Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He knows it's over. His opponent’s gleaming blade is lodged neatly between his ribs. It didn't even nick the bone going in. He can hear the voices of his soul screaming at him. He knows―they know―he's not not going to make it out of this with just another devastating scar to add to his collection. 

It's funny how time seems to stop when he knows he's already dead. He's not seeing his life (whatever little of it he spent actually alive–in his own body) flash before his eyes or anything. There's no cliche film reel of all his regrets or favorite memories or faces of his friends and family.

He feels the blade slice sideways out of his body. It's clean, not cutting through bone, just the muscle, his lung, his heart. The darkest part of his soul screams to take one last shot at the being who tore his world apart, tore him apart; and he does. A surge of intertwined blue-red-black and his opponent is dead too, he can see the realization in the bastard's eyes. There is no victor here. There aren't even survivors. The last thing he sees is blood browned strands of his too orange hair and a body-strewn, white and red wasteland.

His next conscious thought is that he's dead and shouldn't be having conscious thoughts. This makes the echoing voice in his soul cackle. ‘ I cannot possibly be alive―in any sense of the word. I definitely died,’ he thinks to himself. He hears his soul cackle even louder and he opens his eyes to find Tessai leaning right in his face. 

Tessai is dead. 

Ichigo saw him die. 

“What the fuck,” is what he voices at length. And that sends Zangetsu into paroxysms of hysterical laughter that Ichigo can just tell are going to send him over the edge of one of the sideways buildings in his inner world and splashing into his soul’s flood waters. He vindictively hopes the sword spirit chokes. 

A few awkward seconds later Tessai leans back and calls out to Getaboushi, “Tenchou! He’s awake.”

Ichigo doesn’t even react once the large man backs off. Ichigo.exe has crashed , is all he can bring himself to think. He can hear Zangetsu’s coughing, sputtering, wet laughter and knows his zanpakutou is in fact choking. Not that he actually begrudges his soul partner his mirth. If this is what he thinks it must be, and isn’t some after-Soul-Society-afterlife afterlife, well, shit’s about to hit the fan soon, so Zangetsu may as well get his laughs in while he can. Fucking time travel.

Urahara saunters into the room soon enough and when he looks at Ichigo, who has since thrown one arm over his face, he frowns behind his fan. “Are you dead after all Kurosaki-kun? It was a lot of work to fix you up you know~♥”

“You're a fucking drama queen, Getaboushi,” Ichigo grumbles from under his arm before letting it slide off his face. “And you’re a fucking idiot.” He sits up slowly, knowing he’s not completely healed. If he has somehow miraculously time-travelled, and has yet to save Rukia from execution, that means fucking Aizen doesn’t have the hogyoku yet. But it has basically been handed to him by Getaboushi who just let Rukia be taken. If there’s any fucking way to salvage this shitshow so they all don’t die like last time, he can’t let Aizen have that goddamn miracle marble of doom. 

Urahara frowns more deeply behind his fan. He knows he acts the fool, but this is incredibly out of character for Ichigo. He had expected the teen to wake up screaming and begging for a way to save his friend, not insult him - well the insults themselves aren’t particularly out of character, but the body language is. Ichigo looks resigned and tired. He flutters his fan, “And pray tell, why would you say that~?” he asks flippantly. 

Ichigo knows Urahara’s not stupid. He’s not acting like his fifteen year old self would and Urahara can tell. That’s fine though, Kisuke would have been the first person he’d go to anyway. He frowns at Urahara as if it isn’t his default facial expression. “You aren’t gonna believe me until you see it for yourself, go ahead and knock my soul out of my body.”

Urahara’s eyes narrow, “You’re not a shinigami anymore, Kurosaki-kun,” the address grates on Ichigo’s ears; he hasn’t been ‘Kurosaki-kun’ to Urahara in over 10 years. Fucking menos on a stick. Zangetsu has gone quiet. 

“Where’d your senses fuck off to Urahara? Feel my fucking reiatsu, then knock me out of my fucking body.”

Kisuke’s reiatsu reaches out to him and Ichigo flexes his own. He’s been concealing it on habit, which is probably why Kisuke thinks what Byakuya did to him worked like it had in the past. But seeing as he’s been hearing Zangetsu since he regained consciousness, his soul should still be going on 30, not that it’s changed his looks much. He still looks no older than 22, seeing as that was when his human body had finally quit on him. Apparently, throwing your soul in and out of your body several hundred times is enough to kill you regardless of whether you use a mod soul or not; human bodies are not gigai after all.  But he lets some slip so Kisuke can feel him. He bites back a smug smirk when Kisuke’s eyes widen and he can basically see the gears grinding in the other man’s brain behind those shadowed grey-green eyes. 

“That is not Kuchiki Rukia’s shinigami power.” Kisuke says.

“Nope.”

“That is your shinigami power.”

“Yep.”

“I’m going to knock your soul out of your body now, Kurosaki-kun.”

“Fucking finally.”

“You’ve gotten incredibly foul mouthed in the last 10 hours,” Urahara remarks as he knocks Ichigo out of his human body.

“Try 'in the last 13 years,' Getaboushi,” Ichigo retorts as he stands and stretches. His hair  is shaggy around his face, but ties into a sleek, long ponytail at the nape of his neck, and a scar cuts a jagged path over his left eye and half-way down his cheek. Zangetsu is strapped to his back in their unreleased form: a single nodachi with a blue, white and black wrapped handle and a mirrored crescent handguard. He’s not in the typical shinigami shihakusho. In fact, it doesn’t look like anything Kisuke’s ever seen before. It's like a cross between living world army fatigues and the Onmitsukido's uniform. There is no excess fabric. The outfit is designed for stealth. The only thing on Ichigo that’s not black is the white obi at his waist and his zanpakuto's hilt. 

“If I am understanding your implication correctly Kurosaki-kun, I hope you plan to explain..?” Kisuke is on guard, he does not know this Kurosaki Ichigo. He can’t calculate his responses, he can’t predict him. He is an unknown variable and that makes Kisuke very nervous. 

“Calm the fuck down, Urahara. If I didn’t plan to explain I wouldn’t have even let you guess something was wrong. The you of my time would have noticed right away, but this you? You would have never had a clue. You don’t know me well enough yet.”

That’s exactly what has me nervous, Kurosaki-kun , is what Kisuke doesn’t say. Ichigo rolls his eyes at him as though he can tell exactly what he’s thinking. The young man trusts him at least, but Kisuke’s pretty sure that if this Ichigo wanted to end him, he’d have no trouble doing just that.

“Your body should be fine without you for a bit, shall we have some tea?” Kisuke suggests, leading Ichigo to the sitting room.

Ichigo snorts, “As long as you’re not the one making it, Kis—Urahara,” he corrects himself, “The you of my time finally learned to make if not ‘mediocre’ at least ‘not horrible’ tea, but if I remember correctly, right now, I’d be better off drinking drain cleaner than anything you make. And call me Ichigo. You haven’t called me ‘Kurosaki-kun’ in over a decade, it’s weird.”

“How rude, Ichigo-kun,” He replies, but it’s not like Ichigo is wrong. He is a legitimate disaster in the kitchen.

“Seriously, drop the honorifics, it’s really fucking weird.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

Urahara calls out for Tessai and asks for tea. If Tessai is startled by Ichigo’s appearance he doesn’t comment as he goes to fulfil Urahara’s request.

By the time they're sat with tea in front of them, Kisuke is more tense than he's been in decades. He lays Benihime across his lap; she’s a comfort when he can no longer feel Kurosaki-kun―no, Ichigo's―reiatsu. If this were the Ichigo of last week, his reiatsu would be bearing down on the rest of the room's occupants while the orange haired teenager remained oblivious as ever. Now, this older, more tired, more dangerous Ichigo has his reiryoku locked down so thoroughly, Kisuke would have thought him no more than a regular powerless plus soul, had Ichigo a soul chain. The fact that he doesn't, and that Ichigo barely let him taste his reiryoku earlier lets him know that Ichigo is well aware of how dangerous it would be for someone of his power to let it go like he had before―and how much information someone like Kisuke could gain from just a little interaction with someone's reiryoku. And to know that Ichigo knows how dangerous Kisuke can be is more unsettling than anything else. 

"So are we gonna talk or not, Getaboushi? Neither of us is getting any younger and you've basically just given Aizen the key to handing the Gotei their asses with his hands tied behind his back." Ichigo stares at him blankly over his tea and Kisuke winces. 

“It was not my most...well thought out plan,” Kisuke admits, fan splaying across his face as he strokes Benihime in his lap.

Ichigo’s amused expression is, at least, less unsettling than the resigned tiredness and blank expressions he’d been subject to since the boy woke.

“Understatement of the century, Getaboushi,” says Ichigo around his smirk. 

Urahara’s shoulders relax a bit. Ichigo clearly trusts him to let him see this kind of expression. Kisuke’s not ready to let go of all his masks, but he can do Ichigo the courtesy of not playing with him. He knows that Ichigo is aware of his strength, and he’s had a taste of Ichigo’s. The fact that Ichigo had allowed him that at all was an incredible show of trust. Perhaps, he could take a leap of faith. Ichigo had been the trump card he was counting on in the battle with Aizen; the fact that Ichigo had clearly tangled with vicious opponents and survived with nothing worse than some gnarly scars and probably some nightmares, and is willing to lay his cards on the table...well, Kisuke had taken worse gambles.

Kisuke sets his fan down on the table, and gently holds his teacup in both hands, “Will you tell me about it, Ichigo?”

“It’s not a happy story,” Ichigo lets out a mirthless chuckle, “then again, I doubt you’d expect it to be.”

Kisuke hums in assent. Time travel theoretically is possible—at least within the Dangai precipice world, but really, even he would not resort to attempting something like that unless there were no other choice.

“The last thing I remember before waking up here is dying.” 

Kisuke chokes on his tea. He coughs to regain his breath, “WHAT?!”

“Hmm, yeah. I was definitely dead. Like, really dead. Moving into the reincarnation cycle dead. Soul dead. It wasn’t like I’ve actually lived in my human body for, like, the last five years,” Ichigo cocks his head like he’s doing some mental math, he nods, “four years, and I’ve been technically dead since, well, three days from now. I used my human body as a gigai, basically, until my internal organs gave out. It’s not like human bodies are meant to be without souls for very long anyhow.”

Kisuke is taken aback by Ichigo’s nonchalance. Urahara, himself, is over 400 years old. Half of the Vizard, Isshin, the Soutaichou, Kyouraku, Ukitake, and Unohana are all older than him by more than two centuries, and half of them by more than four. None of them is so blatantly undisturbed by the thought of joining the reincarnation cycle. 

"You're not even thirty!" Kisuke all but gapes.

"Yeah, well, when you spend almost the entirety of your teenage years and the next decade after that in battle after battle against god-like megalomaniacs and uber-powerful psychopaths, you kind of come to expect to die young," Ichigo replies cooly, "It's not like I haven't been technically dead for nearly half that time anyway, and most of my friends and allies were dead too, so I'm not too cut up about it."

Kisuke blanches and clutches at Benihime for support. “Why did you even—,” he cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. Guilt is pooling heavily in his chest, Ichigo was his sorry gambit. His Queen on the chessboard. When he'd realized that Isshin and Masaki were planning a family... Ichigo hadn’t even been born when Kisuke had started plotting. He swallows against his dry throat and removes his hat. He bows over his knees. 

“I am so sorry,” he rasps lowly.  “I don’t know how you can even look at me, with all you must know…” he trails off. He stares at his knees not knowing how, even if he could somehow atone for his hand in Ichigo’s trials—his death, what could possibly be equivalent to a child’s future? 

“Raise your head Urahara Kisuke,” Ichigo all but commands. Kisuke blinks at his knees, before looking up through his bangs. Ichigo is scowling at him. ‘It’s amazing how many different scowls he has,’ Kisuke thinks blankly. “My death was not your fault,” the younger man says with conviction. “You may have had a hand in many things, including this ridiculous situation with Rukia,” he continues, “but never once since, have you purposefully lied to my face with the intention to hurt me.”

Kisuke sits up straighter, and breathes. Ichigo’s scowl softens and his eyes are fond, “You certainly ran me around and made fun of me enough, kept quiet about things I certainly would have liked to know, but when shit hit the fan you always had my back. Even if I had woken at a different point in the past, you would have been the first person I’d go to anyway. Make of that what you will.” Ichigo takes a sip of the tea that had sat forgotten on the table for the last several minutes. Kisuke follows suit, the guilt churning in his chest slowly being replaced by relief that future him had not shown himself to be someone who Ichigo had come to resent for getting him involved in Kisuke’s mess. 

“So yeah, I died and woke up here, I have absolutely no idea why I’m not dead or reincarnating or whatever, but here I am. We should probably discuss the current situation at hand instead of fretting about how I came to be here anyhow. Rukia is about to be sentenced to execution via the Soukyoku so Aizen can get his hands on your Hogyoku,” Ichigo continues apropos of nothing. 

“I assume you plan to do something drastic and destructive to save her,” Kisuke returns, perfectly willing to leave any more discussion of Ichigo’s death for a later time. 

“It was your plan,” Ichigo replies with a raised eyebrow and a quirk of his lips, “Yoruichi took us up to Kuukaku’s place to use the Shiba fireworks cannon to enter the Seireitei. It worked, and was an adequate distraction, but it also played right into Aizen’s hand. He used our blatant invasion to fake his death, and blame the ‘ryoka.’ We were certainly pursued more heavily because of that.”

Kisuke digests this, as he takes another sip of tea. “What would you suggest, instead, Ichigo?” the orange-haired man clearly knows more about the situation than Kisuke has managed to guess so far. 

“If Yoruichi can get us through the Shihouin senkaimon directly into the Seireitei it would be the best. I wish we didn’t have to worry about the Cleaner, but Aizen hasn’t destroyed it yet, so we’ll have to make do. If we can’t use the Shihouin senkaimon, then I think our next best option would be for me to open a garganta into one of the outer districts where hollows are more common and make our way into the seireitei through either the sewer routes that extend into the first districts that the 4th likes to use, or have Yoruichi filch us some of the Onmitsukido’s covert-mission reiryoku tags to get us in. Going as a full frontal assault like we did before just made us an easier target.”

Kisuke blinks, “Ok,” he’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to focus on the most out of that monologue. Aizen destroyed the Cleaner in the Dangai? Ichigo can open garganta? Ichigo knows about the Shihouin senkaimon and covert-mission reiryoku tags? 

Ichigo sets down his empty teacup with an amused expression, “I’ll let you think about that and come back tomorrow. You should get some sleep Getaboushi, you’ve clearly been awake for way too long. Maybe get in touch with Yoruichi, yeah? She can usually talk you out of your destructive self-deprecation spirals. I’m going to go punch Goat-face and hug my sisters.” Ichigo gets up and walks out of the room toward his body, shutting the shoji door behind him. 

Kisuke stares down at the dregs of his tea, Ichigo must know him better than he’d thought. ‘ I’ll get in touch with Yoruichi in the morning, ’ he thinks.

Chapter Text

 Ichigo walks home from the shoten slowly, savoring the clean night air. He hasn't seen Karakura this peaceful in a long time. He can feel Chad's hollow tinted reiatsu across town, and Uryuu's sharp one near his apartment block, Orihime's at Tatsuki's place, and Ryuuken-ji's at the hospital. 

The Kurosaki Clinic is a beacon to his senses, he can tell that there are barriers, but it's his reiryoku that has saturated the walls of the clinic for the last 15 years. He can feel Karin's crackling reiatsu, and Yuzu's budding one. He can feel the slowly regenerating reiatsu of Goat-face, and the focused ball of Kon's reiryoku. For all that he resents his father's reluctance to tell him anything of substance and his basic lack of parenting skills, the clinic has always been his home. By the time he reaches the front door, he's so glad to see his sisters, he's forgotten to brace himself for Goat-face's usual greeting.

After so many years on the battlefield there's no thought when he reacts to the foot flying at his face. By the time he registers what has happened he has Isshin face first on the floor with a knee between his shoulder blades, one his father's arms pinned with his other knee and a knife hand at the man's neck ready to knock him out or kill him. 

Karin and Yuzu look a little shocked, but not too thrown. They don't quite understand the gravity of Ichigo's instinctive reaction. Isshin, on the other hand, clearly realizes what has just happened. Fuck, Ichigo really doesn't want to talk to Isshin about anything. He knew from the moment he woke that he'd have to eventually; Isshin was a captain-class shinigami, those skills don't just go away, even when you have little or no reiryoku. Ichigo would know.

“Fucks sake, Goat-face,” he says as he casually gets up off his father, “Maybe it’s not me who needs the training.” 

Isshin gives him a covert once-over before hurling himself at the poster of Masaki, crying about how his son has become so strong, he doesn’t need daddy anymore, in his usual over-dramatic way. Ichigo huffs, it wouldn’t do to upset the twins, after all. 

Ichigo finally takes the time to drink in the sight of his sisters. He hasn’t seen them in years. By the time Ichigo’s body had given out on him, both Karin and Yuzu had moved out of the country for their own safety, going abroad for university and staying there. His only consolation during war in the barren dunes of Hueco Mundo was that his sisters were safe. 

Now, though, Karin and Yuzu are only eleven, they’re not the accomplished adults they had become. Ichigo wants to wrap them up in cotton batting and hide them somewhere no one can find them. He walks distractedly to the kitchen table set with Yuzu’s cooking, and wraps his startled sisters in his arms. 

Karin is stiff, but rapidly settles into the embrace. Yuzu, however, clings to him tightly. He doesn’t know when the last time he hugged them was, but clearly it had been too long ago for Yuzu’s taste. He can feel Isshin’s eyes on his back, but right now he doesn’t care. 

“Ichi-nii…?” Yuzu questions carefully as the minutes pass. He reluctantly lets them go. He can see Karin’s suspicions on her face, she was always the more cynical of the twins, and her crackling reiryoku is probing at where he has his wrapped tightly under his skin. It’s clearly unconscious, Karin may not know what she’s looking for or even that she’s doing it, but she’s been blanketed by his massive reiatsu for her entire life, and the fact that it’s suddenly not there is making her nervous, Ichigo can tell. 

He lets his reiryoku trickle from behind his tight control, and Karin’s posture relaxes immediately. “I’m going to be leaving for a while in about ten days,” is what he starts with. “Rukia’s in trouble, and she needs help. Some of my friends and I won’t be around for a bit, but we should be back before school starts back up after summer break.” 

He can feel Goat-face’s probing stare at his back. The man had wanted to keep the girls in the dark, but with what’s coming, it’s not safe for them not to be aware. They’re going to have to talk about it all and he knows that his shitty old man is going to make this incredibly difficult. 

“Be careful Ichi-nii,” is all that Karin says.

Yuzu looks at him with wide, trusting eyes, and gestures to the table, “Let’s eat before the food gets cold.”

He’d almost forgotten what it feels like to have that unconditional love and trust bestowed upon him. He knows that his friends trust him, he knows that his comrades had trusted him, but it hadn’t come freely like Karin and Yuzu’s. It had come on the back of his own blood, sweat and tears shed for their safety. He had needed to earn that trust. Karin and Yuzu, however, had never needed him to repay their love, their loyalty, their trust; and that’s what makes it all the more necessary for him to keep them safe, to live up to the name his mother had given him. He swallows against building wetness in his eyes. “Yeah,” he rasps through a tight throat, “Let’s eat.” 

Hard conversations can come after dinner.

It’s late the next morning and Isshin seems to be pulling out the stops, he'd woken Ichigo just after dawn with a flying kick and been sent crashing through the closed window, shattering the glass to land with a heavy thud, two stories down, that would have killed a standard human. 

The conversation the night before had been a trial for all of them. Karin was upset, Yuzu was sad, and goddamn Goat-face had frowned heavily the entire time. He hadn’t explained his time travel to his sisters, but he had told them about the situation with Rukia and the Gotei, and why he had to go rescue her. He had told them about Kon, reassured them that he was watching over them while Ichigo had been doing more dangerous things, and that he would be there in case of trouble while Ichigo was away. Isshin, in his usual way, chose not to say anything. He’d handed Ichigo the Omamori he’d once given to Ichigo for Kon, and Ichigo took it without saying anything either. That was their modus operandi, he supposed. Just not acknowledging the pink, polka-dotted pachyderm in the room. 

Ichigo prepares himself for the day. It’s not a school day, so he gets dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. He greets Yuzu in the kitchen where she’s preparing breakfast and grabs a couple slices of toast off the plate on the table before telling her he’s going out for a bit. Ichigo wonders if Isshin will ask Urahara about what’s going on with him while he’s in Soul Society.

The morning is nice, and he’s missed the sun on his face after all his years of making camp in the eternal night of Hueco Mundo. He knows that he’s not going to be able to stay this calm forever, eventually it will hit him that he’s actually in the past, and that all these people he’s seeing have been long dead to him. Soon, he knows, he will have the flashbacks and nightmares associated with the PTSD he’s been struggling with for nearly a decade already, that he’s going to going to have to meet Shinji and the Visored and pretend that the first thing he sees isn’t their mutilated bodies strewn across blood stained, moonlit sand. But he’ll take this reprieve as long as his mind lets him. 

He’s about halfway to the shoten when he runs into Inoue and Chad. He suspects that Urahara has had Yoruichi call them to train together, now that he knows he’s not going to have to toss Ichigo into the shattered shaft to regain his powers. 

“Good morning, Kurosaki-kun!” Orihime greets him cheerily.

“Inoue,” He returns stoically. It’s weird to call Orihime by her family name anymore, after so many years of friendship. But this Inoue has only started really interacting with him in the last couple weeks. “Chad,” He greets his best friend. 

Chad nods back in his silent way and they continue to the shoten, with Orihime chattering about the dream she had the night before which had included a flying squid monster, robots and Godzilla. Ichigo’s lips quirk into an expression that’s not quite a smile. He revels in the nostalgia of the moment, hoping that this time peace won’t be so temporary. 

Ichigo leads his friends into the shoten without bothering to wait for a greeting, they follow him to the living area where Kisuke is sat at  the low table from the night before, Yoruichi purring and kneading in his lap. 

“Getaboshi, Yoruichi, good morning,” He greets. He doesn’t plan to hide his time travel from his friends or from Yoruichi. The warm surge of feeling from Zangetsu just reinforced his choice. 

“Quite informal for a first meeting, aren’t you?” Yoruichi says, as she stretches and makes her way toward him on silent paws, winding between his legs before hopping onto the table and sitting primly. The deep male voice coming from Yoruichi's cat form is always jarring, but Ichigo smiles down at her, just happy to see her for the first time in years. 

"Kisuke didn't tell you about it?" Ichigo asks, looking from her to the shopkeeper with a raised eyebrow.

The older man fluttered his fan in his face, "It's not really my story to tell, is it, Kurosaki-kun?" he returns with barely hidden sass and a cheeky smile. 

Ichigo sighs, but the amused quirk of his lips belies his seeming exasperation. "What did I tell you about honorifics Getaboushi?" 

Urahara taps his fan into his empty hand for a moment, head tilted in thought. "Not to use them?" he asks as if he doesn't know. 

"Exactly, god, Getaboushi, it's like you're getting senile."

"You must give an old man some slack, Ichigo, we elderly are known for our poor memories."

Ichigo snorts at the idea of Kisuke being old. "Heh, old? Goat-face is at least 2 centuries older than you, and god knows you're about twice as responsible and mature as he is. No excuses, mister former head of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute."

"Mah, no need to bring up old history Ichigo,"

Ichigo's friends have no idea what's going on, but Yoruichi watches the two of them banter with suspicion. Something is happening here. Something Kisuke hasn't told her but Ichigo had expected him to. 

Ichigo turns back to her, cutting the exchange short. "You want to know, right?" His gaze ficks between her and his friends, all of them nod. He straightens his posture, "It's show and tell time, Getaboushi, lead us to the training area, if you will," he gestures for Kisuke to lead the way.

Kisuke is watching Ichigo and his friends. They’re in the “basement” training grounds and Inoue is gawking at the enormous space, and false atmosphere with awe, Chad seems to have taken everything in stride and is looking to Ichigo for a cue. Yoruichi is threading herself between Kisuke’s legs, and watching Ichigo with suspicion. 

He claps his hands to draw attention to himself, “Are you ready, Ichigo?” he asks.

“Sooner the better,” the orange haired boy—no, he’s not a boy anymore, is he?—says nonchalantly as he moves to stand in front of Kisuke, “Chad,” he calls, “I’m leaving my body, catch it will you?” 

Chad nods and moves forward as Kisuke presses the foot of the shikomizue that hides Benihime against Ichigo’s forehead, pushing him backwards out of his body as it slumps into Chad’s arms. 

“Uwah! Kurosaki-kun, you got older! Why is this Kurosaki-kun older than that one? Can you go back in?” Inoue spouts questions as she pokes at Ichigo’s abandoned body in Chad’s grip. Chad’s head whips around and he examines Ichigo. 

“Was I not strong enough?” Is all he asks. 

Ichigo ignores Inoue for a moment to silently shake his head at Chad, “It wasn’t that you weren’t strong enough, but that the opponent was too strong,” he tacks on, “For either of us.” 

Chad nods knowingly.

Ichigo turns to Inoue, “Time travel, that’s what happened Inoue. Yes I can go back into my body. I don’t know what happened, neither does Getaboushi, I woke up here yesterday in my younger body, no known mechanism for the temporal displacement of my soul. I’m 29, if I go by the calendar in this timeline.” Inoue nods eyes wide. Orihime may act like a ditz, but people tend to forget that she’s in the top 5 students academically. Ichigo smiles at her, “It’s fine Inoue. We’re going to train, we’re going to be stronger.”

Yoruichi eyes Ichigo then turns back to Kisuke, “He told you, and you believe it,” she states. It’s not a question, Kisuke would have given her a heads up if he hadn’t believed Ichigo, hadn’t trusted Ichigo. Kisuke is her brother in all but blood and is probably one of the sharpest, most paranoid people she knows. There’s no way an actual teenager would have been able to slip one by him, and based on Kisuke’s body language, Ichigo had apparently not even tried. 

“He could have kept his reiryoku suppressed, playacted for a little until he could leave the shoten, and I would have never noticed. I don’t know him well enough. But he seems to know me incredibly well, too well for only being mentor and student. He let me feel and analyze his reiryoku before demanding I shove him out of his body so we could talk. You know how dangerous I am, and if he were anyone else I would have said he was underestimating me. The way he looked at me, though, and what I could feel of his power… It scared me Yoruichi-san.” 

“You think he’s on our side.”

“No, I think he’s on his side, and his side is the one we want to be on. From what he said last night, he knows very well how the seireitei and the Gotei operate, he also knows at least some of the Onmi’s mission protocol. He told me he would have come to me first had he landed at some other point in time, and there was no lie to be found. I don’t know if we were all gone before he died or if some of us were left, but he trusted me . I’m almost positive that I’ve lied to his face more than once, and he still trusted me, he hasn’t even told Isshin.”

Yoruichi makes an odd humming sound. “He knows about Isshin?”

“There’s no way he doesn’t with the way his reiryoku feels, it’s a stable, dense mix of hollow, shinigami and quincy. His spirit ribbon is grey, human. I’m almost positive that means he knows about Masaki too,” Kisuke tilts his head to the side ponderously, eyeing the two teenagers and their time-travelling friend, “and now that I think about it, he must also realize that he’s related to Kuukaku.”

Ichigo looks over at them, nods and turns back to his friends, clearly aware that they’re talking about him. 

Yoruichi threads herself between his legs again, “I want to see him fight,”

“You aren’t the only one,” Kisuke murmurs back. “Oi, Ichigo!" He shouts, "Spar with me?”

Ichigo and his friends all look over at them and the orange-haired man raises an eyebrow at him, then smirks a little, “Sure,” he turns to Sado, “Chad, if I’m gonna spar with Getaboushi it’s gonna be fast and messy, so take Inoue and my body over there by the ladder base, and stay with Yoruichi, yeah?”

Chad nods and hefts Ichigo’s body over his shoulder like a sack of rice, leading Orihime over to their designated spot where Yoruichi joins them. 

Ichigo looks back at Kisuke, his lips curling into a smile, “I almost wish Ishida were here,”

“Oh, why is that?”

“Well, he’ll need to know too, before we go. You and I both know he’s going to show up.” 

Kisuke shrugs, “This is for Yoruichi-san’s entertainment at the moment,” 

“Oh, is that so?” Ichigo’s smile goes a little feral and Kisuke feels a shiver rake down his spine.

Kisuke thinks this may not have been as good of an idea as he’d originally assumed. 

Chapter Text

The heavy clang of sword against sword echoes against the rock formations in Urahara's underground training area. It hasn’t been more than 72 hours since he’d died on the white sands of Hueco Mundo and here he is, grinning along with Zangetsu’s mad cackle as he crosses blades with Kisuke. They’re testing each other right now. Or rather, Kisuke is testing him and Ichigo is playing along. Neither of them has released shikai and Ichigo wants to force Kisuke into releasing first. He executes a tricky little bit of shunpo to place himself at a tangent to Kisuke’s back, angled oddly enough that even if his swing hits, it won’t decapitate the shopkeeper, just eviscerate him a little bit. 

Kisuke isn’t expecting the silent attack at his back, the Ichigo he had known was too straightforward, too honorable to attack from behind with no warning.  If he’s going to survive he needs to release. “Okiro, Benihime! Nake!” Benihime’s Chikasumi no Tate springs to life between he and Ichigo, cracking perilously along the line of Ichigo’s blade, but managing to stop the devastating blow. Had that blow landed, it would have been over, he may not have been dead, but he’d have definitely been viciously maimed. Heaving a shaky breath, he calls out to Ichigo who has since retreated from Kisuke’s reach, “Ara, Ichigo, that wasn’t very nice! You could have destroyed my favorite hat!” 

“If I had wanted to destroy your hat, it would have been in tatters, Getaboushi!” 

Kisuke huffs a laugh. Benihime is baying for blood, and if Ichigo can get him to release her before releasing his own blade, Kisuke had better start looking for more sparring partners. 

It takes another fifteen minutes and a handful of barely dodged razors of Kamisori, before Ichigo deigns to release shikai. Ichigo gives Kisuke the courtesy of hearing his release phrase, it’s unwieldy and long and Ichigo hates using it for the advantage it gives his opponents, Zangetsu usually agrees. But in this instance, Ichigo thinks, both Zangetsu and Ossan deserve the ceremony of their release. 

“Kokuei wo hikisaki, mangetsu no mae ni yaiba wo mukidase, Zangetsu!”

The reiatsu that accompanies Zangetsu’s release has Kisuke kneeling with Benihime anchored into the rock below him as his hat gets blown off his head by the wave of force that sweeps across the training ground with Ichigo at its epicenter. Kisuke is really, really glad he has reiryoku concealing wards on his training grounds, otherwise Ichigo’s release would have alerted every spiritually aware being in the prefecture. Once the dust has died down, Kisuke picks himself up and pulls Benihime from the ground, holding her in front of him as he scans the training grounds for Ichigo, knowing the younger man was definitely smart enough to move himself from where the reiryoku of his release would serve as a homing beacon to his enemies. 

It isn’t until Benihime screeches at him to block that he even notices the slicing wave of black energy racing toward his back. 

“Nake! Nake!” He commands as Chikasumi no Tate comes to life and an energy attack screams into the stream of Ichigo’s to try to cancel out enough force that Benihime’s shield will hold. The black reiryoku crashes through his red as the attack splashes against his shield which shatters just as the attack dissipates. He swings around, Benihime crashing against the shorter of Ichigo’s two swords, and he uses shunpo to jump up out of range of the larger sword swinging at his torso. 

Ichigo grins at him, it’s a grin worthy of any Kenpachi, and Kisuke can feel the sweat dripping from his temple, down his face and settling in the collar of his jinbei. 

“It’s good to see you can keep up, it’s still Act I, you know. If you can get me to pull on my Hollow or Quincy abilities, I’ll forfeit. I’m not going to pull out bankai for a spar.”

“Don’t go easy on me or anything, Ichigo,” Kisuke mumbles sarcastically. Just from the last 45 minutes, Kisuke knows he won’t last if Ichigo keeps pulling off attacks like the last one. “What’s that attack called anyway?” he replies. Still holding his blade in front of him, although Ichigo doesn’t look particularly poised to attack. 

“Getsuga Tenshou,” Ichigo replies. He has long since learned to use his swords’ specialty attacks without calling out their names. Many shinigami, even those who reach bankai never learn—never come to know their soul well enough to stay silent while they attack at full power. Against the opponents Ichigo had faced? It was a necessity. Any warning was too much, any hint an attack was coming would lead to failure. So, Ichigo had learned to stay silent. 

‘Heaven-piercing moon fang, huh,’ Kisuke thinks, the kid is definitely of Isshin’s blood. Hereditary traits aside, Ichigo’s attack is far more powerful than he’d ever seen from Isshin, regardless of the time period. 

“Mah, Isshin must be proud, your Zangetsu and his Engetsu, getsuga must run in the family.” 

Ichigo tenses and frowns, “Proud enough to teach me the attack that lost him his powers temporarily, and nearly lost me mine. Permanently.” 

Yikes, apparently Isshin is a field of landmines Kisuke shouldn’t touch. There’s a beat of silence, and Ichigo disappears.

Seventeen minutes later and the training ground is more like a ground zero, boulders are shattered, slices have been cleaved from various cliffs, trees have been felled and Kisuke’s haori is in shreds. He’s got a slice across his cheek, one of the arms of his jinbei has been torn from the shoulder and he’d discarded it minutes ago, he knows he’d be dead if Ichigo really wanted. The only attack he’s seen Ichigo use is the Getsuga Tenshou and from what the orange-haired man has hinted during their banter, there are definitely more. 

It isn’t until Zangetsu’s smaller blade is held to his throat and he feels Ichigo’s breath against his nape that he even knows the other man is behind him. God, he’s out of practice if all his decades of training in the Onmi can be overcome by someone centuries younger than him. 

“Yield,” 

Kisuke swallows, feeling the cold of Zangetsu’s blade against his skin, “I yield,” he says. 

Ichigo removes his blade from Kisuke’s throat, and steps back, merging his blades into the black bladed nodachi of their sealed form. Kisuke reseals Benihime, much to her disappointment, but now they both know that training is in the offing.

Yoruichi hasn’t seen Kisuke so flustered in battle since before he was a seated officer in the 2nd. Neither of them has pulled out anything other than their shikai, and Yoruichi knows Kisuke’s bankai isn’t particularly spar friendly. She doesn’t know about Ichigo’s but with how far he’s pushed Kisuke with only one attack in shikai, she doesn’t think he would have needed bankai anyway. 

The two of them are approaching their corner by the ladder—the only unmarred section of the training ground. Ichigo is almost uninjured, there’s a small cut on his upper arm that’s already stopped bleeding and his left pant leg has a couple slices in it, but he’s otherwise in perfect shape, albeit a little sweaty. Kisuke on the other hand...she lets out a sigh. His haori is in shreds and his jinbei is missing a sleeve, there’s a cut on his cheek and on his chest, crossing under the arm with the missing sleeve. She can also see the beginnings of a dark bruise in the shape of Ichigo’s foot, smack in the middle of his chest. Yoruichi is sure there are more injuries that Kisuke is hiding, at least until Ichigo’s friends leave she won’t pester him about them.

“Your friends aren’t going to get up to where you are before you leave,” she tells Ichigo as he comes to stand next to Chad. Kisuke sits down next to her, cross legged, and pulls out his fan, hat still missing. He fans himself idly with a hint of a smile on his lips.

“I’m not expecting them to, I had a week of battle instinct training under Kisuke, and literally no intel the last time I did this. My level right now is due to lots of battle experience, training, my weird-ass biology and a decade of war. If you can get them ready to fight lieutenants and captains going easy on them, I’ll be happy with that. I’ll even help,” he replies with a helpless smile. 

Yoruichi nods, “You have bankai, yeah?” she asks. Ichigo nods. 

“I won’t use it except as a last resort though,”

She blinks in surprise, most captains don’t, she’s not sure why he’s said so. As if he can read her thoughts from her face, he smiles at her and expatiates.

“If I’m pulling out my bankai, everyone in the vicinity had better be captain-class or better, I can actually disintegrate spiritual beings with my reiatsu if I pull out bankai and merge with the hollow half of Zangetsu. Without the merge though, I’ve brought some less experienced captains to their knees.” 

‘That,’ Yoruichi thinks, ‘ is absolutely terrifying. No wonder Kisuke said the side we want to be on is Ichigo’s.’  

Eventually, Kisuke excuses himself to get medical aid and change, not that he says as much. Although, clearly Yoruichi and Ichigo both know where he’s going. Tessai treats his wounds with some minor exasperation, but just as much care as ever. Using kaido on oneself is counterproductive. He’s glad that Tessai has stuck with him this long. He sends Jinta and Ururu down to the training grounds to help Ichigo's friends, and then goes down to join them after plopping a spare hat on his head. 

He doesn’t bother with the ladder, using hoho techniques to land safely. He watches the teens train against Yoruichi, Jinta and Ururu, with Ichigo making comments off to the side and occasionally darting in to knock someone off balance to demonstrate the errors in their stance. The younger man’s eyes find him quickly, darting to his hat before catching his eye with an amused smirk, then turning back to his friends. Kisuke’s not sure why Ichigo finds his hat so funny, but the amusement is contagious. He hides a smile behind his omnipresent fan. 

The training continues until late afternoon, with a short break for food that Tessai brings down when he realizes that nearly everyone in the training ground is a one-track minded idiot who needs to be reminded that meals are not optional. 

Kisuke sends off Ichigo and his friends before Yoruichi hops onto his shoulder. The sore one. Even kaido can only do so much. He suppresses a wince but enjoys the buzzing purrs and warmth from his friend’s feline form. 

“Ichigo is going to make those kids monsters,” she says at length as Kisuke settles onto a zabuton at the low table in the sitting room. 

“At least they’ll be ethical monsters,” he replies, “Ichigo doesn’t have an immoral bone in his body.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Yoruichi cautions. 

“Oh?”

“I’m not saying he’s amoral or even generally morally ambiguous, but he’s definitely got lines you don’t want to cross. He’s a guardian, a protector. From what I saw while he interacted with his friends, he’ll be the first in line to take out anyone who even looks at them with ill intent. He’ll be nice about it at first, but the minute it even seems like those he cares about will be in real peril, he will render whoever threatens his people impotent. With extreme prejudice. I would make that double for his sisters, forget the real peril part.”

“The Gotei had better be careful,”

“Indeed,”

Chapter Text

The clash of swords is background noise as Ichigo exchanges blows with his opponent. Rukia had been cut down in the last skirmish, and he’s going to absolutely eviscerate the sorry bastard who did it. He doesn’t know how these creatures—they’re not hollows, Zangetsu would know, and they’re not, he’s said so. Emphatically. 

Whatever, there’s no more time to think. He and Zangetsu don’t even bother with that stupid motion to pull for a mask. He doesn’t have the time or opportunity to take his hands off his blades. The merge is seamless. Zangetsu’s angular horns mold themselves out of his reiryoku, his skin pales and hardens; his hierro is augmented by Ossan’s blut abilities. Black estigma crawls from the edge of his hairline down his face trailing toward the center of his chest where his hollow hole would reside were he arrancar. He knows his eyes have gone from brown to Zangetsu’s amber on black, and his opponent barely flinches at the change.

Suddenly, the atmosphere darkens. His opponent is gone. Ichigo is making fast tracks across the blood stained sands of Hueco Mundo, he doesn’t know where he’s going, only that he has to be there, that there is no more time. He comes to a stop in front of the ruins of Las Noches. Ishida’s body is sprawled face down on the crumbling, white stone, there’s a hole where—NO! That was before! Ichigo hasn’t lost himself to the hollow portions of himself in years! He turns and sees Orihime’s young face, pale in a rictus of fear. The way she had once looked at him when—NO! He’s not a teenager anymore, his opponents aren’t arrancar, or hollows, or shinigami. Aizen is dead! His vision swims, he can’t breathe, there’s a hand around his throat. If only he could—

“WAKE UP!”

He sits up, instinctively tossing the body attached to the hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t know where he is. His eyes are wide and he sees nothing. There's a thud and a crash, and Ichigo blinks, still not breathing. 

“Breathe, Ichi!”

His vision swirls into focus as he takes a breath. And another. And a deeper one. 

His father is extricating himself from the ruins of Ichigo’s desk, not nearly as damaged as a normal human would be. It’s at moments like this that Ichigo appreciates that Isshin is way more durable than he should be. 

There’s more concern and paternal panic in his eyes than Ichigo has seen since he was nine and Isshin realized he had children to take care of and no Masaki to help him anymore. 

“Uh, hey dad,” he croaks through tight lungs. His hands are white knuckled as he clutches the topsheet his legs are tangled in. He’s been expecting this. The nightmares. But he’d been hoping he’d get more than three days reprieve. Ichigo’s emotions are still churning in his chest. He’s 29, he’s been at war for nearly half his life, he shouldn’t need the comfort of a father who wasn’t particularly present for him in the first place. Isshin is here though, clearly trying to be what he needs and it feels warm against the tightness of his lungs. He closes his eyes and concentrates on taking deep even breaths. Hyperventilation has never helped anyone do anything but become light-headed. 

When he opens his eyes, Isshin is carefully making his way forward like Ichigo is a skittish, feral animal, and Ichigo doesn’t quite know how to feel. Isshin is a doctor. He knows the signs of post-traumatic stress, even if psychology isn’t his forte. 

“Can I touch you?” His father asks softly. 

“Yeah,” Ichigo rasps, voice still rough. 

The buzzing in his ears has died down and he can hear Zangetsu purring comfortingly in the back of his mind while Zangetsu Ossan sends waves of warmth and affection along their bond. It helps him settle himself as Isshin maneuvers himself behind Ichigo and pulls him into his chest. 

“Breathe with me,” Isshin says softly. The motion of Isshin’s breathing against his back helps Ichigo pace his own, and as his breathing returns to normal he slowly drifts off to the warmth of his father’s reiryoku.

...

Isshin doesn't know what to think. His son is lying against his chest slowly succumbing to post panic exhaustion. Ichigo has been acting weird since he came home from Urahara's after Rukia was taken. The unexplained increase in his reiryoku control was one thing, panic-attacks like the one he's just talked Ichigo down from could be PTSD… but deciding to explain the spirit world to his sisters? 

Ichigo is the dictionary definition of overprotective when it comes to his sisters. It's one of the reasons Isshin is so hands off with Ichigo. He doesn't really know how to put words to how he feels about the Seireitei or the Gotei, so he lets Urahara do the explaining for him. Of course he'd hoped that his children would be able to live their lives without interference from Soul Society, but he'd known from the beginning it was a pipe dream. 

He and Masaki had made plans to slowly introduce the children to the dangers of the spirit world. But then, Masaki had died unexpectedly, Ichigo was traumatized, the twins were too young to really comprehend that mom wasn't going to come home, and Isshin was left without the center of his universe. Masaki had been the sun the entire family orbited, and with her gone, they'd all drifted away from each other. 

Isshin had gone back to the clinic only to come home at night, too lost without Masaki to know what else to do. Ichigo had done his best to pick up parenting the twins where Masaki had left off, helping the girls with their homework, signing them up for after school activities, teaching each of the twins some household skills and taking over cooking and making lunches until Yuzu was old enough to demand he teach her. And even then Ichigo had maintained a high place in classes, despite the extra work. Ichigo had often come home bruised, but was seemingly content with his friendship with Tatsuki-chan and later Sado-kun, so Isshin hadn’t interfered. 

He’d started training Ichigo in the Shiba fashion, with surprise attacks and tough love, around the time he’d brought Sado-kun over for the first time. Isshin had thought that if Ichigo was going to get in more fights, he ought to have more training. And it seemed to have worked — until the other night. When he attacked Ichigo on his way in from Urahara’s shop, he’d barely had a moment to brace for his son’s retaliation; the blank look in Ichigo’s eyes and the flat tone he’d responded with as he’d let Isshin up were red flags he couldn’t ignore, either as a doctor or a father. He’s not sure what he’s going to do. But for now, he’ll lie Ichigo back on his pillow and attempt to go back to sleep.

When Ichigo greets him nonchalantly in the morning, he feels like he’s succeeded as a parent for his son for the first time in an eon.

Urahara is surprised when Ichigo arrives on day three with Ishida in tow. Ichigo has shadows under his eyes, and tension in his jaw, but his expression is at least wryly amused. The young Quincy being hauled behind him looks entirely too bewildered for Ichigo to have explained why he was being dragged away from his hidden Quincy training, so Kisuke decides to snoop as the two younger men descend into his training grounds. Kisuke sees the cousins halfway across the training ground near the trees that hide the healing springs. He conceals himself a good distance away, but close enough that he can hear their conversation.

“...’re a WHAT?!” Ishida screeches.

“A Quincy, “ Ichigo replies, casually, “technically,” he adds after a few seconds of Ishida silently gaping at him.

“What do you mean you’re technically a Quincy? How can you be a shinigami and still be technically a Quincy?” Ishida’s face is a weird combination of enraged and confused. And then Ichigo decides to make it even worse.

“I’m also technically Hollow,” he adds.

“What.” Ishida sounds so fucking done; it’s hilarious and Kisuke knows from Ichigo’s prodding reiatsu that the time-traveller is well aware he’s there and on the verge of cackling hysterically and it’s all he can do to keep himself quiet as the conversation continues.

Ichigo is restraining his mirth to just a smirk, “Do you want the long story or the short one?” he asks, relaxed, and Ishida just doesn’t know how to react anymore. 

“How about one with all the necessary details but none of the embellishments,” the younger Quincy replies after a couple silent moments. 

Ichigo nods, “So, my mom was the last of the Echt Quincy Kurosaki line, and was taken in by your dad’s family and they were informally betrothed as a couple of the last Echt Quincy in Japan. My mom however was a rebel and was continuously in trouble. At some point she saved my Ex-Noble, Shinigami-Captain dad from an experimental hollow designed by one of the Seireitei’s resident megalomaniacs. However, in the process she got infected by that hollow’s reiryoku, which you know is poisonous to Quincy. My dad volunteered to save her life by tying his shinigami powers to a seal that would protect my mom from the hollow reiryoku. As the story goes, they fell in love and my mom eloped with my dad who went AWOL from the Gotei. Then I was born a human from two powerful spiritual beings with a huge well of reiryoku from my father’s side, Quincy genes from my mothers, and latent hollow reiryoku from that experimental hollow.” Ichigo explains, and then tacks on, “Oh, I also time travelled from about 13 years in the future and I’m willing to train you as a Quincy in ways your father doesn’t even know exist.”

Ishida blinks at his orange-haired classmate a few times before his eyes roll up and he passes out, collapsing into Ichigo’s waiting arms. 

Ichigo sighs in exasperation, carefully lowers Ishida to the ground and sits down next to him before turning his attention to Kisuke who has given up on containing his mirth and has burst into cackling laughter. 

Ichigo's smile is fond from what Kisuke can see through his laughter-wet eyes. The older man can feel amused warmth in the redhead's reiryoku, and can't quite place the feeling in it. He brushes off the absurd notion that Ichigo...nah. He turns to head back up to the shop. He can monitor their training from his lab. 

...

Uryuu meditates over the bow he’s been handed. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. It doesn’t glow like his Kojaku had, or like the Ginrei Kojaku he’s seen his father use in the past. Ichigo calls it Heilig Bogen, or the Holy Bow. He’s been given two days to train on his own and familiarize himself with the bow before Ichigo starts training him for a technique he calls Vollstandig. His cousin says he doesn’t expect him to complete the training for Vollstandig before they go to rescue Rukia, but Uryuu has never been one to aim for mediocre. 

Ichigo promises to teach him the full extent and power of the Heilig Bogen, including the technique he’d thought he’d need the Sanrei glove for. According to Ichigo, the Quincy as an organization had abandoned the technique, Letz Stil, for Vollstandig around 200 years ago, due to its one-use-only drawback. Uryuu takes a breath and turns his attention back to the bow and the ambient reishi in the training ground. Rukia had been his friend too, however much he wishes he could deny it.

It’s day ten and Ichigo is standing in front of the closed shoji doors belonging to the Shihouin Senkaimon. Urahara is behind them, and the reishi henkan-ki is forged in front of the still closed doors. He takes a deep breath. 

“It’s time, Yoruichi-san, will you please do the honors?”

“Of course,” her tail swishes behind her as she walks toward the shoji doors. Ichigo can feel the patterns in the fluctuations of her reiryoku and the doors slide open. 

“Let’s go,” he says. And they move. ‘We’re coming, Rukia.”