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I. One for sorrow
Ichigo was walking by the river when he hears yelling.
“Oi, knock it off! Go away! I said go away!”
Ichigo heads up the path, picking up his pace. Karin had mentioned that a group of bullies from the high school hanging around the bridge to hassle younger kids, and he doesn’t want some other kid to be beaten to a pulp. The last kid is still on crutches and has the remains of a shiner, from what Yuzu had added, as she carefully measured out the vanilla for a batch of cookies, with precise, exacting motions. She usually only acted that way when Ichigo comes back with more than bruised knuckles, but then Karin and he have done their best to keep Ichigo’s one-man, inadvertent crusade against the low-level thugs and gangs to a minimum.
Privately, Ichigo realizes the irony of switching the whole “if you can’t beat them, join ‘em” sentiment of most action movies.
“I was leaving – L E A V I N G – you bag of feathers – you don’t need to chase me off!” the voice continues shouting, clearing not pained, but definitely frustrated.
Unless there was another guy going around kicking ass and taking names, or the thugs were really beating people up out in the open, before the sun had even fully set, this probably wasn’t the group Karin had mentioned.
“Hey,” Ichigo calls up, as he scrambles to climb the hill so he can actually stand on the bridge, “you need a hand?”
He wasn’t expecting a kid trying to fend off a murder of crows from what looks like a magpie, that was being equally combative.
“Get away! Just, oh fuck off you feather brains! Leave her alone!”
“Uh, kid, you could just leave….”
“No, get away from her! We made a mistake, okay, just leave us alone!”
The kid clearly wasn’t listening to him. Ichigo sighs. Based on what the kid was saying, there’d been some kind of misunderstanding, although how he and a magpie had managed to piss off a bunch of crows, Ichigo really wanted to know. The crows generally didn’t have much a problem with him and his family, but maybe the kid was saving the magpie or something because it had decided to fight one of the crows for something shiny or for food?
Sighing again, Ichigo wades through the whirlwind of crows, and plucks the kid up by the back of his odd white cloak and tucks him under his arm.
“Dude, why are you picking a fight with crows? They’re gonna remember this, you know?”
The kid gapes at him, around the birds still circling and trying to peck and scratch at him.
“Alright, you grab your bird and let’s go, before the birds start majorly attacking me, too. I’ll probably have to pacify them with Yuzu approved food, anyways.”
And the kid is still gaping at him, but at least manages to whistle, which calms the magpie down and causes it to hop over to Ichigo’s feet.
“Great. Is your pet going to attack me if I try and pick them up?”
Slowly the kid shakes his head.
“Cool.”
Ichigo offers his hand to the bird, who seems quite content with stepping on it and doesn’t much protest being moved to his shoulder.
“Now, what happened with the crows, kid?”
The kid doesn’t say anything, but as soon as Ichigo starts heading along one of the roads that’ll take them to the clinic, the kid starts trembling.
And Ichigo realizes how bad this must seem for the kid – like Ichigo is kidnapping him and his pet or something.
He stops abruptly, and puts the kid down.
“Sorry about that – I swear I’m not trying to kidnap you or anything! I just thought we should get away from the crows as fast as possible. I’m Kurosaki Ichigo. What’s your name?”
“…You’re, you’re not a Shinigami, right?”
Ichigo stares at the kid.
“Um…no?” Ichigo scratches the back of his head. “I’m a first year in middle school – I don’t think I’m allowed to employed, let alone be a Shinigami.”
Weird kid…whose face is now crumpled into something between a scowl and a frown and tears.
“You can’t be a Quincy,” the kid mutters, “so how can you see me?”
“Kid, you’re literally right here. How can I not.” Ichigo stops. The sun is finally fully sinking behind the horizon, but between the remaining light and the slowly flickering street lamps, he can tell that the kid is way too translucent to be human.
Ichigo’s stomach lurches – he’s been better about this, he thought he could actually tell these days, he’d trained himself to, because there was no way he was going to let Yuzu or Karin or even Goat Face to die like he’d gotten his mom killed.
“You’re a ghost.”
Weird kid sighs. “Yes…My name is Ishida Uryuu, and I died about five years ago from a Hollow attack. Pleased to meet you.”
II. Two for Mirth
“So, the old dude that keeps stopping by before school is your dad?”
Uryuu sniffs. “Yes, that’s Ryuuken.”
“He a jerk?” Uryuu’s reaction when he’d first witnessed the Goat Face’s insanity and greeting, since Ichigo had arrived after his curfew the day they met, was reminiscent of a spitting cat.
“He was…not the same kind of utterly insane as your father, Kurosaki, but we….” Uryuu doesn’t continue.
Ichigo doesn’t push. They’ve known each other about a month, now, and while the magpie (seriously, her name is Tsuyayaka, what the heck, Uryuu?) is quite happy to have a space in Ichigo’s room and to terrorize and claim anything remotely shiny in his room, Uryuu and Ichigo spend most of their time sniping at each other.
(Yes, Ichigo will lose bickering contests with a ten-year-old, but it’s not like Uryuu is a normal ten-year-old. Or at least that’s what he tells himself, when Karin laughs at him and Uryuu looks at him with a proud smirk on his face.)
“Hey, Tusya’s back.”
“Her name, is Tsu. Ya. Ya. Ka, Kurosaki. Stop mangling it.”
“Yeah, yeah. She’s got a present for you, you know.”
Uryuu floats over to his bird, his friend, and peers closer to see what she has in her beak.
“What?” He whispers, reaching out to try and brush the metal in the magpie’s beak.
Ichigo raises an eyebrow.
After another moment, Uryuu growls, “He’s a meddling bastard,” but it sounds more like a sob.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Uryuu says, quickly. “Just. I might be able continue my grandfather’s training.”
“Okay,” Ichigo drags out the word. He’s not sure how that’s going to work, seeing as Uryuu is dead, but the kid is stubborn and he’ll definitely figure something out.
At least there might be something resembling a smile on the kid’s face, now.
III. Three for a Girl
“She’s watching you again.”
Ichigo is very, very tempted to conveniently drop his book on his bag, which currently contains one very, very quiet Tsuyayaka and one very, very annoying child ghost. What the school doesn’t know can’t hurt Ichigo – and thankfully no one was deathly allergic to feathers or birds.
This is what Ichigo gets for not only allowing a bored Uryuu to continuously join him in school, but also to read ahead.
(Hey, he can still interact with matter, and it made it way easier to keep him entertained, back when the kid had four years of school to catch up on. Except it was more like two and some, since the kid had read that far ahead, before.)
“She has quite the crush on you. It’s better than in Yuzu and Karin’s manga or one of those TV shows, though, because she doesn’t have hearts with your name in them scrawled all over her notes. She does, however, have some interesting ideas about what should be recipes and pro-wrestling robots.”
Tsuyayaka rustles her feathers lightly, and seems to nod along with her passenger. She can’t even see Inoue Orihime, and she’s agreeing with Uryuu. What the hell. Do they gossip about this or something?
Either way, Ichigo is going to kill Uryuu…just as soon as he gets somewhere so it doesn’t look like he’s trying to choke air.
IV. Four for a Boy
Tsuyayaka’s favorite human is Chad.
Ichigo would feel a little jealous about that, considering how long he’s known the magpie, but Chad is a friend and he’d probably be a veterinarian in the future if he had it his way. Well, or he’d be a musician, but Chad could probably do both.
It’s the first time Ichigo has seen Uryuu and Tsuyayaka in a while. To be fair, the magpie does come around once every few days or so to drop some new object in her nest, but Ichigo’s new houseguest has put an end to her and Uryuu staying the night.
Ichigo can’t help but resent Rukia for that – nor can he really blame her, but then Uryuu doesn’t want to face a Shinigami and Ichigo doesn’t want to lose his friend/little brother.
Although he does have questions on how Uryuu hasn’t become a Hollow or something, given how long he’s been hanging around on Earth and how hanging around Earth for too long drives ghosts crazy, or corrupts them. Rukia didn’t quite explain that fully.
“Is everything okay, Ichigo?”
He sighs. “Yeah, just a lot on my mind….How’s your part-time job going?”
“The construction workers are pretty nice,” Chad smiles. “We’ll be done with bare bones of this building soon.”
“Nice.”
They lapse back into silence.
“Ichigo?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Tsuyayaka like Yūichi?”
Ichigo looks up at his friend. Looks off to the side at his other friend, who sighs and nods.
“A little. Uryuu can’t talk through Tsuyayaka, though, and he’s refusing to leave for some reason.”
“You,” Uryuu snorts. “How you’re going to learn how to destroy Hollows with only that Shinigami’s training, I don’t know, so you need help. Besides, you'd be dead already if you didn't have some idea of what to do!”
Ichigo smirks. “Sure, kid.”
Chad looks at Ichigo. “Did he just say that he’s staying for you?”
Ichigo blinks at the taller teen. “Yeah, he did. Did you…hear him?”
Chad shrugs. “I heard something, and that was the general feeling that I understood.”
“Ah, okay.”
Before they leave the hill near the river, Ichigo grabs Chad’s arm, and says “Don’t fight any of the monsters you see, okay?”
Chad looks at him, and Ichigo knows that Chad would follow him into fighting Hollows because they promised to have each other’s backs, but Ichigo won’t lose another person like he lost his mother.
“Not yet,” Chad agrees.
V. Five for Silver
Zangetsu’s blade gleams in a flash of silver as Ichigo fights the bald guy, fights through the group of Shinigami, fights against the red head – Ren…ge? Ren…ki? Renji? – a second time, and the crazy guy with bells in his hair.
Ichigo’s zanpakutou live up to his name, and if there’s there’s a faint cackle in his ears, sometimes, when the adrenaline is rushing through his veins? Well, if Rukia’s life wasn’t on the line, he’d call some of the fights exhilarating…and he’s in Soul Society, isn’t the place supposed to be odd to him, since he’s still alive?
(He ignores the fact that his body is being used as a meat suit for a manufactured soul, so his family doesn’t worry and the school and government won’t become too suspicious. Ichigo is still breathing, it’s fine, he’s fine.)
In another part of Seireitei, a young Quincy faces off against the captain that dissected his grandfather and nearly burns himself out in vengeance, silver bracelet, which normally hangs around Tsuyayaka’s neck on top of a Quincy cape Inoue was kind enough to make for his friend, on his wrist and holding the template for a wavering bow.
He collapses, and if the being that desecrated his grandfather’s soul is still alive…well, Ichigo would point out that Souken wouldn’t have wanted him to kill a Shinigami, no matter how despicable a being it is.
VI. Six for Gold
The enormous naginata burns. It’s too bright for Rukia to look at, even if she wants to face her death like a warrior. Its heat brings sweat to her brow before it’s even begun its descent. It’s all too much and maybe the fire will cleanse her soul from the cycle, but it will spare Ichigo and his friends and for that she can stand it.
But there’s a new color, mixed in with the gold phoenix, centered on the creature’s beak…and that’s Ichigo, standing there, proud and smug as can be, for all that he’s covered in bandages and looks like he should be in a hospital bed with Unohana-taichou watching to make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid – like rescuing her.
He’s rescuing her.
“Ichigo, you idiot!” She shouts, but she couldn’t be more relieved or more terrified.
VII. Seven for a Secret/Never to be Told
Ryuuken and Isshin know that Ishida Uryuu never quite made it to Soul Society. He never had his memories wiped, nor was he given a chance to grow up away from the corrosive human world.
They know that he’s made a place for himself as another sibling to Ichigo, Karin, and Yuzu, so they decide to never mention that Kurosaki Masaki was a Quincy, that she was the adopted sister to Ishida Ryuuken, that Uryuu is a cousin to the Kurosakis.
He’s already family, and that is more than enough for either man.
End
Kudos, comments and concrit welcome. I will hopefully (muse willing) be working my way back to my other in progress works soon, so keep an eye out for those! And you can always poke me/see if I'm still alive on tumblr: Fins-Illusion
~Fini