Chapter Text
It’s a nice change of pace to see Kisuke speechless, even if it only serves as a reminder of how alien everything feels. Karakura is so peaceful, back in now, and Ichigo still finds himself checking over his shoulders and preparing for some inevitable catch. Without all of the powers that had come to bear in the time after (before?), everything had almost felt like child’s play. Too soft, too easy, practically screaming in primary colors for him to come and fix them.
Some things never change, though, so he hefts Rukia’s unconscious form a little higher in his arms and shoots a meaningful glance over Kisuke’s shoulder. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
The man blinks, works his jaw for a moment before responding. “… Well, it was nothing I can’t do without.”
Right, sure, Ichigo totally believes that. “I’ll let you get back to it, I just—“ Without his hands available, he shrugs his shoulders awkwardly. “—y’know, would’ve felt wrong to just leave her out in the street, after that. You’ve got spare rooms, right?”
The question is rhetorical and Ichigo knows it — they probably both know it, going off of the quick narrow-frown-blink that passes across Kisuke’s face. But they also both know that whatever wards protect the Shōten are far stronger inside than out, and whatever questions are clearly dying on the tip of Kisuke’s tongue need a hell of a lot more security to be set free. So the man beckons Ichigo inside with a wave, sliding the door shut behind the both of them. The kidō wards there shiver and engage as Ichigo follows Kisuke further in, past the smaller door and stronger wards that separate the shopfront from the rest of the Shōten.
He can feel others within the building, all peaceful in the way only sleep and death can bring. Tessai is a steady presence, Jinta and Ururu small but bright. If he’d come back here when he first arrived, even the brush of their reiatsu against his senses might have been too much — too harsh a reminder of all that was lost.
As it is, the sight of Kisuke’s back, footfalls silent and even on the wooden floor, is still nearly enough to send him hurtling back into memory. The last time he saw Kisuke had been like this, too.
Rukia’s weight grounds him, though, and Ichigo firmly blinks away any fluttering ghosts — the kind everyone can see, if they’ve seen enough — as Kisuke shows him to the same small room where Ichigo himself once stayed while recovering. The man quietly unrolls the futon stored in the corner, and retreats to hover by the door as Ichigo sets Rukia down and gathers up the matching comforter to tuck her in. He’d forgotten how small she is — and always would be. Barely bigger than Karin and Yuzu.
Even though she’s technically older than him, she seems so young. All of them do, now.
Maybe he’s just the one who’s grown older.
Once Rukia is tucked away, Ichigo stands and follows the careful tilt of Kisuke’s chin as the man leads him further inside once more, to the room Ichigo knows possesses the Shōten’s strongest wards against… outside observers, once could say. (They won’t do anything against a particular group, but Ichigo can fix that.)
It's a bare room, no efforts taken over the full century of its existence to add a bit of homely comfort or a touch of Kisuke's own personality — and why should it have any such things, when it's essentially a glorified strategic lockbox? Nothing comes in, nothing goes out — at least, when it comes to information that shouldn't be shared where the walls can hear. The floor beneath Ichigo's feet is unfinished wood, cold as winter and rough even against his callouses. In one corner, a pile of old, old seating cushions awaits, their color preserved only by the fact that even sunlight is barred from here. Sitting in the center of the room, the low table bears only a well of oil — kidō-sealed, no doubt, to eliminate fire risk — and a box of ordinary matches in a ziplock bag.
Back then, back when things were still only in the middle of going wrong, this was where they had held strategy meetings. Where they'd made plans and compared observations, written out messages that were sealed by reiatsu and blood before the door opened for their release. In those days, the room had ironically become cozier than its current form, though Ichigo couldn't really blame it.
Kisuke had practically lived out of this room, near the end.
Now — in this past-present-new-future moment — Kisuke slides the door shut behind the both of them and brushes a hand across it, from one side of the doorframe to another. As Ichigo removes two cushions from the stack and sets them at the table, he wonders at the crimson-brilliant glow of the kidō activating against his senses. Old wards that have been neglected — left unattended, or uncared-for, under the presumption that they will simply continue to exist — deteriorate with time, as most things do. But wards that have been meticulously maintained for as long as these have — instead of withering and developing faults, the reiatsu instead compresses like coal into diamonds.
Layers upon layers of upkeep, of revitalizing, until the individual layers are forced into each other by their own weight and become something denser and stronger than could have been possible from just a single casting — yes, even if it was someone like Ichigo creating them. He'd made kidō wards in his time — had to learn, eventually, just like with everything else — but even with his reiatsu levels, nothing he's ever seen has come close to these.
By the time Kisuke turns around, Ichigo has finished with the chairs and is in the process of attempting to light a match for the oil. Attempting, because he cannot get the damn thing to stay in his grasp when he strikes it. Stupid claws — great for killing -other- hollows, but they make doing anything normal a goddamn nightmare.
Deft fingers pluck the match and box from his grasp, and Kisuke gets a flame on his first strike (unfair). He holds it to the oil wick, just long enough for the light to catch, before snuffing the match out and returning the matchbox to its bag.
“Who are you.”
It’s not a question, not really — a clarification, perhaps. Confirmation, condemnation… any number of words could suit the steely, wary look in Kisuke’s eyes. The flickering of the oil casts his face into deeper, sharper shadows that usual, transforming him from man to painting to something intangible and made from iron. But Ichigo has nothing to hide — not in this room, not from this person — so he lets his reiatsu seep from his skin to the wood-paneled walls, just enough to be sure that Kisuke will feel the truth in his words. “I’m Kurosaki Ichigo.”
“Prove it to me,” Kisuke challenges, leaning forward just a hair. His eyes lock, not on Ichigo’s, but on the edges of the flame between them that have been tinted deep red. “Kurosaki Ichigo went missing a month ago. Prove to me that you are him.”
Ichigo draws a deep breath. He hasn’t figured out if he even needs to breathe anymore, but the steadiness helps. “There was a girl by the river.”
A soft intake of air, short and sharp.
“Nobody else could see her. She had short black hair, cut straight across her shoulders. I thought she needed help, because usually when people look at the river like that they’re about to drown themself.” Ichigo pauses, wets his lips, doesn’t think about empty souls of the past and future. “Or they already have.”
With his new hearing, Ichigo catches Kisuke’s voice as the man whispers, “Grand Fisher,” under the barest of breaths.
“I tried to save her. Mom tried to save me. But—“ Should he say the full truth? It is what he knows, and to be entirely honest will help Kisuke trust him more than trying to obscure things when both of them know — well, knew — that Ichigo is a terrible liar. But at the same time, Ichigo shouldn’t know the full truth at this point.
“But?”
The bandage will have to come off eventually. Better to be upfront with it, and save the duplicity for those he can hope to fool. “But when the Quincy King woke from his nine centuries of sleep, he stripped the powers from every impure Quincy in Japan. Including my Mom.” Though she’d had no offensive powers, her blood had still been her blood, up until the end. Or should have been. “Without the Blut Vene to protect her, all she could do was protect me. Yoruichi-san went to her funeral for you.”
Perhaps it’s just the light that makes Kisuke’s face look pale and ashy, lines of weariness and wariness evident in equal part. But probably not. “How— no, wait. How far back did you travel?”
“Years.” Thank god — thank god Kisuke can read between the lines, thank god he understands what’s happened without making Ichigo put the awkward truth into words. “About five or six, I think. Time got weird after we left the Transient World.”
Kisuke’s eyes narrow, and Ichigo wishes — not for the first time — that he could see the gears that must be whirring to life inside his once-teacher and then-friend’s mind. “You know about your mother’s heritage, which means you doubtlessly know about Ishida-sensei and the Quincy Wars. And from your form, it’s clear that you’ve become aware of—“ The man pauses, face tightening in what Ichigo recognizes as Kisuke’s particular brand of determined guilt, “—of your Hollow, as well.”
“Soul Reapers, too. And yeah, I know about Aizen and the Visored.” At the stiffness in Kisuke’s shoulders, Ichigo huffs and states firmly, “I already took care of him — you guys don’t need to worry about that stuff anymore.”
“You— pardon?”