kukaku. If Ichigo recalls, Kyo had once told him that Shiba were a strange type of royalty in the Seireitei. Not as stuck up as the rest of the noblemen, who Kyo quietly despised (he’d never been good enough at lying to hide all of his vitriol from Ichigo) they were a rowdy bunch that blew things up a lot. 

Not exactly stealthy, but Ichigo was willing to go along with whatever Yoruichi’s plan was for now. Clearly she knew what she was doing. She and Urahara, and probably Tessai and the kids, were undoubtedly from here. What happened and why they were in the world of the living was none of his business. 

They were in the middle of talking to the old man when the door burst open and a pig launched a man off of her(?) back. 

Ichigo caught him effortlessly around the middle. 

“Ah! She threw me again!” The stranger shouted, far to close to Ichigo’s ear. Ichigo set him on his feet. 

“Careful,” he advised. The man dusts his pants off and finally looks to Ichigo. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It happens all… the… time?” He stares. Ichigo can see the flip switched in his head, and suddenly he’d ducking a punch. “A punk ass shinigami!” 

“Hey. Don’t be rude,” Ichigo says with no sense of irony at all. The man is broad, strong, with a bandana over his black hair and goggles over his eyes. 

“What are you doing here?!” 

Ichigo just stared at him. This guy was so rowdy. They really didn’t have time to be dealing with him…

Of course, he got right in Ichigo’s face. He even patted his cheek patronizingly. 

“Didn’t you hear me? I asked what a punk ass shinigami like you is-” 

When Ichigo punches him he goes flying right back through the wall. 

“...huh,” Ichigo says idly. “I tried to hold back.” 

That training with Urahara must have done him more good than he first thought. 

He picks his way through the broken wall to find his attacker knocked out on the ground. 

“Oh. Well that happened.” 

He shrugs it off and goes back inside to sit beside Yoruichi in front of a bug eyed mayor while a bunch of punks riding literal hogs surround the guy Ichigo knocked out. 

“Anyhow. You were saying your friend lives somewhere around here, weren’t you?” 

“....yes. We will have to find Kukaku’s house, but I believe that she will help us.” 

“How is she going to get us into Seireitei? If the walls come down and there’s guards at the gate that cuts off the direct route.” 

“You’re not wrong.” 

Yoruichi explains that the Seireitei is surrounded on all sides by a spirit barrier. No amount of spirit energy will serve them any good. Which is irritating. If it was spells or a bounded field they could maybe find a way to wind through them or hack past the barriers, like Flat does as easy as breathing. But if it’s that secure, above and bellow, Ichigo really has no choice but to trust Yoruichi to know what she’s doing. 

He doesn’t have any better ideas, certainly. So they set off to find this Kukaku Shiba. 

The only problem is that she is, apparently, the older sister of the guy Ichigo KO’d. And that’s how Ichigo finds himself running away from a woman with one arm and a hand full of bombs. 

How is this his life? 

Yoruichi manages to smooth things over by explaining that Ganju had started everything and Ichigo had only hit him once. Then the scolding goes from Kukaku on Ichigo to Kukaku on Ganju. 

“And I thought I had weird family dynamics,” Ichigo muttered to Uryu, who’s been watching the whole ordeal like it’s a sitcom. 

“Your family dynamics are weird,” Uryu replies without missing a beat. 

Ichigo snorts, but shuts up when Kukaku turns to them. 

“Alright. Since this is Yoruichi and Urahara asking me, I can’t say no to this job. But I don’t trust you kids. So once Ganju,” Who had been dragged home by the hog riders while Ichigo’s group was looking for the house, “Wakes up, he’ll be going with you.” 

First Ichigo knocked him out, then his own sister. Ichigo is starting to pity the fool. 

Which was just great. 

“Fine,” Ichigo mentally starts changing his plans again around the new arrival. It’ll add friction. Ganju clearly hates shinigami, but if they’re going up against shinigami hopefully the common enemy will help smooth over the enmity. 

“But first, how exactly are you planning on getting us in there?” 

“Huh? I’ll show you.” 

Kukaku leads them into the bowels of the house, until they’re standing in a dark room and looking up at a round chimney that Ichigo knows extends high outside. 

“I’m going to get you in through the sky!” 

“...fuck me,” Ichigo says. “It’s a canon.” 

Please dear god let this be less terrifying than being shot into the sky on a bow. 

“That’s right! You’re looking at the number one fireworks maker, Kukaku Shiba!” 

Fuck. 

“Okay.” 

Kukaku tosses a ball his way. Ichigo turns it over in his hands, inspecting it curiously. There’s a design on it that reminds him vaguely of a phoenix and star wars. The door slides open while Ichigo is inspecting it, and Ganju steps inside. He’s got a nasty black eye. 

“Focus your energy in there,” she orders. 

Ichigo, who has spent five years pouring his mana and reiryoku into literally dozens of people, does just that. It’s as easy as breathing. A light flickers and he finds himself in a perfect sphere that glows so brightly with his energy it threatens to blind even him. Beyond the confines he can hear his friends shout. So he cuts off the pouring of power and drops the ball to the floor. 

“Was that right?” he asks. 

The dropped jaw on Kukaku’s face was enough of an answer. 

Ichigo always has been good at making impressions. 

“Yeah,” she says at last, recovering faster than Ichigo was expecting. “That’ll work. My men will take you to the training room for some more practice. If it’s not perfect by tomorrow, you’ll blow up on entry.” 

Ichigo doesn’t even blink. 

“I understand. Thanks.” 

While they’re walking away, Ichigo takes a look back just in time to see Ganju’s face twisted in unmistakable pain. 

* * * 

Tea steams across the table, twirling in the light of the overhead. The kettle sits on the counter, unplugged but still hot and ready to use. The wonders of human convenience. 

Isshin sits across from Kisuke on the low table, his eyes strangely dark, his customary smile missing. It’s frankly disturbing, and a good sign of the times. 

“So,” Isshin starts. “Why did you call? I doubt it’s a social call.” 

Indeed, his son has just left on a potential suicide mission to save a girl he barely knows on grounds of a favor that he owes. It’s such a Shiba thing to do. 

Ichigo is a frightening boy, he is his parents son, but Kisuke thinks he will surpass them both rather soon. 

“No, I'm afraid not,” Kisuke’s tone is still light, still somewhat playful. He misses Yoruichi at his side. He kind of misses the brash, unbending teenager that had been in his basement. Ichigo seems to have a talent for worming his way into people’s good graces, despite his manners.

Kisuke can’t imagine how often he gathers followers if his plan for invading seireitei was to make allies and convince them to commit treason. Ichigo doesn’t seem stupid . Perhaps just overly optimistic?   

“When did you teach your son to fight with a sword?” he asks instead, starting with the easiest question. Easier than asking ‘Isshin why the fuck does a child move like he’s lived and breathed fighting but thinks the bonds of friendship will save him?’. Or, ‘How did Ichigo do in one hour what normally takes more than ten years?’. 

“I never have. Why?” Isshin frowns. “He went to karate for years, and we spar at home, but he’s never held a weapon before.” 

“Is that so?” Kisuke cocks his head, his grey eyes narrowing minutely. Never touched a sword? No, that’s impossible. Ichigo moves with grace and holds a weapon with ease that only comes from long years of practice. 

“Why? Kisuke, what’s going on with my son?” Isshin’s voice raises. He slaps his hands on the table, only to retract them with Kisuke gives him a Look. 

Kisuke can only shake his head. “I couldn’t tell you. Your best guess is to ask him, but I know you won't do that.”

Guilt and discomfort flickers across Isshin's face. He looks down, his fists clenching in his lap. 

“The time isn't right yet.”

“The time's never going to be right,” It’s something Kisuke has wanted to say for years now.  “You'll keep putting it off until eventually, it's too late. I know you.”

Isshin's jaw sets and he narrows those dark eyes at Kisuke. Anyone else might have at least squirmed. Kisuke doesn’t so much as blink. “That's why I asked you to look out for him.”

“Have you seen your son lately, Isshin?” He hardly needs anyone to look out for him anymore. Even Kisuke has nothing to teach. All he van do right now, without jeopardizing Ichigo’s trust in him, is keep pushing Ichigo to grow stronger and stronger. 

It occurs to him, briefly, that Ichigo might learn who they are in Seireitei, but that is a bridge Kisuke will cross when they reach it. 

“Don’t talk down to me!” Isshin’s temper finally frays. The fact that it took so little is telling. Isshin is worried about Ichigo. A father who told his son none of what his life may hold is worried now for what will happen to him that life. 

Kisuke wants to laugh in his face. 

Since he doesn’t want to be punched, even by Isshin in a gigai, he snaps his fan out over his smiling mouth. 

“Then step up, Isshin. You’re children are growing. If you’re not careful, your children will leave you behind.” 

He thinks, privately, that Ichigo already has. 

Isshin is silent for a long, terrible minute. Isshin is never silent. He is loud and brash and makes an excellent ‘idiot distraction’. Too good, sometimes, if he really hasn’t noticed any of this.

Ichigo walks with purpose. With weariness. Kisuke is too familiar with the dark edges of existence not to see the way Ichigo faces windows and door, the way he watches shadows, the way his hand twitches to the right like there’s something or someone there when the air is empty. Kisuke can see the darkness in the back of brown eyes. 

Something happened, and the only time it could have occurred was over the summer. 

What happened, in this Chaldea? 

“...he asked me about Masaki,” Isshin says at last. “He asked me if she was a quincy.” 

“Did you tell him?” As if Kisuke doesn’t already know the answer. 

“No.” 

His voice is quiet. 

“He asked me in front of her grave, and I couldn’t tell him the truth. It’s already too late, Kisuke.” 

“Isshin… You really area fool.” 

Ichigo is gone now. Maybe, for Isshin, forever. 

* * * *

That night, Ichigo finds himself sitting outside in the grass, rolling stones through his fingers while lightning bugs flicker around him. 

It’s picturesque out here. Almost enough to be the paradise so many people hope for. 

It’s nothing like the long, dark corridors of Kur. It’s nothing like the dead soil and the flickering cages tended to so carefully by Ereshkigal. Ichigo aches with thoughts of what might have happened to her. Where is she, that she allowed her land to fall into such a state of poverty? When had grass started to grow? When had a King taken over the afterlife? 

He has a million questions and not a single answer. 

Ichigo rolls a rock around in his palm. In his other hand he brings up a small knife and cuts into the stone a familiar rune. One line with a single smaller one branching off downwards. 

‘Torch’. 

He knows mana won’t work here. There is no life for this land of life energy. That was how they’d defeated Tiamat, after all. 

So he must come up with something else. 

Ichigo knows, for Scathach has told him, that most mages have absolutely reiryoku to their name. Once they die they can no longer perform their precious magic, for there is no mana for them to use. 

Ichigo is blessed (or something) with an over abundance of both and a talent only for mana transference. 

It seems to him that the concept can’t be that different. 

So he focuses on the stone in his hand and calls on the energy he can feel humming around him. In the air, the grass, the earth, it makes up everything the same way mana does. He draws it into himself and tries to press into the rock in his hand.  The energy sinks in, slowly at first. It’s like trying to force syrup into a water balloon made of concrete.

 It’s not really working. 

 Some instinct hisses in the back of his mind and Ichigo sits straight up, drawing Zangetsu from where he’s sat in the grass beside him. He’s not a second too late, barely blocking a blow that comes from the shadows. 

Ichigo is on his feet in a second. 

He hasn’t survived this long by being stupid, and he’s always trusted his instincts. They’ve never let him die yet. 

They’re far enough away that if he shouts no one will reach him in time to help. Even if he was closer, when he sees the man step out of the trees he knows without a doubt; none of his friends can take this man. 

He’s tall. Silver hair and a curved smile makes him think of a snake. He almost feels like Stheno, enough that it sets Ichigo’s teeth on edge. He remembers clearly her habit of toying with those she likes, embarrassing and driving them to ruin while watching them struggle. 

“You know it’s rude to attack someone when their back is turned?” Ichigo says, tilting his blade and letting the bandages flow off and into the air. 

The mans smile stretches. 

“You have good reflexes for a kid,” he teases, his voice light. Ichigo narrows his eyes. This man is strong. Stronger than Ichigo for certain, but if he’s careful… 

“I’m not a kid. Who are you?” 

“Me? Oh, no one really. I just wanted to see who it was that came to visit today. You’re causing quite the stir, you know.” 

“Oh yeah?” Ichigo narrows his eyes. “Are you here for a fight?” 

The man considers him. He lifts a dagger up, twirling it elegantly. He drops into a hard stands, one leg behind the other, partially bent, his hand with the knife at the back. 

Ichigo gets Zangetsu up without a second to spare, blocking the blade an inch from cutting into his shoulder. It extends and retracts in the time it takes to blink. 

Joy. 

Ichigo isn’t the fastest person, and his sword is big and powerful not small and swift. They’re a bad match up. 

Oh well. 

Ichigo lifts Zangetsu and brings him back down, slicing the air and cleaving the earth. The man, a shinigami with a white coat the flutters around him, dodges to the side with a single step. Ichigo catches a glimpse of his eyes. Quicksilver, it’s gone a second later and replaced by that same smile. 

“If you’re looking for a fight, I won’t back down,” Ichigo warns. Zangetsu hums in his grasp, comforting and familiar. His blood pounds, excitement rushes under his skin. 

“You're an interesting guy,” the stranger muses, “Aren’t you afraid of me?” 

It’s all Ichigo can do not to laugh. 

Ichigo has fought gods and monsters. This is just a man. 

“No way in hell.” 

“What a strange person you are.” He puts his short sword back in it’s sheath and it disappears inside his sleeves. Ichigo doesn’t trust it for a minute. “I have what I need. Bye bye now.” 

He waves and disappears in a blur of speed that makes Ichigo’s stomach twist. If that man wanted him dead, he would probably be dead. 

Ichigo is left alone in the dark. 

With nothing else to do, he picks up his rock and tries again. 

He only gets a few more minutes of trying to fill the cement balloon before the door to the main house opens and Orihime comes walking out. She shivers at the chill in the air and looks around until her eyes find his. They’re full of concern and compassion. 

It’s for the best. Ichigo needs to talk to her anyways. 

He waves her over. 

Orihime is someone that Ichigo has known for years, but barely knows at all in the end. He knows how her brother died. 

(He was there when it happened, when they came broken bodied and hearted into the kurosaki clinic. Her hair was short and her eyes were wet and dull with grief. For Ichigo grief was already an old companion. He’d sat at her side while his dad tried to explain what was happening to a child that already knew. He wonders if she remembers. He almost hopes she does.) 

Yet, they’ve never hung out outside of school. She is Tatsuki’s friend, and Tatsuki is Ichigo’s, and so she is in the same orbit as he is but they’ve never really gone off with each other, and rarely had true conversations. 

(He keeps waiting for her to bring up Acidwire/Sora.) 

(she doesn’t) 

She kneels across from him, a bright smile in the dark of night and Ichigo is suddenly very, very glad that she’d not come a few minutes earlier. He’s not sure how well he could have protected her. 

The thought tastes like bile. 

“Kurosaki,” she smiles sweetly at him. “You’ve been out here so long. Aren’t you getting cold?” 

Ichigo tilts his head before he shakes it. 

“No, I’m fine.” 

“O-oh.” 

Orihime is unsure of herself. It seems like she always is, except when she protected them in the Dangai, and when she swore to follow him into battle. 

How does he keep finding these people? These inexplicably loyal beings, with power beyond humans, who follow him into convoluted plots and dangerous schemes? How does he keep tricking people into thinking it’s a good idea? 

Is everyone just stupid? 

“Orihime, listen.” 

She perks up, all of his attention on him. Ichigo doesn’t like saying this, but it’s something he has to. There’s no other option. 

“When we get to the Seireitei, you’re going to be out top supporter. You’re our only healer, and while Uryu and I know basic first aid, it’s different from actually fixing someone. On top of that, you’re our shield. I know you’ve got an attack, but listen. Can you use it?” 

Orihime’s brows furrow. “I can use it. I know how, I’ve been practicing with Tsubaki and Yoruichi for a long time now.” 

“I don’t mean physically,” he corrects. He wants to be gentle, but it’s just not going to work. “I mean, can you actually hurt someone?” 

She freezes. 

“I-” 

“If it comes down to you or them. If it comes down to them or me. Orihime, could you hurt someone? Could you attack with the intent of making sure they don’t get back up?” 

She clasps her hands in her lap. “I-I can-” 

“If you can’t,” he cuts in swiftly. “Say it now. When we fight we need to know you have our backs. Do you understand, Orihime? “ 

“Y-yes,” she bows her head. Her hair pins glow faintly in the darkness, distracting from the shadow cast over her eyes. 

* * * * *

Ichigo eyes the dark waters of the Mississippi warily. 

“This is insane,” he says aloud, “I’ve never seen anything this wide before.” 

He spins and points at Cu. “Don’t say a thing.” 

The caster lifts his hand, looking innocent. “I can’t say wha now?” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Stop being vulgar.” 

Kyo prods Ichigo from the side, garnering his attention. Mash sits at the front of their boat, a flat barge that pushes along valiantly. They’re halfway to the whitehouse now. Halfway to the end of the war, and Ichigo can feel the stress thrum across his skin. He doesn’t know what to do now.  The traveling. The waiting. The intermediate fighting is tiring everyone out, Ichigo included. 

It’s hard to stay on guard 24/7, with anxiety pushing them forwards as much as anything else. 

As much as supporting other people tires him out, staying on his toes constantly is a whole other type of exhausting. 

He trusts his servants to keep him from harm, but they still rely on him to support them, to give them orders, to supply them with information that they need. He stays in the back, he watches and waits, and tells them where best to place their blows. He looks for opening they can’t see from so close up. 

Kyo’s hand lands on his knee. Ichigo stops bouncing it. He hadn’t even realized hed started. 

“Kyo…?” It still feels wrong to voice his true name out loud, even though Kyo has told him a more intimate secret than just his name. 

Kyo turns his dark eyes on Ichigo. There’s a furrow in his brows. He’s just as tired as the rest of them. With the rest of the world collapsing, more and more hollow’s are being pushed into the only place left in the living world. Early on it was just weaklings, but now there are smaller, more humanoid monsters that stalk their steps, waiting to devour the dead they leave in their wake. 

A war is an all you can eat buffet for creatures made of fear, rage, and hunger. 

“Breath, Ichigo,” Kyo nudges him back against the crate they’re rested against, near the edge of t the flat barge. 

“I am breathing,” he grumbles petulantly. 

Kyo barely has enough dignity not to roll his eyes. That’s fine. Ichigo has been wearing him down for months. Kyo wears manners and politeness like armor, and Ichigo has a terrible habit of shattering things like that. 

“You know what I mean. You should reserve yourself for the final fight.” 

“I know. I’m trying.” 

Kyo hums. The moon hangs heavy and full above their heads. Ichigo knows instinctively that neither of them will really sleep, but resting his eyes is better than nothing. With Medusa on watch, no one will sneak up on them. 

It’s only a small comfort. 

A bigger comfort is the shoulder pressed against his, invisible and intangible to everyone but him. Ichigo will not admit it, but it feels sometimes like Kyo is only his. The rest of these heroes are here to save the world, and Kyo is too, but while they all have each other the two of them are the only ones privy to the world of the dead and the skull masked monsters that creep in the shadows. 

Something protective curls in his chest and Ichigo relaxes, leaning half into Kyo’s side. He watches the moon ripples across the water, unattainable and intangible.  

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

Before they set off for Seireitei the next morning Ichigo hands a backpack to each of his friends. 

‘Backpack’ isn’t the right word. It’s a sling bag that will strap across one shoulder each. Kukaku had been nice enough to provide him with them. They’ve got basic medicines, rations, a small flashlight and a bowie knife, a few other things that came in strangely useful in Ichigo’s experience. Like a roll of tinfoil, and a ball of rubber bands. 

“Once we get into the seireitei, we’re gonna make a flashy entrance. People are going to see us and they’re going to report on what we look like. As soon as we land we need to find the laundry, or the barracks, and steal uniforms.” 

He holds a hand up to keep Uryu from objecting. 

“I know you hate it. Deal with it. Orihime and I will be the most distinct. Chad and Uryu can probably change clothes, maybe hair styles and be fine. She and I will have to change hair color.” 

They won’t have time to dye their hair, and even if they did Ichigo knows they were both loath to do so. Orihime prided her hair for Sora, her brother. Ichigo was just plain stubborn. 

“There’s wigs in both of our bags,” and in Ichigos, his Chaldeas combat uniform in all its white and black glory. It will cover the rather distinct mark on his chest. He turns to their guide.

 “Yoruichi. There’s different squads, what do we need to know about them? Characteristics, duties, positions. Anything.” 

The cat has been staring at him this entire time. Ichigo doesn’t quite know what to make of it. She shakes herself out of it. 

“You’re right. Each squad has different duties and different specialities. There’s also rivalries between certain squads. Each squad has approximately 200 individuals.” 

“That’s not good,” Ichigo grimaces. “200 is small enough to be able to recognize people by face if not name.” 

“Yes, but the turnover rate for unseated officers is low enough I don’t think it will pose a problem,” Yoruichi continues. She gives them a run through of symbols and squads associated with them, before moving on, “the first division is made up of those who are able to take charge. They rank highest, besides seated officers. They will be the second worst to masquerade as. The absolute worst will be the second division, who work as covert operations. They handle wetwork.” 

“Assassins,” Ichigo understands. “And spies?” 

“Sometimes. That also falls to the Third division, which serves as a secondary source of information gathering and is in charge of media, communication, and, for lack of a better word, propaganda. Fourth division is medics and combat medics. The fifth has historically been an emergency response system, and are one of the most combat ready.” 

Ichigo nods along. Orihime would be best suited to the forth then. Chad, perhaps the fifth? 

“The sixth division runs internal affairs. Even if Rukia had not been their captain's sister, it would have been someone from the sixth sent to retrieve her. Seventh doesn’t have a particular speciality as far as I know, but they are typically sincere people. The eighths division is made up almost entirely of women, and they are the reservists and jacks of all trades. They work closely with the thirteenth. Rukia’s own division.”

“Are they mostly women as well?” 

“No. They typically do the most work outside of the soul society, sending people to the living world and protecting people from hollows. Ninth division is also combat oriented. They are entrusted with the defense of the seireitei. They count the paperwork of all high ranking officers as well. The tenth is in charge of inter squad cooperation and joint task forces. The eleventh is full of heavy hitters and combat specialists. They are one of the largest divisions, and also the one with the highest mortality rate. Twelfth is research and development. We should avoid them as well.”

Ichigo taps his fingers along his leg. “Orihime should find something from the fourth. She’s the only one who can heal, and can probably pass her abilities off as a zanpakuto if needed. None of the rest of us could be in the eighth, and the thirteenth seems too close to each other to be fooled. I don’t know enough about science for the twelve.” 

“I could probably pass, but I would rather not,” Uryu agrees. 

“That’s fine. I think it’s best if I say I’m in the eleventh. I have the sword and the fighting ability too. Chad, I think you’d be best for ninth. And Uryu, sixth. We need to avoid one through three if we can.” 

“Ichigo…” 

Ichigo looks up at Chad. “Huh?” 

“When did you start planning like this?” 

Ichigo doesn’t know how to answer that. He learned on the battlefields of france. He learned in the streets of london. He learned on the decks of the Golden Hind, the plains of america, the mountains of the middle east and the deserts of egypt. They had been weaker, they had been lesser. They had heart and desperation, but they had to fight smarter not just harder. It was the only option. He had to learn or he had to die. 

“Chaldea, I guess,” he finally says. “We need to be quick and careful. This is a rescue mission, not a war.” 

Chad looks at him for a long moment. Finally, he nods. 

“Okay.” 

They break apart and come back together around the ball that Kukaku hands them. She looks at Ichigo intently. 

“This energy needs to be balanced between all of you equally. Your power is insane. You’ll have to put barely any into it.” 

“That’ll suck,” Ichigo says bluntly. “I’m not good at holding back.” 

He runs his fingers through his hair. “No choice though. Let’s go.” 

Before they can start, Ganju grabs his wrist. Ichigo keeps himself from elbowing him in the face. 

“What?” Ichigo asks, turning to look at him. 

“Why are you going through all of this for one shinigami? Why is she so special?” Ganju asks. For once he looks absolutely serious. Ichigo stands straighter and lifts his stubborn jaw. 

“It’s because she saved my life. And my family’s lives. She gave her power to me, and because of that she’s going to die. I owe her,” he said again, “And I will repay that debt.” 

Ganju searches his face for something. Whatever he finds must satisfy him. He lets go of Ichigo, but Ichigo grabs his arm before he can get far. 

“Why are you coming along? It’s not like you have a stake in this. You’re not one of our friends. You’ve never even met any of us before this, and you clearly hate shinigami.” 

Ganju looks ready to say something, but Kukaku shoves her way between them and cuts it off. 

“Enough chit chat, let’s go already. You’re wasting daylight, idiot.” 

Ichigo can’t argue with that. They circle the sphere and Ichigo lets only the barest of his reiryoku bleed into it. 

He’s not oblivious. He knows the difference in his power and theirs is about where he and Mash had been when they’d first began. She was endowed with the power and skills of a great warrior of ages past and he was little more than an amateur mage who fought punks on the side. 

Now he’s got his own power, his own sword, and he’s been trained by the best warriors to ever walk the earth. He’d learned at the knees of literal legends. He’d faced down gods and demons and he’d lead armies. 

He had the power, he had the experience. 

It’s time to go. 

They climb into the canon, form the sphere, and the chant begins. 

Kido isn’t so different from magic. The only difference is the type of energy that’s being used. Reiryoku and mana are the opposite of two coins, the body and the soul. The living and the dead. 

Ichigo figures now he stands somewhere between the two. He doesn’t fully understand. He doesn’t need to. 

All he needs to know is how to fight and win, for the sake of his friends. 

* 

Ichigo will admit, it’s somewhat terrifying how big this goddamn continent is. They’ve been marching for what feels like forever. He knows that the northern army has been holding the celts back for at least a week. He doesn’t know how much longer they can last, and they themselves are still a good week from the white house. 

The stress of the situation was still heavy on Ichigo’s shoulders, but Kyo was a good person to carry part of it. Mash is under just as much stress as he is, but she must be made of stronger stuff than he is. 

She presses on with all the faith in the world that they will stand victorious when the dust settles. 

Ichigo has less faith, and more bullheaded refusal to accept any other outcome. 

Kyo, he can tell, doesn’t understand this. 

They stand in a field of death. Celts lay at their feet, blood drips from Ichigo’s sword and stains his cheek. His orange hair is dyed red in places. 

These are soldiers who were born only to fight. They were made to die at the behest of a wicked queen and an artificial king. They never knew childhood. They never knew joy or a future. They only knew the present, they only knew what they were made to do. 

To fight. To kill. To die. 

“This is wrong,” Ichigo says, his hands fisted at his side and his jaw set in stubborn anger. In one hand his sword weeps bloody tears into crushed flowers at his feet. A mansion sets in the background, once grand, and around them stretches the ruins of a garden. A headless cherub gushes brown water into a red basin. 

Kyo reaches down and plucks the flower from its place on the ground.  Ichigo knows well he has the heart of a poet and the mind of a scholar. 

“Orchids,” he says, showing Ichigo where the violet petals stretch through the violent stains. 

“I doubt we can get perfume from them.” The stench of rot and death hasn’t set in just yet, but it will. Ichigo would rather not stick around. 

“No, but they’re out of place here, don’t you think?” He must see the scowl on Ichigo’s face, for he goes on without prompting. “Orchids are a spring flower. One of the four gentlemen. They’re a rather old concept in art.” 

“Old for you must mean ancient for us,” Ichigo tries to turn the subject, but Kyo merely shrugs. 

“You humans live short, scared lives. And we, long and terrible ones. It’s the way things are…” 

It’s there again. The look in Kyo’s eyes. The one he’d had when he was first telling Ichigo about Rukongai and seireitei, and the empty throne that sits atop the world. There’s a longing for change, Kyo is too stubborn and ambitious not to have it, but there’s something else holding him back. 

Ichigo scowls and closes the distance between them in a single stride. 

“You just sound defeatist. So it’s hard, so you’ll have to fight. So you just give up? Are you going to give in to the status quo when you return to Soul Society?” Ichigo demands. He grasps Kyo by the front of his shihakusho and drags him so close that their noses almost touch. Brown eyes meet brown, one set wide and the other narrowed. “Half the fight is always mental. If you talk like that, you’ll never win, and nothing will never change!” 

Ichigo bites out his hardest truth. “A victor should talk about how the world should be. Not how the world is.” 

Kyo opens and closes his mouth, gaping like a fish. Ichigo has never seen the man so wrong footed before. Even when Ichigo had shoved part of his soul into Kyo’s body, there hadn’t been time for him to be so stunned. 

Now he gets to see those brown eyes shift. From shock to understanding to a near burning determination that his calm demeanor barely betray’s. 

Ichigo is getting good at reading him. 

He can see the blossoming dream inside his heart. Soon time will erase everything, but maybe, just maybe, some things will remain. Impressions, hopes. Dreams. 

Kyo lifts the orchid up between them, purple and red in equal turns, and incinerates it with only a whispered spell. 

* * 

They’re forced to split apart upon entry. 

It’s not ideal, nothing about the situation is. All the same, Ichigo deals with it. 

He finds himself spat out into a street with no name and no distinction with Ganju, who lands in a pile of sand while Ichigo himself land catlike on his feet. Yoruichi still sits on his shoulder, steady and growing familiar. She isn’t Fou, but the presence is welcome all the same. 

It takes all of ten minutes for someone to find them. 

Typical. 

Ichigo glances at Yoruichi on his shoulder. “Are you staying, or do you wanna step to the side?” 

Yoruichi considers him with those wide golden eyes of hers. He always feels like she’s looking more than skin deep. 

“I’ll be off to the side. Don’t get into too much trouble.” 

“Give me some credit,” Ichigo rolls his eyes and bends down enough that Yoruichi can hop to the ground comfortably. 

He tilts his head at Ganju. “Hey. I’ll take the stronger one. Do what you want with pretty boy.” 

“Oh?” one of the opposing shinigami smiles and flutters his weird feather eyelashes at him. “You really think I’m pretty?” 

It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Ichigo grimaced at him. “You look like you spend twenty minutes in front of a mirror every morning. If you don’t exfoliate, I’m a hollow.” 

“Well, Yumichika, looks like this guy has got you pegged!” the other one, a blond man who has his sword propped on a shoulder, grins at Ichigo. There’s red around the corners of his eyes. Make up? Tattoos? 

“I’m not pegging anyone, thanks,” Ichigo says dryly. 

The three dead people stare at him blankly. 

“Huh?” pretty boy, Yumichika, asks. 

Ichigo shook his head swiftly. “I’m not explaining that.” At least Yoruichi snorted at him. 

“Well, doesn’t matter. All I need to know is that today…” the bald man started bouncing around on his toes with his sword out in front of him. Dancing? “I’m lucky! Lucky, it’s my lucky day!” 

“Ichigo!” Ganju hisses, grabbing his shoulder. “I’m not fighting these guys, they’re way too strong! I’m gonna run.” 

“What? No. If you run we might get split up! That’s a terrible plan, just hold him off until I finish my fight.” 

“Hah?” Ganju scowls at him. “Since when are you the boss?!” 

“Since I knocked your ass flat on the ground, that’s when!” 

“I don’t care what you say,” Ganju scrambles out of the sand box he made. “I’m outta here!” 

Ichigo watches him go sprinting before he looks to Yoruichi. “Oi. Keep an eye on him, would you?” 

Yoruichi gives a long suffering sigh. “I suppose I must. He is Kukaku’s brother, after all.” 

Without another word the cat trots off at Ganju’s heels, keeping pace easily. 

Ichigo is left with the two locals. 

“...Did that cat just… talk?” Yumichika points after the runaway, his perfectly trimmed brows furrowed. 

“Ee-yup.” 

“Yumichika,” the bald one nods to his companion, who grunts in response and takes off after Ganju. Ichigo has no choice but to let him go and trust Ganju to handle himself. He doesn’t know if he can take the both of these guys at once. They’re clearly close. He’s sure they’re a terribly effective tag team too, and he really doesn’t have time for this. 

“Your friend. He could tell we’re stronger, and he ran. You would have been smart to do the same,” the bald man says, eying Ichigo speculatively. 

Ichigo merely shrugs. It’s not in his nature to back down from a fight. It never has been, and now it is even less. 

“I figure, if you are stronger you’ll catch up,” They aren’t, he can see clearly.  “I’ll have to fight you either way. Besides, if you’re not then I’ll just kick your ass now and move on.” 

He shifts himself, draws his sword and bares his teeth. 

The man laughs, sounding far too delighted. This is someone who revels in combat. 

“That’s a pretty good reason,” he praises, drawing his sword from his scabbard. Ichigo blocks the blow that comes, and ducks the swipe of his sheath. Ichigo bounces back and comes against him again, a whirl of blade. He twists out of the way of another blow and smashes his elbow above the man's eye, splitting his brow. He barely moves back from the blade that slices through his own. Blood drips into his left eye, a mirror of the damage he’s inflicted. They separate. 

It’s the bald man, his opponent, who brings them to a pause. The air isn’t as heavy as he would expect. This man may want him dead, but Ichigo can tell; he’s fighting for the fun of it. 

(Ichigo loathes to admit it, but he is too. Rukia is going to die, Ganju is being chased by someone dangerous, and Ichigo is here having fun )

(It makes him sick to realize that the life of one person weighs less heavily than all of human history. 

Rukia is his friend, how can he think such a thing?)  

“That was good. You’ve got good reflexes. You’re stong. What’s your name?” 

Ichigo doesn’t see a reason to pretend to be anyone he’s not. 

“Ichigo,” he says easily. “And you are?” 

“Ikkaku Madarame. Third seat of squad eleven. Ichigo huh? That’s a good name.” 

“You think so?” Ichigo arches a brow, privately waiting for him to say something about strawberries. 

“Yeah. They say guys with ‘ichi’ in their names are strong and forthright. So…” 

He lifted his sword again, his scabbard in a reverse grip behind him and grins like mad. “What say we be friends, Ichi?” 

Ichigo wishes Urahara were here, if only so he could crow an ‘i told you so’. 

Ichigo levels his sword and can’t help the curve of his mouth. “Fine. But only if I win. If I lose. I figure I’ll be dead.” 

“Deal!” 

They come together again. 

“You seem young,” says the chatterbox, Ikaku. “But you’ve adapted to my fighting style well.” 

Well? What can he say, he’s met a lot of dual wielders. EMIYA, other EMIYA, Diarmuid saber, Diarmuid lancer, Scathach, Jack the Ripper, and more. He’s fought with them, trained under them. His hand still itches to hold a sword that isn’t there. 

He settles it on his hilt instead. 

“Who taught you to fight?” Ikaku asks. He wipes away the blood on his brow with an ointment. Ichigo makes mental note of it. For now he settles on keeping one eye closed, and waits for Ikaku to try to take advantage of his ‘weakness’. 

“Who’s to say? I pick up what I can from everyone I know,” he says truthfully. “Are we gonna talk or fight?” 

“Fight, obviously! Now,” he slams his sword and scabbard together. “Extend! Hozukimaru!” 

Huh. A duel wielder and a lancer all in one. What an interesting person. 

It doesn’t matter. Ichigo crosses the ground between them. He pours his power into his blade, until it shines pale white and blue. Ikkaku brings his halberd up to block, but Ichigo cuts through it like butter. 

Zangetsu slices through Hozukimari like it’s not made of wood and steel and soul. 

Zangetsu carves through Ikkaku’s chest and stomach. It’s not deep enough to kill, but the blood flows heavily. Ichigo finishes it with a hard elbow to his jaw, and Ikkaku falls to the ground. 

Zangetsu returns to his resting place on Ichigo’s back and Ichigo gets to work. He has no intention of killing if he can help it. In this case, he can. 

He uses part of Ikkaku’s own balm and his first aid kit, one of the things he’d packed in his bag, to seal the injuries. Ichigo hasn’t got time to wait around for Ikkaku to wake up, but this is a good chance for him to get information. 

So he sits and changes his hair color, and watches the clouds roll by while Yoruichi plays cat and mouse with the pretty boy. 

* * * 

The whitehouse is a twisted vision. 

Ichigo has seen pictures of his classmates on vacation in front of it, and pictures online or in books. He knows, at least vaguely, what it’s supposed to look like. It’s not supposed to be a twisted desecration of red thorns eating away at pale stone dragons.  

Ichigo eyes one of the macabre statues, wrapped in thick, strangling vines made of the same blood red bane that Gae Bolg is. So many thorns. Scathach had called them unbearable. Ichigo is caught somewhere between pity and anger at the berserker that’s caused so much pain and suffering. He was born for this, created from a wish and twisted by Medb’s black heart. 

A pitiful creature to be sure. Ichigo knew Cu Chulainn well. He was a creature of duty and loyalty, of compassion and determination. Once he decided he wanted to protect someone that was the end of it. He would battle an entire army on his own, suffer uncountable pains, and still die with his pride intact. He had. 

Ichigo doesn’t miss the way his own Caster eying the thorns, his red eyes dark. If Ichigo remembered right, he had died at the point of his own spear during Medb’s quest for vengeance against him. 

Ichigo bumps his shoulder with him and gives him a questioning look. 

“ ‘m fine,” he assured, touching Ichigo’s shoulder. “I sworn m’self to you, Master. Have faith in me.” 

“Will my loyal dog not use my name?” Ichigo rolls his eyes. He still manages to get a cracked smile from the druid. Caster lifts his staff and settles his shoulders. 

“After you.” 

Ichigo leads the way inside. 

It’s just them again. His core servants, and now Florence Nightingale. For a medic, she’s one of the scariest berserkers he’s ever seen. He’s not sure even heracles would win a fair fight with her when she’s determined to save someone. 

Indeed, when they finally step into the interior, where Cu Alter and Medb are waiting for them, she wastes no time explaining that she’s going to cure them. 

Although, Ichigo has never heard someone say that the best course of treatment would be suicide . 

He privately agreed with the king of savages. Nightingale is crazy. 

That doesn’t mean she’s not wrong. Ichigo can see it plainly. Cu Alter, the king that Medb created, really has had his joy sealed away by his duty to destroy. There’s no pleasure in the fight for him, and for a warrior such as he it must be equal agony to the red thorns that pierce his hide. 

Ichigo shift, Kyo at his side, while his band steps forwards in formation. Mash and Rama take the front, a strong defense and a strong offense that can switch easily to long range at a dimes turn. Cu Cullainn and Nightingale bring up the rear, supporting them with runes and healing spells, while Medusa stays staunchly at Ichigo’s side. 

Her hair floats around her, a hissing halo that rattles with chains. Her scythe has manifested in her hands. 

Ichigo lifts his right fist, the command spells burning in his skin. He only has two left, and three spells in his combat uniform. This will be their final fight. They have to win. They have to. 

If they lose, they lose the world. Everyone’s suffering and sacrifice will be wasted. Yuzu and Karin, and even his dad will be lost forever. His mother will have never even been born. 

“Go!” He shouts, his voice cracking through the air. 

Rama aims at Medb while Mash tries to keep Cu Alter at bay. Ichigo’s Caster uses the distraction to start weaving runes into deadly traps, while Nightingale reverses the worse of the damage as she’s able. 

It’s going well. They’re this close to overwhelming the duo when Medb does something that Ichigo will never be able to forgive. 

She summons 28 demon god pillars to the northern army. 

Cu Caster get’s in the final shot. 

Gae Bolg still does not kill the wicked Queen of Connacht, but it’s master does deliver the last blow that sends her glittering into dust on the wind. 

That one instant of victory, however, is all Alter needs. 

Gae Bolg leaves his hands. 

Ichigo knows the details of the Noble Phantasm. A spear that affects probably, and turns ‘trusting the spear’ into ‘piercing the heart’. Once it’s active, there is no dodging it. There is no blocking it with anything shy of a realty marble. 

It does not pierce Rama again. Nor does is strike down Mash, or Nightingale, or Meduse, or even their own Cu Chulainn. 

Ichigo chokes. 

He doesn’t feel it, not really. But he sees it. He sees the red jutting out of his chest. The hole that has pierced through his heart. ]

He chokes. Blood drips from his lips, down onto the spear. Brambles crawl beneath his skin, spreading the hole until black gapes within the red. Blood pours down his chest, staining the white of his shirt. 

Ichigo chokes. Black bleeds into his vision from all sides and his mouth tastes like blood and chalk and void dust. 

White drips down his lips. 

Darkness consumes him. 

* * * *

“Alright,” Ichigo tugs his wig in place one more time, double checking that there’s no orange hair poking out to give him away. Ganju is next to him, tying the shihakusho in place with a grimace over his face. 

“I hate this,” he grumbles. He secures his sword back in place. His armor is barely hidden under the sleeves of his new uniform. 

“You didn’t have to come with us,” Ichigo pointed out. 

Ganju scowled at him. “Yes I did.” 

“Your sister didn’t tell you to-”

“It’s not about my sister!” Ganju snaps. Ichigo shuts his mouth at the look in his eyes. Burning with anger and grief. 

“It’s about… my brother,” Ganju’s hands were shaking. “He was killed in cold blood by a shinigami. He was a genius, a lieutenant, and a good man. But he was betrayed and killed by his partner. I was young… So I don’t know everything. But I will never forget that shinigami’s cold eyes, when she dragged my dying brother back to our home. Or the way he thanked her for it. I’ve never understood. But you.” 

Ganju grabs him by the front of his shirt. “You’re different from other shinigami. So I followed you here, so I could understand. Why he loved the shinigami until he died. I want to see for myself what shinigami are like!” 

Ichigo meets Ganju’s eyes squarely. “I’m not a real shinigami, so I can’t and won’t speak for them. I’ll let you see for yourself, Ganju. Just as long as you watch my back.” 

Ganju gives him a short, single nod. 

Yoruichi, who has spent the entire time standing in the corner while they ready themselves, flickers her tail and stands. 

“We should get going. The longer this takes, the more danger we will be in. Everyone will be on high alert, and while this can help us blend in in the confusion, we still need to stay on our toes.” 

Ichigo nods sharply. 

They duck out of the barracks they’d stolen into and start down the pathway. Ikkaku had told him Rukia was in a white tower, and they could see it from here. The problem was that none of them knew the way to get to the white tower. They’re just wandering around blindly. 

 There’s nothing for it. 

They walk on. 

Ichigo looks around as they go. Some of the walls carry Lily of the Valley on them, stamped in careful black ink. 

“Mary’s tears,” Ichigo muses, mostly to himself.

“Huh? No, they’re plants,” Ganju argues, looking at Ichigo like he’s just lost his mind. 

Ichigo scowls at him. “I know that. They’re Lily of the Valley, but some people call them Mary’s Tears. There’s an old legend in the west in the living world that they grew from the tears Mary cried when her son was crucified.  They’re a sign that their messiah is coming back.” 

“That’s very interesting,” comes a smooth (terribly, awfully,) familiar voice from behind them. 

Ichigo feels his heart tighten. He turns. 

Kyo stands behind them. Brown hair, brown eyes. He’s older now. His face is more angular, the last of his puppy fat has melted off his face, and he’s finally taller than Ichigo. His smile is polite and geniel. Ichigo is almost fooled. He can still see the sharp intellect behind them. 

A white haori hangs off his shoulders. Kyo has been made a captain. 

It’s all Ichigo can do not to reach for him and hiss out the truth. 

But this isn’t the place. He cocks his head and frowns. 

“I’m friends with Jeanne d’arc,” he says straight faced. Ganju at his side has gone tense and still. Ichigo elbows him. They’re more than a little suspicious out here like this. Two men and a cat. 

Except, Yoruichi is now gone. 

Two men and no cat. 

“Is that so?” Kyo looks faintly amused, even as he assesses them sharply. It’s barely hidden in his deep eyes. Ichigo knows him well enough to see it, and to see something unexpected. A faint recognition. “It’s rare for someone in the eleventh division to be so knowledgeable.” 

“How did you know…?” Ichigo is not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Kyo does not speak his name, he does not broach any subjects. It stings far worse than Ichigo had ever imagined. Hadn’t Nero felt something familiar about them too? But she hadn’t remembred them, and neither does Kyo. 

“You were with third seat Madarame after he lost the fight with the Ryoka, weren’t you? The eleventh rarely tolerate people who aren’t in their own squad.” He had waited at Ikkaku’s side for field medics, with his own choppy work keeping the barely conscious man stable. It shouldn’t be a shock that someone saw them and spread the word. But how did Kyo recognize him from just that? 

“Oh, right,” Ichigo says like that makes sense. In his mind he’s screaming. 

Kyo, kyo! Don’t you see me? Do you remember? We’re friends, we’re friends! We fought in america, we travelled the continent, look at me goddamn it. I know the name of your sword, I know where you were born. Kyo- 

“Excuse us,” Ganju grabs Ichigo by the back of the neck and forces him into a sharp bow. “We need to get going. Invasion and all that.” 

“Yes, of course,” Kyo says smoothly. He gestures behind him. “I won’t keep you. We all must do our best to protect Seireitei.” 

“Right…” Ichigo barely keeps his hands to himself. 

He’d promised. He promised . 

His mouth opens to say something, to beg time between only them, to send Ganju away if he must. But down the street comes a pack of blood hungry shinigami, looking for a piece of the invaders, and Ichigo has no choice but to let Ganju drag him away by the collar of his shihakusho. 

A woman with a badge on her arm appears at Kyo’s side as they’re being pulled away, her brown eyes wide and curious. Kyo draws her attention away and that’s the last Ichigo sees of him. It drives him insane. 

* * * * *

He comes in the dark. 

Silver hair and a white haori, he manages to go utterly unseen by all. It’s a skill even Sosuke Aizen has trouble mastering without the aid of his illusions. Gin’s footsteps are light, barely a whisper against the hardwood of the office building. Even the omniskido would be hard pressed to beat his skill with sneaking around. 

It’s one of the things that Aizen prizes him for. The other being his unfailing loyalty and his willingness to do whatever he was told, with or without answered questions. 

These things include going out to spy on the young would-be Ryoka. Everything is happening exactly as he’s expected. They’ve even brought the Shihoin heiress back to Soul Society with them. How useful. 

“Well?” he asks, without further prompting. Most of his attention is still on one of the monitors in front of him that details the boy sitting outside the Shiba house. A camera fly can only get so close with Shihoin around, so he must settle for watching the human stare at stones in his hand like they’ve personally offended him. 

The boy must be mad, to come with such a small group, but this is a while different type of crazy. Sosuke is fairly certain he’d seen the human-shinigami- possible -hollow speak to the rocks. 

“He’s got good reflexes,” Gin says, peering over Sosuke’s shoulder. His presence is familiar and not unwelcome. Few get so close, even when Sosuke pretends to be gentle and kind. He keeps them all at arms length, the brown nosers and sycophants. 

“I saw that much. You know that’s not what I’m asking.” 

Gin smiles widely at him and lifts, from out of his pocket, the innocuous looking marble. It swirls with blacks and blue’s and glows faintly it’s own ethereal light. A faint red in the center bleeds purple into the blue. Incomplete as it is, it still reacts to interesting things and people. 

Gin drops it in his hand. It’s warm to the touch, nearly burning. He’s never seen the red in the center flicker so bright before, like a tiny ball of fire in the very center. There’s something not quite right about this intruder. Ichigo Kurosaki. Sosuke has known him for many years, even if he’s never gotten close enough to see the boy in person. That would involve getting far to close to Urahara and Shihoin, and if he is honest even Sosuke is not foolish enough to go up against legendary assassins in their own home field. 

“It tried to burn a hole in my pocket when I got within fifty feet,” Gin reports succinctly. “What does that mean?” 

Sosuke has no idea what that means. But one of his rules of his own behavior is that he never admits to not knowing something. So rather than say as much to Gin, he offers him his own faint smile, the kind that puts other people at ease but sets his most faithful companion on edge. 

“You’ll see soon enough,” he says instead. “Now. Are you ready to be the bad guy, Ichimaru?” 

Gin’s smile, snakelike and cold, only grows. His eyes curve upwards. 

“What other kinda guy would I be for you?” 

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

Everything goes haywire, as Ichigo's plans usually go. No plan survives the first blows of battle, but the best warriors are those who adapt. 

Still, he didn’t expect Renji to recognize him off the bat and sound the alarm. 

The first person to respond is a captain. 

Or maybe some kind of wannabe porcupine. Ichigo hasn’t decided yet. 

They don’t tag team (lucky for Ichigo, stupid for them), and the end result it Ichigo takes down a lieutenant and a captain in quick succession, with brutal blows and quick footwork. 

(Mordred had taught him a thing or two, about fighting against almost-berserkers and countering raw power. 

How proud Mo would be, to see Ichigo has his own steadily-increasing abilities now) 

Ichigo gets away with a long gash going down his arm and not much else.

It’s really Kenpachi’s fault. He offered Ichigo a free first shot and Zangetsu had rent his flesh and bone beneath Ichigo’s unyielding will.

After that  the rest of the cronies showed up, lead by another lieutenant, and Ichigo ends that fight just as fast. The lieutenant, a blond man with a solemn face, hits the ground before he even gets to unleash his sword. Ichigo is starting to think it’s best to blitz high ranked shinigami before they can use their zanpakuto. It’s the same strategy he’d used in wars. Hit opposing servants before they could use their noble phantasm. They all took at least a few minutes to charge and recover between strikes. 

If he can stop them from even using them, it’ll be easier than trying to figure out what each ability is and how to counter them. 

Ichigo sits off to the side while Hanataro, a little medic who had been at the back of the group of enemies, tends to the two bleeding figures on the ground. 

They’re more pressing than he is, and Ichigo is perfectly capable of stitching his own arm up. 

He’s aware of Ganju staring at him, while he chats ideally with fretting little girl with bright pink hair. 

She feels like Kenpachi does. Exactly like him, actually, a playful animal with the most lethal of teeth. A predator that sits at his side, shadowed and dangerous and grinning. 

Ichigo tries not to think of the chaos that would unfold if Yachiru had been in Chaldeas when the other kids started pouring in. Jack, Alice, and the Lily’s. 

Finally, Ganju speaks. 

“Ichigo… just who are you?” 

Ichigo glances up from his work. “Huh?” 

“I don’t get it. You say you’re not a shinigami, but you’ve taken down three of their highest ranked officers with barely a scratch. I could barely stand in the presence of that man, but you didn’t even blink! You switch plans on the fly. I watched you fight and it was like you changed who you were between one and the other. And now you’re stitching yourself without even flinching. Just who are you?!” 

Ichigo paused, eying Ganju speculatively. Yoruichi, too, looks interested. 

“Ichigo,” she intones, “You called me a ‘familiar’. Were you referring to the animals that partner with human magicians?” 

It’s possible that he’s gotten too used to playing it close to the chest, if he’s still hesitating to explain himself. They’re in the land of the dead. They’ve fallen from the sky. What judgement can they render him? 

“... yeah,” he says at last. “I’m not very good at it, but I’m a mage. I’m a combat mage for the Chaldea Security Organization.” 

Ichigo grimaces. 

“Or, I was.” 

“Was?” Yoruichi steps lightly towards him. 

“Yeah. There was an accident at Chaldea. Sabotage, actually. It blew up. A lot of people died.” 

He’d been helpless, helpless, helpless . 

“I started training. I learned how to fight better than before. Chaldea has a magic that makes time pass differently,” he doesn’t say it lets them yeet their soul thousands of years in the past. That’s a little far even for shinigami. “I left when I was fifteen. I was gone for a few weeks. I came back three years later, for me at least. I’m eighteen now.” 

Eighteen and the survivor of nearly a dozen wars. 

Eighteen and the last of his team. 

Final Master of Humanity, Light in the Darkness, Master of FATE, Archduke of the Roman Empire, Savior, Guardian of the Future. 

He is all of these things. 

He is Ichigo Kurosaki, he is eighteen years old and he has seen four thousand years. He will save Rukia. No matter what. 

He goes back to stitching up his arm. 

 Ichigo wishes it was not Yoruichi and Ganju that he’s confessed to. He wishes it was Kyo. His promise(s) sit heavy in his chest. 

He cannot die yet. He had promises to keep. 

He must find Kyo. He had promises to keep. 

Once more, he tastes the bile of indecision and helplessness. 

For all his power that he now has, he is so limited by where he is and what he’s doing. He want to rush in. He has the power to cut down those in his way. But his friends have come with him and for their sake he must be a leader, he must be a Master without command seals in his hand. He cannot be reckless with their lives in his hands. They are weaker than he, they are his responsibility. He can’t expect them to keep up and adapt to his crazy plans the way his servants did. 

As soon as Rukia is rescued, he tells himself, he will find Kyo. He will find a way to convince him of his crazy story and make him understand everything that’s happened. He’ll tell him everything they didn’t have time to discuss in america, and apologize for the damage he’s surely done to his home with this rescue mission. If Ichigo had managed to get him alone, maybe he would have been able to get Kyo to help him even. He knows he has little love  for this place.

(So why is he a captain?) 

Hanataro comes to check his stitches, even though he looks dead on his feet. Yachiru takes Kenpachi away, carrying him like he weighs nothing at all. 

* 

Ichigo is starting to see an annoying trend. One where he wakes up feeling like he’s been hit by a bus, rolled over on his face, and trampled by a freight train on steroids. 

Ichigo stares at what remains of the ceiling of the whitehouse. His chest aches and his head hurts, and there’s someone holding his hand so tightly he thinks it might break. 

Ichigo turns his head enough to see Kyo at his side. His brown hair is blown back, limp strands falling across his sharp cheeks. Behind him, back facing Ichigo, was Medusa. Her clothes were torn and her hair lashed out and spit venom with a vengeance. 

“What?” his voice warped and reverberated. Ichigo’s brows furrowed and he cleared his throat until he spat out a glob of white and red. Kyo pulls him until he’s sitting up and he shakes his head. Something white falls from his hair and disappears around his shoulders. 

“What the fuck happened?” He asks, looking around. There’s a demon god pillar, white and red, with a gaping hole blown straight through one side of it. It leans sideways like a tree ready to topple. Who had done that? Which of his servants was so capable? 

“You were stabbed through,” Kyo says, his voice strained and his skin pale. “Your magic went haywire and-” 

“Scathach returned,” Cu Chulainn cuts in sharply. He gives Kyo a hard look that Ichigo has never seen on his laid back servant's face while he kneels at his other side. “She didn’t die, she only retreated to the Shadow Lands to recover her strength. When the other me used Gae Bolg on you, she managed some type of magic to stop the damage.” Cu taps his chest and Ichigo looks down. His shirt hangs around his hips and arms in shreds of white. In the center of his chest is a perfect red circle, right above his heart. 

He actually touches his throat to double check that his heart was beating. He should be dead. Gae Bolg is all but a one shot kill attack. What had Scathach done to keep him from dying? 

“She came back? Where is she? Was she the one that damaged the god pillar?.., wait, where’s the berserker?!” Ichigo’s head swings around, but the other Cu Chulainn is nowhere to be seen. 

“We were winning,” his Caster says, “So he offered himself to the grail for Medb’s wish and became a demon god pillar.” 

“Oh,” Ichigo stands with a grunt. “Fuck.” 

Another look at the God Pillar reveals that the gaping hole has done plenty of damage. He’s almost eighty percent dead by now. It’ll only take a couple more attacks before it falls and they win. He can see the glimmer of the holy grail deep inside its body. 

“She said something before she left again,” Kyo adds hastily. Ichigo doesn’t know what’s shaken him so badly, but there’s a gleam of curiosity that borders on manic in his eyes. Ichigo would be worried, if he trusted Kyo less. 

“What did she say?” Ichigo asks. The demon rumbles, preparing for attack. Medusa, who is bleeding badly from one shoulder, stands firm with Mash at her side. Rama lay’s on his side several feet away, breathing but bloody, and Nightingale is unconscious but not dead nearer by. Ichigo realizes that Cu’s right arm is pressed close to his chest, clearly broken. What the hell had happened? 

“In regards to your heart,” he taps Ichigo’s chest, raising a hiss from him. It’s sensitive, like new flesh beneath peeled skin. “If the day comes that it gives you issue, she said this;  

Sand and towers, glass and stone. The lady waits for him alone. Ebon glass in emerald frame, cracked white lily speak her name. Blood red bane in dragon's stone. The bone crown waits for him alone.”

Ichigo looks between Kyo and Cu. 

“What, and I cannot emphisize this enough, the fuck does that mean?!”

“It’s a way to find her,” Cu says shortly. Once more, he gives Kyo a sharp look. There’s something more going on, but Ichigo can’t focus on that right now. There’s a secret they don’t have time to unravel. Cu wouldn’t endanger him willingly. So he stands, throwing an arm around Kyo’s shoulders for support, and turns hard eyes to the pillar of power, all white and red crystalline destruction. 

“Medusa!” he calls, “Are you okay?” With Nightingale down they don’t have a healer, and Ichigo’s mystic code has been shredded. He can’t heal either. 

“I’m fine,” she says shortly, her voice the rattle of chains. “This is just the price I pay for failing my duty.” 

“Your duty?” Ichigo frowns. 

“I was supposed to protect you. I failed, and now we’re here. I paid for it.” 

Ichigo’s frown grows into a scowl. “Don’t you start that shit!” 

“Can we argue later?” Mash calls, gripping her shield tightly. “We’re in the middle of a fight.” 

Ichigo can’t argue with that. He nods grimly. This is it. “Let’s go.”

* *

Ichigo eyes the door to the senzaikyu curiously. Hanataro has come with them, and he has the key. They haven’t had time to really work it all out, why he wants so badly to help them save her, but Ichigo is not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Very rarely have Ichigo’s instincts lead him wrong, and they tell him Hanataro is help that they will need. 

More than that, though, is the feeling of cool petals brushing at the back of his mind. Ichigo breathes in the scent of blossoms and ink,  and tastes a trace of banked fire beneath it. 

“Ganju. Hanataro. We’re about to have company. You guys go ahead inside. Get Rukia for me.” 

He doesn’t know how this is going to go, exactly, but he tastes someone new on the air. 

They taste like a tempest on the horizon, like the storms at sea just before they crashed, when the water was still clear at blue and the Golden Hind cut surely through the waves. 

Ichigo pulls his wig off and stuffs it into his bag. It would be bad for it to fly off in the middle of a fight, and he’s loathe to let go of his disguise. Even if it doesn’t work that well.

It’s Byakuya who makes the top of the stairs first. Of course it is. 

Ichigo grips his Zanpakuto tighter. Zangetsu hums a deep note in his hands, sure and steady. Ichigo is smart enough to be weary. Byakuya beat him once before. He can’t afford to lose to him again. Especially now that he hasn’t got Rukia’s ice to freeze the bladed petals in place. 

She was coldness and ice and fierce, stinging power. He was brute force, soaring power,  and stubborn, unbending will. 

Ichigo readies his sword. He can hear shouting from inside the senzaikyu. He has no clue what Hanataro and Ganju are doing, he hopes Hanataro hasn’t betrayed them, but he must focus on the task at hand now. 

“Byakuya.” There’s nothing but venom in his voice. Ichigo doesn’t hate easily, but Rukia is this mans sister and that he would just let her die makes him sick to his stomach. He rages inside his soul, power cutting along the blade of Zangetsu. 

“Ichigo Kurosaki,” Byakuya looks at him with nothing short of the most mild contempt. It drives Ichigo up a wall. 

He darts in and swings, hard, aiming to cut Byakuya in two if he has to. Zangetsu sings when he clashes with Byakuya’s sword. The contact sharpens every sense Ichigo has about him. Their power were to different for him to notice before, but now he can hear the hiss of a fiery inclination, tempered behind steel bars. 

Byakuya it forced to skid back several steps. 

Ichigo grins when he catches sight of the slightest widening of his slate grey eyes. 

“Ichigo!” 

He barely dares glance behind him. 

There’s Rukia, in all her glory. Dressed no longer in her shihakusho, but a plain white kimono. Ichigo can barely feel the soft brush of snow on his skin. It seems to evaporate as soon as it touches his cheeks. 

Rukia meets his eyes and her knees give out. 

“Rukia!” Ichigo shouts, horrified. 

He barely cares that Byakuya uses his distraction to throw him back. He takes the inertia and uses it to skid back, to Hanataro and Ganju’s side. Ganju feels more tumultuous than usual, and Hanataro is still and small, a shadow to the side. 

It’s not them he cares about. 

“Rukia?!” He repeats, kneeling at her side. What-? 

“I was-” her voice is rough and breathless, “I was in the sekiseki stone for too long. My powers are too weak.” 

Too weak? She’s being crushed beneath just their aura? 

Like Ganju and Kenpachi. 

Fuck. 

Ichigo looks at her, helpless. This is not the same strong, stubborn girl he’d grown used to. This is not the girl who lent him her sword, pale white and shining with it’s graceful ribbon. 

Wait… 

 “They’re the essence or the soul of my staff. They work a bit like command seals.”

Merlin’s voice echoes in his head. 

Ichigo reaches out and grasps the thick wrapping that hangs from Zangetu’s hilt. Like command seals, a manifestation of miracles that bind master and servant. Ichigo poured his energy into the ribbon until it bled a dark red. He bit the edge and tore the red section off. It stung, like ripping off a slice of his own skin. 

Ichigo wrapped it around her wrist, and let the age old, familiar feeling of having his power drawn from his body take over. He pushed it into her, using the ribbon as a medium. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Byakuya, faster than Ichigo can blink, is upon them. Sword drawn, Ichigo barely blocks the deadly slice in the air. Even as he holds Byakuya at bay he can feel the draining of his Reiryoku. Admittedly, he barely feels it even while he pushes it into Rukia’s body. It’s nothing like the weight of a goddess’ Noble Phantasm. He’d nearly died in Babylon, not because of laymu or giant axes being thrown through the sky, but because he’d helped a goddess drag stars from the sky to shoot down their enemies. 

Rukia gasps, loudly. There’s a flash of light and the blow of red and white energy pops with smoke. It brushes gently, cold against Ichigo’s skin. 

Byakuya’s eyes widen in shock. Ichigo uses his distraction to thrust their blades and hit him with a roundhouse kick. 

Byakuya is forced backwards. He keeps going, until he’s a fair distance away, and raises his sword. The scent of sakura blossoms and steel grows stronger. 

“What’s he gonna do from way back there?” Ganju mutters, but Ichigo already knows. From her expression, so does Rukia. Her white Kimono is gone, but the black shihakusho hasn’t reformed. Instead she’s in a different kimono, still white but this one with a high collar and wide sleeves. There’s a pale green obi around her (far too skinny) middle, and frost has settled across the crown of her dark hair. In her hands, her sword shakes. 

“Rukia,” Ichigo says slowly. “I know you didn’t ask me to save you. I know you told me not to. But I’m here. And I can’t save you, and I can’t beat him, unless you help me. I’ll give you all the power you need, but you’re the only one who can stop his zanpakuto. Okay?” 

He expects a fight. He expects her to smack him in the head and shout. 

Instead she regards him with something between terror and awe and nods, minutely. 

Truthfully, Ichigo is certain he can beat Byakuya as he is now. It might be arrogance, but to him it’s the truth. He can see his strength, and they’re on even footing now. The biggest problem is the number of blades he can command. Ichigo doesn’t know how find of control he has over them, but he’s not willing to risk Rukia’s life finding out. 

On top of that, Rukia looks so helpless, so downtrodden and resigned. Even if Ichigo saves her here, it will do her no good if she isn’t willing to pick up a sword and fight for her life. 

Yoruichi is gone again, he notes with a frown. 

“Get ready,” he says grimly. 

Byakuya only looks at Ichigo. He refuses to so much as glance at his sister. 

“Scatter. Senbonsakura.” 

Byakuya raises his hand, Rukia raises her sword, and the world turns white. 

*** 

“Do you know where you are?” 

The voice is soft and playful. It would be comforting, in any other circumstances. It comes with the overpowering smell of flowers and the spice of life energy that sends him into a sneezing fit. 

It takes a few minutes for him to recover long enough to actually peel his eyes open and have a look around. Flowers as far at the eye can see, an ocean of blossoms that meet a pale blue horizon. 

“Eh!?” He looks around frantically. “Where am I? What’s going on?” 

His gaze freezes on a man with a white hood over his head and weird stick in one hand. “Who are you?!” 

“Me?” He the man smiles and tilts his head. His eyes are mostly hidden. “I’m no one important. Or, someone very important but unable to matter until the dream of existence has ended. You understand?” 

“...Not even remotely. Where are we?” 

“We’re in a dream.” The man sits among the flowers, which ripple like water around him and flow back to cling to his clothes. “It must be because you’ve borrowed ‘That Vessel’ for the time being.” 

“Vessel… You mean this body?” he touched his chest, but when he looks down it’s not a hand that he sees. There’a limb, but it’s most incorperal. Nearly transparent. His whole body is, actually. “What the hell?!” 

“You should calm down. If you panic too much, the threads of your being might unravel. We don’t want that, now do we?” 

“Just who the hell are you?!” He finally points at the stranger. As much as he can point with barely a hand. 

“Me? Why, I am Merlin. And who are you?” 

Merlin? Had Ichigo ever mentioned someone like that? 

“...I’m Kon,” he says finally. “What kind of dream is this? And why are you in it?” 

“Oh well. I was trying to get ahold of someone else, but you popped in instead. Maybe you can help me to help him. You’re Ichigo’s friend aren’t you, the artificial soul?” 

“How did you know that?” Kon gaped at him. 

“Ichigo’s told me all about his adventures. I sent him something to help him along a while ago, but I believe he forgot it in all the excitement of rescuing the Rukia girl. You want to help Ichigo don’t you? Make him less prone to melancholy?” 

Merlin was right. Ichigo was kind of a downer some times. Still, how could a dream fix that? And how could this guy send things from a dream into the real world? 

“I guess… What did you have in mind? 

The smile returned to the strangers mouth. 

“I decided. A reunion with a friend would suite him well. Won’t you help me, Kon?” 

How is he supposed to say no to that? 

“Alright. Why not. What’s the worst that could happen?” 

****

Ichigo eyes the massive waves of ice that covers not only Byakuya’s tide of cherry blossomed steel, but also the man himself, the entire bridge, the building behind it, and a good fifty feet of the sky beyond even that. 

He blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice. 

“I think we overdid it,” he muses, running his fingers through his hair. 

“Holy shit,” Ganju says eloquently. 

“I-I had no idea Miss Rukia was so powerful…” Hanataro breathes in utter awe. 

“I’m not,” Rukia tells him, even as she herself stares at the new glacier with no small amount of fly-catching. “Ichigo, what did you do?!” 

“Huh?” he rolls his shoulder to peer down at her. “I lent you my energy, duh. You’re the one that took it and ran with it. This is your full capability right now. Don’t celebrate yet. There’s a storm coming.” 

“A storm…?” 

Ichigo can feel it better now. Lightning along his skin, water in his hair, the wind pulling at his soul. There’s a shadow not far behind it. A laugh on the wind and too-sweet sake. 

He turns, the others follow him a second later, just in time to a blur of white come to a halt. Slung over one shoulder is Byakuya Kuchiki, who is less frozen than Ichigo had hoped. Damn.

The man who holds him looks rather frail. His cheeks are thin, and there’s a hollowness under his eyes. It’s hair is stark white, and his eyes are deep sea-green. 

Ichigo isn’t fooled by the gentle smile. It’s not false, really, but it hides something dangerous. Ichigo thinks once more of the ocean. Thinks of Francis. Bright and laidback but more dangerous than any hurricane. A woman who punched the sea god himself in the face and stole his holy grail. 

This man is no francis drake, no pirate, but the feeling of a current about to sweep him away is there all the same. This is not a man to take lightly. 

“C-Captain Ukitake!” 

Rukia’s captain. Ichigo can see a gentleness in the way he smiles at her, even if he is puzzled. 

“Rukia! How are you? You look thinner. Just what happened?” He asks one quick succession. 

Ichigo nearly growls at him, a beast of protectiveness stirring. His instincts tell him to be weary, this man is strong, but the need to protect Rukia rings truer. 

Like a dragon set to guard a castle, Ichigo wants to wrap his arm around her middle and launch himself into the air and away. 

He can’t. 

He didn’t even see this captain move . There is no way they can escape. And, Ichigo isn’t so sure he can beat this storm in human skin. 

He grips his sword tighter anyhow. Now the storm, Ukitake, stands between them and Ganju and Hanataro. They’re weaker. All he need do is turn around and- 

“Rukia,” Ukitake’s eyes are on him now, wide, his mouth stretched and his throat suddenly tense. “Who is this?” 

Ichigo narrows his eyes minutely. 

“I’m Ichigo Kurosaki,” he says shortly, honestly. Why bother lying? Rukia’s time with him has proven that shinigami suck at navigating the living world. And once he dies, no one will ever find him. 

Ichigo hears the hiss first. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off Ukitake even when Rukia twists around and gasps. It takes him a second to realize that the petals of senbonzakura are coalescing back into its original shape, fluttering past the pair of them without doing any damage at all. 

Does Byakuya even want to hurt Rukia? Or is he just too cowardly to stand up for his sister? 

Ichigo doesn’t care. 

Byakuya struggles as dignified as he can until Ukitake sets him down on the ground again. One of his legs is covered in ice, and the skin revealed from a shattered pant leg is red and ugly. So Rukia had caught his leg. 

Too bad Byakuya is a long range fighter. 

He brings his sword up and drops it into the ground. Ichigo’s mouth opens when it sinks with a ripple into the earth. 

“Kuchiki,” Ukitake frowns. “Surely you’re going overboard with this.” 

“This does not concern you,” Byakuya says firmly. His gunmetal grey eyes are locked on Ichigo. “Rukia is my sister. I will execute her myself if I must. Bankai . “

“Ban-huh?” Ichigo’s brows furrow. All around them, massive swords rise from rippling air. One by one that shatter and twist into those pink blossoms. It would be beautiful and poetic, if Byakuya wasn’t trying to kill him. 

Joy. 

Idly, while the flowers swirl around them in a deadly dance, Ichigo says, 

“ Cherry blossoms scatter

Snap, the buck’s antlers 

Come off 

Without regret 

They fall and scatter 

Cherry blossoms.” 

“That’s a very nice poem,” Rukia says dryly, “But it doesn’t stop us about to die!” 

Ichigo may have spent too much time with Murasaki Shikibu. “Why are you yelling at me?! Stop them again!” 

“I can’t stop my brother’s Bankai!” she shouted, looking at him like he was insane. Ichigo rolled his eyes at her. 

“Have you tried?” 

“No but-” 

“No buts!” Ichigo smacks his fist down on top of her head. “Hurry up!” 

“Fuck you!” 

At least she sounds more like herself now. Nevertheless she settles her sword in front of her again. Ichigo pours his power into her, until the ribbon on her wrists glows faintly red. Her eyes gleam the palest blue and she puts herself between Ichigo and her own brother. 

“Tsugi no mai,” bells ring and she dips the tip of her sword in the ground, “ Hakuren .”

There’s so many waves of blossoms she’s forced to repeat the move four times. Each time Ichigo swings his sword, sending out wave after wave of his own attack. He doesn’t know it’s name, still, but that’s less important now than just not dying. A few petals slip through, slicing through Ichigo’s body. He only bleeds sluggishly. 

Ichigo darts through the cloud of cherry blossoms, towards a Byakuya that looks halfway to actually upset. His mouth is curved downwards. 

Ichigo brings his sword down hard, slicing through the air and the bridge. Pale energy roars forth. Even with Rukia consuming his Reiryoka he doesn’t falter when Byakuya shoots balls of light at him. He dodges between them, ducks down, and swings upwards. His sword is stopped by a glowing pink one that forms in Byakuya’s hand. 

Ichigo let’s go of Zangetsu. The ribbon at the end it wrapped firmly around his wrist and swings wildly at Byakuya’s legs, when it’s blocked against. 

Ichigo plants both of his hands on the glowing sword, letting the blades bits into his skin while he hoists himself above it and slams his head into Byakuya’s nose. 

It gives way with a crunch. The sword dissolves and Ichigo kicks him hard in the stomach and drives his elbow on the mans back when he’s forced to double over. 

Ichigo punches the back of his head with a bleeding fist. 

Byakuya hits the ground, still, and the flower petals slowly float back to his side. 

Ichigo turns to the other captain while he wraps his hands up like a boxer with Zangetsu’s white ribbons. 

Rukia is panting, surrounded by glittering ice and snow, but with Ichigo’s power coursing through her she doesn’t fall to her knees. Even when another stupidly strong man comes out of nowhere to stand beside Ukitake. The one Ichigo had felt before.  

The shadow. The laugh on the wind. A man with a straw hat and a pink kimono across his shoulders. His brown hair is tied back, save a single strand that falls across his face. 

He looks a bit like Kyo. Older, more easy going, but he doesn’t feel the same.  

This is the man that feels like a stretched shadow and a laugh, and smells like too-sweet sake. There is a poem somewhere under his skin. 

Ichigo narrows his eyes at the pair of them. They move with the ease of long practice, a duo that knows how the other so much as breathes. 

“Oh wow. I didn’t expect you to be surrounded by such interesting people, Juushiro. They one is rather brutal,” the new comer cocked his head, his eyes on Ichigo. 

He’s strong. He and Ukitake are both strong enough that even without releasing their zanpakuto he’d been willing to bet that they were born around the time of the round table. They don’t have the raw destructive power of Mordred or Artoria, but they’re at least on par with Agravain. 

Agravain, the Man Who Knew No Wounds. 

Ichigo holds his ground. 

“I wasn’t expecting it either,” Ukitake confessed. He tilted his head, and called out two smaller Shinigami. When he sent them off to fetch someone from the fourth, Ichigo made no move to stop them. 

“Are you going to try to stop us?” Ichigo asks lowly. 

“Stop you from what, exactly?” the man with the hat asks, “You Ryoka are so tricky, this is the first time we’ve been able to corner one of you. To think you disguised yourself,” he casts a glance at Ganju over his shoulder. Ganju, who stays perfectly still. Like a rabbit caught in a snare. 

Rukia, too, looks much more hesitant to fight these two men than she was to raise a sword to even her own brother. 

Ichigo doesn’t blame them. 

“Right,” Ichigo runs his thumb across the back edge of Zangetsu. “Rukia. You should go now.” 

“What?” her head snaps to him. “I’m not just going to run-!” 

“Rukia,” his voice sharpens. Commanding, firm, it’s nothing like the laidback boy who she had taught the shinigami ways to, all those months ago. It feels like half a lifetime. “Go. The other’s are waiting for you. Bad Luck should lead your path. Take Ganju and Hanataro with you. We kidnapped him along the way,” he adds for good measure. If he can make sure at least one of them won’t get in trouble for this, he will. 

“That’s very noble of you,” says the hatman. “But you can’t really believe that we’ll just let you go, no can you?” 

“Honestly, I don’t know how you people think at all,” Ichigo nearly spits his disdain at them. “You’re going to execute Rukia for saving people’s lives and protecting humans. You’re all willing to just follow orders, even if it means murdering your own sister, or someone you’re supposed to take care of!” he turns his burning eye on Ukitake, who actually leans back from his vitriol. “So no. I don’t think you’ll let us go. That’s why I’m not going to give you a choice!” 

He throws himself at them, wrapping his power around him in a glowing cloak of defense easy to switch to devastating offense. He does not have his Shielder here, and the only one he knows is strong enough to have his back now is Rukia, who cannot stand against the pair of titans before him. 

The hatman draws the shorter of his blade to block Ichigo. The impact jars his hands enough that they start to bleed through their wrappings. 

“You should just surrender,” he says piteously. “You’re already injured. You’ve taken down two captains and three lieutenants. You should really be proud. You’ve proven you’re a force to be reckoned with. That’s why, I cannot let you leave here so easily.” 

Ichigo notes, in the part of his mind that has learned to puzzle over and pick apart people's intentions, that he had not said leave at all. 

“Fine then,” Ichigo pours his power through his sword and pushes the man back until he’s forced to draw his second. “I have no problem fighting you if I have to. And whatever the outcome is,” whether Ichigo finds himself dead on the ground, or whether this man falls to his blade, “Let it be on my head. And the Devil take the hindmost.” 

***** 

As the weight of the Ryoka’s power settles across the Seireitei, far off in a mansion of white walls and dark shadows, an old man bereft of a future lifts his head. From the shadows his eyes glow with the faint blue of hellfire. 

He has waited centuries for this. His wait is coming to a close. 

All around him his children scramble, while one run away stretches out near the epicenter of change. 

****** 

Chapter Text

Ichigo holds his sword firmly, his eyes narrowed at the man in front of him. They’d separated. Ukitake stays behind, but Ichigo has no doubt that he’s just as powerful as the man in front of him. 

Ichigo knows good and well that he can’t beat the both of them, but that won’t stop him from trying. Rukia still stands behind him, uncertain. 

“I can see you’re determined,” hatman says. He changes his stance. “It’s unfortunate, but today my zanpakuto is feeling playful. She’s a bit picky, you understand, but you’ve gotten her interest.”

“Lucky me,” Ichigo says dryly. 

That get’s the man to laugh. 

“I’m Shunsui Kyoraku, the captain of squad eight, and you won’t find me so easy to pin as these young bucks here.” 

“...are you aware that that sounds suspiciously like an innuendo,” Ichigo narrows his eyes at the man, Kyoraku, who looks startled but laughs a moment later. 

“We’re going to have fun with you,” he predicts. There’s an undercurrent in his easy voice, something that is not quite malice but still not nice. Ichigo cocks his head. 

“We’ll see.” 

Kyoraku crosses his swords at the blade and changes his stance. The world seems to shift, just enough to set Ichigo’s teeth on edge. It’s a familiar sensation, one he’s missed in the past few months. He knows, as soon as this Katen Kyokotsu is released, what has been done. 

They’re in a reality marble, or something akin to it. 

Ichigo narrows his eyes. This is a man strong enough to warp reality itself to his whims. 

“You have to know you can’t win,” Ukitake actually sounds gentle. “If you give up now, you and your friends won’t be hurt.” 

“Until you execute us, you mean,” Ichigo shoots him a dark glare. He has the decency to wince. 

Ichigo looks to the other man. Kyoraku, captain of the eighth. He’s a whole different kind of monster to Kenpachi. Not a claw in the throat but the shadows that lurked just out of reach. 

“So. Shall we begin?” 

“I suppose. However, I should explain now what it means for my Zanpakutou to want to play with you,” Kyoraku’s smile turns just a little bit sharper. “Katen Kyokotsu makes childrens games real.” 

“... you’ve got to be fucking with me,” Ichigo can feel a twitch develop over his eye brow. 

“Excuse me?” Kyoraku asks, cocking his head just so. 

“No, no. See, I met a little girl who makes nursery rhymes real, and now you’re going to make a kids game real. That just. Yeah. That’s my life. Why the fuck not.” Ichigo shakes his head. “What game are we playing?” 

Kyoraku looks intrigued by his admittance, but tells him all the same. 

“Have you ever played Kagome Kagome?” 

Ichigo was exasperated. “Which of us is the demon?” 

Kyoraku started walking, clock wise, leaving a trail of copies behind him while shadows slithered up and locked around Ichigo’s eyes. He stiffened, but he knew how powers like these worked. Kyoraku was just as bound by the rules as he was. 

The question was, now, what happened if he guess wrong? What damage would it do? 

Kyoraku’s voice echoed around him. It circled him on all sides, front and back, left and right. 

Kagome kagome 

Kago no naka no tori wa 

Itsu itsu deyaru 

Yoake no ban ni

Tsuru to kame ga subetta. 

Ushiro no shoumen daare 

Kagome kagome, The bird is in the cage,

Ichigo tilts his head. The voice will be no help. This game is hardly fair. 

When, oh when will it come out

In the night of dawn

On top of that, all of the space around them now feels distinctly like Kyoraku. The laugh on the wind, the shadow at his back, the scent of sake and, now, some type of bun. He can’t feel where Kyoraku is, and the song is coming to a close. 

The crane and turtle slipped

Who is behind you now?

Ichigo swallows thickly. His instincts hum under his skin. He’s always trusted them. They’ve guided and protected him well for years. 

And, according to the prickling along his arms, the greatest source of danger is to his right. 

“A shadow,” Ichigo says with sudden certainty. “It’s one of the copies of you.” 

He swings to the right, fast and hard, and feels flesh cave to the bite of Zangetsu. 

It’s the last good blow he makes in the fight. 

*

“So. What do you think is wrong with him?” 

“Karin!” Yuzu frowns minutely at her sister from where she stands before the stove, a ladle in one hand. Sauce bubbles cheerfully in the pot in front of her, 

“What? We both know there’s something weird about Ichigo. There’s been something weird about him since he got home. And now he’s even weirder. Does he really think we believe he’s our brother?” 

“Karin!” 

“What?” Karin is unrepentant. They both know. Ever since Ichigo came back he’s been weird. He’s up at all hours, he barely sleeps and he’s skittish as all hell. Karin has started walking louder to make sure he jumps less when she shows up in the room. Even their dad has started acting different and distant from Ichigo. On top of all that, Ichigo is more physically affectionate that she’s ever seen him in their lives. 

“I’m pretty sure that the guy upstairs now isn’t even Ichigo. He’s a clone or something.” 

“That’s a horrible thing to say!” 

“But’s it’s true!” Karin insists. Yuzu falters, the irritated furrow in her brow easing. The spatula in her hand is brandished like a weapon until she sets it on the spoon holder beside the stove. 

“But he looks just like Ichigo…” 

“The one that came back from his trip is definitely Ichigo.” Traumatized, and Karin isn't’ an expert but is he supposed to be so traumatized from an explosion? Did he hit his head? Was it worse than he said? That sounds like Ichigo. “But the one we have now is definitely not our brother.” 

“Karin… How is that possible?” 

“Ghosts are possible,” Karin reminds her, ignoring the fact that Yuzu can’t see them. Still, Yuzu believes in them, more than Karin herself does. If she doesn’t acknowledge that they’re there they won’t bother her like they do her brother. 

Yuzu bites her lip. 

“Still… What do we say?” 

“I wasn’t gonna say anything yet,” Karin admits. It’s too soon, and there’s too much weird stuff going on right now. She doesn’t trust that they’ll get the truth if they go after it without more facts to shuffle through whatever crap the adults try to feed them. They’re young, but they aren’t stupid, and Karin knows that they’re going to have to pull answers out like they pull teeth. 

“Good,” Yuzu says with finality. Quieter, with a glance at the ceiling, she adds, “That Ichigo, even if he isn’t our Ichigo, he seems… lonely, Karin.” 

Karin knows the look in her sisters eye. The one she gets with stray cats and the cast off friends that Ichigo brings home sometimes. It’s the look that lead to the entire year they’d spent devoted to guarding a single caterpillar in a jar until it was a butterfly. Yuzu is not the temperamental one, she isn’t the scraper, but there’s not doubt in Karin’s mind that she’s the real power in the household. When Yuzu puts her foot down that’s all there is to it. 

“Then we just make him our,” she says with a roll of her shoulders. Simple as that.” 

“Yeah!” Yuzu grins. “Oh! Did I tell you my doll is haunted?” 

“... huh?”  

* * 

Shunsui Kyoraku is a dutiful man. 

He does what is required of him, to serve his home and protect his friends. He always has, since he’d first felt the weight of the heavy black kosado on his shoulders. He is the second son of nobility, he was born to know duty . Even if he prefers to be lackadaisy, even if he bends the rules until they’re twisted knots, and lets events take their course, he will follow the orders Yamamoto gives directly. 

He and Juushiro were some of his first students, and they are the only ones left from their class for a reason. He is perhaps one of only five who remain to remember the wolf that Yamamoto truly is, for all he falls to heel at the call of the Central 46 now under the guise of a loyal dog. 

He has seen the fight it had been for Yamamoto to establish the shinigami in the first days of their existence, when the foundations of the world had been shaky and the throne had been empty. He had been there for the first quincy war, one thousand years ago, and then again for the second only two hundred prior. 

That one had hardly been a war. It had been a slaughter, and he had raised his sword to it just as he had been told. 

Now a child stands before him, desperate to save a girl who he can’t have known longer than a summer. She is one of Juushiro’s, one of his favorites in fact. He knows he’s been grooming her to be his next lieutenant for the last forty years, since even before Kaien’s death. 

(Privately he thinks it should be the two of them trying to protect her, but they have seen Yamamoto incinerate men, they have witnessed his bankai first hand. If he presses the issue, what chance do they have? They have gone to the Central 46 as captains and nobles and been turned away both times, in spite of the ancient laws.) 

This child, Shunsui thinks while he bleeds from his shoulder down to his sternum, is frightening. 

He is young. He is human, he cannot be more than two decades old. But it is his eyes that are the most unnerving. 

They are not the eyes of someone who knows defeat. They are the eyes of someone who knows that defeat means death. The eyes of someone who has not been beaten by the merits of his simple being alive right now. The fact that he stands before him, with Shunsui’s blood on his sword, is a testament to that fact. 

It’s been a long time since someone had done so well in one of his games. They’re never in anyone else's favor, but now Kyokotsu laughs somewhere in the back of his mind, his swords thrum in his hands. 

Truthfully, Shunsui would rather not kill this child. He would rather not kill any of the children in front of him. 

He knows Juushiro feels the same way. Killing Rukia would be like killing a part of him, too. 

They’ve both sent petitions to the Central 46. Both as captains and as noblemen, but none have been answered. It’s a violation of their own laws, but then the Ryoka had come and their investigation had been cut short. 

According to Nanao, little Hitsugaya has taken over for them. 

Kyokotsu switches games, and Shunsui sinks into the shadows. 

The boy is good, for all he is young. He’s been well trained, he thinks on his feet. He fights like there’s something missing. 

And that red ribbon on Rukia’s wrist. Her new clothes. It’s interesting. 

Shunsui has never seen anything like it. It’s almost like a pseudo bankai, forcibly unlocked by the child in front of him. 

Yes, frightening is really the right word for it. 

The games change. Ichigo catches on quickly to each one, to the rules and the ways they are both bound by them. 

He’s also accumulating more injuries. Cuts on his arms, his back, his chest. Kyokotsu is fond of the boy. It’s rather unfortunate, really. 

Shunsui feels bad when he goes in for a hard attack, an emotion he ruthlessly crushes down. He can’t afford to be worried about an opponent in a battle. 

Ichigo barely moves back. He’s not fast enough to completely dodge the blade the cuts into his shoulder, just shy of his throat. 

Rukia screams, so does the boy from the forth and kid that looks like a shinigami but probably isn’t. 

Blood erupts from the split in his skin, a deadly strike if a slow one. It won’t be a quick death. It might not be a death at all if he can, say, get seen by the fourth division member that’s not twenty feet away in the next ten minutes. 

Shunsui is broken out of that idea when white overtakes red and it is no long blood that splatters out of the child's body, but a paste that looks awfully familiar. 

What in the hell?  

A half an answer comes a minute later, when a hand grasps Katen by the blade and yanks Shunsui forwards so Ichigo can try to cleave him in half. 

Shunsui blocks with Kyokotsu. The boys reitsu has changed. It was once light and brilliant, a small sun in his young chest. Now it lashes out darkly, black and tinged with red. The eye that turns upon him doesn’t match the other. 

One brown. One yellow, rimmed first in black and then in white. 

A hollow eye. 

It’s only the fact that rules of their current game mean that Shunsui can’t be cut anywhere where his clothes aren’t white, and the fact that his haori and kimono are already off to the side that save him from the brutal counter slash. The boy is fast, his movements vicious and harsh. 

Shunsui separates from the attack. He can feel the wind and the faint crackle of lightning that gives away the presence of the oncoming storm that is Shihoin Yoruichi. 

She crashes into the platform and knocks Ichigo unconscious with something that looks suspiciously like a very large baseball bat. 

She stands before them, two of the old guard, surrounded by children. She cannot take them all, and Ichigo’s reiatsu is still dark and dank, an ocean of shadows that even Shunsui is weary to tread into. 

Kyokotsu laughs softly. She wants to play with this boy. Katen inches forwards, her true nature flickering at the edge of his soul. Pure and holy, she wants to split the boy’s darkness with light. 

Shunsui cannot allow it. He smothers her in the darkness of Kyokotsu and bids her sink further into his soul, a burden he still bears with grace and secrecy. 

“The lost lady of the Shihoin,” Shunsui greets with a smile. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your return?” 

Yoruichi doesn’t answer immediately, and her playful smile is tight around the edges. Shunsui remembers when she and her brother were still just children at their fathers knee. Yukihira hadn’t even been going grey in the temples when he’d died. It seems all Shihoin lived short, fast lives. They are quick shadows that burn away in the light. Disowned or not Yoruichi is now one of the oldest Shihoin on record. 

“You certainly did a number on the boy,” she says instead of answering. Kisuke is involved with this, somehow, the mask is proof enough. Just what do they want with Rukia? 

This changes things. 

The banishment of half the upper echelons of the gotei 13 had never sat right with Shunsui. It was too much too fast, and Kisuke had never struck him as the type. Not to say Kisuke was a good man, but he certainly was not a good enough liar to fool someone like Shunsui for so long, or Shinji for that matter. 

If there weren’t strict orders against it, he might have hunted them down in the living world and demanded answers himself. But Yamamoto had made it clear. No one was to launch any further investigations into the hollowfication incident. 

(Now he wonders again ; why?) 

“He did trounce little Bakuya over there pretty badly,” Shunsui points out. 

“So he did. I’ll be taking him now,” she warns. Her body tenses, ready to flee. Shunsui steps forwards and swings lazily at her head. 

He slices through open air and a few stray purple strands of hair. 

She’s slower now than she was before, he notes, but still fast enough to flee his field of influence before he can cut her down. 

Now all that’s left to do is see to the wounded, figure out what to do with their little turncoats, figure out what’s possessed their central government, find out why a child has been hollowfied, unlock the strange mysteries of Rukia’s new powers, and possibly get drunk. 

Easy breezy. 

An explosion sounds from where Yoruichi has run off to, and Shunsui figures his plans may have to change. 

* * *

Kon paces the basement of Ichigo’s strange house in his borrowed body, wearing a trail in the cement floor. 

He’s surrounded on all sides by the strange things that Ichigo keeps in here, the magical artifacts and tools that he’s accumulated. 

Amongst all of them is the plain brown box that Kon had found on a table upstairs. 

The weirdo from the dreams, Merlin , swears he gave it to Ichigo. Kon would normally call Bullshit but honestly? It’s Ichigo. 

There’s just something about that kid that makes him feel like anything is possible. Even gifts from dream men who smell like too many flowers and don’t give straight answers. 

Kon arranges the thick crystals on the markings carved carefully into the floor. He’d tried to make it look exactly like the picture in the book, but he wasn’t an artist. It didn’t matter. Ichigo’s body seemed to know what they were doing without him having to tell it. He could feel a strange power thrumming through his borrowed skin. 

It sunk in from the world around him, filling up the empty spaces in the bone marrow, in the muscles, in the very pores of his body. 

This vessel knows what to do, even if Kon doesn’t. 

He sets one of the other items in the middle of the circle. There’s six crystals that shine incandescently on each corner of the design. 

“Use the stones first,” Merlin had said, his lilac eyes curved with some hidden joke, “ You’ll need Ichigo to use the last bit.”

The last bit being a scrap of cloth that he’d left in the box. It was same shade as his hair, and tattered at the ends. Kon left it where it was and set in the center of the circle two more stones. One was a red crystal. The other was dull grey, and shaped like the head of a small serpent. 

Everytime he touches them Kon feels his fingertips tingle with something .

Kon picks up a paring knife. 

On Ichigo’s palm is a long scar, one that’s been opened over and over again. Now, Kon presses the blade to the same thin white line until it splits neatly under the sharp edge. 

Red wells up. He barely feels it. Ichigo’s pain tolerance is insane. 

He holds his fist out over the circle and let’s Ichigo’s body do as it apparently knows to. Blood drips into the careful lines he’s made and it spreads with a vermillion glow that crackles faintly. 

“Let Silver and Steel be the Essence…” 

* * * *

“Again,” Ichigo touches his forehead. It throbs horribly. “Why the hell does this keep happening to me?” 

His groan of pain is met with silence. He can touch his forehead so he’s not tied up. And he can feel pain so presumably he’s not dead. That’s good. If he dies he can’t keep his promises. 

On the other hand, if he was dead he probably wouldn’t feel like he was chewed up and spit out again. 

When he finally peels his eyes open, he finds himself in the ‘inside’ again. Vertical buildings, and pieces of himself in the form of places he’s gone. The water at the street is a bit deeper. 

Ichigo rubs his head and squints around him. 

“Zangetsu?” he calls, looking around. The old man is nowhere to be seen. There’s something familiar about this entire situation. He can taste chalk and blood. His chest aches. What the hell is going on here? 

“Zangetsu!” he yells louder. No response. 

Fine then. Maybe if he focused on his zanpakuto? Zangetsu was the manifestation of it right? Or something. 

Ichigo closed his eyes and reached out, taking a deep breath. 

He focused on the feeling of his sword in his hand. The cool metal until sturdy wrappings. The wicked blade. The weight of the weapon. The comfort of Zangetsu against his back. 

He closed his hands around something and opened his eyes. 

And nearly had a heart attack. 

“What the fuck!?” 

Standing in front of him, no holding his hand, was him . If he’d been sent through a bottle of bleach. His eyes, the other him’s eyes (fuck this was confusing) were bright, luminescent gold. Where there should be white was instead black. When the other him grinned his teeth weren’t as sharp as Ichigo felt they should be. 

“Hey there, Partner.” 

Ichigo extracted his hand warily. “Who the fuck are you?” He asked bluntly. 

A flicker in the corner of his eyes came from the side. His head snapped to the side to see Zangetsu, the old man. 

“Zangetsu.” 

Ichigo looked back at the other him. The one who spoke. His head throbbed. His chest ached. 

“Huh?” 

“Ichigo.” 

“Yes, yes. Ichigo, Zangetsu, whatever,” he waved his hands impatiently. “What the ever loving fuck is going on here? Why am I here? I was just fighting and- Did I get stabbed?” Ichigo patted down his chest. There was no blood, and it didn’t hurt. 

The other him scoffed. “Damn you’re dumb. Yeah ya got stabbed!” 

“Don’t be rude,” Ichigo said absently. He lifted his shirt. There wasn’t even a scar on his chest. Just the same red circle that had rested on his chest since he’d been speared through. It felt like an eternity ago. The longer the wars went on the harder it was to keep track of everything and everyone. Sometimes he felt like he mixed up the order of operations. Did he go to London first? Or Oceanus? Fuck.

“ I’m rude!” 

Ichigo has to jump to avoid being stabbed by the sword Zangetsu. Now wielded by the other him, and also reversed in color.  

“You’re the one that made us wait that long before you heard us, asshole!” 

“Huh?!” Ichigo ducked and dodged each slash. Finally, Zangetsu (the man) blocked Zangetsu (the sword (except they were technically both swords (and this was making Ichigo’s head ache))) to stop the fight. 

“Ichigo,” Zangetsu intoned. “You were being beaten. Badly. We cannot allow this to continue.” 

“Okay,” Ichigo says slowly. “So you suck me out of consciousness and throw me here while everyone else is back there? What about Rukia and Hanataro and Ganju!” 

“What about them?” the Other Him. White Ichigo maybe? Shirogo? Espejo? Nieve? Speaks up. He leans on his sword, looping his arm casually over the bite under the curve of the blade. “Why do you think we give a shit about your friends?” 

Ichigo scowls. “If I go down we all do.” 

“Exactly,” says Zangetsu. “We all die if you do. If you lose. We cannot lose, it cannot be an option. So you must become stronger. You can hear my voice now. You can wield my blade. But there is power inside of you that you do not know. Prepare yourself, Ichigo. We will make you stronger now.” 

“To gain that strength, you must fight. Take your sword back from yourself.” 

“Huh?!” 

He only has a second to duck a sword strike at his head. Neive (he’s going with that for now. Snow) comes at him with a wild grin and vicious intent. A berserker who swings Zangetsu by the ribbon like a demented yo yo. 

There’s something weird going on here. Ichigo knows it. He knows there’s something not right about this. The whole thing feels too familiar. 

He doesn’t have time to contemplate it before he comes back at Neive with the best counters he can manage whilst unarmed. 

Zangetsu is calm and methodical. Ichigo can see in him the commander, the strategist and the pragmatist that he has had to be when war clawed at his throat and shadowed his footsteps. 

Neive is wild and vicious. Ichigo sees in him the desperate strength he’s drawn out at the last seconds, the hail mary victories that he's ripped from the claws of defeat time and time again.  

The careful planning of Zangetsu, the intricate steps of a dance of strategy, falls away in the face of Neive’s brute forced, deadly strikes. He aims to win, even if he has to cut himself-who-is-Ichigo down to do it. Ichigo’s blood sings with it. 

Even though he steps away from death, even though if he’s just a hair too slow he’ll lose his head, Ichigo has to stop himself from tipping his head back and laughing. Fighting like this, he feels almost free. 

Almost. 

He steps in close, suddenly, regardless of the fact that Zangetsu-the-sword cuts into his shoulder from the sharp curved heel. Blood dots the blue beneath their feet and Ichigo catch’s Neive’s arm between his hands. With a vicious twist that threatens to break his arm he’s forced to let lose the sword. The ribbon keeps it stuck to his wrist, and Ichigo twists his body until he’s back to front to Neive. He grabs the swords hand and swings it around until it’s a hair breadth away from both of their throats. 

“What the fuck?” Neive asks, too loud in his ear. 

Ichigo shoots him a crooked smile. “You only said I had to take it back.” 

Neive stares at him, the angle awkward and painful to his neck. Finally, his doppleganger relaxes and legs the ribbon slip free. He steps back, letting Ichigo hold the sword on his own. 

“Well I’ll be damned. Not bad, boss.” 

“Why are you so surprised,” Ichigo hoists the blade onto his bleeding shoulder. “Aren’t we all part of the same person? Me?” 

“So we are,” something in Zangetsu’s voice doesn’t sound entirely pleased about that. “You’ve done well.” 

“Yeah. Thanks,” Ichigo scowls at him. “There’s something wrong with the both of you, I want you to know.” 

“By your own logic, there’s something wrong with you too,” Neive pointed out, far too cheerfully. 

“Uh huh.” Ichigo rolls his eyes. “How was that supposed to make me stronger? It was a fight, I’ve been a million of them. “ 

Maybe more than that. 

Zangetsu doesn’t answer right away. 

Ichigo sits on the sideways building and motions the other him to do the same. Neive drops to his side, both of them criss cross and the blade long enough it covered both of their laps.  

“Well?” he presses. 

Zangetsu is not quite stoic enough for Ichigo to miss the way his mouth turns down and his shoulders draw together. He’s bracing himself for something. 

“We are both… facets, of your power Ichigo. I needed to introduce you to him as well.” 

“A simple hand shake wouldn’t do?” Ichigo scowled at him. 

“We did shake hands,” Neive points out cheerfully. 

“Not the point. Why the song and dance? Or are you all the drama in my soul too?” 

Neive crows with laughter and slaps Ichigo hard on the back. Ichigo rocks with the force, hissing. His shoulder burns. 

Zangetsu comes to crouch before him. He lays his hand on top of Ichigo’s shoulder and the pain eases minutely. The blood stops staining his shirt. 

“What…?” 

“I can stop your bleeding,” Zangetsu explains. 

Ichigo nods, slowly. He remembers, faintly, injuries that weren’t as bad as they should have been, blood stains that were too small. Roman had commented on it once or twice. 

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

Ichigo looks between the two of them. Their words ring through his head. 

“How long have you been with me?” 

Neive grins. Zangetsu looks at him solemnly. 

“ Always , Ichigo.” 

* * * * *  

 It’s over. 

It’s over and they’ve won. The price was high (it’s higher every time and Ichigo dreads the day that one of them does not return to Chaldeas) but they snatched victory away with bloody hands and desperation. 

They’ve won. Nero is not there to celebrate their victory. Karna has faded away. Arjuna had never really been one of them but Ichigo knows they owe him. Billy the Kid. Geronimo. Scathach herself. All gone. 

And how many yet to go, before this bloody conflict is ended? This is one war won, and three yet to go. They’ve come more than halfway, but done so by the skin of their teeth. 

What else can they do? 

Run? 

Hide? 

Chaldeas is the only safe place and even that can’t last forever. Even if it could, Ichigo would never stand by, safe within the walls. 

Ichigo looks down at the cracked tile of the Whitehouse and finds the tips of his shoes glittering. The war is over. It’s time to go. 

“Ichigo?”

He looks to Kyo. His impassiveness is finally gone. His expression is open and horrified. 

“It’s time for us to leave,” Ichigo says solemnly. It’s time for you to forget .

“No!” Kyo lunges for him, grabbing his hand, and for the first time Ichigo can see it clearly. His brown eyes, wide and open, his hand grasping desperately at Ichigo’s sleeve. One feeling sings through the touch. 

Loneliness. 

The lion that stalks in Kyo(in Sousuke) ’s shadow. The yawning the maw of solitude. 

He’d broken past it, Ichigo realizes. Had dragged him off of that isolated pillar that Sousuke stood so precariously upon and brought him to stand on solid ground surrounded by heroes and rebels, emperors and goddesses. And Ichigo, just a human. 

His throat tightens. What kind of place is seireitei that someone like Sousuke is so utterly alone?

“I don’t have a choice,” he says. He’s gone up to his knees and the light is rushing swiftly to his midsection. Eating him up. He can feel the familiar pull of ray shifting. 

“Find me!” Sousuke grips his hand all the tighter. “Promise me. Find me in the future! Make me remember!” 

Ichigo feels his hand start to dissolve in his grasp and does his best to hold on for a few seconds longer 

“I’ll find you.” He vows 

Light glitters, air rushes, and the last thing he sees is the crushing sorrow on Kyos face. 

(Ichigo will not break his promise) 

* * * * * * 

Chapter Text

Ichigo has to take a break somewhere in the eighth hour of fighting with the two other parts of him. It was good exercise and it kept him on his toes, but in the end they were all him. Fighting himself would make him twice as tired. Fighting two of himselves? Three times as tired. Ichigo was a man known for unreasonable stamina and stubbornness, but even he had his limits. 

Ichigo sits at the roof of one of the buildings with Zangetsu standing just behind him and Neive sprawled out across the windows to his left. 

It feels natural now, with the two of them. Like the empty feeling in his left hand is gone, so long as the three of them are together. Ichigo doesn’t know what to think of all of this. There’s still a lot he doesn’t know, and the fact that Zangetsu has assured him that time passes different within and without this place is only a small comfort. He was in the middle of a difficult battle, one to save Rukia, and now where is he? Unconscious somewhere, that much he knew. 

Ichigo let out a breath. 

“I think,” he begins, “It’s about time for me to wake up now.” 

“Leaving so soon?” Neive rolls onto his stomach to turn yellow eyes on Ichigo. He should be more unnerved than he is. He wants to be. But he trusts Neive. Inexplicably and truly. 

“Sorry,” he says. He can feel Zangetsu frowning behind him. “This is my second time here though. So I can probably come back?” 

“You may return whenever you wish, Ichigo,” Zangetsu intoned. His voice was low and flat. Ichigo couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. What was going on behind those sunglasses? 

“You better!” Neive pointed at Ichigo, scowling. Was that what Ichigo looked like whenever he was being petulant? 

“I promise,” Ichigo rolled his eyes. “Hopefully next time it won’t be because I've been stabbed by a walking reality marble. I wonder…” 

“You wonder?” Zangetsu sounded weary. So he did know Ichigo.  Neive, contrarily, grinned. They were both him. His reasoning and logic and his reckless willingness to take chances that might end in disaster. 

“Do you think if I let out a strong enough burst of reiryoku I could break out of it? Like Excalibur or Clarant cutting out of one.” 

“...I don’t think we have power enough for that. Not yet.” 

“Not yet.” Ichigo repeats the words. Yet. These two… they believe in him. They believe he will one day be strong enough to shatter reality itself. Ichigo can’t help grinning. 

“It’s time to wake up now.” 

*   

Orihime narrowed her eyes at the horrible, awful man in front of her. 

Uryu was shooting at him, over and over to try to keep him from getting to her. They all knew she was the real target, he’d said as much at the start of this fight. When he’d tried to lure her close, and then nearly killed his own men to do it. 

Now they lay around her, tired but not dead and no longer bleeding. And Uryu. Urya was scraped up, and poisoned, but he was still moving himself through sheer will and some kind of puppet strings he made with his soul? 

Orihime’s life had never really been normal (normal people were raised by parents, not by a brother and then by a distant aunt who she’d barely even spoken to. Normal people didn’t have bright orange hair. Normally people didn’t know when ghosts were around) but it kept getting weirder and weirder. 

Orihime’s knees hurt from kneeling on the cement. Her hands ached from holding them in place for so long and her soul aches from using so much power consecutively. She had only just figured out how to hold up a shield and heal people at the same time. 

All the same. She can’t be finished yet. 

Uryu is fighting so hard for her. He’s putting everything he had into this, into defending her. 

Orhihime can feel the phantom imprint of teeth in her shoulder. The hot, sticky blood sliding down her chest and back. The scars are still there. She can feel Sora in her arms, a monster of horror and grief. She can feel Tatsuki, limb and cold and not herself. Blood on her skin. Blood on her hands. She had sworn- 

“Can you actually hurt someone?”  

She freezes. Her heart beats harder in her ribs and she looks at Kurosaki. The question stabs at her chest and threatens to burst the way the hollows attack had against Tatsuki’s skin. She had won that time, and blood had rained before it fluttered away in phantom light and sand. She opens her mouth. 

“I-”  

“If it comes down to you or them. If it comes down to them or me . Orihime, could you hurt someone? Could you attack with the intent of making sure they don’t get back up?”  

She clasps her hands in her lap. “I-I can-”  

“If you can’t,” he cuts in swiftly. “Say it now. When we fight we need to know you have our backs. Do you understand, Orihime? “ 

“Y-yes,” she bows her head. She understands his words. Tatsuki had taught her for years how to throw a punch, grapple and pin and fight. But whenever it came down to actually hitting someone else she always flinched. It was no wonder Kurosaki thought she was incapable of fighting. Maybe she really was.

But she came to save Rukia. If that means she needs to focus on healing and guarding she can do that. She can be content with that role. 

Only now that role was getting in the way. 

How could she stand by and watch Uryu fight and bleed for her sake? How could she do nothing while that cruel man talked about the horrible things he’d done to Uryu’s grandfather? Or to his own daughter? The solemn girl that broke her very body on his command. 

She doesn’t understand. Rukia was so kind. So sweet and nice. How could she and him belong to the same group of people? 

It makes her sick. Her hands start shaking again. 

Aramaki, a man who had tried to take her and run, takes a step away from the captain. The force of his spirit, the gravity of his power, is crushing them both. 

It’s nothing compared to Ichigo’s. 

Orihime hadn’t been entirely sure when they first arrived, but now she’s certain of it. Ichigo is stronger than almost any of these shinigami. She hadn’t run into a single one who feels stronger than he did when he first made a miraculously bright canon ball that morning they went to Kukaku’s home. 

A horrible creature crawls its way out of the captain's sword. Baby faced and cherubic, it frightens Orihime even more than the bone mask that had once hidden her brother's face from her. 

Ishida glows like a one winged angel, to try to defend her. 

Orihime closes her eyes. 

No. 

“-can you actually hurt someone?” 

  No.  

“If it comes down to you or them. If it comes down to them or me. Orihime, could you hurt someone? Could you attack with the intent of making sure they don’t get back up?” 

No.

“When we fight we need to know you have our backs. Do you understand, Orihime?“

Yes.

She will not be defended anymore. 

“Tsubaki,” his name comes from her lips. Acid that she will bear, he flutters in front of her. She will only have one strike. She can’t hesitate. Not again. She will not let someone else fight her battles for her. 

“Koten Zanshun!” 

Tsubaki flickered into the golden glow of her powers and shoots like a dart. Straight through the horrible monster and it’s master. 

The hole she makes is nothing. Just a couple inches across on both, but the glow still connects her to Tsubaki through them. An acid wire of destruction. 

“Was that supposed to hurt, little girl-” 

“ I REJECT!” 

The wall erupts and matter splits. Two halves of a man fall in opposite directions. A grotesque caterpillar follows suit, spewing violet gasses as it goes. Orihime isn’t afraid. She calls on the others to undo the damage that the poisons cause. 

When she reaches Uryu he’s leaning heavily against a wall with the girl that was once their enemy. Orihime would rather she be their friend, now that her father is gone. 

She offers them both a hand in standing up. 

* * 

Ichigo opens his eyes to blood. 

It’s not his, but a womans. She sits away from him, struggling to reach difficult gauges cut out of her back. Four scores that go from shoulder blade to the opposite ribs. 

Ichigo sits with some difficulty. His whole body aches, and his chest throbs. It is familiar, but then again most pain is to him at this point in his life. 

Ichigo reaches out with his senses. She feels familiar. Liquid shadow and silk fur, night-dark humor and wicked steel. 

“Yoruichi.” 

She doesn’t startle. He’d never had the silence of a Hassan at his side. Speaking of... 

She looks a bit like Personas in her preferred form. Violet hair, dark skin, and built to fight and win . Neither one of them has the delicate build of Serenity, the poison mistress, but that didn’t stop Personas and it doesn’t stop Yoruichi from being lovely as sin. 

“You’re awake. Good, I was starting to get worried,” she tossed him a smile over her shoulder. 

“You’re the one bleeding,” Ichigo retorts. He rolls onto his knees and stretches his arms above and back until there’s about a hundred pops of his bones. His back feels warm, then cold before he straightens out to face her. “Let me help.” 

“Do you know healing magic, oh magician?” Yoruichi’s smile was more fit for a cat than a human. Ichigo rolled his eyes. 

“None that I can use right now. But I know how to use a needle and thread. Do you have my bag? What happened?” 

Yoruichi frowns at him, but motions to his bag in the corner nonetheless. Ichigo rises on legs that feel like they’re more smoke than bone. Weak and hollow. His ribs aren’t much better and the dark mark of Scathach feels fresh again. 

Ichigo does his best not to rub at it when he brings the bag back over and pulled his first aid kit out of it. Yoruichi stays still while he carefully disinfects the injury. The bleeding is sluggish and its covered in a thick paste that keeps it at bay until Ichigo carefully draws it away and starts to stitch the skin closed. 

He knows these gauges. Sharp sword strikes, and less deep ones litter his own body, save his shoulder. He can see it in the clean split of skin. 

“If I wasn’t a mage, I’d try to figure out how to use that healing crap Tessai has,” he said idly while he pulled out his silk threads and curved needles. 

“If you’re a shinigami, you can use kido,” Yoruichi said with certainty. Ichigo frowns. 

“Mages aren’t supposed to be able to use spiritual energy. They use life energy. Almost no one born after the separations of the worlds can do both.” 

“You already do.” 

Ichigo didn’t respond. He carefully closed her cuts and spread a cream across it to make sure it didn’t get infected later on. 

“How’s that?” 

“I had no idea your father taught you so much,” Yoruichi looked over her shoulder at his work as best as she could. She wouldn’t be as flexible as she was before for a week or so. Ichigo rumaged through his bag. 

“He didn’t teach me a damn thing. There’s burns on your arm, let me see those two. Yoruichi, what happened?” 

Yoruichi gave him her arm without a fight. She was smarter than a lot of warriors he knew. She didn’t fight a medic, even one as half trained as Ichigo was. He spread burn cream across it and wrapped it with firm, but gentle hands. Maybe when they got back he would ask Tessai about the healing, but considering how shit he was at regular spellwork he didn’t have high hopes for that. When he was done he sat back on his heels. 

“Better?” 

“Mhmm, much,” Yoruichi looked her arm over. She grinned mischievously at Ichigo and yanked him into a sudden hug, smashing his face into her bare chest. 

“How good of you to take care of a poor stray cat, Ichigo!” 

Ichigo’s face heated and he shoved her, but she was stronger than she looked. 

“Don’t pull your damn stitches! I’m not redoing them got it?!” 

“Aaaw, don’t be so grumpy,” she huffed at him, but he could still hear the near sadistic smirk on her face. 

 “Shut up. Put some clothes on before you freeze to death already.” 

“Oh? Don’t tell me you’re a blushing virgin. Ichigo!” she sang. 

Ichigo finally pried himself away from her with a grunt. “Shut up,” he said again. “That’s none of your business.” 

Honestly. 

Ichigo wasn’t a ‘blushing virgin’ or whatever the fuck. He was used to women who barely wore any damn thing. That didn’t make it any less weird when he was nearly suffocated in someone's tits! 

Yoruichi laughed at him and finally fetched a shirt. Ichigo rubbed his shoulder, his fingers brushing against the new scar tissue. It was edged ever so lightly in white. 

He wondered at it, but figured it was Zangetsu’s work. 

“I’m surprised,” Yoruichi said when she returned in an orange shirt and black body suit. “I would have thought you would be hopping mad when you woke up. I did leave Rukia behind.” 

“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” Ichigo shook his head at her. “Those two, Ukitake and Kyoraku, are way too strong for one person to take on alone. And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you didn’t tell me what happened. Yoruichi .” 

She had the decency to look contrite. 

“I’m out of practice,” she said at long last. “When I grabbed you and ran I didn’t realize that a trap had been laid by the omniskido, the stealth force. On top of that, there was lieutenant out for vengeance. She was convinced that one of us had killed her captain, and came after us for revenge. She was the one who managed to burn my arm. She wasn’t even that strong.” 

Ichigo winced. That would have stung Yoruichi’s pride as much as singed her flesh. 

“Fury makes for powerful adversaries, but anger runs cold eventually…” 

“When did you get so wise?” Yoruichi teased, poking his cheek. 

Sometime between Fuyuki and Babylonia? 

“Don’t make me sound like I’m taking a journey to the west or something,” he brushed her hand aside. “We still have to get Rukia. I’m not sure how now. I couldn’t beat Kyoraku as I am, and you’re all banged up. Maybe…” If he tied a ribbon around Yoruichi’s wrist, could he push his power into her? How strong was she, anyhow? And the others, where were they? No one had died, he hadn’t felt anyone disappear. Were their disguises working? 

“I should have brought walkies,” Ichigo cursed his own lack of forethought. 

“Calm down, Ichigo. The way we rescue Rukia is simple.” 

Ichigo glanced at her. “Oh?” 

Her grin belonged on a cheshire cat, even if she wasn’t wearing purple stripes. “We make you stronger.” 

“... oh. Is that all?” 

* * *

 Ukitake would admit it. 

He had no idea what to think of these intruders. 

Even though normally they would be confined to squad 6’s prisons he had managed to arrange for the ryoka to be brought to his own, under the grounds that since Rukia was his underling and they were here for her, they were his responsibility. 

Yamamoto was more concerned with the return of the flash queen, Yoruichi, than a few humans she had managed to wrangle together and approved it with only a stern warning to keep an eye on them. 

He had asked each and every one, from the ones he and Shunsui apprehended at the tower, to the pair that had killed Mayuri, why they were there for a girl they barely knew. 

The answer was the same. 

Because Ichigo wanted to save her. 

Ichigo. The one on the bridge that had looked so much like Kien. From the furrow in his brow to the proud tilt of his chin. Even his sword play was similar. Fast and powerful, he adapted to Shunsui’s games the way very few ever had. 

And what he did to Rukia… 

Ukitake had never seen anything like it before. In that form, he was sure Rukia could have frozen his own shikai if she’d had the mind to. It was terrifying. 

Or it would have been. 

If it weren’t for the fact that there was no malice in the boys eyes. 

Anger, yes, but they didn’t bubble with hatred. He had no will to cut down any of them. And he hadn’t, no the lieutenants or the captains that stood in his way. He left them all living even it would have been safer and probably smarter to make sure they couldn’t come after him again. 

Just what was he thinking? Was he really here just to save Rukia? And why was Yoruichi with him? Had one of the Ryoka really killed Aizen? 

All of this circled back to the peculiar circumstances behind Rukia’s sentencing. 

Execution was harsh. Moving the date up even harsher. And, why wasn’t he allowed to petition for a retrial? He was a captain, and a noble, as was Shunsui. They had both been barred at the gate despite these privileges. 

It was about time that he got some answers to these questions. Ukitake was a patient man. 

He was still no more a saint than Shunsui, who was equally eager to find something solid to sink his teeth into. 

They would go to the Central 46 chambers and find answers, if it wasn’t so late that Rukia might truly die without someone to defend her. 

The boy, Ichigo, was strong certainly, but not stronger than the terrible spear levelled at his young protege. 

So, quietly, and under the cover of darkness, Ukitake went to Toshiro and spun a thread of suspicion for him. He agreed, as well as his lieutenant, to investigate the Central 46 chamber while he and Shunsui did something more reckless than they had in centuries. Yamamoto would rage at them when he found out what they were doing, but in his mind and in Shunsui’s it was necessary. 

He never could have predicted what would actually happen. 

* * * * 

Ichigo had had some close calls before, but this was seriously cutting it down to the wire. 

Fire licks along his wrists but doesn’t make its way past him. He holds the great firebird back with the edge of Zangetsu’s sword. 

The spear screams at him, howling defiance. It is a tool of justice and death, the ultimate punishment, to burn away the sins of those who stand before it. 

Ichigo cocks his head. 

It’s more than that. He knows the heat, though this is lesser considerably, only yellow not blue. He knows the crushing force of duty and responsibility behind it, and the spear that birthed this one. The beak is only a shard of a lance he is very familiar with. 

“Well,” he says slowly, blinking at the fiery eyes that hold on him. “Hello there.” 

Rukia is a light weight under his arm, and he barely feels it when she elbows him in the ribs. 

“I told you-”

“I know. I won’t ask you to forgive me, and I don’t expect you to thank me. I just expect you to survive, Rukia.” 

The bird flaps back, and circles them slowly. If the lance he knew could destroy 1000 souls, this one can only destroy one. What’s more, it seems to recognize Ichigo. 

“Ichi-!” 

“It’s fine.” 

The bird presses its burning beak into Ichigo’s knuckles and dips an avian bow low before it leaves them be. It lands again on the ground and with a scream to the heavens claps its wings above its head. 

The flames disperse and a spear stands in its place. 

Ichigo drops to the ground as well. People are looking at him again. That same look that says he’d just done the impossible. He was getting used to it. 

“That works,” he says with a nod to himself. 

“That doesn’t- how did- Ichigo what the fuck ?!” 

“Dunno. Guess he just likes me,” Ichigo shrugs casually and hoists Rukia over his shoulder. “Ready?” 

“Ready for wha- AAAAH!” Rukia screams bloody murder when Ichigo yeets he towards the ground as hard as he can, where Renji of all people is waiting. He’d shown up yesterday to tell them that execution had been rescheduled for a day closer, and that Kenpachi Zaraki had apparently gone AWOL and stolen a couple of Ichigo’s friends and was busting down Seireitei looking for a rematch. 

He still wasn’t sure how much he believed when Renji told him that Orihime cut a captain in half.

Ichigo waves cheerfully from his perch atop the execution platform. 

“Take care of Rukia, alright?” 

He still doesn’t have a plan for when they’ve finally gotten away. Hide in the living world, he supposes. Take them to the clock tower maybe. Waver would be helpful, and he still has his gift from Marie. 

Whatever. 

He’ll take it one step at a time. No use fussing about the far future when he still has the present to fixate on. On top of that, something is happening below him. A separation in the ranks of the shinigami. Kyoraku and Ukitake seem to be standing off from the others, between the retreating Renji and Rukia. Ukitake has a shield of some kind, and Kyoraku has drawn his blade. 

Ichigo jumps forwards, sailing downwards. Where is Kyo in all this mess? And that strange man, Gin? There’s barely a handful of heavy hitters down here. 

Ichigo lands a few feet away from Ukitake. Zangetsu hangs in one hand, his bandages wrapped around Ichigo’s wrist. He keeps himself sideways, to defend from either side if he must, but he has a good feeling about this. 

“Sorry to interrupt whatever’s happening down here,” he says casually, “But does this mean you’re helping to rescue Rukia?” 

Ukitake’s smile is a phantom thing, equal parts guilt and honesty. “We’ve been trying since she was first brought back, in less… flashy, ways than you’ve chosen. She is, after all, one of my subordinates.” 

“Honestly?” Ichigo tosses a grin at Kyoraku. “I’m glad I’m not playing with you this time, old man.” 

“Old man! How cruel,” Kyoraku actually pouts at him. It’s a little disturbing. “Ah~ I prefer drinking to fighting anyhow.” 

“Sucks that I’m underage then,” says the boy who spent years in time periods where wine was a safer alternative to contaminated water. 

Ichigo has only a second to brace himself when a wave of heat slams into him from his right. 

All around him, people drop like flies. 

Ichigo scowls over his shoulder at the old man. Heat rises off of him like cement on a summer day, casting a shimmering crown above his bald head. 

“Well that’s pretty damn rude,” Ichigo snaps at him. “You’re hurting your own subordinates more your enemies. What the fuck is wrong with you?!” 

“You dare speak in such a manner? After the mockery you’ve made of our justice?” 

“What justice?” Ichigo bristles, danger flaring through him. He presses his free hand onto the shoulders of the two people who had flanked Ukitake, and now fallen on their knees. His strength flows into them until their breathing eases. “You’ll execute someone who was only doing her best to help me? To protect my sisters?! Where is the justice in that?! No harm was actually done, until you decided she needed to die!” 

He repeats his gifts with the girl with the glasses. All eyes are on him again. The pressure and the heat increases. 

“It is the will of the Central 46. We will follow their orders, and you shall not interfere! That girl asked that you be spared your death, it was her dying will, but you have thrown that request into her face.” 

Ichigo narrows his eyes at this man. 

“You know something? Some of the worst things in history are done by people who follow their orders blindly.” 

The Argonauts. The men who kept Astrious in prisoned in the labyrinth. Medb’s soldiers. The Knights of the Round Table. How many horrible things had been done to him and his friends by people who refused to think for themselves? Who saw what was being asked of them and never once said ‘no’? 

“Do not presume to lecture me, boy!” The pressure bears down on him, a mountain of heat and anger. Ichigo doesn’t falter. “I have lived a thousand of your human lives. The impertinence of youth is-”

“You’re about two thousand years old, right?” Ichigo cuts in. “Or, more like twenty two hundred, give or take fifty years.” 

“I am-” 

“So you were alive before the end of the Age of Gods, right?” 

He knows he’s stalling. He knows he should get out of here. Or get this fight underway. Or something. He can’t take this man in a fight, even if he can stand his power. He is, after all, just a man. He isn’t Ishtar, or Gilgamesh, or Orion. He isn’t a god or half divine. His heat is nothing compared to Karna’s. A convection over instead of a volcano. 

Nevertheless, he has to ask this question. 

The old man’s eyes crease open. There’s anger in them, and curiosity too. “I was.” 

“Great. Then where the fuck is Ereshkigal?” 

Silence descends. The old man is so surprised the pressure actually lets up a moment before doubling. 

“There is a name I haven’t heard in millenia. The queen of Kur, the goddess of the dead. I didn’t think humans still knew of her,” he regards Ichigo with a new kind of wariness. Warranted, for certain. “All that is left of her is the Sogyoku, a creation from her own lance, holding the flames of the soul of a sungod.” 

Ichigo doesn’t tell him that that’s not quite right. 

“The heat of that spear should have incinerated you. I can’t say what magic you used to put a stop to it, but I intend to end this altercation before you do something like that again.” 

The old man lifted his cane. 

Ukitake and Kyoraku moved . Faster than Ichigo can keep up, they launch themselves at him. There’s a glance of steel and the sound of metal on metal. Someone shouts, a light flashes, and the three disappear. 

Ichigo barely side steps a tiny flicker of energy. 

A girl, no taller than Rukia with a captains coat, does her very best to cut his head off before Ichigo slams Zangetsu into her chest and unleashes a harsh Getsuga Tenshou. The problem with assassins, most of them are bad at taking hard hits. 

He tears through the rest of the assembled crowd like they’re made of paper, before he stops at the woman with the braid. She reminds of him Nightengale, in the most frightening of ways. Her head tilts minutely at him. Something in her eyes sends a shiver down his spine.  

“Aren’t you going to fight me, ryoka?” 

“Ichigo,” he corrects mildly. His brows furrow. “Don’t take this the wrong way, miss, but I do my best to avoid fighting healers. If it’s not too much trouble, would you let me go on my way?” 

She looks down at the people on the ground. Lieutenants, captains, and special guards all fallen at his blade. None of them have stopped breathing. 

“I suppose I can honor that request. There is something else I must do regardless. Please stand back then, Ichigo.” 

He takes a few steps back, until he standing next the three subordinates Ukitake and Kyoraku had left behind. She draws her sword and with a soft murmur it warps, twists, and expands like putty until a giant manta ray is standing on clawed feet. 

Ichigo watches in horrified fascination as it eats the injured and flies off. 

“...You all saw that too, right?” He asks the other three. He’s the only one who’s even remotely surprised. 

Because that’s normal here, of course. 

“Okay,” Ichigo dusts himself off. “I need to go find my friends. Are you guys coming with?” 

“Captain left us here with you for a reason,” the eldest girl, the one with the glasses says primly. “So we will follow you for now, and make sure you don’t run into any more trouble.” 

“Hey, what did you do when the Head Captain was crushing us?” The blonde girl asks, falling into place at Ichigo’s side. The man flanks her, looking just as intently at Ichigo. It feels natural to lead them down the hill, never mind that they’ve only known each other for a total of twenty minutes max. 

“That? I just pushed enough of my reiryoku into you that you wouldn’t get squashed or burnt up. It’s not big deal,” he shrugged one shoulder. 

“No- No big deal!? You can’t just transfer spirit energy like that!” The man argued, stumbling over his own shoes. “No one can do that! Even the fourth division has to use special kido for that kind of thing!” 

Ichigo eyes him sideways. “I do impossible things all the time. You’ll get used to it.” 

They made it all the way to the bottom of the hill, where his friends were waiting with Yachiru of all people, before something new slammed into his senses from the way they had come. 

Kyo. 

* * * * *  

Gin pities Hinamori. 

He really, really does. She’s been jerked around on a string so many times in the last few days as a part of Aizen’s mechanisms. First she had to deal with her grief. He was sure it was Hitsugaya that planted the idea that Gin was the killer in her head. 

Sweet Kira had kept her from so much as singeing his shihakusho. 

After Gin someone in the Onmitsukido had gotten her on the trial of the ryoka, who were really the perfect distractions in this case. She had attacked the ginger boy and Shihoin without hesitation and with enough vicious animosity and single minded determination that she actually got a few shots in. If she was more blood thirsty maybe she could have a decent subordinate to Aizen truly, instead of this puppet he was leading around. 

A single letter from him and she turned on her childhood best friend. 

A single word and her faith was restored before it was shattered completely with a hand through the chest. 

Yes, Gin pitied the poor, foolish little girl for trusting Aizen so readily. 

It’s okay, he wanted to tell he, I’ll make sure he pays for everything. One way or another. 

He couldn’t, of course. He wouldn’t risk the position he’d spent well over a century cultivating. He would get his vengeance soon, and take back what was stolen from Rangiku. He just had to keep biding his time, like every other snake in the grass. 

Unbidden, his mind turned to Ichigo Kurosaki again. Just how would the boy fair against Aizen? How much of a struggle could a single not-quite-a-human put up? 

* * * * * * 

Chapter Text

Ichigo was going to kiss Yoruichi for teaching him how to move so damn fast. 

Or maybe just buy her a bunch of over priced cat food. 

Yeah, that sounded better. 

Something to show her that he appreciated what she’d done when she had drilled him between bouts with Zangetsu when he was learning his new skills and techniques. It was more or less like a second ascension, this Bankai he’d learned to use. 

(One day, all in all, and he had shattered so many swords even EMIYA would have been hard pressed to keep pace with him, before he finally found the right ones. He had to. After the show they'd put on Rukia was scheduled to die in just one day, barely enough time to prepare a scaffold.) 

If she hadn’t shown him how to use reitsu to launch himself off the ground and really move faster, he would have never gotten there in time. He would have never arrived in time to see Gin, the man who had attacked him at the Shiba house, half covered in ice and a man next to him completely coated while Rukia stood over a bleeding Renji. 

Ichigo had barely noticed she’d been pulling on his powers again. Yet there she stood, a perfect white blade held in steady hands, and determination pinching her brows. 

He came just in time to see Kyo shatter her zanpakuto into snow flakes with his bare hands and hit her with the roughest kido Ichigo had seen yet before grabbing her by the horrible red collar that was still stuck around her throat. 

“Hey!” Ichigo shouted, levelling his sword point at him. “Drop her.” 

Frantically, he searched Kyo’s eyes for that flash of recognition from before. There was nothing. Just calm, flat brown eyes. It was just like when they’d first met, only this time Kyo is a much better liar. He looks docile, even though he’s holding Rukia by the neck. Mild and kind. 

Ichigo isn’t fooled. He hasn’t been fooled by Kyo for a long, long time. 

“Ichigo Kurosaki. You’re quite the interesting one. Sad to say you’ll have to tell Kisuke that your mission ended in failure.” Kyo waves his hand and chants a spell and light smashes into Ichigo from all sides. It’s the same spell Byakuya had used in the human world, just a billion times stronger. Kyo rips the ribbon off of Rukia’s wrist and Ichigo’s power fades from her, leaving her in the simple white kimono. 

Ichigo paused, frowning. He is loath to attack Kyo without knowing more about what he’s doing here, or where he’s been. Is he the captain that had ‘died’? It sounds like something he would do. He’s smart enough to fake his own death. 

 “What does he have to do with this?” Just because he opened a gate for them? 

Kyo smiles, a smug phantom, and Ichigo realizes suddenly that he’s been chasing on thread on a tapestry the entire time. 

He’s completely missed a bigger picture. 

“Did you not wonder why Gin came to visit you? Or knew where you were? It was because I knew you would arrive in western rukongai. I even had him waiting at the gate for you, in case you charged in. You see, I knew you would have to use the Shiba canon. With such a dramatic entrance-” 

“It left you free to move around without anyone noticing,” Ichigo cut in. He narrowed his eyes. “You used us as a distraction. Was it you who brought Rukia back, to lure us in? Why the west?” 

“In part,” Kyo tilted his head, the smile still in place. “And the west was simple. That is where Urahara Kisuke’s referencial residence is, you know… oh.” 

Ichigo grit his teeth. His temper was starting to flare, and with it so was his reitsu. Urahara had been using them for something. Kyo was using them for something. He wasn’t a damn puppet! 

“I was under the impression that you were his subordinate. That you came here on his orders. I see now. So he told you nothing at all about what was happening here, or who I am or what I might be doing. I bet he didn’t even tell you about what he needed Rukia here for.” 

Ichigo listened with half an ear as Kyo explained about the limits of shinigami powers, and the only way to break through them. The only way that Kisuke had ever found to break through them. 

Hollow hybrids. White masks. Holes in the chest. Still shinigami. Rukia was just a container, and a hiding place. 

Ichigo grips Zangetsu tighter. He stands somewhere between the present and the past. America and seireitei blur together and he struggles to piece apart the Kyo he knows and the man who stands before him, cold smiles and distant dreams. He is insubstantial and untouchable. 

The bindings on his arms tighten. 

Without warning the world explodes under a massive sword stroke from-

A werewolf? 

* 

A day before the execution, after they have been freed by a wanna be porcupine,Uryu wonders if he’s ever admired so or been so afraid of a girl that chases butterflies before. 

Orhihime had changed somehow during the fight they’d had with Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Before that she had skittered around fights, even when they’d first been attacked. Uryu had vowed to protect her, but somewhere between the explosion at the start and the wall of gold that signalled the end of the fight she had changed. 

Oh, she was still kind. Still gentle. She treated their former enemies with care and healed them back up to their fullest potential. She greeted their strange, rambunctious new allies with smiles and delight. 

But when it came time to fight she didn’t hesitate anymore. She picked her target and put them on the ground, missing limbs most of the time. She hadn’t killed anyone since the Mayuri, no one else had deserved he guessed. At least not in her mind. 

But she was vicious and determined when she had to be. 

She was also, apparently, a frightening hand to hand fighter. 

Uryu watched with muted horror as she and the little pink terror cleared the way for the rest of them to march up the hill, where Ichigo was. 

“Geez,” Ganju scrubbed his hand over his head. “Why are women so damn scary all the time?” 

“I wish I could tell you,” Uryu winced in pity when Orihime slammed someone into a wall with enough force to crack it. 

She turned to them with a bubbling smile. “Let’s go! We need to hurry everyone!” 

“Yeah,” Yachiru bounced at her side, blood on her tiny knuckles. “Let’s go lets go! Maki Maki let’s gooooo~” 

Aramaki gave a long suffering sigh. “It’s not the worst nickname she’s given me… Okay, it’s a le-”

“To the right!” Yachiru declared. 

“...we’re gonna be late.” 

* * 

The werewolf lasts a total of twelve seconds before Kyo goes right back to monologuing. Ichigo almost pities him. 

“Of course, once you were here,” he said with only a small under current of smugness, “I assassinated the entire Central 46.” 

Ichigo stares at him, and starts laughing. 

He can’t help it. 

After everything Kyo had told him before about the way this place was run, he’d finally offed them. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have told him to ask Robin how to commit a coup? 

He can’t help feeling it's partially his own fault, and entirely justified. If no one even questioned the orders sent out they were clearly just as power hungry and arbitrary as Kyo had described, all those years ago. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he waves his hand as best as he can, feeling hysterical and worn out in all the worst ways. Somewhere under the betrayal is the twisting need to understand everything. This hogyoku, trapped inside of Rukia, was some kind of super powerful object. He’s getting sick of those. 

“Sorry,” he says a third time and finally manages to get himself under control. “Okay, so your grand plan failed. Give me Rukia and we’ll all go our separate ways. Or, no,” he holds up a hand to stop Kyo from speaking. His mind turns. He still knows Kyo. He still knows how he thinks, even if Kyo doesn’t know him anymore. “You’ll have a back up plan.” 

Kyo looked mildly miffed at being interrupted. 

“You’re impertinent.” 

“You know that old man said something like that when I told him to grow a brain, too.” 

“...My point stands. All the same, you’re right. There’s another way. Another method developed by Kisuke Urahara. “ Kyo held up a small cylinder and tapped it on Rukia’s chest. A hole opened up. 

Ichigo twisted and thrashed. A burst of energy shattered the bindings at last, but by the time Kyo had already pulled out something from Rukia’s chest. Small, faintly glowing and blue. 

The energy hit him suddenly. Unshielded, unfettered energy. 

The curl of fog. Electricity along his skin. Children lost in the river. Sorrow. A desperate wish for change. 

Kyo pulled his fist back to strike Rukia. Ichigo lifted his left hand, pouring power into it. He’d done it a million times before. He’d never done it alone. He’d never done it as a ghost. 

“ Gandr! ” 

Kyo freezes. Ichigo darts forwards, his hands outstretched. He gets knocked off course at the last second by Gin’s zanpakuto. He ends up stumbling, and wasting precious few seconds while the spell holds. He doesn’t have time to think of the how or the why, only that it works, but now he only has time for one. 

Rukia or the Hogyoku. 

Rukia or the _______

It’s not even a question. He snatches her off the ground and rolls to protect her body. 

He comes to a stop hovering above her, Zangetsu raised in defense. 

Kyo twitches back to life a heartbeat after and looks at him with new eyes. 

“An interesting kido, I’ve never seen it before,” he says idly. “You really should have taken the Hogyoku. It’s much more valuable than one girls life. Even a noble one.” 

“I don’t give a shit about any of that. Kings or rebels, gods or demons, the only part I care about is if they’re my friends. You should know that!” 

“Should I?” 

The words bite harder than anything else. Ichigo actually flinches. 

He opens his mouth to say something before a blur shoots out of nowhere. Yoruichi lands with a knife to Kyo’s throat. 

No, he’s not Kyo anymore, is he? 

* * *  

Kisuke hated having to make the call. He really, really did. 

He wanted to have faith in Ichigo, but he was no fool. He knew he needed to be prepared for the worst case scenario. He knew that Ichigo, as bewildering of a child as he was, could still fail against Aizen. 

Probably would fail. 

But he needed Ichigo for other reasons. He needed him stronger. He needed him more motivated. He needed him to see first hand just what he was up against, and how desperately they needed to put a stop to it. 

Ichigo wouldn’t forgive him for his trickery. Another sin Kisuke could live with. 

He did have to wonder what was going to happen to Ichigo now. He’s already lost faith with his father. If he hadn’t already he soon will lose faith in Kisuke, and Yoruichi too. 

What will happen to an already isolated boy when he’s further pushed away? 

“It’s heavy,” Ichigo says, his brown eyes dark and distant. The brilliance he’d displayed during their spars is gone. The vicious gleam and the near recklessness on him is gone, tempered and stamped down. 

“Heavy?” Kisuke repeats, eying this boy. Perhaps not as much of a boy as Kisuke had thought. He’s seen eyes like these before. 

“The weight of their lives.

So he makes the call and he gathers the army, scant as it is. 

* * * * 

Kon likes this guy, and the lady too.

She’s terrifying, and she nearly killed him the first (and only) time he tried to cop a feel, but the second she met the girls she basically adopted them. Kon would have left them in the spare house, but neither of them was letting him go anywhere without at least one of them. 

They have a trick where they go invisible, it makes it easier for every day life. 

The guy is fun. He’s agreeable and gentle, and he doesn’t mind people watching with Kon. Even if he would rather go fishing most days. He’s kinda weird, too, and he insists that Kon practice fighting regularly. Ichigo’s body knows what he’s doing, if nothing else. 

They wile away the summer days while waiting for Ichigo to return. 

* * * * * 

They’re surrounded by people. Enemies and allies, all of them focused the man Ichigo had once called friend. A man he would have trusted with his life. Had , trusted with his life. 

Blades gleam in the sunlight and fury weighs heavy across the battlefield. Rukia lies beneath him, her strength vanished, and one man comes to stand between them. His hands are red and raw and his hair is faintly damp but Byakuya puts himself between the pair of them and the traitor. 

“He’s surrounded. It’s over now,” Byakuya says surely. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ichigo cuts in. He raises to his knees, then his feet. “He wouldn't come this far without a back up plan.” 

The sky splits open. Ichigo hates it when he’s right. 

Beams of light encompass the three traitors and throw everyone else aside. They’re untouchable inside of them, and menos grande hover at the mouth of the tear, floating through it. Dragging them up and out of reach. 

There’s a buzzing in his ears. Fury roaring under his skin. 

“No one starts at the top.” 

“I was born in the-” 

“From the very start, no one has stood upon the heavens. Not you, not I, nor even gods. However, that intolerable vacuum has come to an end. Henceforth...I shall stand upon the heavens.”

All Ichigo can think as he watches (Kyo) Sousuke get swallowed by a hoard of menos and darkness is just what the fuck happened in the last two hundred years?

“Farewell shinigami, and Ryoka. You were… interesting.” 

Brown eyes watch Ichigo, and Ichigo alone as the darkness closes in around him. 

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

The first thing Sōsuke Aizen has memory of is hunger. A dull ache in his stomach that grows to pain the longer it goes usated. 

(He will learn, decades later, that only those with high reiryoku are able to feel hunger) 

He doesn’t remember, he’s never known, if he was born in Soul Society or if he’d merely died young. He doesn’t recall if he had parents at some point, or if he’d been a hollow once. It doesn’t matter, for he doubts very much that he will ever know the answer to these things. There are some things that are simply impossible to find the answers to. 

All he knows for certain is the hunger that he had become aware of. 

Then the dust on his skin. Grit in his eyes. Dead grass beneath his hands. 

The trees that stand as witness to his beginning are bare of greenery. They are nothing more than skeletons and dead wood, pressed in close and strangling each others roots. 

There are no other humans around, only empty clothes laying on the earth around him. 

He doesn’t know his name. He doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening. 

Hunger gets his legs up under him. 

Hunger drives him, stumbling and new, into the dull light. 

*

It’s barely a town where he spends the next two decades. It’s all adult men and women covered in bruises or scars that grip knives with white knuckles. He is the only child among them, and he keeps that title with bloodied fists and teeth. 

His ribs hurt and his stomach aches fiercely. Food is in scarce supply, whether people feel the same hunger as he does or not. What little there is is jealously guarded, and nothing is taken without a price paid for it. Gold and silver are worth nothing here. Only steel and bone make a difference. 

There is something inside of him that tells him he could be stronger. 

It’s a whisper in the night, a breeze on a pond in his dreams. 

Grow, says the moon in the water. Grow stronger. Grow smarter. Grow. 

It’s something in the way he walks. To tall, too confident. 

The men find him when the moon is gone from the sky and can’t float on the water any longer. 

“You think you’re better than us, just because you’ve got a little bit of reitsu?” he reeks of sake and years gone unwashed. He’s flanked by three others, all of them red faced and unstable. 

That doesn’t stop the hits from hurting. 

“You’re no better than we are!” 

“You’re just a brat no one wanted, that’s why you’re here.” 

“Where’d your whore mother leave you anyway huh? In the woods? Fucking bush runt.” 

When he lifts his head to spit on one of them he’s slammed down again so hard he sees stars. Blood roars in his ears and pours down his face with the tears and snot. His lips split. He screams. 

It’s over. 

When he looks up there’s only clothes on the ground, and he learns how to keep his head bowed and mild. Even still, people start avoiding him. Fear leads to isolation. 

* *

He is only just an adolescent when people begin to vanish. They leave blood stains on the ground and screams in the night. There have been other children in the years. None of them last long. Even the ones that he tries to protect can’t take as many hits as he can, or go as long without. The latest dies not a month after he meets them. Adults have stopped speaking to him entirely. He is too smart, to vicious, to strong. 

It takes four months for the shinigami to arrive. 

One woman faints at the sight of them, the pressure of their souls so intense she can’t take it. He scoffs quietly. He is just as strong, and they don’t drop to their knees for him.

He watches them with solemn eyes. They wander like sparrows, with no direction and hardly any drive. Merely being in their village is a chore for these people, never mind the dead. 

They are only people in the outer districts, he hears them whisper. Unmanageable and unwashed. They don’t even have shoes. 

Sosuke bites his lip so hard it bleeds. That is not enough for him. He will no be contented to this life and fade away or be torn apart by monsters, those with and those without masks. 

He walks up to one shinigami and points him to the hunting ground. The place by the river, where everyone must go eventually. That’s where they will find the monster that they barely bothered to look for. 

Someone calls him clever. Someone else notes his energy levels. 

None of them look back when they leave again. 

He looks at the stick and stone huts that make up his village for a long time before he follows their foot prints. He is worth more than dirt and dead grass and bloody teeth. Regardless of what they tell him. He will find people who recognize that he is a person, that he deserves to be seen, that he deserves to eat and wash and live. 

* * *  

The first time he sets sight on the seireitei the only thing that over rides his anger is his hunger. 

He wants it. He wants that place. He wants his place in its wall and all that it entails. Shoes, soap, food. 

He wants all of it. And he hates these people for hoarding it. He’d worked his way through the rukongai, and he’d made his way to the first districts with calloused hands and a mild smile. He’d seen people throw food away. He’d seen them discard perfectly good clothes and tools simply because they were old. 

All of this waste, and yet he’d gone hungry for so long. For what reason? 

He’d learned to read in return for months of hard labor, and he’d gotten himself accepted into the academy on work alone. 

By then he was still young for the academy, but not the youngest. He had learned to be mild and polite. He’d learned to hide the blood in his teeth and wear his sleeves long enough to hide calloused palms and scarred knuckles. 

He’d even started to wear glasses, to give the impression that he was smarter than people thought. And he was. Smarter. Smart enough and savvy enough that he lost his accent and polished his edges so swiftly that anyone who didn’t know before hand where he’d come from never would. Kido came to him as easy as breathing. All of his classes did. It just made sense, like fitting together pieces of puzzles. History and law, mathematics and management. 

Poetry especially became a passion of his. It was elegant and beautiful, it opened a window to the soul of the writer. 

The stroke of the brush and the stroke of the sword was the same. Once made it could never be undone. There the true intentions were laid bare to the world. 

He chose a poetic name for himself. One that was just as unassuming at his smile and his eyes. 

Sosuke Aizen. ‘Clever’ and ‘mediator’, and ‘love’ and ‘peace’. Something that he was and something that he wasn’t. Truth and lies. 

He had barely graduated when the moon finally spoke to him a name on the water. 

Kyoka Suigetsu. 

“ You have grown, my Sosuke.” 

She is lovely and insubstantial. She ripples at the edges and her long white hair flows like water around them. Her blue eyes are so dark they’re nearly black, and her kimono swims with black and white koi. 

She is like him, everything seemingly dripped in finery and hiding the callouses beneath. She is as beautiful as the truth is ugly. Sosuke loves her, suddenly and fiercely. He always has. She is the changing moon that has always watched over him. 

She is alone in that. 

Even in the academy, surrounded by others, he realizes quickly that he is cut from a different cloth. 

He is smarter, stronger, he adapts faster. It leaves him standing above students, a pedestal they cannot reach, but below shinigami who are even weaker than he by the simple merrit of he has not yet graduated. 

He asks one of those shinigami one day, when they are visiting to scout new recruits for their squads, why no one has ever tried to make things better for the outer districts. 

(why no one ever tried to make it better for him) 

They laughed at him, and the notion that anyone would care for mere rukongai trash. Someone all the way from Akaiha was worth less than the dirt on the shoes of someone like a Kuchiki. One person from Junrinan was worth more than eighty people from the eightieth districts.  Why bother with people like that? 

If they really hated it there so much they should have worked harder to get out. 

If their lives were so terrible they should just hurry up and die and move on. 

Another answer comes, years later. It’s given to him by Shinji Hirako, his new captain, but the words aren’t really aimed at him. They stand on a balcony above the graduation class after him. He’s a fourth seat, fresh himself, and prepared to claw his way higher with grace and smiles. 

The difference between the people below them is stark. The rukon seeds, the nobility, and the mercantile. It’s in the slope of shoulders, the set of jaws, and the dark eyes. Even their uniforms bear the marks of their origins. Some are new, even in the last days of class. Others are threadbare, grown out of and patched messily in places. 

“It’s the same every year,” Hirako says to Rose. The two blonds are shoulder to shoulder, flanked by their underlings. Hirako has no lieutenant, so his entourage is larger. 

“A shame,” Rose’s usual smile is faded into a pensive frown. 

“Don’t look like that. There’s nothing you can do and you know it. They keep the rukon full so when the Soul King needs to lighten the weight no one with any power does anything about it. That’s how it’s always been.” 

“I know that.” Rose’s frown deepens. “That doesn’t mean I like it.” 

“No. None of us do.” 

Sosuke thinks of cruel smiles and sabotages. Finery hides the sickest hearts. He’s not sure that Hirako is right. Plenty of people like the system just fine. All the ones with power do. The nobility does nothing because it keeps them safe and it keeps them living in luxury. They like living above the common riff raff. 

Sosuke starts looking more into history. There have been attempts at change in the past. Rebellions and insurgencies, all crushed. Each time things got worse for the citizens of the Rukongai. More resources were taken, trade was restricted, business taxes increased until the squalor of the outer districts encroached until it reached all the way to the fifty first. The nobles owned the Central 46, who all Shinigami would obey without question. They cut down citizens they should have protected. 

After that it stopped. Fear held them in place. They were no more than sheep. 

Sosuke would not be a sheep. He refused.   

* * * * 

Isolation was a deadly thing. 

To be alone, even when surrounded by other people, was the worst sort of torture. He may not have shown it, but he struggled to resign himself to the world as it was. Why should he? He had been born strong. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but the empty clothes around where he woke up were people crushed by his mere presence. He had learned, quickly, to hide himself inside his own skin. 

No one saw him. No one saw what he saw. A king that never knew his subjects, a ruling class that revelled in the suffering of those beneath them. There was a king with no face, no name, no influence. No king at all. 

The throne in the sky was empty and Sousuke still knew the hunger. It still clawed at his chest and stomach. 

Hirako was suspicious of him. He’d never done anything to warrant it, but the captain watched him like he was waiting for an explosion. 

He was the last of his graduating class to be sent to the human world. The senkaimon was acting strangely, and they were going to put it off a few more months, but the head captain insisted, over Hirako’s protests. He said Sosuke needed to get his feet wet. 

So he went. 

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light. 

This was not right. It wasn’t right at all. 

Where were the thick wooden walls and tiled roofs of Kyoto? Surely it couldn't have changed so much since the last paintings were brought back from the human world! There really must have been something wrong with the Senkaimon. It dropped him somewhere he was certainly not meant to be. 

There was something weird here too. The air was dense, like the atmosphere had suddenly compressed without room to expand. And the soldiers. Most of them weren’t just in identical uniforms. Some of them had the same face! 

They were all alive, that much he could tell, and none of them paid any mind to him. 

He touched the hilt of his zanpakutou, a curl of worry and a thrill of excitement coursing through him before he brushed them underneath reasoning and logic. 

Is it an illusion? 

He knows she is the best when it comes to such things. No one else could compare, and once he has someone snared there’s nothing else. The game is over and he has won.

She thrums under his fingers a small denial. 

No. It’s real. Everything is real, but everything is also...

Wrong. He can feel it. There’s something very, very wrong in the air. A thickness, a blanket over the land. The edges of the horizon somehow seem more like a cage than an invitation to find where they lead. As if they lead nowhere. 

What is this?! 

Sosuke forces himself to calm down. He’s never understood people who let their anger cloud their judgement, or fear decide their actions. Nothing good ever comes of that. 

He needs information. 

He tries, first, to open the senkaimon again, but to no avail. He stabs the air at least five times before he gives up on that option. Panic thrums under his skin. He sets it aside yet. 

An investigation begins. 

He follows troops and listens to orders. People are fighting, a war between americans and the clan Connacht. 

Soldiers for it march to a prison, where a high profile captive it being held under a general. Seeking information he follows after. 

Inside, he finds a tragedy and a miracle all in one. 

* * * * 

A human who can see him. A man who travels through time in a desperate attempt to save the world he lives in. A boy who has no power on his own but can empower into other people. 

He’s an interest ( amazing ) human. 

At first glance he’s just a moody teenager. All scowls and harsh edges. Sosuke gets to watch them soften around his people. Mash, a girl of tremendous resilience and knowledge. Cu Cullain, a magician who is two people at once, gentle and fierce in equal turns. Medusa is a vicious contender, with sharp teeth and serpents in her hair. The only smiles she has are reserved for pretty girls, and Ichigo himself. 

It’s not his intention, but Sosuke starts to get attached. 

It’s not his intention, but Sosuke starts to trust them. 

Ichigo feels like his first and final chance. He sees the same injustices, he encourages Sosuke’s anger. 

He tells him to change the world. 

For the first time in his life Sosuke blossoms. He doesn’t need to hold himself back, or pretend to be anything other than what he is. Ichigo sees through his facade anyways. Ichigo keeps up with the twisting paths and whip quick leaps Sosuke’s mind makes. He’s a match for him. Never has Sosuke felt anything like what he felt when Ichigo placed his hand on his shoulder and shoved his very soul inside his skin. 

Fire and moonlight, an ocean of power rushing into Sosuke’s swollen lake of reiryoku. 

For the first time in his life Sosuke begs. When Ichigo tells him that he’ll forget him, forget them, he tells him secrets. He lets him touch Kyoka Suigetsu and offers him only truth. He will never be able to hide from Ichigo again, and he will give up every mask and tempered smile he has if it means Ichigo will restore him to how he is in America. 

Free. 

The empty throne in the sky doesn’t exist anymore. There are only stars and the sun. 

It’s a war. Bloody and desperate. Every hollow in hueco mundo has brought themselves to the feast, or to run from the end of their home. 

It’s still precious to him. Ichigo’s roughness manages to sand away his edges and hard corners, in the best ways. 

It can’t stay. He clings to Ichigo when the battles are over and the light starts to shimmer around him. If he could he would follow him all the way to Chaldeas, no matter the consequences. If he could. 

He can’t. 

He loses everything, and he can’t even mourn it. 

* * * * *

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

He stepped out of the gate and onto a beach, where western troops marched in the dying red light.

Onto a beach- 

Onto a beach-

Onto a- 

Into carefully planned out streets lined with high wooden walls and roofs tiled in blue. Souls wander, forlorn and clinking with the chains of fate. Somewhere off to the east there’s a hollow hunting for dinner. The living are just as down trod as the dead, trudging through their daily toil. 

Sosuke stumbles forwards. He blinks several times. He had just been reaching for something, hadn’t he? He’d been trying to hold something in his hands… 

Something in his hands. 

He looks down at his clenched fist. There is something cool and powerful held in his hand. 

The one constant in Sosuke Aizen's life is hunger.

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

Ichigo sat patiently on the cot while Unohana poked and prodded him. He didn’t have a lot of injuries left. Mostly scrapes and bruises, but she was taking a very close look at his eyes, balance, and short term memory. .

 Apparently laughing hysterically at the murder of 46 people was a sign of head trauma. 

“You don’t seem to have any lasting damage,” she finally concluded. “Most of the injuries you sustained earlier have already healed.” 

“That’s Hanataro,” Ichigo says with a smile. It fell quickly. “I mean, uh. I threatened him into helping me. He’s very talented.” 

Unohana looked faintly amused under her serenity. “Of course you did. I’m sure you held your zanpakuto so close to his throat he couldn’t even use his shinten to knock you unconscious.” 

Ichigo nodded solemnly. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. But anyways, I’m fine. Is Rukia doing better? She was really wiped out…” 

“Both of Kuchiki’s are fine. I believe they’ve had a long overdue discussion, actually. That technique you used when she was fighting was certainly… unique. Who taught it to you?” 

Ichigo considered his answers before he decided to tell her the truth. They were allies for now. 

“I made it up on the spot.” 

“You made it up one the spot.” She repeated. One eyebrow arched high. She looked young, but when she’d healed the last of his bad injuries up earlier he’d felt the dangerous undercurrent of her power. She was at least as old as Yamamoto. It was only a shiver of fear at the idea of calling her old that kept him from asking her the same question he’d asked him.  “You really are a very unique person, aren’t you?” 

“It’s not that impressive,” Ichigo argued. He could feel his face turning red. “I did something similar as a human. I just pushed my energy into her. Although, as a human I could kinda heal with it…” 

“Yes, that’s similar to how healing kido works,” she mused. “ Kaido is a method we use to insert our own energy inside of the body and manipulate the spirit particles, the reishi, that make up the body of the patient so we can put them back together again.” 

“That makes sense,” Ichigo taps his fingers on his leg idly. His brows furrowed. With his mystic codes he’d been able to heal grievous wounds and keep people fighting, but he’d never been very good at doing it without. He could make due, he had with Uryu, but that was just jumping his natural healing into overdrive.

Ichigo looked up at her. “I get that I was your enemy not that long ago,” began the boy, “But is there a way for me to learn to heal while I’m here?” 

Unohana looked surprised. “You want to heal? I was under the impression that your expertise was in combat.” 

“It is,” Ichigo said honestly. “Orihime is a good healer, better than almost anyone I’ve ever seen. But we got seperated here. If it wasn’t for Hanataro, I might have been seriously screwed. Or I might have been fine, but Ganju could have been hurt. A lot of people could have been hurt. And what I can do is very basic. Humans have to study for years to be able to-” 

“Yes,” she stepped in, holding up a hand to cut off his rampant justification. Ichigo couldn't help noticing the callouses on her palms and fingers. She was a fighter. She also smiled at him. “ I can teach you.” 

Ichigo offered her a half of a grin. “Just so you know, I suck at spellwork.” 

“I’m sure we can make due. Now, I’m going to clear you. Please behave while you’re in my division.”

Her smile turned tight at the edges and her eyes narrowed minutely. Fear shot striaght down his spine. 

“Y-yes ma-am!” He said quickly. He made his escape quickly. He still wanted to see Rukia, and find out what her and her brother had been talking about. Of all the people to try to step in and protect them he could scarcely believe it was Byakuya. Maybe he’d misjudged him? 

Or more likely he’d smacked some sense into him. 

Typical. 

Ichigo was just trying to figure out how to navigate his way out when he stumbled into someone. Which was weird, because he should have really felt them coming. 

Pink kimono, straw had, wavy brown hair. 

“Oh. Kyoraku, hey,” Ichigo waved at him. 

The man smiled at him. He’d barely had any malice to him the last time they’d met, and now any he’d had ever is vanished behind a kind smile. His assistant, Nanao if Ichigo remembered right, was missing for once. 

“Ichigo. It’s good to see you again.” 

“You too,” Ichigo nodded to him. “What are you doing here? You didn’t get too banged up, did you?” He’d been worried. Those two had spirited away a man born before the human era, one who Ichigo had been informed was the strongest person in the Seireitei. 

Ichigo had picked a fight with the strongest person in the entire dimension. And then started lecturing him on his morality. 

That... sounds right. 

“Just a few bruises,” Kyoraku clapped him on the shoulder and forcefully guided him down the hallway. “I’m here visiting Juushiro. Come along.” 

It really wasn’t a question. Ichigo shot him a glower. 

“I’m not a dog, you know.” 

“Really? You look a little mangy…” 

Ichigo elbowed him in the ribs. “Fuck you. Speaking of dogs, is that one guy okay? The werewolf.” 

“Werewolf? You mean Komamura? He was in nasty shape, but he’ll recover. He’s a few doors down if you want to introduce yourself properly.” 

“...Nah. I don’t think I should. He seemed pretty torn up about the whole betrayal thing and I was kinda just an enemy. It doesn’t really, I guess, feel right?” He struggled to find the right words. Even if he wasn’t the most eloquent, Kyoraku nodded along with him sympathetically. 

“Anyways. You said you were here visiting Juushiro, like Ukitake? What happened? You don’t look charred around the edges.” Ichigo gave him a critical once over. 

Kyoraku snickered at him and they entered a room. A private hospital room, where Ukitake was sitting up in the bed. Ichigo hadn’t noticed before, he’d been too busy assessing the man’s energy and fighting for his life and Rukia’s, but Ukitake was actually very thin. His wrist bones were too prominent, his cheeks were too thin, and with the low drop the hospital provided robes he could see his collar bones starkly. 

If he was this strong sick, how strong would he be normally? 

If ‘Ukitake notices Ichigo’s critical once over, he says nothing about it. Only smiles when they get closer. 

“Well this is certainly a surprise. Kurosaki, it’s good to see you.” 

“Just Ichigo is fine,” he waves his hand. “You helped me after all, and none of my friends call me by my last name.” 

“Friends,” Ukitake repeats. His green eyes gentled. “Why don’t you sit for a while with us then. We were just visiting today.” 

Ichigo doesn’t know what to do with the way they’re both looking at him. It’s friendly and kind but there’s something else there. Like they’re trying to see where his sharp edges are and where he folds and what will make him change his mind. 

To be fair, they’d been enemies before. 

Ichigo pulls up a chair and flips it around so he can straddle it and cross his arms over the back. 

“How are you, Ichigo? We heard you didn’t very torn up during your confrontation with Aizen.” 

“I’m fine. He had me locked in a kido for most of the fight. The worst things I had were some burns from where I broke out of it. Unohana took care of it for me. She’s… nice. Terrifying, but nice.” 

“You asked about Ereshkigal before,” Ukitake pointed out. “Why did you-” 

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a rough coughing fit. Ichigo lurched for him immediately, with Kyoraku only twitching forwards before grabbing the water off the bedside table. 

They waited for the coughing to slow down, a full minute later, before Kyoraku gave him the glass. Ichigo was frowning at him. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, once he was done with the water. Ukitake nods and smiles crookedly. 

“It’s been a frequent occurrence for most of my life, I’m afraid. Even Unohana can’t do anything about it. It’ll go away in a few days, I’m sure.” 

Ichigo frowns at him, but nods all the same. A chronic cough could be about a billion things. If it started as a kid that might mean less. Honestly Ichigo is trained for field medicine. Emergencies and stopping bleeding. This kind of thing is beyond him. 

Still, he grew up next to a family clinic. 

“Have you ever tried human medicine?” he asks. Ukitake looks surprised, but shakes his head the negative. 

“No. I can’t say I have. As I understand it isn’t always very effective.” 

“Maybe not a couple hundred years ago,” he admits, thinking of battlefields and field hospitals, and how hard Nightingale had had to work to get people to wash their damn hands. “But it’s come a long way recently. Maybe you should give it a try? My dad and Uryu’s both run medical facilities.”

Ukitake eyes him for a long moment, the mention of his father catching his attention. Finally, he nods. 

“I may look into that. Thank you.” 

The conversation moves on, Ereshkigal forgotten under the feeling that Ichigo had just fucked himself somehow. 

* * 

Ichigo opened his eyes to grey skies and an amalgamated landscape. 

Zangetsu and Nieve were leaning over him, one of them clearly irritated and the other just as calm looking as ever. 

“Uh. Hi?” 

“It’s about damn time!” Nieve barked at him. Ichigo sat up, slowly, and then stood. It still felt weird to be standing up on the side of a building like this. It was completely unnatural. 

“Time for what? I’ve been busy, and I can’t just pop in here whenever I want you know. In case you missed it I’m still in potential enemy territory. I keep expecting to be arrested, whether they say I saved them from something or not. Which, again, I really didn’t. I didn’t even help them unearth that coup! It’s fucking stupid.” 

“Are ya done yet?” Nieve asked, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“... Not even remotely, but go ahead.” 

“Good. We’re bored in here and you’re an emotional disaster-”

“Hey!” 

“-in the making. Just look at the sky!” 

Ichigo did. It was grey, and cloudy this time. 

“What does the weather have to do with anything?” 

“The weather,” Zangetsu said in his deep, smooth voice, “is a reflection of you, as all things here are. It reflects your emotions. When you’re sad, it rains here.” 

“And ya are sad,” Nieve poked in. 

Ichigo scowled at the both of them. “Yeah so what if I am? I just found out one of my friends is now an enemy, a traitor, and I don’t even know what else right now! I lost my chance to talk to him because I hesitated, and now he’s gone full megalomaniac and he’s going to go overthrow the king.” 

He paused. 

“Not that I’m against that part. But I like some of these shinigami. I don’t want to see them go to war with him over a king that doesn’t give a rats left tit about any of them.” 

“Next time you shouldn’t hesitate,” Zangetsu said wisely. Ichigo nearly hit him. 

“What next time?! How many friends do you think I have that forgot we knew each other two hundred years ago in a timeline that’s been erased because it was the end of the world?!” 

“At least three,” nieve said without missing a beat. “Maybe four.” 

“Okay you know what,” Ichigo pointed at him. “I’ve decided, I don’t like you.” 

“No shit? I wonder why,” he rolled his yellow eyes. 

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Ichigo barked. It felt good though, to speak so openly with people who already knew everything about him. How messed up was it that his best conversation basically happened with himself? He stalked toward nieve, “How did you even get here, huh? I was too busy to care before but I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to have a hollow in my head. That is what you are, isn’t it?” 

Nieve froze for just a second, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He collected himself a second later with a loud scoff and a laugh in Ichigo’s face. 

“If you wanna know so bad, maybe you should ask that shop keeper. He seems to be tied up in everything else bullshit in your life.” 

“Okay. So maybe he is. I’m not asking him.” Ichigo stalked forwards, effectively cornering a piece of himself against a part of a sky scraper. “I’m asking you. You were pissed that I wasn’t listening to you before. Well I’m listening now, aren’t I?” 

“I-” Nieve looked over Ichigo’s shoulder at Zangetsu. “I can’t tell ya, partner.” 

“Can’t, or won’t?” 

“Can’t!” He snapped, glaring over Ichigo’s shoulder. 

When Ichigo looked over it, Zangetsu was gone, and when he looked back Nieve was too. 

* * * 

Ichigo was getting really, really sick of running for his life. Shoudln’t the return home have been easier than the journey to get there? 

It wasn’t, and the only thing that saved the five of them from tipping headfirst onto concrete was a timely save from Urahara. 

Who apparently had a flying carpet. 

Because why not. 

He’s not even surprised anymore. 

He catches the look in Urahara’s eyes when the man starts to turn around, but Ichigo catches his shoulder before he can do whatever he was planning on doing. 

“You know where everyone lives, right?” he asks, perhaps a touch too quickly. “Once everyone’s been dropped off, I wanna talk to you.” 

The others are silent. Urahara regards him from under the shadow of his hat before agreeing quietly. 

Ichigo bids fond farewell to his friends and sort-of-cousin before their ride takes them back to the little shop that Urahara runs. They touch down in front and walk inside, with the blond in the lead. As soon as they are inside everyone else, even Yoruichi, makes themselves scarce. 

Urahara takes Ichigo into one of the back rooms before he sweeps his hat off his head and kneels on the ground before him.  

It makes Ichigo's stomach twist in discomfort. 

“I know by now you heard about me. I’m really, very sorry.” It’s the most genuine the man has ever sounded to Ichigo’s ears. Some of the last threads of anger melt away. 

He drops to one knee in front of Urahara and knocks his head lightly with his knuckles. 

“Cut that out. I’m barely even mad at you, you know.” Now that he’s had a few days to cool his temper. 

“You should be,” Urahara looked up at him, his grey eyes searching and weary. 

Ichigo shrugged. “I don’t really hold grudges. If anything, you should apologize to Rukia for putting her in harms way. You were trying to do the right thing, weren’t you? And the reason you didn’t tell me anything… It was because you thought I’d run off, wasn’t it?” 

“That’s right. Can you honestly tell you wouldn’t have?” 

“Yeah,” Ichigo stood up. “I can. If nothing else I would have still needed you to get that gate open. And I don’t run so easy, even from shady shop keepers. Now,” He offered Urahara a hand. “If you’re really that contrite you can make it up to me.” 

Urahara eyed his hand before he took it and let Ichigo pull him to his feet. His hat found its rightful home. 

“And would that entail, exactly?” 

“Two things,” Ichigo held up two fingers. “One; next time you need my help for something, just tell me outright what’s going on. And two; I have two questions that I’d like the absolute truth to.” 

“That seems fair. What’s the question?” 

“In october, 1888, did you go to the human world?” 

Urahara fell silent. He stared at Ichigo for a long, hard minute before he nodded once. “I did.” 

Ichigo thought as much. 

“Is that when you discovered your Hogyoku?” 

Urahara looked like he’d been slapped with a living lobster. 

“How could you possibly know that?” he asked, stepping right into Ichigo’s space. “I told everyone that I created it. Did Aizen-” 

“He didn’t tell me,” Ichigo planted his hand on Urahara’s chest to keep him from coming in closer. “There were things happening in 1888 in the human world. Things that Chaldea was involved in.” 

He hesitated. 

“Things that I was involved in.” 

Ichigo could see the gears turning in Urahara’s head. He was too smart for his own good. 

“That’s impossible. Humans don’t live that long. You were only born a couple of decades ago.” 

“Nothing is ever impossible,” Ichigo said frankly. 

Urahara’s eyes narrowed minutely. “This has something to do with those friends of your Kon found, doesn’t it?” 

Now it was Ichigo’s turn to stare at him. “Huh?” 

Urahara changed on a dime. He snapped his fan open over his mouth and shadowed his eyes under his hat. “So you’re not omnipotent. I was worried for a minute there Ichigo!” 

“Wouldn’t it be omnipresent? Or omniscient?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What were you talking about? What friends?” 

“Not until you tell me how you knew about 1888. Everyone else I’ve ever told anything about the Hogyoku to I’ve always said I created it. Not discovered it. So it’s only fair for you to tell me,” he sang. 

Ichigo scowled at him. “Would you cut that shit out? You’re so weird. Whatever, I’ll find out on my own.” 

“Ichigo-” 

“I’ll see you around, Kisuke.” 

Ichigo gave his chest a light shove to get past him. Urahara didn’t try to stop him, for which he was grateful. He had too much on his mind. Was he really about to tell a guy he knew had played him like a fiddle once already a truth he’d never admitted to anyone who hadn’t been there with him? 

Fuck, what was wrong with him? 

He fled the shoten and made his way home under the pale light of the moon. When he carefully stepped through the front door (a trick he would never get used to ) he froze entirely. 

In the living room, sleeping on the couch and up against a chair respectively, were two people he thought he’d never see again. 

Medusa and Cu Chulainn. 

He sprinted up the stairs as fast as he could move and without even a how-do-you-do to Kon he launched the mod soul out of his body and shoved himself inside of it. He left Kon sitting on his pillow before he bolted back down the stairs on light feet and skidded into the living room. 

It was still enough noise and movement to have both of the legends up on their feet. 

He stood there for a long beat, out of breath, eyes wild and bright. 

“Ichigo?” Cu asked, slowly standing. They were both dressed like normal people. “Is that..?” 

“It’s him,” was all Medusa said before decking him in the face. 

Ichigo stumbled back but didn’t fall. He looked between the two of them. It was hard to see, his eyes were all blurry. How weird. 

“You fool. You went rushing into danger without us,” she hissed. Her hair moved restlessly but he knew it was worry more than anger. 

 “Sorry, Medusa. I didn’t know you would be here. I still don’t. How are you here?” He searched her face. He touched his jaw. “I know I didn’t summon you.”

Cu touched his hand and turned it over so he could the red wings spread across the back of it. Command seals. 

“You’re little friend did, using your body for it. We are yours again, master,” Cu said quietly. He didn’t move away when Ichigo’s head fell against his shoulders and when Ichigo’s hands started shaking Medusa’s arm draped over his shoulders. 

“How?” He asked quietly. “Chealdeas and the grails supported eighty percent of your mana consumption. I thought there was no way anyone could support a servant outside of Grail Wars.”

“Ichigo,” Cu sounded amused. “How many of us did you have in Chealdeas?” 

“Huh? I don’t know. Forty, fifty total?” He hadn’t been close with all of them, but there had been plenty of them. 

“Right. So twenty percent of thirty servants equals the full upkeep of at least eight servants. Ichigo. You could have had us with you the entire time.” 

Ichigo choked. 

He’d been swallowing grief for so long, and he’d never had to. 

Nimble fingers pulled through his bright hair. 

“We’re here now. And there’s one more waiting for you. Kon didn’t have the fine control to summon someone so rawly powerful. But you do.” 

“Tomorrow,” Medusa said firmly. “Tomorrow you can summon him, and tell us about your newest adventure. And,” her hair hissed with her, “You will take us with you on whatever your next one is.” 

“Can I even do that? What I’m doing now is basically what Kyo was doing in North America. I know you have spirit forms, but that’s different from human souls. That’s-” 

“I’ve never known you to think too much,” Cu mused. “You’re a creature of instinct, aren’t you? Rest. We’ll work it out.” 

Ichigo still had questions, but he was such an emotional wreck he didn’t have it in him to fight when the pair bullied him up the stairs and into his old room. The bed was too soft. 

The three of them camped out on the floor. 

* * * *

Ichigo found, much to his amazement and amusement, that Medusa had basically adopted his sisters while he was gone. 

She and Cu had told Isshin that they were Ichigo’s friends from Chaldeas and he’d agreed (much too easily) to let them stay in the livingroom while they were looking for a place to stay. Medusa explained that they’d been guarding his body for him as well. 

The entire morning Ichigo felt warm and almost bubbling with excitement. He helped Karin with the table while Medusa and Yuzu puttered around the kitchen and Cu fed birds on the back porch. 

It was the most surreal day of his entire life. 

The trio left after breakfast and made their way towards Ichigo’s house. Once they were far enough to be overheard, Ichigo started to talk.

“Okay, so how do you expect to help me with what I’m doing now?” 

“Well. You know that all heroic spirits have a physical form and a spirit form, yes?” 

“Yeah. And that your spirit form isn’t the same as being an actual spirit, since your souls aren’t bound the way regular ones are. Instead of being a part of the cycle of reincarnation or the World, or even the time axis you’re connected to the Throne of heroes, and you manifest through a thaumaturgical anchor. In this case, me.”

“Yes. And it’s because you are our anchor that we’ll be able to do this. Any normal humans we would only be able to interact with them the way a regular human would,” Cu said cheerfully. “You leak power like a broken pipe. You always have. When we were in North America your influence started to take hold. You engraved a part of yourself on our souls, Ichigo. We can see the dead, we can interact with them.” 

“We’re supposed to forget,” Medusa said suddenly. “We’re supposed to forget the events of Grail Wars we’re summoned to when we go back to the Throne. But you. You we remember. We all remember. You’re really something, Master.” 

“Stop calling me that,” he said automatically, even while his mind turned over the information. He admitted to them. “I never knew I’d be fighting ghosts. I never thought anything like this would happen.”

“I doubt even that trouble maker Merlin could foresee this,” Cu laughed at him. Ichigo elbows his side. 

“Quiet you.” 

“Am I wrong?” 

“... not even remotely. But he gave me back the two of your so I feel like I should be a little nicer to him than normal.” 

Cu laughed at him again. 

It was interesting, seeing the two of them outside of a war zone and outside of Chaldeas Cu was relaxed in a hawaiian shirt, with his silver earrings glinting in the mid-morning sunlight. Medusa looked smart in a black turtleneck with her hair braided back tightly. 

The three made quite a sight. 

They were about to make an even weirder one. 

Ichigo let them into his house and headed for the basement, flanked on either side. He touched up the magic circle and gathered up two stones in the middle. One grey, one red. 

“Is this a piece of your spear?” Ichigo asked, holding it up to Cu. 

“A piece of an earring, actually.” 

Ichigo’s fingers ran over the rune engraved in it. 

“So it is. And this is a piece of your artwork right?” He held the grey stone up to Medusa, who smiled and nodded. That was morbid. Ichigo went to the cardboard box sitting on the table. The one he’d abandoned in his internal crisis. If he’d just opened his damn mail he could have taken Seireitei without any trouble at all. 

“If I switch to my own spirit form, will you still be able to draw on my power?” 

Cu hummed. “Normally I would say no. In your case? Probably.” 

“Lucky me,” Ichigo said. For once he actually meant it. 

He pulled out a soft orange scarf. It was tattered and torn, and utterly ancient. Over 3000 years old. 

Ichigo laid it down delicately in the middle of the circle and stepped back. Medusa handed him a knife. He cut his palm across an old scar and stepped to the edge of the circle where he held his fist out and over the chalk circle. Blue light crawled across the floor and raced along the edges where it crackled and sparked. 

“Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation. Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill. Repeat five times and after each is filled, destroy it,” The blue light turned red and lashed upwards. 

“I shall become all the goodness of the heaven’s. I shall embody all evils of hell. My will creates your body, and your sword cleaves my destiny. If you obey this will and reason, heed my call! Let shut the four cardinal gates and open the three-forked road winding to the Root. Appear now, thou Guardian of the Scales.”  

Romani had told him once that each war used a different summoning chant in their rituals. Participants and factions tailored their to specific desires, ancestors, and faction colors in some cases. Ichigo’s was an amalgamation of a half a dozen. 

It worked. Ichigo could feel the energy of life swelling up under his skin and filling his magic circuits as he drew it out of the planet and into himself. He was a conduit. The mana of the world rolled through his veins. 

He poured it through the circle, filling it until the limits were fit to burst. His blood sang with power. 

The light grew, rolling over and over until it was too bright to see beyond it. 

Ichigo felt the world give way and shift as the atmosphere made room for someone new. Someone powerful. 

“I ask you,” came a familiar voice, “Are you my master?” 

“I ask you; stop calling me that already.” 

The light parted light a curtain and Ichigo found himself yanked into a sudden, strong embrace. Powerful hands clapped his back firmly. 

“I thought I heard your voice!” 

“You said you would come whenever I called. No matter where or-”

“When, I remember. I do keep my promises when I’m able to, master.” 

“I swear to god,” Ichigo smacked him and shoved the servant away. Green hair, tanned skin. 

Achilles grinned down at him. 

* * * * *

Before Kyo, before America, before the dark circle was printed on Ichigo’s chest, he stood in a city bathed in fog.  

It was thick and filled with the scent of sorrow. 

From the second they landed they were in a fight. Dolls, a strange girl in armor, and homunculi. It was after the last one that Ichigo finally decided they needed to find a base of operations. 

Ichigo touched Mash’s shoulder gently. “Let’s get a move on.” 

There was something bothering her. She wouldn’t say what. She blamed it on the environment, but Ichigo had known her too long to buy into that. 

They get blitzed by a servant before they can find a safe place to hunker down, but just as soon as the fight is over Ichigo forgets what they look like. Mash and Romani are the same. It’s a frightening power. How can they fight someone if they can’t remember anything about them as soon as they’re gone from sight? 

They need back up. They need to find a Ley Line so he can summon Cu and Medusa to help them. 

Help comes in the form of a brash spitfire of a blonde in knights armor. The same strange girl they’d met earlier. 

Her name is Mordred, a knight of the round table. She has a safehouse, and a doctor. 

There’s something about Jekyll that makes Ichigo’s skin prickle. He’s a sweet faced young man, with kind green eyes, but there’s something dangerous about him. 

Ichigo peers out the window while he gently chides Mordred for revealing her name. The streets are full of ghosts here, that walk uninhibited and forlorn in the mists. 

There’s a lot of blondes in this city. 

* * * * * *

Chapter Text

School started far too soon for Ichigo’s tastes. 

He sits in the back of the room, with the doors within view and the windows to his left. He has two ways out and access to all entry points, in case something horrible happens. Hopefully it won’t, but it’s an old paranoia that keeps him on his toes. 

His friends, thankfully, seem to be readjusting to life as humans. Uryu had taken hard to losing his powers, something that even Orihime couldn’t fix, but Ichigo had spoken to Ryuken about it after they got back and the man had had the strangest look in his eyes. Ichigo wasn’t too worried about him. Uryu was more temperamental and vicious than the rest of them, for all he seemed to be elegance incarnate. He was also more resilient than he looked. 

He shouldn’t have to be. But Ichigo couldn't change that. 

He was barely listening to their teacher talk about some new student when an awareness shot through him. 

He sat up straighter when a young man walked into the room. Straight blond hair, a curved smile, and long limbs. He was fit and strong. He didn’t have much puppy fat, but he could have passed for someone held back a couple of years if it weren’t for his eyes. 

The eyes always give it away. 

They were playful, mischievous, and far too old to belong to a human. 

Ichigo slammed his head onto his desk and ignored the startled squacks and stares from his neighbors. What the fuck is happening now? Can’t his life ever be normal? 

He manages to hide a rueful smile. No, it can’t be normal. If it was normal, Ichigo would be a paranoid wreck. As long as strange, dangerous things were happening he knew he could handle whatever came at him. 

Like the new kid was coming at him. 

Void dust, mirrors, sand storms. 

Ichigo lifts his head up to watch the new boy sit next to him. Shinji Hirako. He’d written his name backwards at the front of the room. For some reason Ichigo thinks of inverted pyramids. 

He can tell, just by looking, this guy is trouble. 

Aren’t I trouble too? 

“Looks like I’ll be sitting next to you, Kurosaki. Let’s treat each other well.” 

His smile is easy and his stance is confident, even when sitting. 

Ichigo gives him a very pointed once over. 

“Sure. Nice to meet you, Hirako.” 

Ichigo manages to get halfway through the day before a hollow shows up and ruins it for him. He pops out of his body and leaves Kon to play student while he goes to take care of the issue and comes back. Three come throughout the day, more than there had been before Ichigo had left for Seireitei. It’s starting to tick him off. 

It happens again while he’s doing his homework, only then he’s not alone. 

Some dude with an afro interrupts him after it's dead. He shows him the badge Ukitake gave him, but apparently someone was pulling his leg. Or worse.

Ichigo is about to tell the shinigami where to shove it when his instincts scream at him and yank his hand around. Zangetsu sings when it collides with what would have cut deeply into Ichigo’s shoulder. A katana.

Ichigo doesn’t even pretend to be surprised by its owner. 

“Hirako.”

The man grins like a cat.

Ichigo shoves him back to give himself room to breath. “When you said ‘take care of each other’ I didn’t know you meant like this,” Ichigo waves his hand at the two of them, swords drawn. 

“What can I say. I wanted to see what ya would do,” Hirako is lazy and catlike as he prowls to the side. Ichigo keeps step opposite of him and the pair circle one another. “You should really lock your reiatsu down. You’ll attract unwanted attention this way.” 

Ichigo scowls at him. “I am! This is as far down as it goes.” Kyo had gotten him to contain himself somewhere in Ohio, so he didn’t want another lecture on this! 

“...Wow. Your control must suck worse than I thought.” 

“You know what mother fucker-” 

“Language! And here I was goin outta my way to be polite to ya,” Hirako said mournfully. He tapped the flat edge of his katana over his shoulder. He looked utterly at ease. Ichigo repressed a growl. It was for the best. The worse off Hirako thought he was the more of an upper hand Ichigo had. 

“Uh huh,” Ichigo says dryly. 

‘Ichigo,’ comes Medusa’s voice in his head.

‘Stay where you are. I’m fine for now. If anything happens, Achille’s can get to me in a second. He’s a Saber, for sure. You’re still a Lancer, not a Rider. You’re at a disadvantage where as I’m on even ground. Hold place.’

‘Right,’ all three chorus. 

“I am!” 

“Why don’t you just tell me what you came here for and we go back to being friendly,” Ichigo suggested. “Or we can keep fight, but we have to take it out of town. I’m not really…. Subtle.” 

“No shit?” Hirako grins wider at him. “Alright, if ya wanna know so badly.” 

He reached up and grasps the air just above his hairline before he pulls down- 

A hollow mask. 

Ichigo has no idea what to make of this. Kyo had said something about breaking down barriers with his Hogyoku, and making hybrids. 

Ichigo touches his own cheek. He’d never made the connection before, but when he’d been fighting Kyoraku he’d felt something cool and familiar on his cheek. And his injuries. They turned white, like a hollow with a healing factor. 

Something clicks into place. 

Nieve. Nieve was another facet of his power. A shinigami power and hollow power. But no quincy? 

His head was starting to hurt. 

“Huh,” was all he said. 

“Do you get it now? I’m a vizard. A shinigami who’s crossed into the domain of the hollows. I’m just like you.” 

Ichigo nearly laughs. 

“So join us.” 

He nearly chokes. 

“...Yeah. No. I just met you, and you just attacked me out of the blue. So. No.” 

Hirako’s face contorted like he’d tasted something sour. “Didn't ya hear a word I just said? You're a Visored too. I know ya are. You’ll need our help.”

Ichigo lay Zangetsu back on his back so he could cross his arms over his chest. He eyed Hirako hard. He didn’t seem malicious, even if he had just attacked him. Ichigo knew when he was being played with, and having people test his skills was unfortunately familiar territory by now. 

“Give me some credit,” Ichigo said tersely. “I’m not a lost dog looking for a pack. What does it matter if we are similar? I don’t know who told you about me, or what they said, but I’m not interested in joining any weird underground organization, or whatever you are. I have other things to do with my life, you know.

Hirako regarded him with new eyes. His head cocked, sending straight strands of blond fluttering out of the perfectly straight cut.

“Will it help if I say Kisuke asked me to help out?” 

“He’s even shadier than you are. So no.”           

“Man. Kisuke wasn’t kiddin when he said you were stubborn, Kurosaki.” 

Ichigo didn’t respond directly. He did have questions. A lot of questions. About Visards, and Kisuke, and Hirako too, but he couldn’t give himself away that easily. Not now that he had other options. Powerhouses at his back, ready and willing to fight. Ichigo gave Hirako and sharp once over, drinking in his power. 

He was strong, but there was something slippery about him that made Ichigo’s hair stand on end. A very dangerous man indeed. Not to mention that as soon as the mask had come out his energy had more than doubled. 

“Yer gonna need our help,” Hisako said again. “You must have already felt it. The hollow trying to claw its way into power. In soul society, you fought some pretty tough people, right?” 

He knows exactly when Hirako is talking about. His fight with Kyoraku. Still, it’s clear Hirako is operating under false assumptions. There hadn’t been a struggle for control. It had been a surge of power and the taste of void dust, white on his skin and the guiding hand of instinct. Vicious and pure, a fight to survive. A fight to win. 

“It’ll keep fighting to take control until it consumes ya. We can teach you how to control it.” 

Ichigo narrows his eyes. 

“I’m still not interested. And we’ve got homework, you know. I’ll see you tomorrow, Hirako. Maybe we’ll talk more then.” 

After he’d had time to figure a few things out.  

*

For the first time in what feels like a lifetime Ichigo feels long fingers twine through his hair. 

Ichigo opens his eyes to pale blue skies and lavender eyes. 

“I’m dreaming,” Ichigo smiles slowly. He sits up and drags Merlin into a hard embrace. 

He gives a startled, “Ooof!” But doesn’t push Ichigo away. He chuckles against Ichigo’s orange hair. “I see you missed me.” 

“Shut up and enjoy the moment,” Ichigo scolds. 

“Oh, forgive me master. I should just take you attention when you deign to give it.” 

“I’m gonna punch you,” Ichigo warns. He let’s Merlin go a minute later. It’s only then that he realizes he’s not alone. 

“Well ain’t this touchin’?” 

Ichigo looks over his shoulder to find Nieve and Zangetsu standing behind them. They both look out of place in the beautiful scenery. They are weapons, creatures of battle and war. Not flowers and eternity. 

Ichigo can’t imagine he looks any more like he belongs here. He is a soldier. He is not a real mage. He doesn’t have a place on Avalon. But, he has a place at Merlin’s side, where he sits. He shoots the mage a curious look. 

Merlin smiles back at him, looking innocent. “I thought you might want to speak with them somewhere where they can’t disappear at will.” 

Nieve looks offended. “Hey!” 

Zangetsu frowns minutely. “This is a trap?” 

“Of a sort,” Merlin admits. 

“Are you reading my thoughts or something?” Ichigo asks. Merlin shakes his head.

“No. Only watching over you. I know you well enough to know when you need what little help I can provide you with from here. So, Ichigo. You have until you wake.” 

“Asshole!” Nieve reaches for his sword, but Ichigo catches his wrists without even rising. 

“Cut it out and sit down,” he scolds, his brows furrowing. “Merlin’s not wrong.” 

He ignores the delighted smile on Merlin’s face. 

“We need to have a conversation. All of us. Sit .” 

The both of them obey, slowly. Zangetsu looks physically pained. Ichigo ignores it. He looks to Nieve. 

“You’re the ‘hollow’ Hirako was talking about, right?” He waits for a nod. Nieve is still, his shoulders drawn up and his mouth curved in more a grimace than a smile. “I thought so. That thing during my fight with Kyoraku, when I got stronger but it felt like my grip on reality was slipping, right before I got knocked out. And before, in America when Cu Alter- What?” 

Both of them grew tense at the mention of the Berserker. Anger radiated off of even the normally calm Zangetsu. 

“Yeah, you’re right, it was me. It had to be me! If I hadn’t stepped in you woulda died! Don’t you know that, King? Died! There was a hole in you’re goddamn chest and you didn’t even have a fuckin’ sword, and ya know what?!”