Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Powers, don’t tell me…” Kisuke glared at the packed interior of the usually relatively quiet restaurant. It was frequented by seated members of several of the various nearby divisions and because of that rarely got as rowdy as some others farther from barracks and the usual patrol routes.

He frowned at his own thoughts. Perhaps he was confusing causation and correlation, there.

At any rate, this particular place, being relatively near both a few barracks and some of the nicer but not ‘born with money in my crib’ housing and directly on several of the patrol routes as it was on a major road…

Well. Usually was much more subdued than this. Always full enough strangers could end up sharing tables and ‘friends’ was stretched a bit just to sit down when the longer, stranger-friendly seating filled up, but never… raucous. Although whenever Abarai and Matsumoto were involved things were bound to be loud.

The decorations only added to the headache threatening to bloom. The ‘love’ butterflies had him wishing he’d spent a few years working out laser vision so a glare could rid him of the horrid creatures. How the person who ran ‘And a Day’ had gotten them to agree to pull double-duty as love messengers when they weren’t needed to send messages for the Gotei or guide souls was beyond his understanding.

Not that he much cared to consider it. Everything about ‘And a Day’ irritated him immensely.

“Another wedding, thanks to And a Day,” Tessai agreed, moustache twitching. He found the whole thing incredibly amusing. Even if he, and everyone else, had lost the bet about who Hisagi-fukutaicho would end up with. One of the first openly acknowledged matches produced by And a Day, they were at three years and going strong, against most of the other bets placed.

Well. Not by everyone else. Yamada and Ichigo had both put money on ‘no one in the Gotei’ and ‘decades at least’. Being non-specific bets half their winnings for both pots (the second called at two years as they were the only ones left), went into the funding of a general meal amongst all of those who had been there for the betting.

Which was generally all of those routinely pulled into Ichigo’s orbit.

“Good evening, Kurosaki-kun,” he said, sitting resolutely with his back to the partying side of the restaurant.

Ichigo snorted, smirk telling Kisuke plainly he wasn’t fooling anyone at the table. “Urahara,” he nodded. “Yo, Tessai. You look pleased. The kid working out?”

Kisuke hid his amusement at Ichigo calling someone almost two centuries his senior ‘the kid’. Given ‘the kid’ was a bit of a timid little thing who looked roughly thirteen while Ichigo had stopped aging in his mid-twenties and ‘the kid’ could barely stammer out a full word at once when Ichigo was around Kisuke could see his point.

“He has a talent. And his improvement has helped build his confidence. In time, I think he will do very well, thank you.”

The two talked a bit more about the new possible prodigy and when Tessai would have some time to look at some of Ichigo’s ideas—once properly taught he turned out to have the Shiba’s usual talent and the extra creativity of a human raised on manga and anime—before someone in the wedding party invited Tessai to share a few toasts and he accepted, good-natured as ever.

Kisuke’s wandering attention had taken in the mass of papers and noted that, unlike usual, they weren’t psychology texts and messages from Shunsui or Jushiro as the three tried to figure out a post-traumatic stress treatment tailored for Shinigami. It had been years of work in the making already. Ichigo had the degrees and many contacts, even had clinic hours as a psychologist in Kagamino, but he wasn’t raised a Shinigami. Shinigami weren’t raised human. Or didn’t remember it, at least, for those not born pure souls. Not everything carried over. Culture and outlook and habits—they made things tricky. When it was theoretically possible to live forever and centuries was nearly a given, lives spent in a few decades caused very large differences to spring up in such areas.

Kisuke had been dragged in several dozen times to help the three try to figure out what their sticking point in understanding each other was and even with his position more or less half-way between their realms of experience they had trouble on occasion. For the moment? Ichigo was someone people could sign up to talk to if their captains and lieutenants approved. Only both—or either at all—because too many wanted to talk to Ichigo because of who he was, not what career path he’d chosen.

Right now?

There were splashy resort photographs, attractions tarted up to look their best and dozens upon dozens of brochures, notepads with figures and facts scrawled left to right and right to left depending on which language Ichigo’s brain had been working in at the time.

“Is it getting to be that time of year already?” Kisuke mused, nudging one of the brochures with a dubious finger. “Tropical resorts, Kurosaki-kun? Virgin Islands? Fiji?”

“Paris.”

Kisuke looked from him back to the array and could not spot a single one that looked remotely Parisian. One or two had French, but several islands spoke it at least as one of their two or three major languages and even at a glance with his rusty use of the language’s modern forms he could tell it wasn’t Parisian French. “Indeed?”

Ichigo chuckled. “This is the ‘why you don’t want to go there’ research.”

After a blink Kisuke grinned. “My my, Kurosaki-kun, how manipulative of you. Do you do this every year?”

“To a degree. Of the dozen choices there’s usually a few that were very poorly considered. Unsafe for the girls or very picky about their idea of manners and rude to outsiders who don’t know them,” he shrugged. “I pick out a few that wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable or feel like the trip was a bust and highlight all the wonderful things there are to see and do while getting the least flattering reports of the seamier sides of the others thrown in with their glittering highlights.”

“But this year shall be Paris, no few for the rest to vote on?”

“Ishida asked me to tilt it this way—he’s even chipping in for a ‘bargain package’ I have to make up to decrease the costs a bit to make it more attractive despite being a more tourist-heavy destination than we usually visit.”

Kisuke quirked a brow before the pop of a cork on the other side of the room followed by a cheer made it click. He made a face. “Ah. He’s proposing.”

“And about damned time, too,” Ichigo agreed, looking distinctly amused at his expression. “You’re still being a humbug about it all? Ready to burn down And a Day’s headquarters if Yoruichi would let you?”

“What makes you think I need her assistance?” Kisuke grumbled. He savored the thought of burning… what, computers? He had no idea what the headquarters looked like because he couldn’t find anyone who worked there. Or even knew anyone who might know someone who worked there.

Unless no one was talking. Which, given how quickly he usually discovered even non-critical information when he bothered to look, was beginning to seem more likely. If more alarming than the general gaudiness too often prevalent in the usually somber Seireitei.

“Nothing, but considering she’s currently singing their praises…”

Yoruichi and Shinji. Not married, thank the powers, but matched by And a Day and seemingly happy with it.

He grimaced. “I honestly can’t decide if they’re a match made in heaven, hell, or the land of fuckery. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they went on with this for decades only to invite us to their wedding where they turn out to be marrying other people. Just at the same time.”

Ichigo’s cup paused just before his mouth. He stared into space for a bit before nodding decisively. “I hadn’t considered that but I can absolutely see it. They’d probably even have the venue split right down the middle with their differing styles.”

Both shuddered.

One of the ‘love’ butterflies floated over and settled on the stem of a glass that proclaimed Ichigo had made the rounds before Kisuke and Tessai had arrived. “Really, I have trouble reconciling this.”

“What?”

“Your absolute hatred for something you’ve never had any part of.”

“I’m overseeing the Twelfth until Akon finishes mastering his bankai—”

“Which he hasn’t managed to advance in despite over twenty years of needing to do so if you’re to be let off the Captain’s hook—”

Kisuke ignored that with decades of practice. He was not bound to the Gotei. Wouldn’t let himself be, ever again. “And because this has to do with technology, everyone keeps asking me how they do it, is it real or wish fulfillment and someone stopped talking to them can I tell them if they were recently hurt? They won’t believe the Twelfth doesn’t run it.”

“What has that to do with And a Day?” Ichigo asked, quirking a brow. “People are stupid everywhere all the time, that has nothing to do with the site. Unthinking hatred, Urahara, really?”

“Kurosaki-kun, you of all people, should know that you can’t take a Living World entity and just shove it into the Shinigami population. Sure, it’s popular and has been successful, but how ephemeral is that success?”

“You don’t want your division associated with what might turn out to be a fad.” Then Ichigo cocked his head, shook it slightly and continued before Kisuke could point out that it was only his temporarily. Whatever everyone else assumed he was only interim Captain. He had a few lower seats making decent progress on their bankai. Another fifteen years or so and… “No. You don’t want your division associated with the accompanying heartbreaks. And a Day doesn’t promise perfect true love, you know. Just that you’ll have something in common with the people it matches you with. You answer their questions and they send you the introduction paragraph from possible matches. There’s email for a while, then, if you both want to do it, instant messaging and eventually they—again if both are willing—engineer a meetup. It’s much more nosy gossiping friend who knows everyone than the ten-thousand point questionnaires claiming near perfect success in finding your forever match.”

“And yet they’re called ‘And a Day’. What does it mean if not Forever and a Day?”

Ichigo shrugged.

“Wait a minute.” Kisuke stared at him. “You’ve signed up with them?”

“Yeah?” he drawled, looking thoroughly unimpressed with Kisuke’s surprise. “You’re pretty much the only person I know—apart from Byakuya—who hasn’t. There’s a section for ‘purely penpals’, which Jushiro adores. I’m willing to bet he uses other sections, too, but a lot of people like having an anonymous but sort of familiar person to talk to. That other sections have led to a rise in weddings isn’t surprising. The Gotei is not as… interwoven as it might seem. Apart from lieutenants and captains few other members are known outside of their own divisions and sometimes even within it. And a Day helps make connections otherwise left wholly to chance. Or volunteering to spend time at work—when they don’t have to—in other divisions during their open events.”

“I think you’ve been reading too many of these,” he flicked a glossy sheet with his nail, “you’re sounding like a commercial.”

Ichigo chuckled. “I like them. Best dates I’ve had came through them.”

Kisuke felt reality tilt a bit. “Dates?” he asked blankly.

One brow rose. “Yes…? I’m not fifteen and clueless anymore, Urahara. Or, for that matter, solely focused on trying to keep myself and my friends alive.” He winced slightly. He was legally still alive, of course, but technically was a bit murkier.

That was why his living-world friends and family took a yearly vacation anywhere they wouldn’t see people who would know his age looked weird amongst them. His nephew wouldn’t be thought the younger ever again, from the last photos Kisuke had seen. When Ichigo worked his clinic hours he wore an aged gigai. The hours he could work were limited because if he spent more than five hours in the gigai he burnt it out and Kisuke had to build a new one.

The scientific part of Kisuke’s brain wanted to study the reasons; after all, the Visored had spent over a century in theirs with minimal issues, and Kisuke’s own had only needed a few replacement limbs. Ichigo was stronger than them, yes, but others of his power levels could wear altered gigai without problems—Jushiro had wanted to look more like a middle-aged man to not look odd with his hair at Yuzu’s wedding. No one had bothered to point out the hair would have been easier to change. Ichigo couldn’t just pop out of it for a few minutes and back, either, it had to bleed off his reiatsu between uses. He kept a spare for emergencies but Ichigo preferred to keep it as backup for actual emergencies, such as when Yuzu’s labor had nearly killed her and Ichigo had been there with the rest waiting tensely for information. His normal gigai didn’t have any problems.

Aside from the age thing.

“I’ve clearly missed a few things,” Kisuke declared after a bit of trying to piece together who Ichigo could possibly have dated. Not Inoue—Kisuke had been close enough to see her give up on a clueless teenaged Ichigo. Nor Arisawa. She had spent their latter school years dating a green-haired boy with more piercings and jewelry than the rest of the group together could display.

Abarai had Kuchiki firmly claimed long before Ichigo transitioned to soul society…

Matsumoto?

He wouldn’t have thought so.

“You’re going to give that hamster heart failure.”

“Mean.”

“Why don’t you sign up? You can’t tell me having someone sounds like a horrible thing to you, I’ve heard a few stories over the years. You’re neither asexual nor aromantic.”

With a snort Kisuke shook his head. “No, that’s true enough. But being officially pardoned for something I never did still doesn’t leave me as exactly bachelor of the year, does it?” He regretted it slightly when Ichigo’s face tightened a tad. All of the Visored—Ichigo included—had not faced universal welcome within Seireitei. Rarely was it outright fear, but… that had happened, too. Nervous and unsure none of them minded. They were aware enough to admit that they’d be feeling that way if things were reversed. Knee-knocking terror or ‘kill the freaks’ reactions, though, left them all feeling a bit displaced.

Honestly, it was good that Hiyori still refused to set foot in soul society. There would be no end to bloodshed and the subsequent paperwork if she had accepted reinstatement to a position in the Gotei.

“And you want to be bachelor of the year?” Ichigo said, not quite hitting his usual tone but fairly close to it.

Kisuke gladly let it slide. “Of course not.” He shuddered a bit, remembering how badly things had gone for every single man who had been nominated by the SWA for the ‘honor’. Stalking went to new levels. Thankfully not as fatally as sometimes seen in humans, but there had been some demotions, transfers and even a few expelled from the Gotei entirely as a result.

“So sign up. Let someone get to know you without ‘Urahara Kisuke, the man banned from Soul Society’ coming into it.”

“And if it pairs me with someone horribly ill-suited, like Sui-Feng?”

Ichigo chuckled. “There are a lot of old grudges and even blood-feuds, apparently. There’s a ‘under no circumstances in any way’ section where you can list people you don’t want to chat with on even the ‘not looking for romance’ sections.”

“Ah, well, no point in me signing up, is there? I expect I’d be listed there in quite a large number of profiles.”

“Not as many as would have had Kurotsuchi, had he survived Shunsui’s review of the Twelfth or And a Day started a few years before it did.” Then he grinned. “Sui-Feng is undoubtedly listed quite a few times. Honestly? She’s one of mine. It’s not a long list, either.”

“Zaraki?”

“No. There are actually two sections for lists of exclusions. One for romance and the other at all. I’ve more on my ‘don’t set me up romantically with’ list. I think a few people wrote down everyone they could think of trying to improve their chances of being matched with whomever they were already interested in.”

That did sound like a better design than he’d expected. Nor was this the first time someone had pushed for him to sign himself up. Yoruichi had been particularly keen on the idea but had backed off a bit after showing up as Shinji’s plus-one. Entirely, not just on the one subject. She was often busy these days.

It was probably just helping her brother transitioning to the Captaincy of the Second and appeasing Sui-Feng who seemed to have forgotten that the Shihoin always had control of the division when one was available to do so. Yoruichi wouldn’t take it from her for herself, but for her brother?

Without the slightest hesitation as she’d always intended he would succeed her. Sui-Feng was a placeholder only.

“I’ll make a bet with you. If you don’t have at least five profiles to look at by the end of a week I’ll never bring it up again and I’ll do my best to spread the word that the Twelfth has nothing to do with And a Day.”

Kisuke gave him a somewhat sour look for that. “You could do that anyway.”

“As could you. Think about it, you sign up and you can then say ‘as it happens, I’ve recently signed up myself. It would be nice to change’ such and such or add this or that. Just ramble at them a bit, throw in some technical details and then gently push them out the door. Wave at them with your fan when they look back in confusion.” Ichigo’s eyes gleamed wickedly, no doubt remembering a few examples of Kisuke dealing in very much that manner with idiots who thought Research Division meant Tech Services.

Kurotsuchi largely hadn’t spoken with anyone of another division not another captain at all, letting some of his members be bullied into doing the work instead of pointing out that apart from the devices made by the Twelfth everything else was now bought wholesale from the Living World and they had repair shops quite available there if no one wanted to spare a few members from their own divisions to take a class or two to do the upkeep in-house.

Kisuke had designated a dozen of his own to attend courses, knowing full well some would have the knack for one part but not another and a dozen likely meant a reasonably competent group able to help others become basically savvy.

And, eventually, innovate.

The Captains of other divisions could do the same. Kisuke had offered to point them to the right schools.

Shinji, Kensei and Rose had sent their selected people with his own when he’d mentioned it. Much easier to open the gates for one group than four.

“Seireitei to Urahara. Come back from the fairies Urahara.”

“Just sign up?” Kisuke checked. Now that he knew a bit more about it he was curious about the format, if nothing else. Yoruichi had just said he should and wouldn’t regret it if he gave it a chance.

Which was also what she said about joining the Gotei.

“Sign up and not get at least five profiles in a week if you want it never brought up again. And my help with idiot diversion tactics. No promises there, of course. Idiots are unpredictable in some ways.”

“Hmm.” The anonymity did hold some—

Ichigo was pointing a finger at him. “And don’t sign up just to troll people. That’ll get you banned before you have a chance for five profiles and won’t count.”

Kisuke grinned. “Why, Kurosaki-kun, one would think you didn’t trust me.”

Ichigo coaxed the butterfly onto his finger and studied it. “Didn’t know you, you mean. Very different. I do wonder how they do this,” he mused, shaking his head slightly.

Kisuke refused to look at the stupid things. “Probably via toxic inks or dyes.”

“You hope,” Ichigo chuckled. “They’re pretty, Urahara, you can’t deny that.”

“I certainly can. They’re tacky.”

“You are determined to hate people being happy, aren’t you?” Ichigo grinned, turning his hand in a well-known ‘take off now’ gesture, the butterfly with its red hearts where eyespots would be on normal butterflies flittering away as if it wasn’t an abomination against taste. “Did you close up shop during Valentines and White Day?” he asked curiously.

“Tessai manned the register most of the time.” And always during holidays. Not because Kisuke wouldn’t, but because Tessai was a saint of a man and only made Kisuke do it when Tessai physically couldn’t due to injury or illness.

“Hm. Speaking of, did you secure the restaurant?” Ichigo’s voice had dropped just a fraction. Enough for Kisuke to have recognized this was plotting Ichigo rather than regular but not so much anyone keeping an ear open for anything interesting would notice them being sneaky.

“I designated it to Hachi, who confirmed it when I saw him this morning. Shunsui?”

“Will be opening the gate and sending his own butterfly through for Ururu and Jinta,” Ichigo nodded. His eyes flickered, slightly, and he reached for the pitcher to refill Tessai’s mostly empty and abandoned glass. “Still interested in dinner?”

“More than before, I’ve had too many toasts without more than a rice ball to absorb it,” Tessai said after sitting with a nod of thanks. “What they make you is better than what they cater to demanding people who arrive with a party last minute.”

Ichigo lifted his hand and, when the waitress noticed, gave her a nod. She returned it and called something into the back.

“Do all the wait-staff in every restaurant in Seireitei know you and what you want to order, Kurosaki-kun?”

“Just those I’ve either discussed it with before-hand or dated,” he retorted blandly, stacking the information into different piles before dropping them all into an accordion folder.

“And which one is this?”

“Both, plus introduced her to her fiancé.”

“So you get very special service?”

“I get good service. No freebies whatsoever and no fawning.” Ichigo’s immense satisfaction with that made Kisuke glad that his own reputation was muddled enough that when he was recognized at all people usually didn’t have a clue how to react. Not wearing his haori outside of working hours or events helped a lot with remaining unknown.

“Looks wonderful,” Tessai sighed happily as a dish of filled shells were placed in the middle of their table.

Ichigo just smiled at the waitress who grinned back and lifted a brow at the pitcher, which earned her a sheepish nod and got them a refill before Kisuke and Ichigo had even taken a taste of the dish.

“I dunno. We seem to be getting better service than some.”

“What do you expect when you try to assault the waitress?” he countered, giving the not-much-attended table in question the stink-eye.

Tessai made a harrumphing noise that made his moustache bristle while Kisuke just looked at Ichigo, thoroughly amused. “Always, Kurosaki-kun?”

He got a blank look in return. Then a frown. “Of course, Urahara. Why would I let it go even if I didn’t know her? If she was allowing it for better tips, that’s different.” His eyes shading over said he thought it sad, too.

Kisuke was fairly sure they were sitting at the ‘family’ table, the one always open unless a few certain people wanted a seat.

He was entirely convinced that Ichigo would have helped buss tables any evening he was still working with things spread out over the table when they closed, or at least kept company with the staff and walked any otherwise unaccompanied young woman home on his way.

How idiot humans thought him a thug in his teen years was one of those incomprehensible human foibles Kisuke could never work out.

Why was he doing this?

Ah, right, because Ichigo would smirk at him and shake his head slightly like he’d half expected Kisuke would back out entirely.

Because no matter how good-humored he’d be about it, never bringing it up again the same as if Kisuke had properly lost the bet, it would still feel like letting him down.

Which was completely ridiculous. Not signing up for a damned match-making website wouldn’t be letting Ichigo down. Not really. Not—

Not like things that were past, done, forgiven and seemingly forgotten.

Even if Ichigo alone appeared to have managed that last one.

Scrubbing a hand over his face Kisuke gave up with a sigh.

First blank. User ID.

He blinked. Narrowed his eyes at the little question icon that indicated there was an explanation. Who needed an explanation for that?!

Then he remembered he was thinking about a system designed mostly for those who hadn’t seen a computer before the Visored came back and refused to spend hours with brushes and calligraphy tools when they were used to keyboards and spending only a fraction of time on the writing portion of office work.

He key-smashed, added a number at the end when he didn’t get one randomly and memorized the result before making up a password to go with it. Once that was confirmed he got through a few basic fields before he sighed at the ‘Nickname’ boxes. What other users will see to represent you. You may use the same for both or use one similar to your own name for the ‘private’ nickname, which is restricted to personal chats.

He loathed nicknames. He still used ‘ancient and outdated’ conventions for his oldest friends! Even if, admittedly, the Visored had largely beaten him into dropping them. Apart from Hiyori, but that depended solely on if he was annoyed, amused, and/or winding her up.

He was tempted to key smash a response.

With a grimace he thought up and dismissed several options. Some sounded too much like what Yoruichi would have chosen for him, others made it too obvious who he was. He wanted anonymity.

Mostly because if no one could figure out it was him they could never complain about being matched with him. Bet aside, he had no intention of actually using this hell-spawned monster.

He didn’t need anyone in his life. He had friends. Good friends. How many people could say their friendship withstood or was formed in the sort of adversity he could? That those friendships endured wars and moving between worlds said a lot.

Romance?

The idea made him feel rather sick.

Uncontrollable, too many variables, too much vulnerability. He’d spent centuries making himself stronger, faster, smarter—just to stay alive, to protect what was his. Romance… tearing everything apart to fit something new? Letting someone into his walls when they hadn’t already proven themselves trustworthy?

He honestly didn’t know how anyone could.

Yet the signs that others managed were everywhere. ‘And a Day’ being celebrated with what seemed to be every new wedding and anniversary and birth. Heartbroken drunks lamenting their choices but still keen for a repeat, hoping for better results.

After a bit of thinking he came up with something there was only a miniscule chance of anyone figuring out at all, much less connecting to him, and let the random icon that popped up stay.

0Z1Y3V8N21

He wasn’t surprised no one else had taken it, even though there was a helpful ‘Want to use another language?’ section that did about as well as Google did, these days. Which is to say better than it used to but far from perfectly.

He had to guess some words were simply deleted from the dictionary to avoid serious mistakes and errors in judgement as the worst he was seeing on the ‘Currently in Free Chat’ board was BlackCrevice which might be perfectly chaste and innocent.

Choosing a private nickname was simple as he had no intention of ever using it.

Want to continue setting up your profile for a personalized experience?

Kisuke closed his eyes and let the arrow hover over ‘Not now’ before sliding it over to ‘Yes’ with a sinking heart.

This was not going to be enjoyable.

Ok. If you want to stop your progress will be saved. What are you interested in? (Please mark all that apply and note that this can be changed at any time.)

Making friends

Getting advice

Romance

He was starting to sound like an old man with how much he was sighing. Still, he reluctantly ticked all three. The ‘getting advice’ part might at least be amusing, even if he’d have to walk the line of outright trolling.

Thank you. Please answer the questions below. You may leave any blank but it is advised that you mark them as not applicable over ignoring them as that could change your results. If you choose to leave some blank your results will be calculated based only on the information provided. For better results, return to complete this section or when informed of new questions being added.

It wasn’t, as Ichigo had promised, anything like the endless questionnaires some of Ichigo’s living friends had complained about. He could actually work out how every question could be relevant to matching people. Some were intrusive, yes, but nothing pried into what could be deemed real secrets. People wouldn’t die if he admitted to liking certain hair colors over others, it simply wasn’t something he’d shared before.

Ever.

The Would not like to be paired with sections were easy and included an ‘or anyone known of the family of’ check box, which quickly took the entirety of Sui-Feng’s family off his list of possibilities. Considering who was left, he did the same for several other families under the romance heading. He only put a few names on his ‘will not talk to’ list.

With a quiet assurance to himself that he was quite simply insane he hit the I’m done box and closed it down immediately.

Chapter Text

“Kisuke!”

He would never see Yoruichi sitting on Shinji’s lap and be able to reconcile it as normal. It simply did not compute. “Good evening Yoruichi-san, Shinji.”

“Kisuke. Need anything more done for Tessai’s party?”

“If you have anything in your alcohol stash that you don’t really like and want to get rid of, we can probably direct those who have never had anything not produced in soul society towards it and keep the good stuff for those who appreciate it.”

Shinji laughed. “I expect I can turn up a few things, yeah. Could pick up a few bottles of cheap and potent, too.” He quirked a brow that stated Shunsui had promised to plan to attend and, as Jushiro had been there at the time, would turn up barring a sudden state-of-war emergency.

Kisuke nodded. “It would be appreciated, thank you.”

“Did you look into that thing for me?”

“I did. It’s confirmed.”

She nodded. “As is the change.”

He inclined his head.

Shinji was deliberately not listening, smart man that he was.

“Where has Ichigo gotten to?” Yoruichi grumbled, looking around Kisuke as if he’d somehow hidden a man broader than he was with flaming orange hair behind him.

“He got pulled into the discussion on Toshiro’s dating life.”

“What dating life?”

“Apparently he’s been trying to be secretive and—”

Ichigo was suddenly visible dragging Abarai and Madarame away from a suspiciously hushed section by their collars, Kuchiki and Kira on his heels, looking quite annoyed. Ichigo left them to chew out the two troublemakers and flopped down next to Kisuke, hands already out for whatever Shinji was pouring. “How the fuck am I the babysitter? Seriously, they’re all at least twice my age.”

“Think they’re all at least three times it, Berry.” Shinji grinned, poking a finger into Yoruichi’s ribs as she refilled his cup. “And you know age means very little around here. Bottoms up.”

“Meh. True. Thanks.” Ichigo downed the cup without flinching despite a kick that had felt capable of singing nose-hairs when Kisuke took a sip.

“Bad week?” Shinji asked, head cocked. “You’d have less trouble as an actual seated member.”

“Didn’t work.”

“What!?”

He blinked at them. “You didn’t know?” he asked, scratching the back of his head as the picture-perfect reflection of himself at sixteen, sheepish and also trying to hide amusement.

“When did that happen? Did you quit?” Shinji managed to get in first. His hand was still frozen just before liquid would flow from flask to cup and didn’t waver in the least.

“Nah, I’m still lieutenant of the First,” Ichigo shrugged like that wasn’t major news. “As one of three, though, the position was only ever so I have the title and position to properly discipline anyone trying to abuse the program. I don’t have much to do with it, otherwise, but it lets me use Gotei resources with a lot fewer hoops for the development of the program.”

“And so if Shunsui decides to retire to drink himself to death some day he can wheedle you into his spot?” Yoruichi pointed out.

“That too,” he admitted, with a small shrug like being the stated next in line for the position of Captain-Commander wasn’t anything at all.

Shinji blinked and began pouring, refilling and topping them all off silently as they absorbed that, Ichigo looking at the ceiling. Staring ‘absently’ as they gathered themselves but Kisuke could feel the mischievous humor radiating off of him.

“However casual you are about your…”

“Indoctrination?” Ichigo offered.

Yoruichi snickered.

“Elevation doesn’t sound right,” Kisuke put in, smiling blandly when Shinji glared at him.

Or tried to, before breaking out into a laugh of his own. “Properly paying position of power.”

“Fuck, Shinji, you’ve either been drinking too regularly or not enough tonight. ‘Properly paying position of power’.” Ichigo shook his head but lifted his cup.

“Not enough tonight,” Shinji declared, knocking his to Ichigo’s. His lids lowered and a considering hum escaped him when music began playing. He looked to Yoruichi, who cocked her head, listening, before they tossed their drinks back without apology and took off to find out what the new dance floor looked like.

Ichigo shifted his angle and grabbed the flask, eying the label briefly before pouring a bit more for Kisuke, who returned the gesture. Neither drank immediately, though, watching the motley crowd flow between tables and clustered standing groups. “As you haven’t been crowing about being right… you’ve had at least three matches so far, haven’t you?” he grinned wickedly.

Four. Kisuke didn’t answer except to scowl at the memory of the only one he’d opened. It had been the first and… “I’m amazed some people manage to dress themselves in the morning. No,” he said, firmly, before Ichigo could open his mouth.

Ichigo snorted but didn’t point out Kisuke’s own closet still held multiple copies of the same outfit. Shihakusho, mostly, as he spent more hours stuck in the uniform than he had out of it.

“Asking if I thought it wouldn’t be better for the Captains’ haori to be leather jackets, Kurosaki-kun! And boots instead of sandals. And not in black and white, of course, but colors even children under six know don’t go together.” He looked at Ichigo and found, instead of the appalled commiseration he expected, the man was clearly only just holding back laughter for the sake of letting him dig himself deeper. “What?”

“You rejected someone because of their sense of fashion.” The deadpanned delivery was a nice touch.

“I…” Huh. Technically he had rejected them because… because… He stuck his nose in his cup and drained it.

“You.” Ichigo began wheezing. “Oh, wow, I needed that,” he laughed, leaning against Kisuke’s shoulder.

Kisuke nudged him and turned his head away enough they could both pretend he wasn’t smiling.

“What about the others?”

“I haven’t looked.”

“Why not?” Ichigo asked, sobering and straightening. “Everyone gets a few complete misses, thanks to some people not filling out their forms correctly.”

“I…” Kisuke cleared his throat and held his cup out when Ichigo picked up the bottle. “Honestly I was so annoyed by that one that for the sake of my division didn’t want to look until the weekend.”

Ichigo nudged his shoulder with his own again. “Fair.”

“You had some bad ones, I take it?”

“Mm. I’m still a bit amazed at how clingy someone can be through email. Thankfully it’s easy enough to block someone.”

“I was surprised at how well thought out some of the features were,” Kisuke admitted. He had made sure that idiot couldn’t talk to him again. Anywhere. Ever.

Sadly, that didn’t include ‘real life’.

Pyrrhic victory.

“They obviously took a look at the popular—and unpopular—social media sites in the Living World,” Ichigo agreed. “Which was only sensible.”

“Something people rarely are.”

“You’re still in a mood, aren’t you? Cheers.” Ichigo set his cup on the table and made a sign at the server who nodded and indicated a few minutes. “You didn’t cheat, then?”

“Did you expect me to?”

“At least to be tempted, as you hadn’t wanted to sign up in the first place.”

“And you decided?”

“That you’d probably figure out ten possible ways to cheat the system to make sure you wouldn’t be matched with five profiles by the end of the week but wouldn’t use more than three out of deference to friendship and, though grumblingly, fairness to a bet you’d want to win fair and square. Also partly because losing on whether or not anyone might like who you are hardly seems like winning.”

He’d found twelve ways, actually. And only exploited two. In the more minor ‘didn’t want to be bothered by incompatible matches’ way than ‘everyone excluded’ ones… which he’d decided on almost entirely because Ichigo expected him to be honest.

Or honest enough.

“I suppose you’ll be at the garden ‘party’ Sunday.”

With a snort Ichigo turned as a tray was brought out just in time for Shinji and Yoruichi to reappear, Kensei and Lisa along. “Yeah, I’ll be there to help replant the garden with every other seated member of the First.”

“Wait, what?”

Ichigo grinned when Lisa and Kensei stared at him. “Have been for years now, do keep up.”

“Shunsui can’t manage with only two lieutenants, you know,” Shinji drawled. He long-armed the flask back and poured out two fresh cups before reaching the end of the liquid and drawing a second from a pocket to continue.

Kensei snagged it from him to read, rolled his eyes once he had and refilled Yoruichi’s already drained and Shinji’s own cup. “Some sort of semi-official for the sake of paperwork gig, then?”

“Pretty much. I show up to all events involving the First Division so when it becomes common knowledge no one can say I was shirking, but,” he half-shrugged, indicating his continued disinterest in being a formally recognized member.

“Won’t come from us,” Shinji declared, eyes gleaming a bit unnaturally for a moment.

Ichigo’s went yellow-gold for an instant in response.

“Bit hypocritical, though,” Lisa mused, holding her cup absently and waiting for Yoruichi and Shinji to stop silently squabbling long enough to slide one of the appetizers out from under Shinji’s chopsticks onto her plate without risking an elbow to the head. “The Gotei is hardly what it was when you invaded,” she pointed out, smile gleaming with teeth when the rest of the table responded much as Shinji and Ichigo had before.

No, with half the Gotei run by Visored or former ‘traitors’—more, if you threw in those who had sympathized and been against that indictment in the first place—the future of the Gotei was not what it had once been.

None of them would be there if it was.

Quite literally, in Kisuke’s case, Soul Society having been warded against him specifically.

He still wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or insulted by that.

Kisuke let his hand drop at the faint buzz of energy in the air, stepping back a few feet to double-check that his alerts and warnings and wardings and traps were all as they should be—because someone had bypassed them without triggering them or he was due to hang up the last shred of that paranoid self-respecting member of the Onmitsukido he’d once been.

But no, nothing had been triggered, moved, twisted; everything just as he left it.

Yoruichi? If she was irritated enough with him she might have let enough reiatsu out into the room for him to sense outside the door…

The energy flickered and Kisuke flashed into his office without thinking about it, recognizing it—and stopped himself with a sigh that was much more relief than the annoyance it appeared to be.

“Yo.”

“How did you get in here?”

“I didn’t screw anything up,” Ichigo rolled his eyes.

Kisuke removed the lethal countermeasures on his desk moments before Ichigo sat on it. “I have alert wards up for a reason, Kurosaki-kun!”

“Yeah?”

With a snort at the casual dismissal he went around the room, trying to figure out how Ichigo had bypassed the protections layered and woven into the walls, floor, ceiling and most objects within it, too, this time, while also checking that no one else had slipped in before him. The only intentional hole in his security had been made specifically for emergencies of the Yoruichi size; quite literally, as it was a single window pane that could be moved. For ventilation, ostensibly, but it happened to be perfectly cat-sized. Combine that with being several stories too high for an actual cat to be likely to intrude…

How had Ichigo gotten in? While there were two doors the other was to a closet. None of the windows opened enough for anything larger than a cat. Without being completely removed, at least, and that would trigger something lethal enough to give even Ichigo—with his Quincy-Hollow protections against damage—pause. The vents, though fairly standard for the rest of the building, had been built when he was still extremely paranoid of being in enclosed spaces without several ways out that only he knew. His office vents were dummies, kido taking care of any air quality needs. There were several hidden panels and false-fronted areas, but all were small. All were also very well trapped against anyone not Kisuke himself and couldn’t possibly lead anyone but him anywhere without a wall being removed.

Some of the alerts and triggers and so on were set specifically to not go off if it was Ichigo, because before this visit Ichigo usually sprawled in his spare chair with his feet on the window-sill if uninjured or against that one bit of wall if stiffly upright was preferred, but he should have triggered or broken something.

He growled in irritation as he dropped into his office chair. It was a proper, ergonomic, completely adjustable chair rather than the solid wooden ones that didn’t even have casters most had been forced to deal with until the division’s weeding had been done and the budget sorted. Even now, though, they didn’t have a chair as good as his. They had government-reluctantly-purchased chairs.

Kisuke had built his own so that small applications of reiatsu would adjust it however he needed. Right now, that meant it was his turn to sprawl so he could scowl up at a smirking Ichigo.

Ichigo never explained how he managed to get through Kisuke’s protective wardings without setting them off. Kisuke had figured out a few of the issues but they were entirely Ichigo-dependent, requiring the mix of Quincy and Visored that existed only in him. Kisuke had tweaked most of his lethal protections to react to that and go temporarily dormant and so far that had kept him from finding a bloody Kurosaki Ichigo sprawled out on his floor or plastered to one of his walls.

“Lethal protections,” he snapped, because the image was all too easy to see when he closed his eyes without having caused it. “You know that.”

“And I know you tweaked things so I can get through,” Ichigo shrugged.

He was infuriating. “Assuming you don’t trip on something and flip headfirst somewhere you have no business being. Like my private office without invitation, for example.”

Ichigo’s snort had him snarling and would have had him on his feet if Ichigo hadn’t planted one of his own feet on Kisuke’s stomach. Kisuke should shove it aside and throw the annoying man out of the nearest openable window but without really even consciously considering it he curled his fingers around the knob of bone and checked the progression of the healing to the joint. “Am I not welcome?” Ichigo asked, toes nudging at Kisuke’s sternum.

“You’re welcome as long as you don’t end up killed or half-mutilated by my protections,” Kisuke sighed, unable to deny it. There were few people he didn’t mind in any of his offices. Apart from the risk to his health—and what that continual risk said about his mental health—Ichigo was one.

“I know to stay clear of the deadly stuff, you know? I’m not an idiot kid who’s never thought Shinigami actually exist anymore.”

“I’m not as blunt as your kido instructors would have been while explaining how to sense and avoid things you can’t ignore.”

Ichigo lifted an eyebrow. “Kukaku. Yoruichi. Tessai. Shinji. If you think you can out-sneak all four of them, even now…”

No. Not without more thought and effort than he’d put into keeping Ichigo out. He relaxed a little bit even as his brain kept diverting some thought to a better way to keep a few things safely protected but out of accidental reach. Ichigo wouldn’t snoop, not knowing Kisuke had a lot of very deadly things around. Deadly in their own rights, not just in the measures he took to keep the unwary or unscrupulous out of them. “Perhaps all together.”

That got a laugh out of Ichigo. “Any two together would be impossible, save in life-or-death situations. How’s it coming?”

“Be nice to it another day or two. The bones are fine but the ligaments are a bit weaker than I’d like.”

Ichigo hummed complacently as Kisuke abused the man’s trust and remaining ignorance about what was usual and not in Soul Society to spread his healing kido into an overall scan. Invasive, impertinent and borderline offensive without asking. Ichigo just looked amused. “Sleep more and don’t skip lunch?” he suggested.

Kisuke shrugged. “As ever.”

“Why I’m here, actually. Figured I’d have a better chance of convincing you to feign at being normal and condescending to join the masses than Akon would.”

“Why would… what…”

“The picnic. The one you approved of your division hosting when the SWA suggested it.”

He shuddered with remembrance. “Considering their other options, allowing them to use the open grounds as a spot for lunch seemed quite the best idea.”

Ichigo was giving him that you oblivious idiot he didn’t like getting from his friends because he actually trusted them to know. “It was intended to include the division, not just the space within the division. You didn’t honestly think they’d be trying to strip the men in the Fifth for a calendar and fine with just sitting on the grass here.”

Kisuke sighed and scratched the back of his head. “I expected they would make pests of themselves but I presumed they wouldn’t care if I was there.”

The expression had shifted to ‘must not facepalm, must not facepalm’. Much more amusing. “They may not,” he allowed in a ‘they totally will’ tone, “but your division definitely will.”

“Akon—”

“Is not their captain.”

“Interim captain.”

Ichigo directed a glare at the ceiling. “Either you come down willingly now while it’s just opening and spend long enough at the picnic to get a plate of food and be seen by your top five seats and at least two of the SWA members or I will be holding your elbow until you have been seen and acknowledged by everyone who turns up. Which will definitely include every member of the SWA and the Twelfth, plus a good number from the Fifth, Eighth, Ninth and Thirteenth. Possibly the Third, too, and at least a handful from the Fourth. At which point it’s safe to assume there will be a fair showing from every division.”

The grin directed his way made it clear that it was not only a very real threat but that Ichigo would carry it out just to amuse himself. “Free food I didn’t have to make?” he asked, widening his eyes. “That’s really all you had to say, Kurosaki-kun.”

“Right,” Ichigo drawled, shaking his head slightly. “I presume I don’t have to explain that the Twelfth is not responsible for And a Day?” he asked as Kisuke set about restoring what he’d hastily undone to avoid hurting his uninvited and unexpected visitor. Ichigo, meanwhile, had taken up the majority of the space Kisuke’s door usually occupied.

“You don’t.”

“That was abrupt. Got more than a dozen, didn’t you?”

“Mostly nutjobs, idiots or trolls. Separately and in combination.” He wasn’t going to admit the actual number. He’d been… shocked. He’d gone through all of his answers twice to make sure something hadn’t glitched.

He still thought something must have somewhere.

“But only mostly?”

“…Only mostly,” he confirmed, a bit grudgingly. There had, in fact, been three that had initially seemed… interesting. Four, but the fourth had almost immediately gone a bit rabid at being talked to and Kisuke politely ran the fuck away as soon as possible and slammed the door on any chance of a repeat.

Blocking was a brilliant addition to the platform.

The remaining three were all at least seemingly sane. At least marginally intelligent as well.

“Good. Even if you just get someone to occasionally shoot an email to for an outsider’s opinion on a situation, it’s nice. Oh, hey, Rukia.”

“Ichigo. Urahara-taicho.”

“Tem—”

“Where is everything setup?” Ichigo asked, frowning at the rather barren grounds.

“Risk of rain, so the food is in the hall,” she indicated and fell into step as Ichigo turned them that way. “Matsumoto should be here soon with the decorations, and Nemu with some cushions.”

“Is she ready to come back here?”

“She thinks she’ll be fine and has about two dozen people poised to distract her if necessary.” She flicked another glance at Kisuke, obviously surprised he was there at all and not leaving them alone.

He smiled as mildly as he could at her and watched as she immediately turned aside and faked spotting someone who needed her help setting up. “She still blames me for her own inability to tell when someone is dangerous?”

“It still embarrasses her, yes. She’s seen you focused and on the edge of feral so the ‘simple, handsome young shopkeeper’ bit unnerves her.”

Kisuke grimaced at the reminder. “Not my finest moment.”

“I don’t know,” Ichigo admitted, his eyes very definitely yellow in the sunlight.

“Your standards are a bit skewed in several areas.”

He shrugged. “Or I’m just more honest about them. How lucky, they did manage to make it.”

Kisuke looked at the amused sea of eyes paired with two smirks and a Cheshire grin. He responded with a polite ‘hosting captain’ smile of his own and accidentally stepped on Ichigo’s foot as they moved to welcome the Visored. And at least a quarter of their divisions.

And more than a few from every other division.

His eyebrow twitched when he heard a loud voice shouting a challenge.

“I’ll deal,” Ichigo said quietly, flitting off in a burst of speed that redirected the fight to one of the better prepared training areas. The Twelfth division was much fitter than it had been when Kisuke took over, but they weren’t, generally, heavy-hitters so he hadn’t yet bothered preparing a field to withstand such fighters.

If the fight-drunk idiots of the Eleventh destroyed one of his labs he would flatten them.

“Who the hell is writing you about… carnivorous plants?”

Kisuke’s head snapped up from his workbench. “Yoruichi-san!” he protested.

“You left it open.”

“I closed down the computer,” he countered.

“I guessed your password. It was up.” She cocked her head to the side, considering his expression and looking back at the screen.

She knew better than to look farther—Kisuke wasn’t against blowing up something he didn’t want seen and she’d witnessed that a few times—but it didn’t keep her from taking in everything on the screen.

He didn’t even know what it all came to, because he’d set his system to count him as ‘distracted’ if he hadn’t touched mouse or keyboard in more than three minutes and his two stable correspondents knew that and would keep writing out their thoughts if they were so inclined. One was very firmly in the ‘gently gently’ category where young girls like Ururu and Yuzu… were still filed.

He answered but he didn’t seek out.

The other…

They’d had a private chat open pretty soon after the first tentative emails and Kisuke had been intrigued to find the other’s wits weren’t simply enhanced by the grace of time. They had a broad range of knowledge and had made extensive use of the new ‘Living World Library’ that Kisuke suspected Ichigo had pushed for with the backing of the Visored. It was supposed to help Shinigami assigned to the Living World but it was mostly used by the curious and the bored. Lisa’s suggestions had been firmly shot down for the good of all the sheltered young ones who would probably use the library in earnest.

“You’ve found someone interesting,” she realized, blinking blankly at the screen’s contents as if it was all in Cyrillic.

Kisuke paused. No, unlikely. French, Latin, Greek, Italian and English, yes. They were well-read and the library included very good language dictionaries. They’d admitted to not minding learning other languages as long as there was only one alphabet used.

“Is that so impossible?” he asked belatedly.

She blinked again before turning towards him, mouth opening on something she never spoke. After considering for a time she came up with something she felt worth saying. “You’re intelligent in ways that generally preclude the formation of many relationships. Not because others dislike you but because you find most of them tedious and annoying. You can work with and get along with someone like that if necessary but you would never invite them to your home.”

It was a sad truth that he could immediately think of eight reasons why he would.

Yoruichi obviously noticed the flaw in her own argument as well. “Unless you meant to quietly dispose of them, of course, via a long-acting poison or some form of manipulation. But those you can relax around, talk easily with? You’re happier with a small quality collection than a quantity with a mob’s general brainpower.”

He inclined his head slightly. “I’ve not felt the need to expand my… collection.”

She sighed. “And we’ve all been pushing you to do so. You didn’t have a choice for a long time, and then you were captain and though limited had the chance—but lost it again and, worse, were stuck amongst ill-educated humans for decades before their school system began to produce more interesting specimens semi-regularly. We’re back amongst others like us. Who age the same way. Who have quite a bit more time to hone their wits and bear up under responsibility, duty, and maturity with wisdom rather than desperate clawing necessity.”

“I’m not a sociable person as much by nature as by the design of Fate’s fits and fancies.”

Sharp though she was there were no tells to find because he honestly did not feel his social life in any way lacking before the dare from Ichigo. Yes, he liked chatting with the two who had survived his admittedly prickly initial questions. If either or both never responded again?

He wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep and only a handful of minutes to wonder why.

“I hope this will be good,” she said, simply, before moving away from the likely-slumbering computer as she had his attention and wasn’t about to lose it to his experiments again. “Anything I should know?”

He reached for his notes. They thought differently enough that sometimes she was able to cut through something that had not quite clicked for him. He’d get there but neither of them wanted any delay on this project.

Chapter Text

There were very good reasons to enjoy the winter in Seireitei. No garden parties to fix things that had been put out of place when the Eleventh got a bit rowdy, few births ever occurred and subsequently even made up birthdates were chosen for other months, meaning very few birthday or centennial events to attend. The festivals were big and gaudy and reasonably entertaining but they were also brief, a firecracker of flash and noise before being gone again.

Winter was relatively calm.

Fewer upsets meant most of the Twelfth wasn’t being sent to help with various tasks and duties around Soul Society. Kurotsuchi really hadn’t run the division so much as researched whatever he wanted and left it to run itself with Nemu and Akon doing their best to keep the place functional. Not being captains they’d given in far too often and let their members be farmed out to other divisions for a ridiculous number of things.

Kisuke’s first thing, after sealing off any part of the buildings Kurotsuchi had spent time in for later study and decontamination, had been to completely scrap the duty-roster. Akon had been working as lieutenant despite Kurotsuchi not removing Nemu.

For semi-good reason, it turned out, as he’d been regrowing her in a tube in one of the many captain-only labs. It had been decided she could be allowed to finish maturing and rejoin the world when she was ready. Nemu had… not done well with her ‘father’s’ loss and been taken into the Eighth under Lisa. He would guess she mostly dealt with paperwork there but she’d actually looked a bit healthier the one time he’d seen her.

The Twelfth’s focus was on Research and Development. They fixed their own equipment only, not everyone else’s. Some of them could heal but they didn’t focus on it beyond looking for more effective and targeted spells. If a general spell used fifty units of reiatsu while a targeted one could heal a specific sort of wound for five units, that was ten times the number of wounds healed, wasn’t it? Some of those working on healing kido couldn’t even use the kido they were designing, being far better with numbers than reiatsu control and focus. Sending them to heal a training accident because of lazy planning and that the Twelfth happened to be closer to the incident than the Fourth was asinine.

Not that Akon didn’t approve it when the numbers were large enough and the situation dire enough, but Kisuke had impressed upon him that if he didn’t also send runners to the Fourth in case they weren’t aware of the severity of the mess he’d lose some of his hard-earned autonomy. For all he’d been relieved Kisuke had taken over and the job of Captain had been done properly again he hadn’t really liked reporting everything everyone was doing every day.

Any more than Kisuke had liked listening to those horrendously boring reports, but a few of the plans had been alarmingly innocuous and asking strange questions and poking further had unveiled a lot of research Kisuke would never have approved of, and he had always been known for pushing things too far when he believed in the end goal.

It had taken years to even come close to fixing the mess made of what had once been his greatest joy. There had been a lot of dead weight to cut away, some ‘valued members’ who had been moved to the Maggot’s Nest or discretely lost depending on how dire their actions.

Most had needed an incredible amount of training to get back to what Kisuke thought of as normal. They were the R&D division, yes, but they were still a division of the Gotei. That meant all seated members should have their shikai and be working on bankai if they had the power levels required. They should be training at least ten hours a week, and most of those were not ‘work day’ hours as battle readiness was meant to be base requirements for competence.

The Twelfth had become, not a place where great intellect and innovation came together to try and improve things while providing support to other divisions on missions, but the place every person with enough reiryoku to get through the academy and no interest in being a Shinigami gathered.

Oh, Kisuke made allowances for sheer innovative brilliance—he’d rather have someone completely inept with a zanpakuto heading a group and creating new improvements every six weeks than a nearly-achieved-bankai officer heading that group and never creating anything but excuse paperwork. That would be one person in the group, however, the leader who was expected to hang back to help come up with things in a crisis while those who were less helpful in the thinktank gave them time to think by holding back the enemies with brute strength and hard-won skills.

Even so his division had gone from being one of the best-staffed to barely so. Most of those he hadn’t had when he became the Captain or had accepted personally were gone. A very few had found places in other divisions but even Sui-Feng wouldn’t accept anyone he turned out. Most of those who had been taken in gave the family and friends who had lobbied for their acceptance reason enough not to repeat the gesture later on.

The Visored and Jushiro had sent a few of their own unseated to speak with him; clever ones, if no geniuses, who liked the idea of R&D but had heard too much about Kurotsuchi to even apply to the Twelfth before. Happy enough in their current divisions but underutilized in their preferred skillsets.

A few, of course, had just wanted to learn, not transfer, and he used them as volunteers on occasion when helpful hands ran too short for whatever needed to be done.

A foot landing between his shoulder blades snapped him out of his thoughts and would have had him twisting to chop the leg off before he could be pushed down to the ground but for two things.

One, the foot just landed, didn’t even nudge.

Two, he could feel—and recognized—the owner’s reiatsu.

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“The meal people who aren’t geniuses stuck in their heads eat regularly about this time every day? If not a bit earlier, but I’ve been here for almost three hours without you even noticing your pipe has been cold for longer.”

Kisuke didn’t turn until his face stopped burning. He couldn’t dispute Ichigo’s assertion because—now that he wasn’t stuck in his head—he could feel Ichigo’s reiatsu lingering everywhere around him. Ichigo didn’t leak reiatsu like he did as a teenager even when relaxed, drunk or unconscious, but in any of those states he did let go of more of it than he did when out and about generally.

When he rose he could smell that Ichigo had, without any doubt, been cooking. The food found in Seireitei was unrepentantly ancient Japanese with the occasional dish learned by a restaurant owner’s former Shinigami relative who was once upon a time assigned to the Living World long enough to pick up the recipe.

In reaction when Ichigo cooked it tended to be things he’d enjoyed when visiting other places and exploring their native cultures. Tagines and pastries and dozens of things Kisuke honestly didn’t care trying to remember names for. He remembered what he really liked and Ichigo never made something in Kisuke’s kitchen for the two of them alone that he hadn’t at least found edible. Usually it was something he’d enjoyed, though now and then there would be an extra dish in smaller portions that only Ichigo liked.

Kisuke hardly minded that. If his volunteer chef wanted something specific and cooked him a full meal just to get it? Who would complain?

This evening involved a red meat and pasta dish along with something very green and creamy, a bean… thing and some stewed vegetables of some sort. Kisuke smiled slightly. Ichigo always made enough non-meat dishes to satisfy anyone who either didn’t eat meat or, as Kisuke himself sometimes was, occasionally was unwilling to do so. Whether thanks to recent messes or recently stirred memories. “Thank you for the food.”

“Thank you for the counter space,” Ichigo snorted. “I have got to move, I swear. I want a proper kitchen, not a firepit or a potbellied stove and a cauldron or a few pots and a pan or two.”

“You have a room with the Visored.”

“Yeah, but ever since Shinji and Yoruichi became Shinji and Yoruichi over the six-month mark Hiyori’s been about now and again and she makes sure time spent there is only restful if she’s unconscious. Which, tempting.”

Kisuke hid a smile. “And no doubt one in the First Division’s barracks.”

“Yes, but it’s a communal kitchen and while better than what I’ve currently got I have to answer a billion questions if I try to cook something there. What am I doing there, why doing it there, what is it, what is that, why not something normal, why so little of it, who is it for, why not cook at home…” he sighed. “I’ll have to have something built.”

“Eventually. When you aren’t so busy with the program and your clients and your family—Shiba and Living. Meaning roughly on the sixth Saturday of Nevember.”

“How long have you been saving that one?” Ichigo asked, lips quirking into a stifled smile. “I know, I’ve been saying I need to move for years, now. Something with a good-sized office where I can just leave everything spread out rather than constantly gathering it and moving it around. Nice open room for friend gatherings. Kitchen a bit bigger than yours for serving those friends food without feeling like setting them on fire for making me deal with a kitchen designed before stainless steel… maybe even room for an herb garden for all those spices I have to get from the Living World because formerly branded traitors aside no one else has even heard of them.”

Kisuke mentally added a lot more space for that garden and watched as Ichigo’s eyes dimmed a bit as his thoughts turned internal.

“I think I was in denial, at first,” the smile was only faintly bitter. “This couldn’t be real, right? Good guy clears the final boss, gets the heroine or the pretty maid back home and lives happily ever after. These days, anyway. I’m sure if you asked some of the locals for their stories it would be more like ‘limped home eternally maimed but never saw another six-armed hollow again’. Cheery lot that they are.”

“The Living World isn’t always so different. The happily ever after bit was rather more recent… though it did quickly rebound back into darker cautionary tales here and there.”

“Yeah, some of those old fairy tales were seriously creepy. King sending his sons to hunt down his daughter to force her to marry him creepy. Happily ever after my ass.”

“Whilst you got a society that holds you in awe, a position you barely hold for formality’s sake as you work on creating the job you wanted with friends you know will be around for centuries to come.”

“Glass is always half and half with you, isn’t it? I know, I know. I hardly have it bad, here. Better than I’d have in a place I couldn’t explain who and what I am. Still. Took a while to reconcile, and by then I was elbows deep in half a dozen ‘Ichigo, you’re not working, couldn’t you look into this for me?’ projects besides the one the Gotei is interested in officially.” He grimaced. “And architectural planning was never one of them. Or an interest. ‘Urahara’s kitchen but bigger’ isn’t going to get me anywhere, even if you tell me who built this place for you.”

“I don’t actually know. Yoruichi-san and Tessai-san designed and oversaw construction. I just paid for it.”

Ichigo lifted a brow. “If letting Yoruichi loose weren’t so terrifying a thought, especially if Shinji tags along, I might offer myself up to that sort of deal.”

Kisuke snorted. “I think she mostly had the contacts.”

“Hm. And Tessai is far too busy these days. Maybe… no, Rukia and design… I can just see Chappy wallpaper and curtains,” he shuddered. “Assuming the house could stand up, considering she can’t draw a straight line. She’s really the only one I know with spare time, as the Thirteenth runs so smoothly she isn’t really needed, lieutenant or not.”

There wasn’t the slightest bit of duplicity in the statement, no slyness, no hint.

Like the fact that Kisuke had the time to stare into space for roughly seven hours on his day off meant he was still as busy as he’d been in those first months after being given the interim Captaincy of the Twelfth when he’d wanted to clone himself and had barely been stopped by Ichigo himself pointing out that one, it would probably take him a month or more to manage it, two, they wouldn’t be helpful for years and three, once they were of an age to be helpful—and had learned everything he knew as they wouldn’t simply know what he knew—there would be multiple versions of him. Only the original with the experiences that always kept him to the moral side of any debate when it came to what science to research or not. Aizen and seeing his friends through a century of exile was warning enough for him, but for clones of him?

Even if that wasn’t a concern look at what he did when bored. One of him was enough even for himself, honestly.

“Start small,” he suggested. “What do you know you want, other than a larger kitchen?”

“A kitchen island with chairs tucked under on one side so people can stand around and move between areas more easily. Drawers as well as cabinet space. Proper spice rack—”

“Architecturally speaking more than after-construction ideas,” he inserted dryly.

Ichigo shrugged. “Big sink, lots of counter space. Proper shower with a mobile nozzle for when somewhere tricky is covered in mud and blood but my ribs are busted up a bit, too. Good water pressure.”

Kisuke nodded seriously. When one was used to buckets of stream-drawn water the current setup in most of Seireitei was very impressive.

When one was used to modern Living World plumbing? Barracks life was a bit dire. Most apartments not much better.

He’d rather not remember the lack of heated water available most stand-alone places.

Granted, there were public baths most people used rather than whatever they had at home but… Kisuke didn’t trust many people at his back and Ichigo preferred relaxing to talking about battles past in his own.

He mentally put a proper soaking bath or hot spring on the list.

After a bit of thought, Ichigo shrugged. “Maybe a design easy to build on if more space is needed, eventually, but that’s it. Apart from a big closet off the main room for spare futons when everyone would just pass out on the floor and then complain about it the next morning.”

Kisuke added a few design features—office and Ichigo’s own room on the second story, maybe by themselves apart from either a balcony or a deck… or a flat roof, possibly, where those herbs that wouldn’t want the moisture from the hot springs constantly surrounding them could safely grow and someplace for group events to overflow as drunken coordination became less trustworthy.

And railings.

Obviously.

“Where would you like it?”

“Someplace like this. Not right in the middle, not too far out,” Ichigo answered absently before shaking himself. “Why? Thought of someone who has time to oversee things? I… wouldn’t trust anyone in the Twelfth ordered to get it done.”

Kisuke thought about handing the particulars over to his fifth seat, who wasn’t and never had been remotely scientific and usually dealt more with procurement and inventory. She also went very shy and demure whenever Ichigo dropped by and would probably think these items were just minimum requirements, not the main list. Ichigo would end up with the sort of place Abarai would design if he had the bent and no budget concerns.

He shuddered. “No. Winter is a quieter time in the Twelfth. I can speak with Shinji—or more likely Kensei about who did their updates and Tessai-san about who worked here and have something built. If you like it, buy it. If not, I’m sure I can find someone to rent it.” Or more accurately add it to the list of properties Tessai was overseeing. While he was officially one of the Kido Corps’ librarians he spent more time training promising members and being the landlord for the properties that the Visored and Kisuke had purchased. Rental properties weren’t as sure a money-maker as they were in the Living World, but they were also much less effort and still turned an eventual profit.

While a modern kitchen might not be wanted now by anyone who wasn’t used to them, in a century or so it would probably be a hot feature to have.

Ichigo considered him silently for a dozen heartbeats before smiling. “Thanks. I’ll stop thinking about it, then.” He got up and began clearing the table.

Kisuke committed a few last ideas to his mental notes before stirring himself to helping. “You’ve been distracted lately.”

“Have I?”

“Outside of sparring, yes,” Kisuke realized. “For months, really. Is something wrong?”

“No. Apart from needing to attend Ishida’s wedding in roughly a year.”

“That’s a ‘wrong’?”

“Only in that I’ll have to swallow my pride and let him order me a suit just to avoid him giving whatever suit I otherwise come up with sniffy looks the whole time… although that would give him something else to focus on. Man’s already nervous as hell. Not like it’s his first time getting married.”

“Third time lucky?” Kisuke suggested.

Ichigo snorted. “I don’t know. Man is still horribly repressed. Lets it out even less than when we were teenagers.”

“The shop still has a training ground you could drag him to.”

“He would not be amused. Might do it anyway, a few days before. What about you? Been some time since you’ve spaced out that badly. I thought things were working well?”

“The Twelfth is… about three-quarters to what I would consider base-line acceptable.”

“Considering Yoruichi and Shinji kept kidnapping you to get you drunk, thus keeping you from torching the place so you could rebuild, that’s a vast improvement.”

“As if you weren’t in collusion with them.”

“Letting you vent some frustration by kicking my ass around the Visored training grounds is not quite the same thing.”

“Longer-lasting habit, for one. Less painful the next morning, for two.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I was.”

Ichigo turned to hide a smile. “When are you going to admit that it’s your division?”

“Pardon, Kurosaki-kun?”

“Don’t give me that,” Ichigo’s toes nudged his ankle. “You’re not ‘interim’ Captain at this point. No one actually thinks Akon will be taking over anytime this century.”

Kisuke twitched. “I’m not. I can’t be Captain.”

Ichigo considered him, head tilted. “Even with Shunsui and more attention from Zero keeping an eye on Central?” he asked, lightly.

Lightly, but it was a very good argument. Shunsui might be one of Yamamoto’s personally trained apprentices, but he wasn’t remotely like the old man. The old bandit had never flinched at the thought of war, while Shunsui never flinched at the thought of peace.

Oh, he’d never back down when he believed he had to stand, but… Kisuke could easily imagine him sharing drinks with Harribel. Just as easily he could imagine Yamamoto bringing fiery doom down upon even a lost and more or less harmless Nel just because she was a hollow. The Zero division had already ‘suggested’ the retirement of a few members of Central who were grumbling about the changes being made and the acceptance of the Visored.

He wished he could have seen the faces when those imbeciles were reminded that the Soul King had the powers of Shinigami, Quincy and Fullbring himself. Hollow-induced, traitor-designed?

Condemning them was suggesting a sort of mutiny they wouldn’t allow to happen.

Again.

He wondered how long it would last this time.

Probably a few centuries, unless Shunsui or Jushiro were assassinated. Though with Ichigo pipped to take over as the Captain-Commander…

Kisuke couldn’t imagine Ichigo being any more likely to listen to Central when they were being incredibly stupid than Shunsui did. If, granted, with far more profanity, crossed arms and outright violence.

“Oh.”

Ichigo just nodded, like the realization that he could be the Captain of the Twelfth again wasn’t momentous. “’Bout time you caught up, idiot.” He tipped his chin at a dish out of polite range.

Kisuke passed it over.

Akon sighed when Kisuke handed him a large jar filled with an extremely viscous seemingly black liquid. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Definitely not. Partition it out into single-dose lots. One dose is one point eight milliliters.”

“With enough extra despite what’s left in the vial,” Akon nodded. They’d done this too many times since Kisuke had started having enough time to make antidotes to every single poison Kurotsuchi had created and left behind.

“Four lots—one in alcohol, which will greatly decrease the volume at the end, one in water, which will require being almost transparent. I know, it will end up being somewhat conspicuous to carry compared to the rest. One in water but merely easy to swallow, and one in the capsules. That last lot will need to be done only on request as it will go through the shells in under fifty hours. I require fifteen of those by noon—the rest…” He found the sheet with the figured out doses and handed it over.

Akon read over it and nodded. “Got it. Need a vial yourself?” He put the jar into the padded portion of his case designed specifically for this sort of thing, carefully angling the paperwork it usually carried around it.

“No. Take whichever version you prefer.”

Akon left with a nod, looking no different than when he’d walked in.

No one needed to be curious of mysterious jars of unknown liquids.

Hiyori scowling at him was so normal he’d been tempted, often, in the early days of Ichigo’s training to ask if she and Ichigo were related.

He hadn’t and wouldn’t, because he knew Ichigo’s resemblance to a few murdered Shiba clansmen still caught her between the ribs now and then.

“Yes?”

“Whatever you’ve been brooding over—for months, apparently—is it something we need to brace for?”

He considered. “I don’t believe so.”

“Think again.”

“Pardon?”

“That was your ‘something shady has been going on behind the scenes but I think I’ve got everyone I give a damn about covered’ face. That wouldn’t be you brooding.”

He was tempted, for a moment, to think she had gotten too perceptive suddenly before he realized she was making her ‘that’s normal for you’ face and decided they’d simply spent too much time around each other not to read each other fairly well. “I can’t think of anything else,” he admitted lightly.

She crossed her arms over her chest and the scowl shifted from ‘I’ll beat it out of you if I have to’ to ‘I hate talking about emotions and would rather be in a fight’. “Problem with whoever you’re dating, then?”

He blinked. “I’m not dating anyone,” he said, actually bewildered by the presumption. He didn’t date.

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

“Because you’re no longer living amongst humans? Because you’re a war hero, acknowledged as half the reason we survived, let alone won? Objectively speaking, you’d be a catch.”

He felt slightly nauseous. “I don’t do well with people, Hiyori. You know that better than most.”

She rolled her eyes and leaned her shoulders against the wall, fiddling with her phone for a while. Simply that she didn’t leave meant the conversation wasn’t over. He knew better than to walk away. “…And I call bullshit,” she announced a few minutes later.

“How can you?”

“I have proof,” she declared, turning the screen towards him. “There’s a whole slideshow,” she smirked, leaning back with the air of having given a knockout blow.

He took the phone and saw the moment Ichigo had brought him out of his thoughts by hitting a sore muscle in his back with his thumb before setting his whole palm there, healing. To the outsider viewpoint it looked quite casual indeed, Ichigo’s fingers on Kisuke’s shoulder, standing side-by-side.

The next picture was from a different event. Yoruichi had pounced on him deliberately while he was mid-stride while also grabbing Shinji’s collar. She’d then transformed. It left Ichigo wheezing beneath most of Kisuke’s weight and roughly a third of Shinji’s on the floor. There was a very innocent-looking black cat sitting on Kisuke’s chest while Shinji sprawled, laughing, over his legs. Ichigo was actually trying to breathe but it looked like he was laughing, curled a bit to the other side while Kisuke himself was grinning at the prank.

He sent that one to himself before advancing.

A pixilated blown up corner from a group shot at that same event, Ururu slumped over onto his shoulder, sleeping.

That same corner, a bit later, with one of the many black cats kept at the Shihoin estate in possession of the full length of his legs while Shinji had appeared with a later-adopted yellow one sitting on his head and a tray of snacks held up to share. Ururu had slipped down to be a barely-visible bit of body under his haori.

Another shot, older still, of Kisuke pressed close to look over Ichigo’s shoulder as Yoruichi—in cat form—stared over Kisuke’s own while standing on his bent back, Tessai and Shinji leaning over the other side of the table while someone on Ichigo’s other side was slumped down and trying desperately to not be there.

The same group, minus the dark head and with Yoruichi human, happily seated around a table, passing food about. The picture caught Kisuke leaning into Ichigo, who was paused in the act of drinking and twisting his chopsticks into the skin on the back of Shinji’s hand to keep him from stealing Ichigo’s last steamed pork bun.

“See?” she asked, smugly. “You’re fine with people.”

“Once I’ve had a chance to get to know them,” he agreed. “Dating rather precludes that.”

“Doesn’t have to. We’re in Soul Society at the moment, remember? Slower pace to everything.”

“’Slower pace’ would still count fifteen or twenty years as too slow.”

He hadn’t thought she could look smugger. “That one,” she pointed at the last, “was taken when Ichigo was nineteen.”

When Kisuke had spent, all tallied up, less than a month in his company. It was a point, but he couldn’t keep himself from countering it if he’d wanted to. “Ichigo is an exception to many things.”

“Doesn’t matter how weird he is. Still proves you can get to know someone and trust them in a Soul Society approved speed for dating. It doesn’t have to be off the list of possibilities entirely. Idiot. Now, I’m going to make a bet with Lisa about how long it’ll take either Ichigo or Shinji to come see what just happened.”

She walked off, ending the conversation.

Shinji arrived as if on cue, plucking up the phone still in Kisuke’s hand and hurling it to a suddenly squawking Hiyori. “You’ve got the ‘smacked with a sandal without a sandal being involved’ face on. What’s she been saying?”

“I’m starting to think people can spend far too much time together without realizing it.”

With a snort Shinji shifted so their shoulders were touching. “Believe me, you’ll know.”

“She pointed out that I somehow acclimated to people without realizing it.”

When Shinji had caught his breath after the choke caused by trying to keep from laughing, he nudged Kisuke, head tilted back at a playfully provoking angle, like a kitten posing before lashing out with a claws-sheathed paw. “You’ve been ‘acclimated’ to us for decades, Kisuke.”

“Yes, but that was unusual circumstances.”

Shinji shrugged. “Took you, what, six months with Ururu?”

Kisuke opened and closed his mouth before offering what he could tell himself was a weak, “Children are different.”

“And Ichigo? He was an adult, albeit young, before you two really began interacting on non-cataclysmic levels. And he was certainly dangerous by then, considering he’d gained his much loathed title of God Slayer.”

They shared an amused glance.

If Ichigo ever found out they were amongst those who wouldn’t let that title be forgotten he’d do his best to leave them doing their paperwork from beds in the Fourth for several months.

“Ichigo is an exception to many things.”

“True. Ever bother to think about that?”

The way Shinji looked at him said, plainly, that he was missing something Shinji had seen quite easily. Shinji being Shinji he had no intention to actually tell Kisuke, feeling such things should be noticed without having it pointed out.

Well now Kisuke had something to brood over.

Chapter Text

Everyone in the Gotei realized that the Visored had brought new ideas and methods and worked their people hard but rewarded them well, too. A few had the wits and wisdom to see they were also strengthening Soul Society as a whole to better face whatever the next crises happened to be.

Kisuke, at least, realized that everyone in the Rukongai who got news from Seireitei knew about the Visored. That Kurosaki Ichigo was one of the Visored just meant that acceptance was never even a consideration. If the God Slayer was Visored, the Visored were alright from the beginning, before they began claiming and cleaning their territory. The people knew their names, their divisions, and every generally known bit of information the common person on the street could learn about them—even those not part of the Gotei or Kido Corps.

They were the Soul Society equivalent of Rock Stars crossed with Superheroes to the Rukongai residents who had lived day by day facing starvation and death-by-hollow or bandits. Where Shinigami were as likely to be the problem as the solution, in some districts. Then the Visored arrived and hollows were being killed like common pests even in areas where the old technology failed to detect them. Food was made more available for those who hungered and they were encouraged to move closer as they were most likely to attract hollows in the first place. Bandits and Shinigami who were worse were treated the same—killed or tossed into the Maggot’s Nest, whatever their claim to Clan or title may be.

The Noble Families who generally treated the Rukongai as a mix of trash heap and slave labor emporium were not pleased to realize that those who not only grudgingly allowed the Visored to exist but were enthusiastic about them outnumbered their prestigious selves a thousand or more to one.

Yoruichi had mentioned things being busy; for her that meant a lot of politicking trying to balance those who had legitimate concerns worth the Onmitsukido looking into them and those who were merely trying to buy a few murders for the sake of retaining their own waning power.

It was also her way of telling him to be on his guard.

Appreciated, but unnecessary.

He’d found the less-than-legal or moral storeroom long ago. One of Kurotsuchi’s experiments that had truly proper documentation—from the request behind the theoretical agent to the creation of the powder that, no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get to cleanly dissolve or become aerosol.

Kisuke had thought up three ways without spending five minutes on it with the part of his brain that wasn’t howling with the need to rip hell open so he could drag the monster out and kill him again. Possibly Kurotsuchi had left it in powder form as easier to track, harder to abuse and less likely to attract attention that could lead back to his lab. Possibly.

Given what it was designed to do and who had requested it, Kisuke doubted it. That Kurotsuchi had touched the request at all meant such considerations never bothered him.

And that he had been incredibly ignorant about politics and how fatal they could turn out to be if someone strong without the proper backing became too noticeable.

Or he had been ridiculously arrogant and self-assured.

The worst part of that particular request was discovering that two vials of the foul stuff were unaccounted for. The only reason the hidden stores hadn’t all been publicly exposed and torched were those two vials.

He’d spoken of them to Yoruichi, only, and she’d kept ears and eyes alerted for anything strange enough to suggest their use while Kisuke had come back to the problem, time and again until the current ‘crisis’ was upon them.

His head was jerked up by his hair.

“Have I got your attention now, fool man?” the woman asked mockingly, running the dull edge of her poisoned blade lightly along the skin under his chin. “Kurotsuchi was the same. So very stupidly blind in some rather obvious ways. Useful ones, in his case. Your arrogance at least has been helpful just this once,” she mused, looking at him in haughty amusement before she let him go to set the blade on the low, rough table that was the only furniture in the small shack. She sat beside it closely enough for the threat to be clear. “Though I will say your reputation for talk seems overrated.”

A tickle of amusement rose in him briefly. He remained silent.

She frowned before looking towards the open door with clear annoyance.

He kept his eyes slightly averted just in case she could accurately read his exultation. Outwitting opponents without playable cards in your own hand would always be thrilling.

“You’re late,” she snapped.

“What is he doing here?” the man standing just outside the shack asked on seeing Kisuke.

“He stumbled across us in the midst of our supply run,” she said flippantly. “Thought you might want to witness the strength of what you’re buying. You did express concerns that it wouldn’t affect higher-level souls.”

“Higher reiryoku, not level,” he snarled.

Ah. Kisuke recognized that snobby and ridiculous argument. ‘Kuchiki’ Ryunosuke. Pretentious and stiff even for the clan, and a man who had never forgiven Byakuya for being everything he wasn’t and could never be—from heir to intelligent. Ryunosuke had a cold callous cruelty that none of Byakuya’s forefathers had missed noticing or lauded; gossip amongst the Shihoin had it that the real reason his mother had been disowned wasn’t because she’d borne three bastards by three fathers but so that none of her less-than-satisfactory offspring could ever hope to inherit.

Given that her circumstances hadn’t changed much—she lived in the same place with the same allowance and was still allowed to use the name but not to claim connection to the head of the family for herself or her children—it was quite likely true.

“And for the amount of kan you want for the stuff—”

Ryunosuke should consider reading some Living World fiction. The bad guys there had much better lines. It was also stupid to enter a small room with four people in it at all, much less when you knew one would be hostile given a chance and there were sharp and poisoned things lying about.

“I should have a decent demonstration.”

Though it was possible he viewed himself as a crusader of sorts, rather than a bad guy.

Aizen started out that way. According to the records left behind.

He went off the rails before Kisuke was a seated member.

He highly doubted Ryunosuke was ever on them.

“How do I know this is like the other stuff? It’s just a black powder.”

The woman—still unidentified—looked irritated. “It’s the same markings by the same hand with the same seal as the vial I haven’t opened from the first batch,” she said with impressive calm considering how she was fingering her poisoned dagger and eyeing his carelessly exposed back. He didn’t seem to realize that if she killed him and took the money off his corpse she could then find some other disenfranchised fool to sell her poison to.

She had the sense enough to know it and be seriously considering it. Obviously whatever her plans were—because selling the stuff couldn’t be the end of it—she was doubting Ryunosuke could manage her plans for him.

Quite rightly, if it didn’t involve drinking too much and boasting a bit more with a side of mismatched fighting thrown in. The man wasn’t subtle or sneaky in the least. Otherwise his reputation wouldn’t be so bad that even disowned the clan had quietly pushed him to the far edges of Seireitei.

“Let’s see it, then,” he demanded, holding out a dagger of his own.

Kisuke mentally applauded the look she gave him in return. “And then you decide not to buy it as you’ve already got a coated blade with use enough for a dozen strikes? Do I look a fool to you?”

“Any of yours could already be prepared.”

She could hardly argue that. Unlikely, yes, but even the small spare in goon number two’s ankle sheath could be poisoned. “Sell me one of your spares, then.”

“What?”

“You’ll know it’s clean and the poison will remain mine if you decide not to buy,” she explained.

He considered that long enough that she was clearly quite impatient and Kisuke had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out to her that the idiot clearly only had the one blade. “If I decide not to buy I’ll sell you the blade. If I buy, I keep the blade.”

“No. You may repurchase it at the same price if you buy the poison, but the poison remains in my possession, wherever it is and however used, until the sale.”

Kisuke was steadily downgrading his already low opinion of Ryunosuke’s ability to plot. He not only had only one blade on him but it had the Kuchiki’s design on the hilt. Meaning heirloom. That he intended to use for assassinations.

While he may be biased and possibly not remembering things correctly, it having been a very long time ago, he was fairly certain he could reliably state that even desperately starved and half alive as a child in the Rukongai he would have thought that at best poor planning.

Kisuke was also getting bored.

“You couldn’t afford this blade. It was crafted by a master.”

“Then use a different one,” she snapped, scowling. “Or accept one of mine. Or I take the sale elsewhere.”

“He was Rukongai.”

“So?”

That got her a very dark glower. Ryunosuke opened his mouth to start on the old ‘Rukongai are useless trash’ speech that had ultimately failed him out of the academy, the instructors being themselves half Rukongai and entirely intolerant of bigotry about where one was born after seeing it make no difference in reiryoku and ability to learn. He closed it and swallowed when she returned the glower with a glare and a trick with a second short blade so it flashed around her fingers in not-subtle-at-all threat display.

He probably hadn’t noticed it was a different blade.

“Such captains often carry more than their zanpakuto, don’t they?”

Kisuke might have to upgrade him slightly. Very slightly.

Actually, maybe not at all. He couldn’t think of a single captain who didn’t carry a small knife. For fruits, if nothing else, though most found having an edged weapon that wasn’t feet long helpful in many situations.

Granted, Kisuke was carrying more than that, and the best-equipped he could think of he knew had been Rukongai rather than Seireitei-born. So the base idea wasn’t entirely wrong, just…

Bah. Ryunosuke was wrong in more ways than right, and Kisuke rather liked that knife. It didn’t deserve to be part of this. Although given it had been a knife gifted to celebrate a cutting away of past responsibilities it might just be rather apropos.

This should finish tying up one of the last loose ends Kurotsuchi had left lying about for the unwary to trip into and hang themselves on.

“Fine. Now, pay attention.” She measured out two liquids and a bit of the powder into a saucer, stirring it with the tip of the knife before dripping the resulting viscous substance onto the blade after first heating it slightly over a candle. Just enough that the liquid spread out easily and dried more quickly than it would have, allowing the other side to be coated with the remnants.

Kisuke calculated the powder used to that left in the vial she’d extracted and felt much better. It was an entirely inefficient way of using the poison and there could only be two dozen blades of similar size so coated.

Had it been added to food or drink somehow it could have affected if not outright destroyed over a thousand souls.

Of course, the request had been for a poison for a blade. He’d already noted the degree of intelligence involved in the current endeavor, though the original requestor—who had, as far as anyone knew and Yoruichi had checked, died in the war when her house collapsed—had given him more than a few sleepless nights of worry. She would have tried it in different forms just as a matter of course. Whether the woman never had time or hadn’t shared her results was both immaterial and a blessing.

“Now the test,” Ryunosuke said, smiling unpleasantly at Kisuke.

Kisuke kept his face blank.

Ryunosuke drew the blade back for a plunge into Kisuke’s chest. The angle was horrible and, poison aside, wouldn’t kill anyone. Would be annoying, though, likely breaking his collarbone and possibly a rib.

“Do you want to waste it?” she snapped.

“What?”

“You just need to cut deep enough to get the poison into the blood. That’s why the coating is concentrated along the sharp edge,” she said, words less than clear as they came through gritted teeth.

“Oh.”

Kisuke sympathized with her upturned eyes. The disappointment, however, was quite ridiculous. If you looked for someone unintelligent enough to buy a poison like this you shouldn’t be surprised when they did unintelligent things.

Common sense, that.

Ryunosuke made a shallow swipe to the back of Kisuke’s left arm and stood staring at it as the blood welled up and began dripping down his arm.

Slowly, because Kisuke didn’t feel like losing a lot of blood just for the dramatics and he kept all of his sharp pointy things very sharp and pointy. As soon as Ryunosuke turned to the seller Kisuke let it heal over beneath the blood.

“How long is it supposed to take?” he asked.

She was definitely smarter than he was. Not difficult, but still. She was staring at Kisuke in dawning horror. She snapped out of the shock involved in seeing him not disintegrate into reishi within thirteen heartbeats when Ryunosuke swiped a shallow cut into goon number one’s chest. Goon number two thrust out with his sword and got a reflexive jab of his own just as goon one’s clothes hit the ground. Empty, save a handful of still unraveling soul particles.

By then, she’d gotten her own blade to Ryunosuke’s cheek and watched the man unravel with blank eyes. She burst towards the door in reasonably adept shunpo but Kisuke had her bound before he finished removing the cords used on his arms.

“I won’t tell you anything,” she snarled. “Might as well kill me now.”

He picked up a bit of cloth and wrapped the two missing vials in it, carefully, before tucking them into his sleeve. “I have no intention of asking you anything,” he said, smiling a very old smile.

It had the usual effect, every muscle in her body bunching in an attempt to flee, pupils reacting obviously to the sudden onslaught of visceral fear.

He collected the poisoned blades, potentially poisoned weapons from the piles of clothes and removed everything from her that could be stabbed into another as a precaution. Preparations done, he flared his reiatsu and spent the minute he had until Yoruichi arrived studying the two liquids she’d combined into a poison vehicle.

Yoruichi appeared beside him, four high-level Onmitsukido surrounding the prisoner who went very chalky when she recognized exactly how badly she’d miscalculated.

“There are either a good number of poisoned blades cached somewhere or a lot more missing souls than we’ve tracked so far. She doesn’t feel like talking to me,” he shrugged.

“We’ll see how she feels in a few days about talking to me, then. Dare I ask?” she sighed, looking at his arm.

“Hm? Oh. It was expedient. And the antidote worked beautifully. Barely a tingle.”

She nodded; it was said for the demoralizing effect on their prisoner. “We’ve almost completed the list of highest priority targets. Just one left—I’ll leave that one to you.” She flipped him a small vial of green liquid before vanishing with her prisoner.

The slight twitch of one of his wards pulled him from a final check of the shack. He landed outside his side door just as Ichigo let himself in with a bag of groceries. “Mind?” he asked.

“Even if I have other plans you’d be welcome to cook. I haven’t, today.” He set the vial down on the counter and pushed it slightly closer to Ichigo.

Ichigo eyed it curiously but didn’t pick it up, instead reaching for a cutting board. “What is that?”

“Something you’re going to ingest. You can drink it straight, put it in or on something, or I can sneak it into you at some point.”

“Why am I ingesting it?”

“It’s a preventative and to your benefit. Even with your position it’s best I not explain further.”

“How many people have taken it?”

“The Visored, Yoruichi, Tessai, myself, Akon—knowingly. Most of the remaining captains and lieutenants unknowingly. A few scattered nobles, likewise.”

Ichigo grabbed it after everything was chopped and in the pot, his hands cleaned. He made a bit of a face after swallowing it. “Anything else I should know about the assassination plots?”

“You shouldn’t even know that. Technically.”

“Then why do I?”

“In case it affects you oddly, it’s better that I can keep an eye on you for a while.”

“Being?”

“Twelve hours should be enough to know if longer is needed.”

“Are my sisters going to get this stuff? My living friends?”

“Yoruichi will see to it once the last few have been slipped it here.” And after Ichigo was gotten through it. And had that extra week in case Shinji’s illness wasn’t a coincidence. Brief and light as it had been, illnesses were rare enough in souls that treating them was difficult. “Presuming it doesn’t cause you any harm.”

“Did it bother anyone else?”

“Not for certain.”

“Hm. So, aside from thwarting desperate nobles who want to keep hold of their failing powers, what have you been up to?”

“You haven’t been gone a month, Kurosaki-kun. Do you really suppose anything has changed here?”

“Of course. Perhaps nothing major, but something is bound to be different.”

“Give it a few more decades and you won’t feel the same.”

“Then I won’t be looking properly.” Ichigo set a plate down in front of him. “Even with a daily routine that doesn’t vary much there are simply too many complicating factors for each day to be exactly the same. Maybe nothing happened that people would generally consider important or interesting, but undoubtedly something did.”

Kisuke shrugged. “Hiyori has been around more often.”

“Damage?”

“Several walls, two trees, a garden, half a dozen koi and innumerable egos suffered permanent dents.”

“Nothing terribly important, then.”

“The thirteenth were rather up in arms about the fish.” Byakuya had been annoyed, too, which was inexplicable.

Ichigo snorted. “Speaking of—eat before it’s cold.”

Kisuke looked down to see a fish looking up. Not a koi.

Good. After listening to the wailing about named fish he might actually find himself having qualms if it had been.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

What the ever-loving hell was he doing?

Why?

This was insanity.

No, really. Looking into the borders holding the soul in one place was simple curiosity compared to—what was he doing here? He should just leave.

Now.

Right now.

Why was he still here?

Kisuke took a deep breath, closing his eyes and holding it until his blood began getting loud in his ears. He let it out slowly, timed the following inhale and simply breathed until his heart was back to normal.

He still wanted to bolt and thought himself unusually insane for being there, but he wasn’t as likely to get sick.

Whoever had come up with the ‘meet in a public place’ idea needed to be drawn and quartered. His skin was trying to crawl off and it felt like all eyes were on him, that they knew, that ‘Oddmund’ would take a look at him and simply keep walking.

“Urahara?”

Kisuke jumped and turned to find Ichigo had stopped a very deliberate distance away. “I’m not having a flashback,” he promised, unsurprised when Ichigo immediately came to stand at his side, though he looked over the railing into the water rather than at the people passing by. “Look that bad, do I?”

“A bit jumpy. Twitchy, maybe, like you were constantly about to flash elsewhere but were holding back in the last instant.”

Kisuke snorted and relaxed a bit as Ichigo’s shoulder touched his. “I blame you entirely for this.”

“For what?” Reiatsu curled around his legs before creeping up and out; Kisuke almost laughed.

Protective to the last as always. “I,” he pronounced sourly, “am waiting to be bailed on by someone I’ve been chatting with for the last year thanks to And a Day.”

“Why would anyone bail on you?”

Kisuke rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to hide doing so. “This was a stupid idea.”

“After a year? I’m surprised your curiosity didn’t get the better of you before now. Or were you unable to find the place or hack the server?”

Kisuke looked away.

Ichigo snorted. “I think I am officially impressed with And a Day, now, having heard that.”

“You’re the one who—!”

“Wanted you to stop hiding in your comfortable striped turtle-shell and try to enjoy living?” Ichigo asked softly. “You have a lot to offer the right person, but never looked or largely took notice of anyone else either looking or trying to nudge people at you. I know Shinji trotted half a dozen members of his division under your nose without you catching on.”

He wanted to deny the possibility but knew himself—and Ichigo—well enough not to bother. Ichigo might tease him terribly at times but he was never cruel and only gave as good as he got. “I think your view of me is not entirely accurate.”

“Why, because I don’t dismiss you thanks to decades of illusion-tainted perception?”

A twitch went through Kisuke’s shoulders at the sharpness in Ichigo’s voice. He looked over, drawn out of his own social issues and fears at the glint of yellow lightening Ichigo’s eyes. “What’s happened?”

“What? No, nothing,” Ichigo shook his head.

“Kurosaki-kun—”

“It’s nothing, Urahara. I’d wish you luck but I daresay in your current mood you’d come up with some way to twist it against us both.” Ichigo waved over his shoulder before striding off.

Kisuke puzzled over the man’s reaction until he was nearly run over when two carts both tried to use the bridge at once and he realized they were some of the last vendors at the market and he had very obviously been stood up.

As expected.

If horribly disappointing despite having done his best not to even wonder what it would be like to meet…

No. No point considering that, anymore.

He put his hands in his sleeves as he turned towards home and froze before he could step off the railing he’d perched on reflexively when the carts disturbed his thoughts.

Years of paranoia had him releasing the item before he could risk too much absorption if there was contact poison and sped his feet to his home, his lab, where he stripped off the haori and upended the sleeve to see—

An origami heart with a flower center landed on the table.

That made it a bit less likely it was a murderous assault snuck under his guard but even so who could have done it? He’d had his hands in his sleeves on the walk to the bridge and no one had gotten close enough to him to slip something into his sleeve.

Two hours of poking, light filters, kido and finally deconstruction concluded that it wasn’t someone trying to kill him.

That solved he refolded the heart and considered the message written inside and the still looming puzzle.

‘I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted. I wish you enough in all of your tomorrows.’

Not what he wanted? No one had shown! He hadn’t rejected anyone…

And honestly, if ‘Oddmund’ was able to sneak a bit of crisp origami the size of his palm into his sleeve they were more attractive than he’d already considered them. Competence was…

Kisuke shivered.

That aside he still couldn’t pinpoint a moment when someone could have slipped close enough to manage it.

Chapter Text

It had only taken three explosions and a visit to the Fourth when he wasn’t seeing straight—his own personal ‘don’t try self-healing if ___’ number one rule—for him to give himself the day off. He’d been in the labs instead of his office because he’d already screwed up half of what was in his inbox in his distraction.

“Whoa, Urahara? Everything alright?”

“No!” Kotetsu barked the answer while Kisuke was trying to get more than a blob of orange in focus. “He blew himself up, at least twice, and refuses to stay here!”

“He just needs an eye kept on him?” Ichigo asked before Kisuke could turn to rebut that.

“Yes, but—”

“No worries, then. I was planning to take over his kitchen in about an hour, anyway.”

She opened her mouth to protest, met Ichigo’s steady gaze and dropped her own. “Very well. You know how to get in touch with Yamada—I’ll have him check in on you.”

Kisuke would have protested but Ichigo appeared to be nodding and Kisuke suddenly had no personal space at all. No, he had a lithe God Slayer plastered to his side as if he couldn’t walk. “I can walk, Kurosaki-kun.”

“Straight, and in time for this cold stuff to still be cold?”

“Don’t be unreasonable.”

Ichigo snorted. “Right. Don’t be an idiot. Faster and easier and you look like crap so people will notice it less if you aren’t wobbling around than if you’re supported.”

“Flatterer.”

“Flattery by definition is false, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s insincere with an ulterior motive.”

“…That actually sounds worse. Can you stay upright if I lean you here?”

“I was walking before you came by.”

“You were staggering. At a very decidedly unlikely angle.”

“…I think so.”

“Good. I need to pick up some vegetables and I changed my mind on not having meat tonight. Unless you’re off it at the moment?”

Kisuke considered. “It doesn’t sound any worse than any other food at the moment.”

“I know, bland and boring with very little scent where possible.”

Now that they were stopped Kisuke could see Ichigo’s point. The world was constantly sliding to the right and only by keeping track of his hands pressed behind him did he know he was properly oriented.

“Urahara, coming on your left, this time.”

Kisuke, thanks to the warning, didn’t startle or draw a knife on Ichigo. He even raised his arm for Ichigo to slip under and offered the free one.

“Like I didn’t see you testing that post to make sure you were still upright. Yeah, I’m trusting you not to bruise our food.”

Given that it had also seemed a very short time between being left there and gathered again… he could see the sense in that decision, so he let Ichigo fuss without protest. Mostly because Ichigo’s version would be closer to Kisuke’s own than Kotetsu’s. He was left to arrange himself in his favorite place to sit or lie during the day with a few extra cushions and a cold cloth to either cover his eyes or sit on the back of his neck as he chose.

With Ichigo there, reiatsu curling noticeably around them, cocooning Kisuke with the promise that no one would sneak up on him?

He covered his eyes and lay down, not exactly asleep but definitely not fully aware of the world. A tug at his reiatsu drew him closer to the world. “Hm?”

“Food, if you can stomach it, and Hanatoru has been pacing hesitantly outside for the last five minutes. Figured you’d want to be upright when I called him in.”

“Mm,” he agreed. He lifted the cloth to find the lights were pleasantly dim and a hand waiting for him to take it. Once he did he was hauled upright with a cushion shoved behind him before he could think to reach for it and Ichigo nudged a small tray with tea things closer to him before he headed for the door.

Another tug had him looking up to blink at finding the healer very close.

“Why don’t you grab yourself a cup, Hanatoru?” Ichigo suggested.

“I—uh, yes, thank you,” the small man agreed, slipping silently across the room into the kitchen.

“Are you losing time?” Ichigo asked, voice low.

“I… might be?”

“Do you even let her scan you fully or just deal with the obvious?” he grumbled, getting up to usher the healer back after having a quick word with him.

Yamada started with Kisuke’s head, that time.

“She said I had a concussion; I didn’t disagree.”

“Ah, it’s…”

“Can you fix it or do I go knock her door down?” Ichigo asked darkly.

“I can manage it, I think.”

Reassuring.

“If I can’t I’m good enough not to do harm,” Yamada protested their shared looks.

“You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know that,” Ichigo snorted. “If you need help or supplies, let me know. Meanwhile, I’ll dish up. She didn’t interrupt plans, did she?”

“No. Not with And a Day down,” Yamada smiled deprecatingly.

Ichigo grimaced. “I’ve been hearing that a lot. Hopefully it’ll be back up soon. It was nice to have only what socializing I wanted when and where I wanted it,” he drawled, shaking his head at himself. “You’ll have a bowl, then? Eat in the kitchen with me and we can spice it up where he can’t smell it.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Yamada watched Ichigo go and Kisuke only realized he was blatantly noticing that when Yamada turned and went quite scarlet on seeing him. He ducked his head, bit his lip, and squared his shoulders before staring fixedly at the top of Kisuke’s head as he called up healing kido again.

Kisuke didn’t press. It was never a good idea to distract a healer when they were working on your brain, firstly, and secondly… people like Yamada were more likely to confide or at least explain themselves if you were there and not pressing. Otherwise they’d duck and scurry off or splutter something before outright running.

“He knows.”

Kisuke refocused after closing his eyes with a wince as something shifted in his skull. Things felt better almost immediately but that had not been pleasant.

Yamada was smiling, a faint little thing. “Realized it before I had and sat me down. Told me I was a good friend and could probably be a great one, but he didn’t think anything more would work. So. I can appreciate.” He lifted his chin slightly.

“There’s much to appreciate,” Kisuke agreed, unsure why that got him an unusual-for-the-man scowl before ‘healer calm’ took over.

A few more things shifted before Ichigo broke in. “Enough for now. You’re not working on his thick skull anymore, so it can wait until after everyone eats.”

Yamada blinked slowly a few times, sign enough that Ichigo was right.

No one protested. Kisuke had his bland rice-and-vegetables with a few pity pieces of…rabbit?... and they had whatever Kisuke could just barely now and again smell. Half the time it made him wish he had it and the rest glad he didn’t. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, though he could tell Yamada was much more comfortable around Ichigo than when Kisuke was thrown into the mix. Not a sign of a stutter and the pitch was lower, less tense.

He coiled tight as a spring again as soon as he turned to approach Kisuke, which would have been amusing but for Ichigo’s little sigh. Luckily for the tension in the room Yamada had nearly been done when Ichigo stepped in and was able to make his escape after just a few minutes.

“Is he going to be able to go in tomorrow?”

“Able? Yes. Should he? Absolutely not. And if he weren’t the division’s captain I’d send his captain orders about it. Off for a week at least.”

“Send them to Akon.”

“Kurosaki-kun!” Kisuke protested.

“He’ll see to things,” Ichigo continued, smiling a bit evilly at Kisuke, who pouted.

Yamada looked between them before nodding and stepping back. “By orders of Kurosaki-fukutaicho?”

“No—I don’t think he knows. Just tell him what you’ve advised as, if your advice is followed his captain might well oversleep getting a message to him in a timely fashion.”

With a slight snort Yamada bowed politely in Kisuke’s direction with a general goodnight to the pair of them before he took off, throwing a promise to come by on his way in the next day over his shoulder.

Or a threat.

Depending on your viewpoint.

“Now that you’re healed, care to explain?”

“Explain?”

“For you to blow yourself up at all, never mind twice, you’re obviously distracted. Anything I should be worried about or can help with?”

Healing, even when someone else did the actual work, was always exhausting. Getting blown up—three times—wasn’t a picnic either. Even so, he was kicking himself for speaking after he heard what he’d said. “Not unless you’re a world-class hacker.”

Ichigo blinked. “That’s definitely not even been on my list of possible answers. Why would you—wait.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you the reason And a Day is down?”

Kisuke studied a corner. It was a nice corner. All angular and the like.

“Urahara,” Ichigo groaned. “Why were you trying to hack into And a Day. Again? Didn’t you admit not being able to before?”

“That was when I was just a bit curious,” Kisuke countered, as he seemed to have deactivated his brain-to-mouth filter recently. “Now I—” really want to know. He managed to cut himself off and closed his eyes.

“What happened?”

“Somehow I missed them, Kurosaki-kun. I wasn’t stood up, they came, and I didn’t notice. Why they didn’t make themselves plainly known is one thing I want to ask, but they haven’t been responding ever since.”

“Most would take that as a hint.”

“’I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted’. What does that even mean? I wasn’t given a chance say anything. They were able to sneak a note onto me—Me! I was one of Yoruichi’s—” He bit his tongue and swore at himself.

Not so mentally, but he wasn’t doing fabulously in that respect at all anyway.

“I can’t take it as a hint. Not… not without understanding.”

Urahara Kisuke would never be called a hugger. The old adage had too often held true in his life and he generally didn’t allow touch at all, much less the sort that gave so perfect an angle for a knife through the spine or between the ribs into the heart. Most of those allowed to touch him—not the other way around—at all were allowed almost any contact they wanted.

Ichigo was one, and he wasn’t exactly a hugger, either, but the sigh and twist so he landed propped right beside Kisuke so their bodies touched along his left side was comforting. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you into this.”

“I never had to interact with anyone. I lost the bet without opening a single thing.”

“Still.”

Kisuke shook his head. “At the moment, I’m not blaming anyone.”

“No?”

“There’s too much unanswered. If the whole thing was a joke to drive me mad, yes, I’ll be quite annoyed.” And he’d be rather creative in his revenge, too.

“And you’d have a lot of help with your retaliation.”

Ichigo might know him a bit too well.

“If this is some sort of misunderstanding, if I was just thinking and they thought me disappointed or deliberately ignoring them—and how could I have missed someone getting that close? I’m not… okay, present circumstances would call me a liar but I generally don’t let people within arm’s length.”

With a snort Ichigo nudged him lightly. “You do zone out a bit, sometimes.”

“Never that badly. Even if they didn’t have reiryoku, I should have noticed them.” Not that he was really willing to give that any consideration. Too many discussions of things that one needed reiryoku to access, to understand. A soul without reiryoku didn’t need to eat, so why talk about a good restaurant or recipe? They also rarely had the… cohesion, in a way, to become a part of Seireitei. To use the computers, remembering newly learned things, be present and real and—

And everything Kisuke had never dared to let himself want.

He curled up and put his burning cheek on a knee, turned away from Ichigo.

He braced himself against touch but Ichigo didn’t move.

Physically.

His reiatsu curled tentatively around Kisuke’s feet. When not rejected it looped around him, cocooning him again. “I wish I knew what to do to make things better,” Ichigo said, softly, some minutes later.

“That’s a ‘no’ on the world-class hacker, then?”

Ichigo snorted and rested careful fingertips on Kisuke’s shoulder. “Alcohol and healing is out, but I can bake us something sweet?”

“Why not?” Kisuke sighed. “Just don’t make it chocolate. I hope never to be that cliché.”

Akon looked at him anxiously before, not finding him looking ready to fade away, he presented the ‘most urgent captain only’ paperwork.

It was a stack fourteen inches high.

“I was there yesterday,” he grumbled.

“Yes, but there was a bit of an incident, and I, uh, fixed some of the previous, uhm…”

“Thank you,” Kisuke sighed, remembering why he’d ended up exploding himself.

“I’ll come by again a bit before the day ends?”

“That will do. Bring along anything urgent that’s turned up in the meanwhile, I can have it ready in the morning.”

“…No.”

“No?” Kisuke asked, blinking. He wasn’t a tyrant of a captain but Akon rarely directly disagreed with him.

“Ichigo would be pissed off if I let you work all day and the evening, too!” was rushed out.

Kisuke rolled his eyes and motioned for Akon to set the pile on the table. “Fine, fine. Mother hen Kurosaki shall not be riled.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Akon said so earnestly Kisuke had to wonder what precisely Ichigo had been saying to him. “I should…”

He vanished when Kisuke nodded.

With a sigh Kisuke began separating out the layers. Most of the requests for assistance would be easy—he put them at the back. ‘No’ was short and didn’t require tactful wording. All of the new project ideas would be a headache of their own so he shoved them far enough aside they almost fell off the table entirely. Explaining why he was saying they couldn’t do something in such a way that his scientists stopped rewording their requests as if he hadn’t understood the first twenty times was something he was still trying to get right on the first attempt. The most persistent he’d had to threaten with disemboweling if another request to do the same damned thing crossed his desk for the hundred and seventy-sixth time. Paperwork requests from the Eighth—with a note from Lisa saying she’d gone over them all personally and marked the places that needed review; she must have heard about his visit to the Fourth and subsequent house arrest. The computer printout with brightly colored page tabs and sticky-notes would be a nice break from the hand-written ‘Things for Consideration’ from the other non-Visored-run divisions.

What had he been on when he’d opened that up to the other captains? He could blame it on Shinji. The man didn’t notice anything under fifteen percent ABV and rarely bought under twenty.

Shunsui’s suggestions were a mix of honestly curious and outright silly—probably on purpose to inject some levity into Kisuke’s paperwork; he pulled those out of the remaining stack and froze when something smaller skittered out with those files. It spun a bit before resolving into an origami heart.

With a flower center.

For one moment of white-hot rage he wanted to torch the message without reading it. How dare they choose this way to get in touch with him? He’d had the chat open for days—before And a Day shut down to ‘deal with attempted intrusions into the database that keeps everyone’s information private and secure’…

He deflated.

Scooped the message up with two clean sheets of paper and carried it to his workbench.

Gloves went on and a quick test to prove there were no active kido or any other warning signs let him open it. He’d still clean up where it had touched carefully and wear gloves until he was done with his paperwork—but that was probably unnecessary precautions. Few would be willing to risk contact poison in an office environment where the delivery would be by at least three different hands.

‘I had a good idea who you were. I didn’t know, but there were some hints. I was happy to be right, though I wouldn’t have been put off if wrong, Hifumi. And then you didn’t even notice I was there. I had two of these prepared. One with my online nickname and a date idea; proof of who I was. The other you found at some point and put through a battery of tests, I’m sure.

I never approached you in daily life because I never expected you to see me, which turned out painfully accurate, after having built up hope. It seemed pointless to continue on, chatting like nothing had happened when nothing more would ever come of things and growing closer only hurt. I didn’t know what to say, if I should respond at all or simply fade out.

You don’t want me—Oddmund’s mind, perhaps, but not the rest.

Strange how much easier it is to flirt online than it is to write a few simple words on a piece of paper. Of which I’m almost out of space upon.

Hifumi—Urahara Kisuke—when And a Day comes back up I’ll respond if you wish it. I can’t help thinking it would be wiser to let it go. In case you agree, I’ll end with the same hope as the last; I wish you enough, in all of your tomorrows.’

Kisuke set the message down. He left his workbench and returned to his paperwork.

After Akon had gone he woke his computer and found And a Day was back up with a stern warning about ‘anyone caught attempting to hack would be banned’.

The chat with Oddmund was open.

He stared at the blinking cursor until he sensed someone approaching his door.

Ichigo, of course. Checking that Akon could be trusted to report in if Kisuke had keeled over and died.

I don’t know.

He locked the screen and went to open the door, submitting to the brief once-over health check Ichigo was satisfied by and more eagerly the take away foisted into his arms.

Before taking himself off to his futon a few hours later he checked the chat, unable to resist.

That’s okay. Take some time to think.

His smile was a bit grim.

If he didn’t know better…

“Hey.”

“Still alive, as you see,” Kisuke bowed slightly to show off his old shopkeeper attire. It was getting a bit worn out. He’d have to see about replacements.

“Retiring again?” Ichigo teased, looking him over.

“No, but it will draw less attention where we’re going.”

Ichigo blinked. “’Where we’re going’? Where are we going, why is it ‘we’ and why did you expect me?”

“Yes, to the house that was just built, because it might end up being yours and you always come over on the first Tuesday, unless you’re in the Living World.”

“Oh. Right. Do I really?”

“Not a conscious thing, then?”

“No.” Ichigo thought about it as Kisuke found his hat and sighed to see someone—cough-Yoruichi-cough—had cut out a part of the crown. In the shape of a cat’s head, no less.

He wondered how long ago she’d done it and in retaliation for what.

He tossed it back into the box and stepped into his geta. Ichigo scowled a bit when he had to look up. “I’m assuming this isn’t a bad time?”

“No. It’s fine.” Ichigo strode out, looking a bit like a cat that had just been sprayed with water but unsure of from which direction. “Which way?”

“Over the river and through the woods,” Kisuke teased. “We could go direct, if you don’t want to see the approach.”

“That’s a bit secondary, really.”

“Alright.” Kisuke moved, grinning at the startled noise before Ichigo’s reiatsu surged up and brought the man to stand beside him outside the new construction. He’d deliberately had the back designed to look as much like a house as the front—door and windows and porch, same as the other, if in different configurations.

“It’s just through the woods from yours.”

“Yes. Much longer by roads.” Few would realize quite how close they were. “If you do take it, we’ll set up a tunnel between them.”

“Backup escape route,” Ichigo nodded, eyes lingering on the steam being blown from the hot spring onto the raised planter beds curling around the steps to the upper level’s balcony. It wasn’t windy enough often enough to keep any plants in them soaked, but they wouldn’t often need to be watered and the stairs were made of roughly cut stone for traction. “Healing or regular?”

“Healing. It does no harm when used without need.” Kisuke shrugged. “Or shall be, if you want the place.”

He got a droll look for that. Ichigo bypassed the door in favor of the stairs, nodding with absent approval at the additional gardening boxes set up to one side, where they’d get full sun and he’d have to purposefully water anything he attempted to grow.

The broad stairs down were glanced at but it was the room overlooking the balcony that Ichigo entered first; the office. While Kisuke had been tempted to put in some cabinets and drawers he hadn’t known what sort of furniture Ichigo might already have. He hadn’t been invited to Ichigo’s place in years. It was small, noisy, and little wonder Ichigo was rarely there and generally asked people to meet him anywhere else.

The other rooms were merely glanced at before Ichigo was trotting down the stairs, stopping dead when he entered the kitchen.

Kisuke had cheated.

He’d talked to Yuzu. There were a few features there Ichigo had never mentioned wanting but his eyes were paling to a more yellow shade. Walk-in storage. Side-by-side sinks deeper than usual; perfect for cleaning group-sized dishes and pots. Island in the center with a rack for hanging or storing things either in easy reach or at least out of the way and dozens of drawers. Double the counter space Kisuke had. The high bar for western-style seating dividing the ‘kitchen’ from the rest of the space and the nearby lower area for traditional before the room opened into a large open space of the living room.

“Yuzu?”

“Yes. She was horrified that you hadn’t found yourself a proper place after so much time to get around to it.”

Ichigo huffed. “I’ve been kept busy!”

“Does she know you’re a lieutenant?”

“Er…”

Kisuke had meant it as a tease because he’d assumed Ichigo had told his sisters.

“You know, I’m not sure. It was a bit crazy at the time. It might have slipped my mind.”

Only Ichigo would treat being made a Lieutenant of the First Division like nothing more than having picked up a newspaper at a stand on his way to a train station.

“It’s perfect,” he said, softly, voice slightly rough.

“Once you have furniture in here, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“You… don’t look happy.” Ichigo was smiling but his eyes were a bit glassy.

“You’ve taken away my excuse to bug you semi-regularly.”

Kisuke shook his head and turned towards the front door. His fingers flicked, lightening quick. “Why would you need an excuse?”

“Oi, you’ve drop—” Ichigo stopped talking.

Stopped moving, Kisuke saw when he turned.

After a long moment Ichigo’s fingers moved. He picked up the origami cautiously. A heart, with a flower center.

A bold, vibrant red.

Open it, Kisuke urged mentally.

Ichigo glanced up briefly, then looked back down and stuck his thumb in the spot that would unfurl the flower and let the note open.

Kisuke, despite having refolded the things dozens of times now, still wasn’t that skilled with them.

“Friday?” Ichigo asked, voice a bit weak.

“Unless I took too long to think things over?” He flushed slightly. “I was… astounded at my own stupidity when everything came together.”

“Which was when?”

“After the second one I received,” he nodded at the note. “You practically handed it to me yourself, sticking it in between a few files from the First. Akon admitted seeing you, when I asked. Oddmund.”

“Oi, no making fun of my nickname, Hifumi.” Ichigo scowled as best he could around a not-quite-repressible smile. “And when did you break into my place to steal this?”

“This morning. I’m still not allowed into the office but the First has their baking contest on the first of every month.”

“I still say Shunsui’s just trying to keep Nanao happy with sweets.”

“You need better protections where you sleep.”

“I’m not as paranoid as you, but I do have a fair few. You helped with some of them.”

“I remember.”

“I didn’t remove your permission.”

Kisuke blinked.

“Why does that surprise you? You let me at your back without thinking about it and still think I couldn’t possibly have a reason to trust you?” Ichigo shook his head. “You really don’t see yourself as others do.”

“Does anyone?”

“Perhaps not.” Ichigo swallowed, looked down and refolded the note in an instant. “Friday,” he agreed, before looking up too quickly for Kisuke to drop the scowl. He looked down and up again before rolling his eyes. “Origami isn’t hard, Urahara. Not at this level, anyway. And And a Day offers these if requested, you know.”

“I didn’t.”

“You… okay. That surprises me. I would have thought you’d want to know everything about the service once you started using it.”

“I still think it’s tacky,” he grumbled, knowing he had no leg to stand on in the argument anymore. “And the butterflies are an abomination.”

“I really do wonder how they do that,” Ichigo shook his head slightly. He held up the note. “There’s even a ‘better handwriting’ department that will write down your message for you.”

Kisuke narrowed his eyes. “First, it’s ‘Kisuke’. Second… why, if you got those from And a Day folded and rewritten by someone else, are you so adept at the folding?”

“I never said I got them folded. Just that they’re available.”

And enough people felt doing such things themselves made it mean more that he couldn’t protest that.

Still…

That had been… Not a hint, exactly. A tease, certainly. And why…?

It hit him with only slightly less impact than the realization of who Oddmund had to be. “You’re part of And a Day!?”

“Owner, operator,” Ichigo shrugged. “I have a few assistants, these days. Volunteers, really, since almost everything is free. Overcharge just enough on those things that aren’t to cover most of what is. Get some donations from happy couples—token amounts, but with enough happy couples offering tokens yearly we manage to stay afloat.”

That was…

Kisuke blinked. Ichigo had hidden two jobs from him for years. One of which he’d complained about with ‘unthinking hatred’ and was only given amused pokes in return!

He might have just hurt himself falling.

“Wait—you don’t know how the butterflies change their spots?”

“Not a clue. They did that on their own when I first asked if they’d be willing to help.” Ichigo’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

“But think of it!”

“No.”

“Yoruichi wouldn’t see it coming!”

“Try to get your own butterflies to do something weird, leave mine out of it!”

“But Ichigo~!”

“No!” Ichigo laughed and ducked the grab Kisuke made for him.

Kisuke grinned and took off after him.