Chapter Text
Chapter 1
It’s a desperate idea. An insane, desperate idea.
Shūhei’s not at all sure why he’s letting Urahara convince him that it’s the best course of action.
“There must be some other way,” he insists, for what feels like at least the tenth time. “We still have time before-”
“Aizen’s forces will be here within less than twelve hours,” Urahara replies, and there’s no smile anywhere in sight on his face, just a bitter sort of resignation coupled with that spark of determination in his eyes. “We’re out of time.” His mouth twists into something approaching a lopsided smile. “But you won’t be, if this plan works.”
“You can’t just throw me back in time, Urahara,” Shūhei sputters. “The world doesn’t work like that!”
“It does if you know where to twist it a bit,” Urahara says lightly, and Shūhei just groans. “If my calculations are correct,” he goes on, ignoring Shūhei’s glare with the ease of a man well-used to people glaring at him for all manner of reasons, “I’ll be able to transport you and one other person a little over a century backwards in time. That should be sufficient time to put a stop to Aizen’s plans.”
Shūhei does some quick math in his head, and reluctantly has to agree. “Assuming that I can get someone to listen to me,” he grumbles. “That’ll be before he turned Captain Hirako and the others, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Shūhei frowns as he weighs the pros and cons of that particular aspect of the situation. “On the one hand, that’s good because it means that I have a chance of stopping Aizen before he can complete the Hollowfication process on them. On the other hand,” he adds with a sigh, “because he won’t have attacked them yet, I won’t be able to count on them as allies against him.” No captain or seated officer of the Gotei 13 will take his word -a stranger’s word- over that of Aizen, who was well-respected even back then.
Urahara gives a low hum, considering. “If you handle your approach correctly, you might be able to rope in Shinji,” he says after a moment. “He requested Aizen as his lieutenant specifically because he was suspicious of him and wanted to keep an eye on him.”
“Because that worked out so well,” Shūhei says, rolling his eyes, and Urahara gives a strained laugh.
“For such a brilliant man, Shinji had his blind-spots like the rest of us,” he replies.
“And Aizen has an uncanny knack for slithering into blind-spots and setting up camp,” Shūhei finishes, bitter and furious, because that’s how this whole clusterfuck came about in the first place, this second war with Aizen that they’ve been hopelessly fighting for almost five years now.
Because it wasn’t enough that Aizen played a long game with the entirety of the Gotei 13 for over a century and betrayed them all (and more than that, dragged others along in his wake…dragged Tōsen along in his wake, and somehow despite the passage of time Shūhei’s grief is just as sharp as the day he cut his own captain’s throat), dragging them all into a hideous war that stretched across all the worlds.
No, Aizen had to go grasping for power and attain it, remaining a threat even after Ichigo had come out the victor in what was supposed to have been their final battle.
Because they’d captured Aizen, and locked him away.
And he should have stayed locked away forever, never to see the light of day again.
That should have been the end of it.
Except locking away a problem like Aizen and refusing to deal with the situation beyond that is rather akin to stuffing a deadly snake into a shoebox at the back of your closet and hoping it won’t escape.
Shūhei isn’t sure if it was arrogance or apathy the brought it about, but he supposes in the end the cause doesn’t matter; what matters is that Aizen’s power wasn’t as suppressed as they’d all thought, and he had broken free from his supposedly inescapable prison.
In hindsight, the assumption that they would be able to contain someone of Aizen’s power -someone whose power even now continues to grow exponentially with no limit to be seen- was laughable at best.
Ichigo might have been able to match Aizen again, if he hadn’t been slain barely five months into this latest war, his powers returned to him too late to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
The only way to defeat Aizen is to somehow go back to before he merged with the Hōgyoku, to kill him before he attained all that power, and given that it’s easy to see how Urahara made the leap from that realization to the idea of sending someone back in time to do precisely that.
It’s an absolutely insane idea, but as strange as it all sounds, Shūhei can see the logic in it.
He very much does not, however, see the logic in sending him specifically. “You should just send yourself, Urahara,” Shūhei says now. “You’ll be able to set things to rights far faster than I ever could.” He’s just a lieutenant, after all. One who managed to lead his Division on his own even after Tōsen’s betrayal, but a lieutenant nevertheless. Better to send someone like Urahara, who knows all the players and can predict their movements.
“Ah, but there’s a version of me in that time already, and within the Gotei 13 no less,” Urahara counters with a smirk. “Showing up in the past with the same face as the new captain of the Twelfth Division would be extremely suspicious, don’t you think? And somehow I don’t think anyone would believe a hastily-crafted story about a long-lost twin brother,” he adds, and his tone is almost aggressively cheerful. “Besides,” he adds, “I can’t send myself back. Only someone else. Two people, at the most.” He gives a thoughtful hum. “You and Ayasegawa…yes, that should do nicely.”
An indignant squawk comes from where Yumichika had been organizing their meagre supplies on the other side of the room, and Shūhei looks over to see his friend (the only friend of his still living, and he swallows hard against the tidal wave of grief that threatens to drown him at the thought) staring over at them with an expression that’s somewhere between flabbergasted and horrified.
“You cannot be serious,” Yumichika says, pursing his lips. “Leave me out of your harebrained time travel schemes, please. I have no interest in tagging along for something like that.”
“Even if doing so can help prevent your captain’s death?” Urahara asks, and his tone is no less cutting for all that it’s light. “And Ikkaku’s?”
Shūhei winces as Yumichika turns three shades paler even as his jaw clenches in fury, his gaze narrowing dangerously as he glares at Urahara.
“That’s a bit of a low blow, isn’t it,” Shūhei says reproachfully, and once upon a time he wouldn't have dreamed of chastising a former captain, much less one like Urahara who is far more dangerous than appearances would suggest, but he’s quite frankly very far past the point of caring about things like that.
Bringing up the two people that Yumichika is grieving for the most in an attempt to persuade him into participating in what truly is a harebrained scheme is an underhanded tactic, and an obvious one at that.
(It says something about the desperation of their situation, he thinks, that Urahara is falling back on such a blatant attempt at manipulation when normally he favors far subtler machinations.)
“It’s the truth,” Urahara says, and there’s a thread of ruthlessness in his voice now, something normally buried that’s rising to the surface on account of the circumstances. “If Aizen is dealt with before he merges with the Hōgyoku, those deaths will be prevented. All of these deaths will be prevented,” he adds, waving one hand in a sweeping gesture to indicate the veritable ocean of dead loved ones that have lost their lives in this war. “That’s worth the risk, yes?”
And still Yumichika shakes his head. “I’m hardly qualified for something so important,” he says coolly, even as a terrible sort of hope starts to kindle in his gaze. “Send someone else.”
“Neither one of us is the right choice for something like this,” Shūhei can’t help but say, because it needs to be said. “You should send someone stronger.”
“There is no one else left to send, I’m afraid,” Urahara replies, and his tone may be mild but Shūhei can hear the steel underneath. “We’ve lost contact with all the other Resistance groups. Other than myself, you are the only two capable warriors in the immediate vicinity”
“What about Captain Hitsugaya? Or one of the Kuchiki siblings?”
“We haven’t heard from any of them in well over three months,” Urahara says now, firm but not unkind. “And even if they are still somehow alive,” his tone indicates how unlikely he considers this possibility, “there’s no way for us to make contact and bring them here before Aizen's forces reach us. The two of you,” he reiterates, “are the only option.”
Shūhei opens his mouth to argue some more, but then sighs. “I just don’t see how we can possibly defeat Aizen,” he says at last. “He’s too strong.”
“The whole point of going back into the past is that he won’t be as strong then as he is now,” Urahara reminds him. “Besides,” he adds with a smile that is somehow both sly and reassuring, something knowing in his gaze, “I think that you’re both stronger than you want to admit, even to yourselves, yes?”
Shūhei and Yumichika both tense up, exchanging wary looks with one another, because…well, Urahara isn’t exactly wrong. Both he and Yumichika tend to hide their true strength, in their own ways. Less so now than before, but there’s no denying that they both downplay their abilities, even now at the ending of the world.
Shūhei hadn’t thought that Urahara had been paying enough attention to small fries like him and Yumichika enough to notice that, but he probably should have; the former captain of the Twelfth is far too keen and clever to not be aware of everything going on around him; it’s how he’s survived this long.
“Lieutenant Hisagi,” Urahara says now, tilting his head as taps his folded fan against his chin. “I think that you and your friend are not just the only choice, but also the right choice for this mission. You’re both highly motivated and more skilled than you let on. And you’re no one Aizen will know to watch out for, in the past. The two of you should be more than capable of fixing things, if you apply yourselves.”
Shūhei snorts. Apply yourselves, Urahara says, as if this is a difficult Academy assignment, rather than the fate of the world and everyone they love. “Nice pep talk,” he says dryly. “Very inspirational.” He glances over at Yumichika, who now looks torn. “Well, how about it?” he asks his friend. “Want to let a mad scientist throw us backwards in time on the half-baked hope that we can maybe do some good?”
Yumichika makes a face, somewhere between a scowl and a pout, before his expressions shades into something more contemplative. “I suppose we might as well,” he says at last, flipping a lock of hair out of his face. “Seeing as there is no hope at all left to be had in this time.”
Shūhei grimaces but can’t find it in him to debate that particular statement; what’s left of the Resistance is indeed a sorry desperate mess of people barely clinging on by their fingernails. He should know: he’s one of them. “Alright, then,” he says with a sigh. “So what do we need to do to pull this off?”