Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are people who believe a photo captures your soul. For them this is a terrible thing. For me it's one last chance. [one last desperate hope]- A Softer World

He had just blown out a lonely candle on a small slice of cheesecake when he suddenly had to catch himself on the table. It was a good thing that his parents were too busy to celebrate his birthday with him. There would be so many questions. He took a few deep breaths. The awakening was never pleasant.

Eventually, he sat up and looked around his parents’ apartment. This was the first time he was Japanese, and while this life’s memories gave him a decent head start on absorbing language and culture, he knew from experience that simply possessing memories didn’t teach you unspoken societal rules. 

He spotted a calendar. July 31st 1999. Did Japan have internet back then? And for that matter, when was Wikipedia created? Questions were battling with pounding pain that was hiding just behind his eyes. 

A nap. He was going to take ibuprofen and take a nap. Exploring the new world could be left for later.

This new dimension didn’t have ibuprofen. He was both intrigued and afraid of other differences. But wasn’t that the point of the whole exercise: retaining flexibility of mind and experiencing new things?

Be brave, he told himself. It’s only the start of a new adventure.

Not adventure, a small voice in the back of his head said, a necessity.

His new name was Arashi Sasaki. Or rather, like his current countrymen would say: Sasaki Arashi. He needed to start getting used to the mannerisms.

As far as names go, it was a decent one. He certainly had worse ones. But even thousands of years after his first life he still prefers calling himself Harry Potter. Remembering where he came from helps keep him sane.

Surprisingly he looked similar to how he looked back in his realm. His bone structure made his face look sharper; he had a few beauty marks near his eyes, and his eyes were sea green instead of Avada Kedavra green. But if he stood next to his first body a casual observer would think they were relatives.

He smiled. At least he wouldn’t have issues with recognizing himself in mirrors. Although braces might take some time to get used to.

His parents were rarely home, and he was their only child. It was a lonely existence, but at least his parents won't ask uncomfortable questions about the changes in his behaviour.

His parents were heavily involved in the entertainment industry, and whenever they weren’t doing interviews or filming, they went on romantic vacations. His father claimed that leaving Arashi on his own would build up his character. His mother told him it was for his own good. That keeping him away from paparazzi and crazed fans was important. 

Daily checkups via phone were not enough, but he didn’t complain. Even before he remembered, he was tired of their excuses.

“How is your summer? The semester just ended up, didn’t it? I hope you are still practising your German!” His mother’s voice had this singing quality she uses when she was talking near her coworkers. Even on a movie set she always had to maintain her precious image.

“Of course, Mother! After all, I am a good son, am I not?” Never mind that now; after he remembered, he had access to all the languages he had learned over his long life. His German might be a bit rusty, but it sure as hell was much better than what he knew before.

“That is good to hear, sweetheart… Something came up and I must go, take care of yourself!”

If Harry had to pass any judgements Rosalie Wallner was a really pretty woman. They shared eyes and noses. Maybe if he really squinted at the photo he would say they had similarly shaped lips? It was hard to tell with the amount of make-up she always put on before they took photos.

Sasaki Hideaki on the other hand wasn’t the most handsome man on the earth, but according to his mother, Hideaki’s skill as a cameraman was so good she fell in love with him. Harry had next to no knowledge about filmmaking, so he couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. His father was always distant. He wasn’t sure if it was a cultural thing or a Hideaki thing, but Arashi didn’t appreciate it.

Was he as bad a father as Hideaki?

Did his kids resent him as much as Arashi resented Hideaki?

Thinking about his previous lives was not good for him, he told himself. Keep eyes forward on the goal.

What is his goal?

Summer passed quickly. Arashi didn't have any friends thanks to his parents moving him into Karakura a few weeks before the first semester ended and Arashi being the poorly socialised gremlin he was. He spent most of the summer napping on the apartment's balcony and walking along the river. 

Sometimes he spotted something that might fall under the umbrella of the supernatural. It’s always just out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't sure if he had bound his magic too tightly or if it was just that the local supernatural population is extra careful. Taking a look with his Sight might be taken as offensive by certain entities so he refrained.

He wasn't sure if he was anxious or eager for potential supernatural first contact. He did his best to temper his expectations. In most of the worlds, he was reborn into, either there was next to no magic or supernatural societies were very small. 

Was he seeing things or that monster really is sitting there and chilling out?

Harry couldn't remember what he was meant to buy when he crawled out of the apartment that morning. He suspected nobody would blame him, because it wasn't every day you saw a gigantic snake monster sunning itself in the middle of the street. 

He sat on a convenient nearby bench and pulled out his cell phone to pretend he wasn't watching the Entity. It was mostly black with a bone-like mask on its head and a swirly red pattern on its body. It was even bigger than the Basilisk he killed in his first life. The monster shifted. Oh, it isn’t sunning. It is hunting. And was that a gigantic hole just below its head? How did it swallow anything with that hole there?

People and cars were passing through the monster. Was Harry the only person who could see it? Or maybe he was experiencing his brain glitching? He never had a brain tumour, but visual hallucinations were one of the symptoms, weren't they? Or at least he thought so. But dying just a few weeks after he remembered would suck.

The snake turned its head towards him. Shit. He placed his hand on the seal keeping his magic tightly bound. To deactivate it or not? If the thing was just his delusion he didn't want people to take too much interest in him. One burning on the stake was more than enough for him. But if that monster was real it could just swallow him in one go and no amount of running would prevent that.

And just when he was about to toss caution to the winds and deactivate the seal, a madman in black tried to stab the monster with a fucking sword. Who used swords in the 20th century?

He retreated to the closest alley as discretely as he could and observed the fight from there. The man looked like he crawled out of a garbage container day after a really wild party. His hair seemed to have a life of its own. The five o’clock shadow was in that sweet spot where it couldn’t be called beard just yet, but it sure as hell tried to reach that stage. He was wearing a black bathrobe. And if his face was any indicator, he was exactly 5 seconds away from having a full-on panic attack. 

Scruffy was very clumsy in his attempts at stabbing the monster. At one point Harry was certain the man almost stabbed himself. What a moron. Who went into a fight using a weapon they couldn't weild properly?

(The answer was “Harry Potter”. But he was 12 and left on his own to solve Wizarding Great Britain’s problems.)

Nobody seemed to notice Scruffy. If this was a delusion, his brain put a lot of energy into creating details.

It wasn’t until Scruffy crashed into the statue of that one haiku author whose name always eluded him and broke it into two that Harry realised it wasn’t a delusion. Any remaining doubts he had were waved away when panicked people started to run away. 

He took a page from the panicked mob and turned to go back home. It isn’t like he could help out before he unsealed his magic and Scruffy looked like he didn't need any further distractions from the fight. What was that haiku author called? Machu Bushi*? Eh, never mind. What was he going to buy when he left home?

The answer was groceries. He was going to buy food when he stumbled into supernatural shenanigans. As it was, his fridge was emptier than the Void, and he had even more questions about this new world. Fuck it. Rosalie always made sure Arashi had more than enough money to live comfortably. He was going to drop by that small restaurant near their building and stuff himself on comfort food. He could be a responsible mini-adult tomorrow.

Hopefully, the sword-wielding Arthur Dent cosplayer hadn’t spotted him during the fight, and he wouldn’t be harassed about what he had seen. He won’t be responsible for any lost limbs if anyone tried to bother him right now.

That night, he tweaked the seal. His underage body couldn't support his magic in its full glory. But if he slowly started to loosen it, maybe it could accommodate over time? At least next time he wouldn't be stuck waiting for his scruffy knight in a black bathrobe. 

And if anyone was observing him a gradual “growth” of his “power” would look more natural than just ripping off the seal and unleashing all his magic on Karakura.

The next day he started to sense it. It wasn't magic. Or at least not magic as he knew it. But whatever it was, it felt like he was sitting in a pot full of warm soup while somebody kept stirring it. It was not exactly uncomfortable, but just straight-up weird. Maybe loosening the seal a little more would shield him from that sensation, but he needed to go slow. 

It took another 3 days before he started to see them. They were ghosts, or at least he thought they were ghosts. He had never before seen ghosts with literal chains hanging out of their chests, but you learn something new every day. 

Sometimes he spotted Scruffy talking with them and using the handle of his sword to beam up ghosts to…. Well, he had no idea where. Afterlife? Maybe. Scruffy wasn’t any less clumsy when he was dealing with ghosts than he was when he fought the Snake. On one memorable occasion, he accidentally gave himself a spontaneous haircut. 

He really hoped that Scruffy had just woken up one day and decided to use his ancestor’s sword to bring justice to the afterlife. If there was any formalised body that looked at Scruffy and decided he would do well as a Guide for souls, Harry might have to do something about it. Like, send a strongly worded letter. 

How does one go about sending letters to the afterlife?

It wasn’t until he saw another monster- this time a weird hybrid between a praying mantis and a seal of all things- eating one of the ghosts that he got angry. Souls of dead people were stuck in this town like free for all buffet for those monsters and the only person standing between them and their second death was a moron who couldn't use his own weapon of choice.

Fine. If Scruffy couldn't do his job properly then Harry would seek out ghosts and send them on their way. That was the least he could do as Master over Death. And Scruffy could take care of the monsters on his own. Maybe he would learn how to use his sword properly.

His musings were disrupted when the abomination feasting on the remains of the ghost was hit by a bolt of bluish energy. The first attack was quickly followed by 3 more causing the monster to disintegrate. As much as he tried he couldn't locate the source of bolts, but he didn't believe even for a moment that Scruffy suddenly became competent.

So, there was at least one more person in this city who could fight monsters. Colour him intrigued.

Summer holidays eventually had to end. So he packed up something that if nobody looked too closely vaguely could pass as a standard Japanese lunchbox, put his textbooks and notebooks into his bag and went to bed earlier.

School was about as dull as he expected. He did ok in most of his subjects, but he was almost comically bad at Japanese Literature and History. Miura-sensei didn't appreciate Harry’s musing on pointlessness in memorising history, because history was one big circle that keept repeating itself while grinding people into the ground. The teacher might be in denial about the truth in his words, but that did not save Harry from getting additional homework. Next time he will let Miura Satoshi rant about “kids these days” instead of sharing.

Some teenagers jeered at him for apparently not being Japanese enough? One of them even tried to steal his lunchbox, but at this point, Harry had enough magic available to him to enchant all of his possessions with anti-thief charms.

Also, the class representative was trying to bully him into joining at least one club. Why would anyone want to juggle more than one after-school activity he had no idea, but he ended up feeding her some line about thinking and making serious choices. He had a feeling she wouldn’t give up that easily.

In other words, being a teenager sucked. This was why he usually aimed to regain his memories after he was done with his education. He had no idea why he awoke so early this time. As far as he knew his life wasn’t in danger, he didn't live near powerful magical artefacts that could disrupt the spell he used to be reborn, and this time nobody tried to summon him.  

At least he found fulfilment in hunting and sending away ghosts. 

Things continued like this for about two weeks. He went to school, dodged bullies and class representative, saved ghosts from monsters and made sure that Rosalie’s fuchsia survived the owner’s absence.

That is until what he would later call Fateful Tuesday. 

His usual bullies this time were suspiciously quiet during school hours. He suspected they were planning something. What he did not expect was being ambushed on his way from school by more than 5 teenagers in one of the alleys. Stupid, he knew, but that wouldn't help him. In theory, he could use his magic to protect himself from those assholes. In practice, his control over his magic was still flaky. Sometimes he underpowered his spells, sometimes his spells blew up in his face. He really didn't want to explain to potential supernatural police that he sent a group of teenagers straight into the afterlife- bodies included- because he was annoyed with their shitty behaviour. 

He stopped fighting back after a few punches and decided to endure whatever physical abuse these morons were about to unleash on him. The apparent leader was heavily monologuing after Harry’s nose was broken when he heard “Hey, what the hell you are doing?”

Later he couldn’t recall what exactly happened — he liked to blame concussion — but in the next few minutes, the alley was full of groaning teenagers.

He must have accidentally activated his Sight because when he looked at his saviours he was almost blinded. There was something about the taller of the duo. A potential. Potential for what? Harry had no idea. The shorter one on the other hand… Harry was immediately reminded of his visits to Dragon Sanctuary in Romania. How Norberta who moments before almost bit off the snout of another dragon let him run his hands on her too hot for human hands scales. The boy with a dragon soul shone like the first sparks of Fiendfire. Danger and protection rolled into one grumpy teenager. 

And Harry was too fascinated to let him get away.

“I’m Sasaki Arashi. Thanks for the help with these assholes.”

“Kurosaki Ichigo. This is Chad. They deserved what they got.”

“… Sado Yasutora.”

“Hey, could you guys teach me some self-defence? I’ll bring homemade sweets!”

Chapter Text

It was a plague nobody expected. Puberty again instead of death. Cracking voices and new bodies we can’t understand. Alt: the ravages of puberty leave nobody unscathed. - A Softer World

As it turned out, his new best friends were in the same class as he was. How he had never noticed Ichigo’s flaming orange hair or Yasutora looming over every other student, he didn't know. But this happy accident made school more bearable. Marginally more bearable, but at this point, he would take any win. What this also meant was that Ichigo and Sato had a front-row seat to his argument with Miura-sensei and wanted to know what the fuck he meant. Reasonable, probably. But explaining to two mortal teenagers that eldritch horrors and inter-dimensional administrative workers perceive time differently, without revealing that he was one of them, was not a simple task. So instead, he gave a simplified explanation of Howe and Strauss's Fourth Turning theory and patted himself on the back.

The boys made good on their promise to teach him how to defend himself. It felt a bit awkward to have Ichigo keep correcting his stance and movements. You’d survived over thirty years of peer reviews beating your ego into a bloody pulp, he told himself. You can manage a few hours a week of two teenagers teaching you how to throw a good punch.

Yasutora and Ichigo were even nice enough to get him a test subject to test out his techniques. He was a bit hesitant to punch the guy because if Rosalie or Hideaki heard about it, they might come back and start to taking a closer look at his activities. That was until the asshole started to sass him. 

His knuckles ached, he was pretty sure he strained his left wrist and the wanna-be gangster was annoying in his bitching about his split lip, but Ichigo and Sado’s thumbs-ups and smiles warmed him up like one of Molly Weasley’s thick stews. Stars, he was going to miss them when they died.

“Have you ever considered a career in army? I have a feeling you would do well as a sergeant.”

Yamada Hanako somehow managed to look down her nose at him, even though she was a good head shorter. He sincerely hoped that the school paid her for her role as class representative because she was more persistent in chasing him down than fucking Voldemort. He dodged her and used his magic to cause minor distractions. Heck, he even once tried to insinuate she had a crush on him in hopes she would be too embarrassed to continue nagging him. Ichigo was way too amused by his attempts at getting class rep-chan to leave him alone, but at least he helped out every once in a while. At this point, he started to suspect that only making a concession or doing some serious mind magic would get her off his case. And considering his shoddy control, he might be better off straight-up murdering her instead of trying to perform mind magic.

He shuddered at the mental image of Yamada following him and nagging him even after her death. Yeah, that sounded like something that would happen to him. And with his luck, she would also be immune to his powers.

“-id you hear anything I’ve said, Sasaki-san?”

“Yeah, yeah. Dishonour this, giving a bad reputation to our school and class that, I should have fallen on my sword and spill my guts onto the ground to fix this mistake, blah, blah, blah. Your speeches are very repetitive. You might want to take a few classes in creative writing.”

Red definitely wasn’t Yamada’s colour.

“My speeches are not repetitive!”

“So are!

“No, they aren’t!”

“So are at infinity!”

“What are you, five?”

Whatever he was going to say was stopped by the school bell.

“You might want to run, or you will be late for a meeting of the English club.” The smug smirk might have been a bit too much but he was starting to get really tired of her attitude.

“So you admit, you know the clubs’ schedules!”

Of course, he knew when, where, and what club met. He also had a vague grasp of clubs’ rosters. How else could he avoid more annoying students like Yamada?

“Yamada-san, you say it as if you suspect me of lying about my intention of joining a club. That is quite rude of you.” He said, trying to emulate the image of complete innocence.

“I’ll show you rude!"

Murder in her eyes, she grabbed his shirt and started to try to shake him out of sheer frustration when suddenly-

“Yamada-san? Sasaki-san? What is the meaning of this?”

He was going to anonymously send Fukuda-sensei a fruit basket. Someone should recognise and reward her fantastic sense of timing.

It took Harry about a week to notice that Ichigo was more special than he had initially suspected. And what a delightfully interesting Ichigo’s “specialness” was!

“Let me get this straight: you can see ghosts, but can’t help them, so you bring them flowers?”

A wary nod.

“Huh, that's cool.” 

And then an idea struck him. After all, who would be better at teaching a teenager about souls than a local manager of the afterlife?

“Say, would you like to learn how to help them move on?”

“You can teach me that?”

“Of course! Why else I would offer?”

The smile he got made him want to give Ichigo headpats. The orange-haired teenager probably wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, but the sheer volume of fondness for him surprised Harry.

They ended up banishing six ghosts that day. It turned out that even though he made a point of prowling around the city in search of ghosts, he still somehow missed Ichigo’s usual haunts. Ghosts with various lengths of chains were grateful to be sent on their way by their favourite human. And it took Ichigo observing Harry sending ghosts on their way twice to learn how to do it. If Harry didn’t know better, he would suspect Ichigo was a Guide in his previous life.

Things continued like this for the next few weeks: Harry went to school, dodged class rep-chan and a few remaining bullies, trained with Ichigo and Yasutora, hunted down ghosts to send on their damn merry way to the afterlife, made sure Rosalie’s fuchsia thrived in spite of the owner’s absence, and discreetly searched for the source of blue bolts that sometimes destroyed monsters.

And then October 31st came.

The day started out normally enough. He woke up a bit later than usual because it was Sunday, cleaned himself up, put on his casual clothes, and made his way to the kitchen intending to prepe breakfast for himself. Only to see his father bustling around in the kitchen and his mother paging through what looked like a screenplay.

“Sweetheart! It’s good to see you again.”

It took approximately two hours for Harry to decide he needed to abandon his dwelling or he might just end up doing something regrettable. He knew he didn’t like his parents before his awakening, but nothing prepared him for the sheer intensity of emotion that slammed into him when he saw them. It was like somebody had covered him in hot sauce and forced him to walk through a hallway full of Legos.

He excused himself under the pretence of needing to do a school project with a classmate. He would try to crash at one of his friends’ places. If that wasn’t a viable option he would sleep under a bridge or sneak into the school to sleep there.

And that was how Sasaki Arashi met Kurosaki Isshin. To say he was less than impressed would be an understatement.

Ichigo was perfectly ok with letting Harry crash at his house after Harry made a vague excuse of “parents being annoying”. In retrospect, Ichigo’s lack of questions and almost immediate agreement should have been a red flag. One gigantic red flag.

It started out simply enough. Harry got to meet Ichigo’s adorable sisters. He helped the twins do their homework, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Ichigo. Which fair, Harry’s grades weren’t stellar, but that was because he wanted to sidestep the ridiculous rat race that was the Japanese education system not because he didn’t have the knowledge required. Aside from literature and history. What was the point of memorising dates and names when they tended to change between realities? Then they had lunch, watched some truly bizarre game shows on TV and played a board game. And then the evening rolled in and with it, Kurosaki Clinic closed.

Harry wasn't sure he fully followed what happened next. What he knew was that before anyone could even introduce Harry to Kurosaki Isshin the man dramatically cried to a huge portrait of Kurosaki Masaki, leashed out physically on Ichigo and then wrestled in a rather brutal way with his 14-year-old son.

Not being able to wrap his head around this… situation, he turned to Karin for some sort of explanation. 

“They are always like this. Dad calls it training.” Shoulders so tense that Harry was concerned she would dislocate them.

Now, Harry would be the first one to admit that he was a terrible parent in his first life. Growing up with the Durslays didn’t give him a good example of how families acted and in retrospect, the Weasleys also weren’t the healthiest example of parenting. Combined with starting a family too young—neither he nor Ginny was ready for little James—and adding Al and Lily didn’t help matters—and his falling-apart marriage being glued together only by the existence of his kids… It was one big train wreck. By the time they were sending Al off to Hogwarts, Harry slept in his office 4 days out of the week.

In later reincarnations, he parented kids- both his own and somebody else's- with varying degrees of success. But never in any life, did he raise his hand at any kid. Never he made a child flinch in anticipation of being hit. Never, even in his wildest dreams, would he excuse spontaneous attempts at hitting a child as “training. Was Kurosaki Isshin possessed or insane? Granted, he had yet to see a ghost possess a human in this world, but one should never say never.

Just as Ichigo disentangled himself from the professional-looking grappling hold, Harry took the opportunity to turn on his Sight and Look at the Kurosakis. Ichigo’s dragon soul as usual was a deep well of power and Looking at him for too long was almost painful. The girls had… potential. A different kind than Yasutora's, but there was a clearly visible dormant pool of power. They would never be juggernauts like Ichigo, but he could see them being able to cast minor folk magic. And then there was Isshin…

He wasn’t possessed as Harry hoped. The jury was still out on his sanity. But there was something seriously fucked up about Isshin’s soul. First, there was strange scarring on his soul. As if somebody sewed it with another and then pulled it until fragments of Isshin’s soul were torn off. And then there was weird blurriness around his soul. It felt like he should have been holding a flaming sword in his hands, but that couldn’t be right. He turned off his Sight frowning.

Losing chunks of a soul could cause instability and eventual insanity- look no further than good old Tom Riddle- but something was telling him that there was more to this situation. A powerful young boy being “trained” in fighting and not complaining about his living situation by adults in his life who should protect him… all he was missing was an old powerful man obsessed with the boy and Harry could have as well been looking at a mirror of his first life.

Was that possible? Yes. Was it probable? Not eve-

Scruffy certainly looked and acted as incompetent as Lockhart.

Why hello there, paranoid thinking. Fancy meeting you there after you lead to Harry’s last death. No, that kind of thinking never lead to anything good.

If one of the monsters went after his sisters, Ichigo probably would do whatever he could to save them. Going to nest of gigantic talking spiders included.

He had to shake his head to dislodge these thoughts. Paranoid thinking was not healthy, but there was merit in teaching Kurosaki kids how to defend themselves from monsters. And if some unsavoury mentor figure did show up and tries to manipulate Ichigo…. Well, it’s not like Harry was planning on going anywhere anytime soon, was he?

The thing about abused kids was that they didn’t consider themselves to be abused. They don’t like their situation, but abuse is something that happens to others. And no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t toss the younger generation of Kurosakis over his shoulder and walk off into the sunset. What he could do was engage Ichigo with the idea of someone else being abused. Rosalie and Hideaki weren’t abusive in a stereotypical way you could see in news or films, but even before he remembered he could see that there was something very wrong with how they treated him. He didn't like to think about his family, but sacrifices must be made.

So he talked.

He talked about his parents always being busy travelling and working. He talked about spending the first few years of his life in Hideaki’s parents' care. He talked about the falling out between his parents and his father’s parents. He talked about months and months of living in group homes. Of uncaring caretakers and social workers who turned a blind eye to children in the facilities creating their own pecking order. He talked about his parents occasionally “borrowing” him out of the group home when they had a break between projects. 

Like a book, not a child.

He talked about Rosalie and Hideaki deciding that it was better to have him live on his own instead of letting social workers attach the stigma of ADHD to his name.

He talked and talked and talked… until his throat felt scratchy and his soul felt lighter. Maybe he also needed this talk. He looked up at Ichigo. There was something strangely determined about his friend’s expression.

That night he had problems with falling asleep. As he listened to Ichigo’s quiet snores he decided to adjust the seal. He probably should have wait loinger between adjustments, but anxiety from the events of that day made him want to rip off slices of his skin and force-feed them to the next person who as much as sneezed next to him. He needed to feel more in control and he needed it now.

Just as he was about to tweak his seal, he sensed it. Something was off about the seal.

When he entered his mindscape it took him only a few minutes of looking around to spot the issue. There was a leak in the seal. Separate from the one he created to access his magic. Did it pop up before he loosened the seal or after? If before then when? 

Come to think of it, he didn’t start seeing ghosts until a few days after he loosened his seal. Did the leak occur before his birthday and caused both his awakening and him starting to see monsters? And if so, what caused the leak?

So many questions and no answers in sight.

In the end, he did his best to patch up the leak and loosened the seal to compensate for closing up the leak. Hopefully, this would be the end of the issue.

The next morning was almost as bad as the previous one. As it turned out, Sunday's impromptu “training” session had nothing on Monday’s “wake-up call”. If one could call a drop kick a wake-up call. Harry was unclear on the details because making him think before 8 AM was cruel and unusual punishment, but he was pretty sure Isshin somehow ended up falling through the window above Ichigo’s bed and didn’t break any bones. Which begged further questions he was nowhere near awake enough to ask.

He supposed he should feel guilty. It wasn't like he didn’t contribute to Yamada’s “I’m 10 seconds away from stabbing you with a wooden spoon” look by annoying the shit out of her. But he felt just tired. A soul-deep tiredness that a few hours of sleep couldn’t fix.

Then it struck him- joining a club would be a perfect excuse to avoid his parents, no matter how long they were going to stay this time. And he could always quit later, right? It wasn't like Yamada would resume her manhunt if he quit. But the question was what club he should join.

Out of hand, he dismissed all academic clubs. He was bored enough as it was in his classes, why would he force himself to do even more boring and pointless work? 

Ichigo- when Harry had used his help to dodge class rep-chan- had made a suggestion that Harry could join him in the Kendo club, but Harry had sworn to “never rise a sword” after that one short and bloody life where he was a Viking from the Geats tribe. Also, that one bully with a scratchy voice attended that club. Yasutora also offered his boxing club as the other possibility, but quite frankly contact sports were never his thing. Years upon years of careful wand-waving taught him the importance of keeping his front limbs flexible and uninjured.

But he always had good aim and good reaction time. Archery club probably would be ok. But how to sell that idea to Yamada without making her either too smug or too suspicious?

“Fine, I’ll join the Archery Club.”

“And?”

“And I will spend the rest of my week learning their trade from my parents?”

“….What do your parents do for a living?”

“You know, existing and stuff.”

“That is it. You are coming with me to the English Club!”

Yamada Hanako had another quality that could qualify her for work in the army: strength. Even though she was around 115 cm tall and thin as a rail, she managed to drag Harry through half of the hallway's floor before he just gave up and started to walk along with her.

The English Club was a snooze fest for obvious reasons. So obviously Harry had to create his own entertainment and what was a better way to poke a group of Japanese students who were English Otaku than tossing around theories about Shakespeare not being a real person?

The chaos was glorious. If the club’s president didn't ban him from attending, he might introduce them to the Marlovian Theory next.

Somehow, talking about his most recent childhood with Ichigo made a difference. He still disliked his parents and wanted to avoid them, but the pure hot rage when he returned home was missing. Rosalie- bless her soul- never learned how to cook Japanese dishes, so Harry got to eat beef stroganoff. If she were to stay permanently instead of once again abandoning him, he might have forgiven her mistakes as a parent just for feeding him good non-Asian food.

Still…

When he said he was going to join the Archery Club, he forgot just how dumb their schedule was. Three days a week, they gathered in the mornings for weird meditative exercises and to clean the archery range. And then they returned to the archery range after classes. 

As it turned out, their afternoon sessions were also more about meditatively shooting than actually being effective with a bow. It worked remarkably well for improving his focus in more theoretical classes, but at the same time, it made outbursts of energy harder to handle for him. But there was another interesting side effect he couldn’t anticipate before he joined: he met Ishida Uryū.

At first glance, Ishida was a snob. He was the hospital director’s kid, wore clothes made out of better quality cloth, and instead of joining academic or another sports club he chose Home Economics.

The thing was, his archery wasn’t Kyudo style. In his previous lives, Harry hunted using a short bow, used longbows to murder the French, and died to an archer's aim. Ishida’s shooting style was nothing like amateur hobbyist’s shooting or the weird meditative shooting coach was forcing Harry to do. 

No, it was the confident aim, pull string, shoot. As if this guy had served for years in the good old English army of Edward I. He suspected he could pull off decent arrow shooting in movement in a pinch. Now the question was- who and why taught him archery so well at the tail end of the 20th century?

His parents stayed only for a week. 

Harry spent the whole Sunday putting the apartment back to how he prefered it. Plates and glasses were dangerously stacked in one cupboard- it had to be Hideaki’s work, the man had less common sense than a cuttlefish when it came to house chores. Rosalie’s fuchsia? Practically drowning in excess water. Was his mother trying to make up for her absence? She had to know that plants don’t work like that, right?

Nor kids, for that matter.

His fridge was once again emptier than the Void. Tiles in the bathroom had suspicious stains, and he didn't know how they came to be. Nor did he want to know for that matter. There were black cat hairs on his sofa and he needed to do laundry or he wouldn't have anything to wear tomorrow.

Wait. Why were there cat hairs on the sofa???

It took him some time, but he finally found the trespasser in his parents’ closet.

The cat was black with odd white tufts of hair just above his eyes, making him look like he was constantly surprised. One of his eyes was blue while the other was green. Odd, but not that uncommon among cats.

Did his parents get him a cat? “Sorry for leaving you alone for months and leaving with only a cutesy note tapped to the fridge. Here, have this cat as compensation.”? Or maybe Rosalie wanted to have a cat so she just picked it up and dropped it off in the apartment? She already was an irresponsible child owner and plant owner, so maybe she was going for a full combo? Or maybe his parents accidentally let in this little ninja cat?

The cat chirped at him.

“Yeah buddy, I have no idea what to do.”

If the cat was left by his parents then he couldn’t exactly drop it off in the shelter, but if it was a stray did he really want to take it in? He scratched the furball behind one of his ears. It was nice. Even nicer when the cat started to purr.

Didn’t muggles used to suspect people with heterochromia of witchcraft?

Now that was a fun idea. A little witchy cat as a familiar for an actual real-life wizard… But maybe the idea had some merit? A familiar could stabilise his magic, and while he wasn’t a cat person, cats were supposed to be very good at soaking up magic.

“What do you say? Want to work for me? Two meals a day, a sunny spot to nap, extended life, and an upgrade to intelligence?”

Another chirp.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Chapter Text

We are empty inside and hollow. Hoping something small and sweet will make its nest in us. alt: unfurnished, but with care it could be a home- A Softer World

The next day, he skipped the Archery club and took the cat to a veterinarian to have him checked up. Tanaka-sensei told him that his new familiar was about a year old and was in very good condition, so he probably wasn't a stray. He also had no microchip, but that didn't mean anything because Japan circa 1999 didn't force pet owners to microchip their pets. The microchip might eventually fail, thanks to all the magic the cat was going to absorb, but for now, it was a good idea. Just in case. So, he had the veterinarian register his new cat as “Akira” and went back home.

What could he say? He still sucked at naming.

Oh, he had been sooo naive when he thought that he could just quit the Archery club. Granted, he never officially quit, but apparently, Japanese schools were full of insane people. 

On Wednesday afternoon- just as he was trying to go home, mind you- he was once again harassed by a fellow student about clubs. And this time it wasn’t even Yamada Hanako! No, he got dragged to the archery range by Ishida Uryu. Shouldn’t he be happy that without Harry there to annoy Coach, he could shoot targets in peace? What was wrong with kids these days?

…Huh, Ishida sure knew how to grab someone without bruising them.

Somebody was watching them.

Harry, Ichigo, and Yasutora were hunting for another soul to banish. Yasutora, as it turned out might have “potential”, but was not able to see ghosts. Still, he was not only willing to believe they could see ghosts but also that they were banishing them and hung out with them during their… spiritually inspired outings. Sato Yasutora deserved some kind of medal, and once Harry finds out where to apply for it, he would get him one.

Anyway, just as Ichigo banished the ghost of an elderly woman he felt it. Harry couldn’t tell who it was or where they were, but he could feel eyes on him. The question was how long they had been observed and why. With how unstable his magic was before he patched up the leak and got Akira it was possible that he didn’t notice they were observed earlier. And whoever or whatever was watching them…. Were they after Harry or his friends?

November turned into December which was naturally followed by January. Ichigo dragged two new poor souls into their little friendship group. Apparently, after the bullies realised that Harry was off the menu, they moved on to Kojima Mizuiro and Asano Keigo and Ichigo being such a great classmate dealt with the menaces. Harry started to suspect that just like real dragons, Ichigo liked to collect things. Only instead of shiny treasures he preferred collecting humans.

Surprisingly Ishida and Yamada continued snarking and nagging him. Did… did he make another two friends??? He should be careful or at this rate, he might run out of fingers to count them.

Harry -rather grumpily if he might say so- continued to attend the Archery club and occasionally haunted the English club when Hanako dragged him there. Akira, rather worryingly continued to grow. And considering that the not so little anymore witchy cat sometimes liked to go with him to school by hiding in his schoolbag, he might need a new bag. Karakura continued to be almost ghost-free thanks to the efforts of Team Sasaki-Kurosaki. Sometimes Harry wondered if Scruffy noticed the lack of ghosts.

The source of mysterious blue bolts still eluded him, just as the identity of the being that sometimes observed him. On “bad days” he started to wonder if they are one and the same. If the blue bolt’s creator was only trying to lure him into a false sense of safety. Akira seemed to be good at spotting when he started to spiral in that dangerous direction and was quick to distract him. Either that, or he was a remarkably affectionate cat.

“Why can’t you speak? It would make things much easier,” he joked one evening while pretending that doing yet another assignment for Miura-sensei wasn't slowly killing his soul. Or driving him insane. One of those two.

Akira’s mew was so exasperated Harry had to stop himself from laughing lest he offend his familiar.

And then February 13th rolled in, and Harry had to wonder if there was something about Sundays in this world that made them weirder than normal days of the week.

A day earlier, Harry had felt weird for lack of a better word. Like someone was both looking over his shoulder and tapping him on the back of his head. It felt vaguely familiar, but when you have a few thousand years' worth of memories searching for specific ones without the right prompt could be problematic. The human mind was not built for this kind of abuse and the only reason Harry was not a drooling mess was his shoddy skill at Occlumency.

It wasn’t until that fateful Sunday morning, when he spotted Akira sitting next to his bed with a staff, that Harry understood what was going on.

The Hallows were always odd. Sometimes they popped up when he least expected it, sometimes they appeared only if he summoned them, and sometimes they never showed up no matter how much he tried to get them to appear. He wondered if they were sentient or if some worlds simply rejected their magic. But the thing was, for all the ways he found to sidestep his problems, Harry needed the Elder Wand to cast more powerful spells. He never used the Resurrection Stone. The Invisibility Cloak was nice but not necessary. Without the Elder Wand, he felt like somebody had cut off his hand.

And that staff- no matter how different it looked from the Elder Wand- vibrated in the same way Elder Wand did when he touched it.

“…What in the nine circles of Hell am I supposed to do with a huge staff? It’s the 20th century, I can’t just walk around with a walking stick.” 

Harry was delighted to discover that the Elder Staff let him summon and banish itself without any problems. 

Solving one problem made space for more questions in Harry’s mind. After he noticed that somebody was observing him and his friends, Harry tried to summon the Elder Wand. No amount of frustration, meditative exercises, begging, or threats brought over the Elder Wand. After a few weeks, Harry stopped. If the Elder Wand wasn’t going to appear, then he needed to change his plans and hope for the best.

So why had it shown up now? He hadn’t tweaked the seal. He hadn’t attempted casting any more powerful spells. As far as he knew, he wasn’t in more danger than a week ago…

“Did you bring me my staff?”

A confused mew was his only answer.

So either Akira wasn’t as intelligent as he suspected, or he also had no idea why the Elder Staff appeared.

The mystery just got deeper.

With the return of the Elder Staff, Harry could reexamine his potential project- namely, teaching the Kurosaki kids how to defend themselves from the supernatural. In theory, Harry could teach Ichigo how to create simple barriers without it, but for anything else, he needed to create Anchors for them. Something that was just magical enough to help channel their potential.

Unfortunately, so far the only potential magical ingredients he had spotted were walking around and trying to munch on ghosts. So yes, Harry needed the Elder Staff for his ingredient hunt.

The weird soupiness in the air he had started to sense months ago had receded somewhat, but he still couldn't sense a monster unless it was almost standing on him. So he did the next best thing: he packed up some supplies and asked Akira to track down a strong magical signature for him. After all, if you were going to be a bear, be a grizzly.

Akira led him down, down one of Karakura’s twin rivers- Karasu River if he remembered correctly. It wasn’t until they had spent at least an hour passing only trees and river that Akira sat down and chirped.

Generally speaking cats- even perfectly normal cats- were good at sensing and absorbing magic. Even as far back as the Old Kingdom Era Egyptians used them to map out ley lines before they built a temple in the area. So Akira wasn’t wrong; he had sensed strong magic here. It just wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

Perhaps it had been an old ritual site? Rivers were usually used to cut off magical interferences, but maybe someone used river currents to redirect the magic of a ritual? He was by no means an expert, but he met enough insane people in his previous lives who would try it. Maybe someone tried to use the river in a time-travel ritual to symbolise time flow not realising that time isn’t linear. Or perhaps some madman had sunk an overcharged wardstone into the riverbed. The possibilities were infinite. But fortunately, he didn’t need to know what caused the magical contamination of the area. Such strong magic always left a mark on nature. A nice branch harvested from a magical tree would make a good start toward an Anchor.

It took a good half hour for Harry to find and politely ask a particularly big and oddly coloured Maple tree for a few branches in exchange for some of his magic. Luckily for him, the tree was a good sport and directed him toward branches he could harvest. Magic was funny like that. No matter how much humans tried to standardise and sanitise it, magic always worked better when you concentrated on your intentions and symbolism. And Maples were always about endurance, strength and protection. Be it magical or mundane.

If there were a tree better representing Ichigo, Harry had not met it.

“A boy with the soul of a dragon and the heart of gold will use your strength and wisdom to protect his family.” He told the Great Maple.

He thought the tree had approved.

Akira was being a little brat when Harry was ready to leave the Contamination Zone. Sure, it was February and they were far from home, but that didn't mean he had to sit on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot.

“Don’t be like that. You got to chase those weird foxes and tanuki around.”

Hiss.

“Alright, alright, I’ll carry you around, but could you shift into a more comfortable position? I won’t be able to use my bow tomorrow if you keep sitting like that, and then Ishida will murder me. Probably with his sewing set.”

And that was how Harry ended up being directed to the next spot where his furry collar could sense a strong magical signature.

The next area they ended up stopping in was only a little more populated. He recalled Ichigo mentioning it once. On the eastern side of Karakura, there was a spot with abandoned buildings. Neither gangs stay there for too long nor do any development projects seem to work out. Harry thought they even wanted to check it out for ghosts, thinking that abandoned buildings would be a perfect spot to find a ghost, but he couldn't recall if they ever went there. There was something very unnerving about the neighbourhood…

It wasn't until Harry noticed Akira’s claws digging into his jacket, fur puffed up and eyes blown out that he understood what was going on.

Some kind of misdirection spell or ward was enveloping the neighbourhood. And he had been tripping it all over for the last ten minutes.

As discreetly as he could, he got the fuck away from there, until he could no longer feel the energy pressing on him.

“Buddy, could you maybe direct us to potential magical ingredients instead of a gigantic spider’s nest?”

And that got him a paw to his face.

It was getting rather late and Harry was really tired, but he didn’t want to end the search just yet. It wouldn’t be until the next Sunday that he would have time for another trip like that.

Then Akira started to chitter.

“Please tell me you just didn’t spot a tasty bird or chipmunk.”

Now, that mew was full-on offended.

“Alright, alright. Let’s just hope we have found something useful.”

His familiar ended up leading him to a partially burned-down house. As he dodged police tapes and blandly ignored signs warning him about the danger, he felt it. T"The temperature just slightly lowered, the “soupiness” in the air rose, and so did the hairs on the back of his neck.

“I think we might have hit the jackpot, my feline friend.”

Akira jumped off his shoulders and started sniffing the air, then suddenly he dodged behind Harry’s legs with a distressed mew. That was concerning. But if one of the monsters was inside that house, he couldn’t just leave it there.

As he walked through the house, he tried to remember anything about it. Around the new year, there was some kind of fire, wasn’t there? A young woman and her child died from smoke inhalation. There was an interview with a fire marshal who blamed the fire on the poor state of electric installation and the poor quality of building materials used in construction. Their homeroom teacher, Fukuda-sensei, even gave them a talk about fire safety. But was this house the same as mentioned in the news?

Then suddenly a screeching ghost materialised out of one of the surviving walls almost giving Harry a heart attack. Once he calmed down enough, he looked at it…

…The ghost was all wrong…

It was a ghost of a young woman, alright. But she was chained to the wall. The chain ran in multiple directions stopping her from leaving the wall. And… there was a hole in the middle of her chest. There was a hole in exactly the same place where other ghosts had that metal plate connected to the chain. She had a hole…

She had a hole like one of the monsters.

Harry felt like he was going to be sick.

He was lucky Akira was with him. It wasn’t the woman’s continuous, insane screeching or sudden light show she produced that snapped him out of it. It was his familiar climbing onto his shoulders and delicately biting his ear that saved his life that night. 

Because soon the ghost turned into a monster. An ugly purple-white bird-like monster who was hungry and had a freshly freaked-out wizard as a potential snack.

Harry was quick to summon his Patronus with re-summon the Elder Staff. It was a gamble- in his home world, Patroni were effective against a rather limited group of creatures. But the gamble paid off. Prongs was quick to knock down the monster and press her into the ground with his front legs. 

He came closer to the struggling monster. She seemed to be unharmed, but whether Prongs wasn’t as effective against monsters as he'd hoped or the monster was sturdier- he had no idea. From previous observations, he knew that Blue Bolts person and Scruffy always aimed at monsters’ heads or possibly their masks. So he hooked fingers behind the upper edge of her mask.

“I’m sorry you died lady. And I’m even more sorry we didn’t arrive before you changed.”

He channelled some magic into his fingertips and pulled.

The screech was loud and inhuman, but the mask popped off easily. The woman’s face under the mask was twisted and already was starting to fade. Just like the rest of her body.

“Goodbye. May you find peace wherever you go.”

He went home in a daze. Akira once again sprawled around his shoulders purring and occasionally chirping to raise Harry’s mood. He wasn't wrong, Harry could already feel the slight relaxation settling in him.

Once they were home his familiar worriedly followed him to the kitchen and watched him as Harry took a quick look through the cupboards. Finally, he found what he was looking for. He knelt next to his cat.

“Thank you. You saved my life today. I… I don’t think I would have been able to handle that monster without you there. And I know I was a snarky bastard during today’s outing but I really appreciate what you did there. Good job.”

He opened the can of sardines he held in his hand and dumped the contents into Akira’s bowl. It might not be the healthiest food he could feed his familiar, but the little guy deserved it. Once his cat was done with his treat they lay down on the sofa Akira curling up on his chest and purring up a storm.

So, ghosts could become monsters. It would explain why there were fewer monsters around lately. Ichigo and Harry spend a decent amount of time looking for ghosts every week. He thinks they might even have visited that burned-down house during daylight hours, but they didn’t meet the chained woman. Was she hiding from them?

He needed to talk with Ichigo.

He woke up stiff and aching. His sofa was decent for sitting, but as it turned out not for sleeping. And all that walking day earlier made his legs sore. Next time he will get himself a bike and ride it everywhere. One with a basket on the front wheel so Akira can still easily guide him.

He hid his magical ingredients deep into his closet- just in case his parents decide to yet again drop in unannounced. He quickly changes clothes and feeds both himself and his familiar. He forgot to make a lunchbox for himself yesterday. He is going to have to buy store-made bento. Bleh

It isn’t until one of the girls from the Archery club gave him a box of store-bought chocolates that he remembered the date. Right, it was February 14 2000. He will have some chocolate to supplement his mediocre lunch.

That day when he was coming back from his archery practice he needed Ichigo and Yasutora’s help in carrying all those chocolates. Harry didn’t even know he knew so many girls in the school. Even Yamada had tossed at him a box of store-bought chocolates (thank whatever deity that was looking over him) while reminding him to drag his ass to English Club on Tuesday. 

Most of the chocolates he got were those weird compulsory store-bought chocolates, but there were a few brave souls who gave him homemade chocolates. Which gave him psychic damage he won’t heal from for a very long time. Not only he was older than dirt (which fair, girls couldn’t know), but also he was a poorly socialised gremlin and menace to the general population of the school. Which of that was saying “dreamy material for boyfriend”?

Then realisation slams into him like charging Erumpent.

“I’m going to go bankrupt in a month.”

The two assholes whom he considers his best friends this time don’t stop themselves from chuckling.

“… are you sure this is a cat, not a small puma?”

“Akira isn’t that big”

He ended up inviting Ichigo and Yasutora to his apartment. Partially to introduce them to his familiar. He was still spooked after his fight with Birdwoman. Guys knowing Akira might one day save his life. Or theirs.

In retrospect he committed one of the worst mistakes a monster hunter can make: he was overconfident little shit who went on the hunt without backup and didn’t inform anyone where he would be. He could have died and nobody would know why.

He probably should talk about monsters with his friends but instead, they ended up eating chocolates, reading obituaries and watching a movie. Just normal teenage stuff.

He will wait for the talk until he finishes Anchors. No need to stress out Yasutora when he has no means to protect himself.

Over the next few days, it occurred to him that he needed a carving stylus for his project and additional materials. Getting silver and glass was simple and relatively cheap. He didn't have a budget for gemstones, but he managed to get his hands on a few ambers which is great.

It’s the stylus that was the problem. Birdwoman’s bone mask was very hard and wouldn’t be easy to carve with mundane tools. He could in theory use pure magic to do the carving, but he needed a good quality tool made out of magical conductive materials to channel magic through.

It wasn’t until Friday that he spotted a good candidate for his new carving tool. Just as he was finishing filling out a mock test about the Tokugawa shogunate he looked up at Miura-sensei. He was going through their homework with what looked like an expensive silver fountain pen with amber decorations. If that pen was anywhere as good quality as he suspected, he might just kill two birds with one stone.

Over many lives, Harry had to live off stealing. It wasn't something he was particularly proud of, but when you had to choose between dying from starvation and stealing, there was no competition. Starvation was a horrible way to go.

And it wasn’t like he was stealing that pen out of greed or envy- he needed it to give people he cared for means of protecting themselves. And maybe Miura Satoshi needed some humbling… just a bit.

Stealing in itself was simple- during lunch break he hid in one of the unused classrooms, using Elder Staff he made a temporary copy, then summoned Invisibility Cloak, snuck into teachers' lognue and swapped the copy with the original. If things go smoothly Miura-sensei won’t notice a copy of his pen dissolving until the next day and would believe he lost it on his way from work.

Chapter Text

Not all witches live out in the wilds luring little children to their grisly deaths. But a girl needs goals. [I have to be me]- A Softer World 

Once Harry arrived and feed both himself and his familiar, he took a moment to examine the fountain pen. At first glance, it was hard to tell the purity of the silver part of the pen, but the ambers looked decent. The fountain pen fitted well in his hand and wasn't that heavy.

He took a step back, summoned the Elder Staff, and cast a diagnostic spell.

The results were interesting, if not a bit disappointing. The pen was made mostly out of titanium with a small amount of silver coating. Titanium was much more resistant to magic so he would have to use more magic for the same results he could achieve with a more magic-conductive metal. On the other hand, titanium was also resistant to corrosion and heat. It might allow him to work longer in one sitting.

He dug the Birdwoman’s mask out of the closet and laid it on his desk. It took him a few minutes but finally, he managed to channel his magic through the pen. The first few slashes barely left any trace on the mask. He kept pushing more magic and repeating the slashes until he had in his hands a small bead-like fragment of the bony mask. He will need to loosen up the seal a bit so he won’t be exhausting his reserves whenever he tried to do some carving, but it was doable. And perhaps the hardness of the mask was a good thing- at least it will be hard to destroy the Anchor. 

Saturdays were in theory free days. Students didn’t have classes, and instead participated in club activities or did cleaning duty. And while normally he would just skip it because Archery Club didn’t gather on Saturdays and he was merciful enough to not drive English Club’s president up the walls during weekends, that Saturday he had a mission. Miura-sensei had no way of knowing that Harry in particular had stolen his fountain pen. But fuck ups do happen and Harry would have really preferred to do damage control before his less-than-reasonable teacher gathered a mob for a witch trial. Thus the day earlier he convinced Keigo that he would do his cleaning duty securing himself a reasonable excuse for why he was hanging around the school.

The fact he got to see Class Rep-chan’s face when Harry showed up in school on Saturday was just a juicy, juicy cherry on top of the cake. Because you see, ever since September Harry always managed to weasel out of cleaning duty and Yamada Hanako, contrary to what one might expect did know when to choose her battles.

“… what are you doing here?”

“Why, hello Yamada-san! I’m here to do cleaning duty!”

“… you never show up for cleaning duty.”

“I need to fill out my quota of good deeds before the end of the school year so I swapped cleaning duty with Asano-san!”

“I think I’m going to have a headache.”

“Now, now, don’t be like that. I’ll clean windows in the hallway and you can mop up the floor in our classroom.”

Approximately 10 minutes into Harry pretending he was cleaning windows- because there were no cameras and there was no reason why he shouldn’t cheat with magic- something strange happened.

There were raised voices. He along with Ishida (who for whatever fucked up reason was polishing doorknobs) stopped their activities. They were soon enough joined by Yamada who either was done with her task or was too curious to continue. Harry would bet it was the second.

“-can’t take this anymore—— consider this my resignation!”

“Miura-san!”

Suddenly a very dishevelled Miura-sensei ran out of the teachers' logue shouting about- well he had no idea about what. Words Miura-sensei used made no sense to him. What the hell was Dodomeki???

“Fukuda-sensei? Is… everything alright?” Said Hanako.

“Ah- yes yes, Miura-san is just stressed out. I’m sure he shortly will be back!”

He looked at Ishida and Yamada. Neither of them had any idea what the hell was going on. After Fukuda-sensei left the corridor the gossiping had to start.

“Did that just happen?”

“How should I know Yamada?”

“What the hell he meant??”

None of those questions was answered as they finished their chores and raced towards Entry Hall.

On his way home, Harry ended up swinging by the only internet cafe in the whole of Karakura. Somehow no matter how many times he ended up being born before the internet was wrangled by Big Tech, he always forgot just how uncomfortable and unintuitive the internet was circa 2000. No Wikipedia, no intelligent search engines that knew what you wanted to ask before you knew. And still way too many assholes on forums.

Finding a site that explained what the hell “dodomeki” meant took him way more time than it should have. Mostly because for him Japanese had to be one of the most unintuitive languages when it comes to translating sounds into symbols.

As it turned out Dodomeki were a kind of demons that rob people of valuables. He had to blink at the text. He knew that supernatural creatures existed in this world, after all, he was one of them. But before he saw that Snake monster he wasn't able to tell if any supernatural element existed here. Stress aside, why would a highly educated middle-aged man jump to the conclusion of demonic influences after finding out he was missing his favourite fountain pen?

He really, really hoped that the average Japanese citizen wasn't anywhere as superstitious as Miura Satoshi or this life would be way too close to living in Barcelona during the 16th century.

Harry Potter lived a long life. He lived an even longer afterlife. Much longer afterlife. He was an old friend with madness and destiny- because one can’t make waves in reality without touching either one. That being said, Miura Satoshi wasn’t the first person he drove insane. He didn’t expect or plan to do so, but if living in multiple dimensions taught him anything it is embracing opportunities.

He settled on creating bracelet Anchors for twins and necklace Anchors for Ichigo and Yasutora. He would prefer to make Anchors invisible to anyone but the owner, but just in case he fails girls will have an easier time explaining the unusual bracelets than male teenagers. He never considered himself an artist or jeweller, but he dug deep into his memories of being a Viking for design ideas. After all no matter how clumsily he made courting gifts for Signe, he made them with his own two hands.

He weaved Elder Futhark runes with short words in Mandaic and images of dragons. Never any symbols connected to gods, just in case. His enchanting teacher would probably murder him in cold blood for mixing languages and traditions. And yes, it was an unorthodox approach to the problem, but pretty early into developing the first bracelet, he realised that for some reason Elder Futhark runes on their own weren’t as powerful as when mixed with another set of enchanting runes. Different reality, different rules of magic he guessed.

He rose up the first bracelet off his desk. He used silver wire, maple wood, glass, amber and monster bone beads. Maybe it wasn’t the prettiest bracelet by 20th-century standards, but gosh he was proud of himself. It was a bit small for him to put it on for testing so he held it up on his palm. With clear intentions and images in his mind, he said “Protego!”. Shield sprung up around him. It looked different from his normal shields. Duller, he thought, brittler. The bracelet wasn't compatible with him, so it was no wonder it fought him. After all, he was thinking about Yuzu when he was carving it. And when it comes to the enchanting intentions of the enchanter mattered a lot.

He smiled. Now he needed to create 3 more Anchors.

It takes the rest of February and most of March for Harry to finish all Anchors. Considering just how much he had to ass pull in this project with non-traditional materials he was proud of himself.

Meanwhile, the White Day would eat away his funds if, at the last moment, he didn’t remember he is a wizard and used Gemini Charm to create enough solid copies of cookie packages for all girls who gave him chocolates. It ate away his reserves and halted progress on creating Anchors, but at least he didn’t have to spend the rest of March eating instant ramen.

Exams were barely a blip on his radar. His History and Literature scores might not be great, but he does decently in the rest of the subjects.

It wasn't until April 2nd, Sunday that he found time to talk with Ichigo and Yasutora about Anchors and monsters.

Apparently, Ichigo knew about monsters existing- his mother was killed by one of them- but didn’t realise that Karakura was infested by them. How Ichigo managed to do it when Harry run into at least one of them each week he wasn't sure. Maybe monsters didn't like ginger heads?

More interesting was Yasutora owning up that now he could see ghosts. Well, maybe the word “seeing” was a bit too strong. The tall teenager saw blurry humanoid shapes and heard echoing voices during their last hunting trip. And as accepting Yasutora was of Ichigo and Harry’s weirdness, he was a bit freaked out since then. Harry could understand it. After all, he had doubts about his health when he saw The Snake Monster.

The second point on his agenda list was much harder for Ichigo to accept.

“My sisters shouldn’t have to fight. I can protect them!”

As much as Harry loved his friends, sometimes he forgot they were still teenagers. 

“And I agree here with you.” There, the building-up rant was knocked off the rails leaving Ichigo baffled. “But take a moment to look and this from their perspective. Would you be ok with it if everybody around you thought you are too young or too fragile to learn how to protect yourself? Would you be content to play a damsel in distress waiting for someone else to save you? No, I don’t think so. Your sisters deserve to be treated as equals.”

Ichigo still had this stubborn look, but Harry could see cracks starting to form.

“Look, Karin and Yuzu might never need to fight. But there is no harm in teaching them how to defend themselves. Be it from monster or pervert .” And that finally sold the idea to Ichigo.

Children often dream about having magic or superpowers. Not because magic is cool or because they were little greedy brats. Magic gives people the power to make their own decisions. It gives you the ability to stop those who would love to take away your ability to decide. A sense of security in a way.

But magic could also be as beautiful, as dangerous and as useful as the user's intentions and mentality were. Which is why it was so important to introduce children to magic properly. And that is why a week later he found himself in Ichigo’s living room teaching a group of kids the basics of Folk Magic.

“Alright hold your hands just like that. Now focus on that place in your chest like we practised. Good. Now imagine small blue flames and bring that warm feeling to your fingertips.”

“Woah!” 

Small blue flames- not unlike Bluebell Flames spell- danced on Karin’s palms. Her siblings, Yasutora and Karin were watching the flames in amazement. Sometimes he forgot how great teaching kids useful skills felt. 

His… students weren’t like him. Yes, they had the potential to use magic, but not the same kind of magic Harry was taught in his first life. Most of Wizarding magic as he called it was like IKEA furniture- as long as you followed instructions you got exactly what you saw in the picture. It was useful and powerful but very stiff. Any change to spell required a lot of calculations and careful testing or you ended up being crushed by falling buffalo. Folk magic was different. In theory, any human could use it, but possessing your own pool of power made learning it easier. Folk Magic was like giving someone a few blocks of tinder and asking them to make you a chair out of it. It required skill and training. The general shape would be the same but each person would give you a different chair. And there always will be that one smartass who will insist you already have a chair because you can sit on one of the tinder blocks.

“Good job. Now cut off energy from the spell.”

It took her a minute but she is as quick study as her brother. Harry fished out some sweets from his backpack. Such quick success deserved a reward after all!

“Ok, listen to me carefully. What I teach you shouldn’t be used to show off to your friends, to go after your bullies or to gain some kind of advantage in school. I teach you magic so you can protect yourself. Do your best to not show it to anyone unless you are in danger. People can be weird about it. Understood?”

Near the end of April, an idea pops up in Harry’s brain that makes him want to kick his own ass for not thinking about it earlier. He was Looking around one of Karakura’s apothecaries. The lack of magical plants is truly disappointing. It was a shame he couldn’t open a portal to his original world and grab some seedlings-

No, he couldn’t do that. But he had a convenient magical Contamination Zone he could use as a combination of garden and experimentation site. It would be hard to control what kind of properties mutated plants could gain and it would take time. But at this point, it looked like this was the only way he could get potential potion ingredients.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Harry trained or who tried to teach him, he was unable to heal people with his magic. At one point he speculated it was because of his connection to Death. Ichigo had a sea of power and almost no control. Asking him to do the delicate and precise work of stitching together skin and flesh probably would end in Ichigo inflicting malicious cancer on his patient. Yasutora’s powers were very slowly emerging and he was struggling with doing anything bigger than creating a small shield. Yuzu and Karin while still working on healing simple cuts took to the art like fish to water. But if Harry ever suggested as much as taking either of the twins on their adventures Ichigo probably would murder him. And he would be right- it wouldn’t be fair if they started to depend on them to fix messes Team Sasaki-Kurosaki created.

So just in case they had a nasty run-in with one of the monsters they needed another method of patching each other. A blood replenisher, something to speed up healing for cuts, bruises and burns. Maybe a decent painkiller if he was really lucky.

And it would be even better if he finds already mutated plants in Contamination Zone and checks their properties. With that idea latching onto his brain, he sets out to the closest public library. After all, if he was going to forage for ingredients he might as well know what he is picking up.

On a bright morning of April 30th, Sunday, Harry packed up his lunchbox and books on foraging, grabbed his shiny new folding bike, put Akira in the bike’s basket and set out for the Contamination Zone. 

One positive thing he could say about Karakura was that it had a good pedestrian and bike infrastructure. It had nothing on Amsterdam circa 2034 in that one life where he got dragged into a war between dewdrop fairies and Krampus, but not many cities could compete with Amsterdam in that department. 

At no point in his travel from his apartment to Contamination Zone, he had to join traffic and while there was occasional awkwardness from being forced to join pedestrians on the pavement, it was a nice semi-smooth ride. The City Council deserved a pat on their backs for a job well done.

He startted out by collecting samples of water. Who knows, maybe he could turn it into something useful. Then he spoted bamboo shoots growing near the river’s bank. He reached out to collect some, only to feel a sharp pain in his thumb. He quickly retracted his hand. Blood. Next to him, Akira started to hiss and bristle up.

He carefully came closer to the bamboo shoots. Lines and lines of small mouths full of sharp teeth covered the bamboo shot he tried to harvest. Now that was nightmare fuel if he ever saw one.

Generally speaking when one gathered magical ingredients it was recommended to use as little magic as possible to not contaminate ingredients with your magic. But this time he was going to ignore that in favour of not losing his fingers. A few swishes of his staff and he had a tupperware container full of bitey bamboo shots. 

As useful as the Contamination Zone was to Harry right now, whoever caused magical contamination screwed up big time. For ambient magic to create this kind of horror show it took a lot of magic. And usually not a nice kind of magic. The only similar place he could recall was from his first life. There was a part of the Amazon rainforest where it always rained acid. Local fauna and flora were resistant to acid rain and set on murdering anybody who as much as stepped into that part of the forest. Brazilian MOM had a separate department handling this zone. He couldn’t quite remember how exactly that came to be. There was something about a cult worshipping an Eldritch horror, he thinks.

He applied a bandage to the bite and then donned his gloves. Just in case. Then he proceeded to continue exploring the strange flora of the Contamination Zone. He found what once upon a time might have been Knotweed. The colour and smell were wrong, but the shape fit. That was quickly followed by Giant Butterbur, Udo, Kogomi, Dandelions, Mitsuba and Peony roots. Or at least he thought that was what he foraged. All of those plants had odd twists to them. Dandelions in particular were nasty, leaving him with chemical burns on his left forearm.

And just as he was about to go deeper into the forest he spotted a strange man. Harry was pretty sure from the get-go that this man wasn't human. Or Guide for that matter. The strange man wore a white… mix between a western coat and those Japanese robes. Brown shaggy hair and way too long nails. He was staring at Harry as if Harry grew a few more heads.

In the end, the strange man disappeared before Harry could decide how to approach him. Bit spooked but intrigued Harry grabs the ingredients he already foraged and along with his familiar leaves Contamination Zone.

There was a very good reason why Severus Snape- even with his piss-poor attitude and tattoo on his arm- was a well-respected member of wizarding society. Achieving Mastery in a discipline and being recognised by a dedicated guild was a long process requiring vast knowledge. Potion Mastery in particular was more challenging than most of the other Masteries. Harry would know as the proud owner of the Master Enchanter title. Life number 5 was such a wild ride of experimenting and trying to bend the rules of magic to his whims. So obviously it had to end violently when one of his experiments… didn’t work out as he intended.

Harry knew some procedures Potion Masters used when they set out to create completely new potions. The thing was that he didn’t have the mindset or patience for the theoretical work that was needed for creating potions. Enchanting, while still requiring some theoretical work before you sat down to do practical work, was a more hands-on discipline. 

That being said Harry wanted to bang his head on his desk. Creating a comparative table of different plants from the Contamination Zone and their properties and balancing them chemically was not his idea of a fun afternoon. He was right when he thought that predicting the properties of mutated plants was impossible. That rice shoot he collected from the Karasu River’s bank? It could speedrun stomach cancer to stage 3 in just a few hours if someone was daring enough to eat it. That was something he didn’t have to worry about when enchanting objects…

Although if he managed to balance the bamboo shoot with some other ingredients, he could have a nice regenerative poultice for wounds.

Harry massaged his temples. He supposed he was lucky enough. If he didn’t know how to create arrays he needed for testing the properties of what he collected, he didn't know how he would tackle this project

And there was a problem with all ingredients he foraged. His parents had… very off hands approach to raising him and as far as he could tell they didn’t go through his things. But all it takes is one misstep for someone to start investigating him. So he needed a place where he could store his collection. While storing them outside of the apartment would be safer, it would also be awkward. With the sheer amount of time that schoolwork wastes and how much time he spends with his friends, there was no way he could create any potions or enchant anything in the next 5 years if he stored his ingredients anywhere else.

No, he needed a way of hiding his stash in this apartment. Something like Hermione’s enchanted handbag or that walking luggage he made for personal use in life number 5. 

… Stars, he needed to visit Contamination Zone again so he could find proper magical wood for his next project. A nice Oak wood would work great.

…Hermione was right. He does make his life unnecessarily difficult.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chapter Text

The sun is shining and the birds are singing and because today is the very last day they will sing forever. alt = "listen while you can" - A Softer World

Contrary to Harry's expectations he didn’t manage to visit Contamination Zone over the next week. In theory, Golden Week should have provided Harry with plenty of opportunities to do further foraging and researching. In practice, Kurosaki Yuzu was one very stubborn girl and her brother was like a wet paper bag when it came to refusing her anything. 

Harry suspects that either Ichigo said something or Yuzu figured out that his parents won’t be around, because he got dragged around Karakura by the Kurosakis (minus Isshin) through the whole Golden Week. He didn’t have the heart to refuse them so probably he also had a constitution of wet paper bag.

From being dragged to a shrine to picnicking under blooming Sakura trees to finally film marathon. At one point Ichigo made references to the most recent Star Wars film only to meet a blank stare from Harry. Harry knew that about 9 Star Wars films existed in certain universes, but he never got around to watching them. Which apparently in Ichigo’s books was a criminal offence punishable by a compulsory film marathon. 

And that is how Harry got to meet Arisawa Tatsuki- Ichigo’s childhood friend and fellow Star Wars fan- who dragged to marathon her best friend Inoue Orihime. By the time Ichigo made them watch Phantom Menace- which supposedly was the newest film in the series- Harry was desperate to find anything to entertain himself. He loves Kurosaki kids, he certainly was fond of the new girls he met and the films were fun enough. But his brain wasn’t built for sitting and watching a screen for hours. Which meant he needed to cause distraction. Preferably without offending anyone. Easier said than done.

He turned to his fellow victim. Orihime for lack of a better word spaced out. No help here. Moving on to the next plan. He grabbed one of an empty pack of crisps.

“Guys I think we ran out of snacks. Maybe we should take a break?”

The word “snacks” seemed to snap the redhead girl out of whatever trance she was in because she quickly grabbed her bag to show off her newest culinary experiment.
 
Chocolate-covered cheese sticks with hot sauce 

Harry could see Yuzu’s left eye slightly twitch. He can’t blame her, the combination was not something he could see himself trying. The situation quickly escalated into bickering. They don’t finish the Phantom Menace, stopping the movie just as space Jesus is placing bets on space ship race? Or something like that. He spent over 6 hours focusing on pretty lights on the TV screen. He didn’t have the mental energy to properly process the last film.

When the evening of May 7th rolls in and Harry was preparing his lunchbox for school he was surprised to realise he really enjoyed just hanging out with his friends.

When was the last time he simply enjoyed being around people while being conscious of his past lives?

Halfway through May, Team Sasaki-Kurosaki finally ran into one of the monsters. The thing looked like a particularly ugly peacock that wasn’t satisfied with just 2 wings and went for 5. Sometimes Harry wondered how monsters’ forms were decided. That one pair-less wing should unbalance the abomination, but from what he had seen it didn’t seem to.

“Just a moment, Mother” he said into his cellphone quickly covering the microphone. “Right, the monster didn’t notice us nor is it chasing anything. Let’s observe it for now. If Scruffy or Blue Bolt guy doesn’t pop up soon we can try to beat it.” He quickly told Ichigo and Yasutora. Stars, just a look at their faces told him that the whole situation will backfire somehow. And it’s only Tuesday. Luckily Miura-sensei still wasn’t back so there was no additional homework for Harry. 

“Scruffy?”

“…Blue Bolt guy?”

But Harry was already back on the phone trying to find an opening in Rosalie’s twitting to end the conversation. Everything stayed nice and calm until Scruffy arrived aggravating both monster and Ichigo.

“Mother, I’m sorry I really must go.” He said as he struggled trying to keep Ichigo from rushing off. “I need to study for exams!”

The monster screeched and tossed Scruffy into a building. 

“Sweetheart, what was that sound?”

“… a car with a very loud radio just passed us. I really need to go, bye!” he hurriedly stopped the call and showed his phone into a pocket. “Ichigo, stop struggling and let me explain!”

“That moron is going to kill himself with his own sword!”

“I know that Scruffy is very incompetent, but listen to me for a moment. I’ve been seeing that guy dealing with monsters and ghosts for almost a year. He can at the very least annoy the monster into going away if not beat it. But more importantly Scruffy doesn't seem to… realise that some humans can see him. What do you think he will do when he realises we can see him?” he stopped for a moment so his words would sink in while observing the Guide. Scruffy was better than he used to be half a year ago, a casual observer could even say he wouldn't accidentally drop his katana. Kudos to him for improving. Although if Ichigo’s reaction was anything to go off, Scruffy still had a very long road ahead of him before anyone would call him competent. Or responsible sword user for that matter.

“Look, you still have problems with casting offensive spells without damaging your surroundings. Since Scruffy and Blue Bolt guy are around why not spend your time improving instead of tossing yourself at monsters?” He looked at his best friend.

Ichigo was tense. Like a coiled-up snake preparing itself to spring into action at the slightest sign of weakness. Not for the first time, Harry had to wonder if there was something more to the boy. Vanilla humans usually didn’t get as much enjoyment out of fighting as Ichigo. And while his soul might be dragon-shaped, that didn’t automatically mean he should have all instincts of one. Usually, soul-shape was as much of an interpretative dance as tea leaves divination. Kinda useful, but more in hindsight than when you spotted the issue.

The tension in the air was broken by Yasutora’s quiet “Who is Blue Bolt guy?”. And that opened a whole new kettle of worms.

“Why don’t we sit down in a calmer spot and talk about it?”

They could calmly talk in his flat without people staring at them and without Scruffy agitating Ichigo. And just as he turned to drag Ichigo away from the fight between the Guide and a monster he spoted it. A black cat sitting unnaturally stiff in one of the alleys. Watching them.

“Is your cat reading a book?”

“I don’t know why you are surprised. Akira is at least as smart as Keigo-san, so of course he can read.”

“…You are joking, right?”

“Obviously not!”

Teaching Akira to read wasn’t easy by any means- Japanese writing system was far from being simple. However, leaving his very intelligent cat for 8+ hours on his own without any form of entertainment felt cruel. In fact, they were still struggling with books for children aged 6-7. Teaching Akira read English was a whole other kettle of fish. His familiar caught-on writing system in a snap. What seemed to frustrate him was grammar and spelling. And as Akira couldn’t speak they had to resort to him pantomiming and pulling at their bond and Harry trying to puzzle out what irritated his cat this time. He was sure it looked hilarious from an outside perspective.

Looking at his familiar he was reminded of the black cat he spotted earlier that day during Scruffy’s fight with the monster. Normal animals observing him tended to not pop up on his radar. Unless they were hunting him, but he doubted that a cat stalking him would count as hunting. So maybe he wasn’t looking at the problem correctly. Maybe he couldn’t spot his stalker because they fit in. 

Maybe a shapeshifter or minor demon took an interest in one of them…

He was there again. Magic-dampening handcuffs on his hands and a shock collar tightly bound around his neck. Two of his best men, whom he personally trained, walked on either of his sides. Just in case he managed to escape. After all, he was well known for accomplishing the impossible. They were getting close to Courtroom no 10. It has been only five days since the last time he entered that courtroom. And the last time he was there he didn’t expect to be handcuffed for any reason.

Gunn and Hall hesitated just outside of the courtroom. Good to know they had a conscience, but that did not save Harry’s skin.

“What is the matter? You were brave enough to enter my office and arrest me on Minister and Wizengamont's orders. You are going to hesitate now?”

“Boss, we-”

“Save whatever excuses you have for your mind-healer, Gunn. You sided with snakes, now lay down in the bed you made.”

"We are fulfilling our legitimate government’s orders, Potter. Show some respect.”

“I hope you will remember those words when you end up in my place Hill.”

The door opened. The Courtroom hasn’t changed from the time he was a teenager. Exactly the same chair with enchanted chains. Similarly looking rich purebloods who thought they were much better than you. But instead of a pompous clueless politician who was hell-bent on having him expelled from Hogwarts, there was Hermione Granger. Minister for Magic. Things weren’t great between them but he hoped she was on his side. In hindsight he was wrong.

Harry let Aurors lead him to the chair. Tellingly the chains immediately wrapped around his arms. He knew he wasn’t there as a witness or expert, but this showed what was Wizengamont’s opinion of him.

Murmurs sounded around the courtroom. He looked up at Hermione. She was unusually slow at sorting her notes out and preparing for proceedings. Her silver hair shone even in the badly lit courtroom as she turned to the Court Scribe.

“Are you ready Mr. Zaman?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Then let's begin. Criminal trial on October 7th 2053, The People vs. Harry James Potter. Interrogators: Hermione Jane Granger, Minister for Magic, Rayan Dean Queen, Deputy Head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Patricia Jasmine Noland, Senior Undersecretary. Court Scribe: Anwar Zaman. Counsellor at law representing defendant: Nicola Lane. The defendant is accused of treason, misuse of outlawed magicks, conspiracy, sedition and misappropriation of public funds. How does the defendant plead?”

He felt like he was pushed off Hogwarts’ Astronomy Tower. While he wasn’t exactly a walking advertisement for MOM, he would never consider his off-cuff comments as “treason”. Yet Ministry almost never rolled out treason charges unless they were sure they could win. 

The deck was stacked against him. But he wasn’t going to give up.

“Innocent.”

Murmurs among Wizengamont erupted. And then someone almost leapt out of his seat shouting.

“How dare you?! How dare you claim to be innocent when you clearly used dark magic! Was it Horcrux? Human sacri-“

At that point, one of fellow Wizengamont members near the young man silenced him with magic and forced him to sit down.

Harry took a deeper breath and-

Things shifted around him.

He didn’t need to look around to know where and when he was. The last day of his trial, still in blasted Courtroom 10. His counsellor-at-law tried her best, but there was only so much she could do. Whoever forged evidence against him was professional. He had no doubt this plot was in the making for a very long time. And yeah, even he could admit that the end of the most recent civil war was a perfect opportunity for a little spring cleaning.

His family wasn’t allowed to visit him during his stay in Ministry’s cell. Too much risk of someone helping him break out. He wasn’t even sure his ex-wife would like to visit him. Teddy and Lily would visit, he was sure of it. Even if to rage at the injustices of the Ministry or to take notes on how he wanted to split his possessions after the Ministry gets rid of him. Lily always was the most level-headed and practical of his kids from his first life.

Granger stood up from her seat and addressed Wizengamont.

“During the last two weeks, Interrogators presented evidence against the defendant and interrogated witnesses. Defendant Harry James Potter is accused of treason, misuse of outlawed magicks, conspiracy, sedition and misappropriation of public funds. Are honourable members of this body ready to vote?”

A crowd of loud Ayes sounded around the Courtroom.

“Chief Warlock proceed with the voting process”

“Those voting guilty please raise your wands and shoot red sparks.”

Most of the 57 plum-wearing snakes shoot red sparks. Not much of a surprise here.

“Thank you, you may lower your wands. Those voting innocent please raise your wands and shoot blue sparks.”

A few people almost hesitantly shoot blue sparks. They probably wondered how this will affect their careers.

“Thank you, you may lower your wands. Those who withheld their vote please raise your wands and shoot green sparks.”

More people withheld their vote than voted innocent.

“43 for guilty, 4 for innocent and 10 members withhold their vote, Minister Granger”

“Chief Warlock Turner, what Wizengamont suggests as punishment for such heavy crimes?”

People started to shout their opinions from the benches. Harry’s jaw dropped to the ground. Sentencing wasn’t Wizengamont’s job. What the hell Granger was doing?

People kept shouting and shouting. It was impossible to understand anything in this uproar. Did… did he really have so many enemies around him? So many people were eager to get rid of him? For Merlin’s sake, he interacted with most of those people often enough to remember their names.

“Considering Mr Potter’s previous track record Wizengamont believes we cannot in good faith place him in Azkaban. Especially considering recent… developments concerning Dementors.” Said Chief Warlock when he finally managed to silence the mob. “Thus we propose punishment traditionally used for treason before the criminal codex was reformed in 1889.” Here Turner paused for dramatic effect. 

“Death by artefact held in Department of Mysteries commonly known as Veil of Death”

Things started to shift again.

It was the same day, but this time he was in the Death Chamber located in the Department of Mysteries. Once again Gunn and Hill were standing on each of his sides. Only a handful of people were present for his execution; Granger, her undersecretary, his traitorous deputy, Turner and a few too curious and bloodthirsty for their own good Wizengamont members.

“Before we proceed with execution does Mr Potter has any last words?” said Chief Warlock with a smug grin.

“I do. I do so very much. Just this last century Great Britain saw 5 separate civil wars. I fought and bled in all of those wars. This farce of trial changes nothing. You keep ignoring problems causing those wars. You know I am right.”

Then he turned towards Granger, ignoring Aurors stiffening on his sides.

“I hope you are proud of yourself Granger. You let them eat away your convictions and now you let them use forged evidence in trials. I wonder for how much longer they will have a use for muggle-born witch without useful connections.”

“As representatives of Wizengamont, we suggest beginning execution. After all, we all are busy people.” Said clearly annoyed Ulchel Urquart.

The Chief Warlock hummed and hemmmed. Then came closer to Harry. “Mr. Potter I hope that whatever awaits you on the other side of the Veil means you don’t get to join Mother Magic. It would be such a shame if you polluted her.”

Then Hill and Gunn grabbed his arms and-

-Harry sat up breathing heavily. Eyes not fully seeing, but frantically searching for something. Suddenly there was something warm and fluffy butting its head against his shoulder. He looks down.

“Akira?”

Chirp!

He hugged his familiar even as his shoulders started to shake. If his face got hot and wet, his cat made no complaints as Harry continues to hug him.

The next day was not what Harry would call a good day. Reliving any of his deaths was never a fun experience. It tended to leave him with soul-deep fatigue and a gloomy mood. But his first true death was special. And how could it not be? People whom he trusted became so weak-willed that they bend to the whims of greedy politicians causing his death.

Getting out of his bed was an uphill battle, but he needed to feed his familiar and water the fuchsia. And no matter his lack of appetite he also needed to eat something. He decided to skip school. He didn’t think he could manage sitting through classes nor he wanted to worry his friends. He will figure out how to dodge uncomfortable questions about his absence later. 

Harry ended up spending most of Wednesday napping and watching some stupid game shows on TV. His familiar stayed close the whole time. It was nice and cosy. It didn’t fix anything, but it helped even if only a little bit.

Just as he started contemplating whether to make dinner or visit his favorite to-go restaurant for comfort food, he heard keys jingling outside his apartment door. His parents returned. Just what he needed.

Rosalie’s entry was as usual chaotic and full of fluttery energy. She quickly swapped between greeting him, trying to squeeze the life out of him and telling him all about take out they brought with them, quickly followed by equally chaotic fluttering in the kitchen. It was exhausting to both watch and experience. His cat escaped to Harry’s room good ten minutes ago. He felt envious.

Finally, he managed to insert an excuse about not feeling good and wanting to eat in his room into Rosalie’s flood of words. This obviously resulted in yet more worried manhandling from his mother. He suffered through it with the patience worth of a saint. That seemed to be the best approach to the issue because Rosalie was quick to release him. He made a mental note to use this technique in the future.

And just as he was about to escape to his room with food he stopped. Coach has been threatening them with an archery competition that would take place in a few days. It would look good if one of his parents appeared as “moral support” during it. So far he managed to dodge any questions about his parents, but it wouldn’t hurt if one of them showed up. 

“Mother?”

“Yes?”

“On Saturday there is an archery competition I’m taking part in. Will you come?”

Rosalie gave him an indecipherable look. She probably didn’t know the Japanese word for archery, so he rephrased the question in English.

“I didn’t realise you trained archery!”

“Ah, one of my friends convinced me to try it. It’s pretty fun.”

“I’m so glad, of course, I’ll go!” 

Rosalie then proceeded to once again hug him. As the herbal scent of her perfumes enveloped him, he thought that it was nice to pretend they were a normal family. Even if it were only for a few days.

He managed to convince his parents he caught a cold and that with one more day spent in bed, he would be back on his feet. He wasn’t sure if they really believed him, but that at least solved the issue of explaining his absence and giving him some time to put himself into passable shape. That done, he reached out for his phone. Harry winced. That wasn’t a small amount of missed calls. As he scrolled through the list he had to raise his eyebrows. Even Ishida tried to contact him? What the hell?

He shot a quick text to Ichigo so he won’t worry about him and goes to bed. He could deal with everything else tomorrow.

On the bright morning of May 20th, Saturday, representations of archery clubs from 6 different junior high schools gathered at the bank of Onose River- Karakura’s other river. As it turned out normally people tended to avoid the Karasu River due to multiple deaths and strange incidents connected to it. 

Yes, how strange. It’s almost as if a few kilometres downstream there was a huge swath of land contaminated by magic.

Harry wrinkled his nose. If there was something he hated about the archery club, it was the traditional clothes they were supposed to wear during the competition. He wasn’t sure what material they were made of, but it was coarse and very distracting. He took a look around. Nobody seemed to watch him so as discreetly as possible he used a spell to make it softer to touch.

He takes a look at the river. There were multiple boats with targets floating on the River connected by rope so none of them won’t float away. There was one very brave soul who may or may not be judge standing on one of the boats with targets. He sincerely wished her good luck, because even if all students competing that day were experienced archers, accidents happen.

Next to him, Ishida was standing and judgmentally watching Nitta and Tawaraya- fellow members of the archery club- bicker about something. Ishida’s outfit was… modified to call it lightly. One of these days Harry will muster the courage to ask him if Ishida Sr is a cult leader. He was pretty sure even Catholics didn’t wear so many crosses and he couldn’t fathom any other reason why somebody would decorate all of their clothes with crosses. Unless Ishida was an edgy teenager and crosses were some kind of metaphor for painting targets on yourself or something. Stars, he still remembers Al and Lily reinventing the “goth phase” and converting a good chunk of Hogwart’s student body to that aesthetic. Neither Minerva nor his fellow parents were impressed with his two gremlin children.

They still had some time before the competition starts so he decided to indulge in good old pre-competition ribbing.

“So are you ready to get your ass kicked from here to Tokyo and back?”

“In your dreams Sasaki.”

“How about a small bet?”

“Gambling? I should have expected that from you.”

“Pfff, you say it as if I was inviting you to a pachinko parlour. It’s just a small bet between fellow archers. Unless you are afraid of losing, hmm?”

“… name your conditions.”

“Whoever gets more points wins a small favour from the loser.”

“Favour can’t be anything breaking the law or school rules.”

“Yes, yes, I wouldn’t dare to involve you in whatever illicit activities you imagine me taking part in.”

Ishida only gave him a frosty look. It doesn’t impress him much, the boy has still a long road in front of him if he wants to be anywhere near as intimidating as Snape.

And just as he was considering how further he could bother Ishida their Coach approached them for a pre-competition pep talk. Igarashi-sensei while good at communicating what you screwed up, was piss poor at motivational speaking, so he tended to tune him out during his speeches. That is until he heard rather unusual news.

“-this is my last school year as coach at this school so let’s make it count!”

“What!!”

"Igarashi-sensei, you cannot leave us! We will die without you!”

"Worry not! My replacement is going to take good care of you. I’m needed in Karakura High to spread the spirit of competition-“

Harry fiddled with his yumi. All months he spend using the Japanese bow did not endear it to him. Yumi with unwieldy 2 meters of length and when compared to a warbow with lesser force behind shots was not a bow he would recommend. Sure it was lighter than a warbow, but he couldn’t imagine using it from a crouching position even if he used tricks from horseback archery.

Harry wrinkled his nose. Archery has been his craft for centuries, he wasn’t going to let subpar equipment stop him from winning. Even if he was competing with children. 

One of the judges blew the whistle.

“Let the best archer win,” Harry said in the direction of his rival

Ishida snorted. “Good luck, you are going to need it.”

Kyodo tournaments, from what their coach said, were all about precision and improving. There were no bonus points for style or speed. Harry stood at the spot he was directed to. He wasn’t in a hurry. He tied back his hair while observing how his target’s boat bobbed on the river. Current on Onose River was seemingly slower than on Karasu River. Magic. If concentrated enough rules of reality applied less and less. 

Then he grabbed his Yumi, nocked the arrow and shot. He hit the target about 2 centimetres above the centre. Not surprising, he didn’t take time to properly aim and he needed to pretend he wasn’t as experienced at archery as he was. He took time to rub his thumb before he grabbed the next arrow from his quiver. A little overcompensation towards the centre of the target… 

Twang!

A centimetre below the centre arrow hit. Good. He was left with three more arrows. He shifted his position and shook out his right arm. Now was the time to kick Ishida’s ass.

He shot the next three arrows in intervals of a few minutes. All of them landed in the center of the target as expected. Suddenly there were a lot of loud voices from the stands. He looked to his right side. Ishida was still at his third arrow. He might have overdone things a bit. Oops.

Harry ended up in second place, with Ishida just behind him. He should have paid more attention to what Igarashi-sensei was telling them about competition. Because as it turned out top 5 participants from this competition qualified for some kind of regional championship. And going by their coach’s reaction- almost crushing Ishida and Harry with an excited hug- there was no way for Harry to get out of participating. That… did not improve his mood or energy levels. He still was affected by reliving his first death in his dreams. Being stuck with new fleshy hardware that wasn’t used to this kind of trauma made the situation more sucky. And it wasn’t like he could seek medical help- as far as he could tell Japan circa 2000 did its best to ignore mental health issues. 

Getting away from his team and changing into his normal clothes took way too long. Considering how closely Ishida followed him, Harry suspected he was being used as a shield from their teammates and coach. Smart, but he didn’t appreciate it. Which is why he made sure Ishida couldn’t get away when they got ambushed by his mother, Kurosaki kids and Yasutora. He didn’t know they planned to show up, but it warmed him up. And made him realise that nobody seemed to show up for Ishida. Not his father, not members of suspected religious cult and not his friends. And that was just straight-up sad. No 14-year-old should be that solitary. So the obvious solution was to push him at local people hoarder and cross his fingers for the best result. 

“Ichigo-san, this is Ishida Uryuu from Class 3-A. Ishida-san, this is Kurosaki Ichigo, my classmate and friend.”

There, he did a good deed of the day. He turned to his mother. Rosalie was looking at him with a peculiar look, but once she noticed he wasn’t talking with his friends anymore she proceeded to almost squish him with her hugs. 

“It’s so good to see you have so many friends.”

If he was a real teenager he might have died from sheer embarrassment thanks to his mother. Though he still might die if Rosalie doesn’t lose her grip on him.

“Mother, some air would be nice.”

“You did so well! How about I treat you and your friends with some ice cream?”

Rosalie finally released him from her death grip and turned towards Karin and Yuzu to grill them for ice cream shop locations. Quietly he wished good luck to the twins as he scrambled away from his mother. One of those days he will figure out how Rosalie’s brain worked. 

But as it turned out his mother had a great sense of timing because just as he managed to get away from her, Ishida clearly was trying to politely run away. Not on Harry’s watch.

“Aren’t you going to join us Ishida-san? After all, you owe me one.”

“Excuse me?”

“You lost our little bet and if I’m going to suffer from my mother’s idea of parenting you are joining us.”

Upon hearing that Ishida loosened up slightly. Huh, Harry didn’t realise that his fellow archer was so strung up about the bet. He made a mental note to include Ishida in some shenanigans to get him used to the insanity surrounding Team Sasaki-Kurosaki.

And just as the group was leaving behind them Onose River Ichigo step up to Harry’s right side.

“Everything ok?” 

“Yeah, thanks for coming.”

On his left side, Ishida was giving them a curious look, but for now, Harry decided to ignore it. Things were surprisingly good all things considered.

It took a week for his parents to leave again. According to Rosalie, they were doing some kind of documentary film on Barbados. There were concerns over mobile coverage. Harry suspected that his parents decided to take part in the documentary so they could use it as a kind of holiday. This finally freed up his schedule which meant he could spend some time on his more clandestine activities.

May 27th was the day when Harry finally managed to grab his bike and get to Contamination Zone. This time around he decided to go deeper into the forest. He still wasn’t finished with the samples he gathered last time, but he really wanted to get his hands on a nice piece of magic-infused oakwood. As he gets deeper and deeper into the woods he notices his familiar’s hesitance. He stopped.

“Akira? Is everything ok?”

There is some pulling on their bond, but he can’t tell anything conclusive from either their bond or from Akira’s pantomime. And just as he thinks he might figure something out of this mess he hears a voice behind him.

“I wouldn’t think so. After all a lone Kanpoi shouldn’t traverse a dangerous forest.”

Chapter Text

Some friends you see every day, and some friends you see when there's blood in the air. You need both. (Your daytime friends are no help in the dark.)- A Softer World

“I wouldn’t think so. After all, a lone Kanpoi shouldn’t traverse a dangerous forest.”

Harry immediately spun around, Elder Staff almost sprang back into reality with sparks. Before him was a person-shaped being. He couldn’t tell if they were female or male, nor what age they were pretending to be. The creature's deep red hair was intricately braided, and they wore old-fashioned Japanese clothes. There was an aura of mischief and curiosity around them. Like a large predator not hungry enough to hunt, but bored enough to play around with their future meal.

Harry was screwed up. Especially if the creature didn't have plans to turn him into their next meal. After all, there was a reason why there were so many stories about people being kidnapped by Unseelie Fae.

“Although it seems I was mistaken in my presumptions. What are you, young one?”

The creature circled him.

Be Polite. Don’t get cursed and be Polite. Harry chanted in his head as he did his best to keep the creature in his sight.

“A human, Stranger-san.”

The creature snorted, stopped by a nearby tree stump and in one graceful move sat down on it like it was their throne not the remains of a dead tree.

“True enough, but not the whole truth. You almost smell like a mixture of traitorous servants of Enma, jikininki and Yuurei Hantā. A truly repulsive mixture.” Said the creature wrinkling their nose like being near Harry was painful for them.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any of those groups?” Harry did his best to not sound as panicked as he was. In his paranoia, he didn’t test if he could use apparition and now he had to choose between turning himself into a bloody paste and being turned into a bloody paste by a magical creature. May officially wasn't his month.

“Truly? A human as strong in spirit as you should be able to see ravenous jikininki.”

It took some panicking scrambling for Harry’s brain to make some connections but surely- “Do you mean those ghost-eating monsters?”

The creature looked like they had a sudden sharp headache.

“I see. Humans remain as ignorant as ever.”

“I’m mostly trying to piece things together on my own. It’s not like I know anyone who would share their information with me.”

“Very well, I shall impart some wisdom upon you. Lest you fall prey to Enma’s servants.”

“Who?”

“So let me check if I understand everything correctly. Jikininki are souls of the dead turned hungry ghost-eating monsters. They also enjoy munching on some humans. Servants of Enma, who call themselves Shinigami, are those black-clad weirdos hunting jikininki and sending ghosts to the afterlife. They also don’t like anything supernatural or humans in known. Yuurei Hantā are… spirit mediums who use bows made out of pure energy?”

“Correct.”

“A few thousand years ago there was a war between gods. Then… something happened and ever since then, there was no communication with the gods. Also, Shinigami started to hunt supernatural beings.”

“A somewhat lacking retelling, but close enough to the truth. We suspect Inari-sama fell in battle with the traitors.”

“Right, but who is that odd man I spotted last time I was around here.”

That got him an uncomprehending look.

“You know: wild brown hair, long claws, wearing all white…”

The creature’s face closed off even more if that was possible. Harry got a feeling they puffed up like an annoyed cat. He had enough self-preservation to not mention it.

“I strongly advise you to maintain a distance from that being.”

And wow, Harry almost could feel frosty air from that one sentence alone.

“He isn’t Shinigami, is he?”

“No.”

“Then what is he?”

“A nuisance.”

Eventually, Harry sensed that the creature- who gave him a name to call them just so he would stop bothering them- was fed up with him and his questions. So he wrapped up his visit and clutching freshly harvested magical Oak wood returned to his bike.

What Shichisai said cleared up some things for him but created even more questions. The mysterious creature didn’t seem to be a minor deity or mantle holder so Harry didn’t hold it against them, but gods didn’t simply disappear. That wasn’t even remotely how mantles worked.

You could kill god as a person, but you couldn’t kill god as an entity. Usually, the mantle got transferred to someone else. If someone managed to figure out how to permanently kill Harry, position of Master over Death wouldn’t disappear. Eventually the mantle would choose someone else to take his place. And in most cases, it was impossible to hold more than one mantle. It was like trying to push the negative sides of two magnets together. Only backlash was more destructive.

Yet the way Shichisai spoke, no new gods popped up since the war. So the question was, what happened to gods and their mantles?

That evening Harry made two circles on the floor out of ropes. The confrontation with Shichisai turned out alright all things considered. But he couldn’t let this situation repeat itself. Thus he set out to relearn apparition with this new body.

And just as he almost brained himself by stumbling into a bookcase a thought occurred to him.

He outed his abilities by summoning Elder Staff.

May quickly blended into June. The magical chest project was put on hold. Harry needed to figure out how to make the most of what little oak wood he was able to harvest under the watchful gaze of Shichisai. Igarashi-sensei became even more annoying during Archery Club meetings seemingly making winning in regional championships his life mission. If his motivational speeches were anything to go by he made a bet with Swimming Team’s coach. Ishida looked horrified when he learned about that. Harry had to wonder if he was more horrified by their coach indulging in gambling or because the stakes were Igarashi-sensei’s moustache.

Halfway through June, Miura-sensei returned. If his twitchiness and anxious behaviour were anything to go by, whatever caused his mental breakdown back in February wasn’t resolved. Hopefully with only a few weeks left until summer break their teacher will hold up without incident.

Around the same time, Ichigo grew morose and even more grumpy than usual. Neither Harry nor Yasutora knew for sure what was causing it, but Harry had a pretty good guess. After all, he used to do the same on the anniversary of his parents' death.

And as much as he wanted to say something about this, he knew a teenager- no matter how mature- wouldn’t take it well. He knew that his perspective on death was skewed. One couldn’t live so many lives without developing interesting opinions on spirituality and death. But that wouldn’t give Ichigo any comfort. Thus he baked some treats and took them to school on following Monday.

Life continued normally until July 1st.

July 1st was one of those rare Saturdays when Team Sasaki-Kurosaki ended up hanging out. Ichigo usually insisted on spending time with family on weekends, but this time around he wanted to stay out of the house. Seeing how angry and grumpy Ichigo was, Harry suspected yet another fight with Kurosaki Sr. Those were getting more common lately.

That day they were ghost-hunting a few streets away from Karakura Hospital. As a general rule, they stayed away from the Hospital itself. There was no need to disrupt the Hospital’s staff work or distress the families of patients. And since most ghosts were free to move around they counted on them trying to reach out to people who could see them.

Just as they sent a ghost of a depressingly young boy on his way to the afterlife, Harry suddenly sensed something off. The air felt heavy around him and each time he tried to take a deeper breath it was as if he was breathing in sandpaper. He sluggishly looked around but couldn’t spot any threat.

Screech.

They looked up.

There was an inhuman shape up in the sky. Jikininki. He didn’t realise they could fly, but that was the only explanation he could come up with.

The shape was getting larger with each second. He knew they should be running away or preparing for combat, but his limbs were so sluggish. Like somebody put him under a pile of weighted blankets.

Then an arrow made out of blue energy struck jikininki forcing it to change trajectory. Another one. And another one. Jikininki crashed into a road about 100 meters away from them. It looked like a hybrid of goat and hedgehog.

And it didn’t seem to be hurt despite being hit by supernatural arrows.

Harry finally managed to snap out of whatever was affecting them and conjured a barrier around them. Immediately the pressure became more manageable. Trying to keep the monster in his line of sight he looked around for the source of the arrows. When he finally spotted it he had to collect his jaw from the ground.

On the roof of one of the buildings there he was: Ishida Uryū wielding a bow made out of blue energy furiously trying to break through the spiky carapace of the Jikininki. With little success. And considering how quickly pissed off monster was closing on him he was about to become past tense. As quickly as possible Harry anchored the barrier to the spot he was standing on then apparated to the spot at which Ishida was standing grabbed his arm and with one more twirl he apparated back to his previous spot. The monster almost crashed into the building, before it sharply turned in their direction.

“I don’t think we can defeat it. We need to retreat at least for now.”

“That Hollow will just follow you or Kurosaki until it can eat you.” Groaned a little green Ishida. Side-apparation didn’t seem to agree with his physiology. “You will only endanger more civilians this way.”

Harry had to wince at that. He shot a quick look at his friends. Anyone who didn’t know Yasutora would think he was calm as a cucumber, but Harry could see just how freaked out he was. Ichigo on the other hand had that stupid stubborn look on his face. At that exact moment, Harry knew his best friend was about to do something phenomenally stupid. And if there was one time when Harry wanted to be proven wrong it was that moment.

Before anyone could rugby tackle him to the ground and beat some sense into his head, Ichigo ran outside of the barriers’ radius and towards the monster. He started to wave his arms and shout some nonsense about eating him. If this wasn’t a life-and-death situation Harry would just facepalm. He quickly tried to use Patronus Charm without summoning the Elder Staff. Only some wispy silver mist appeared. He swore, summoned Elder Staff and tried once again. This time Prongs appeared, but it was wobbly. Nevertheless, he sent Prongs towards the monster so at least his patronus would distract it until they dragged Ichigo back under the barrier's protections.

Jikininki jumped off the building landing near Ichigo only to be intercepted by Prongs. Harry apparated near Ichigo and just as he was about to grab his best friend and get back to the safety of the barrier he experienced the next surprise of the day. Harry was thrown by what he at first assumed was a blast from a water cannon. At least it felt like that. Only when he opened his eyes and managed to raise his head enough to see what was going on he realised how wrong he was.

It wasn’t a blast from a water cannon. It wasn’t even an attack from the monster. No, if the sheer amount of power radiating from Ichigo was anything to go off, it was his best friend digging up previously unreachable for him pools of power. In his hands, Ichigo was holding what could only be described as a sword made out of energy.

And Harry would really be happy for his friend. If only Ichigo and the monster’s combined power output didn’t make him feel like a dragon stepped on him. His limbs felt like they were made out of lead. It was risky and dumb to tinker with his seal in the middle of the battle, but there was no time. He released as much magic from his seal as he dared in one go and got up to his feet.

Ichigo and Ishida teamed up to beat up the abomination. Ichigo’s sword could cut through Jikininki’s carapace, but Ichigo was not used to fighting with such a large sword against an enemy that didn’t use a sword. Ishida’s arrows worked just fine once they hit wounds inflicted by Ichigo. Only now that the monster was even angrier and did its best to avoid being hit by either of the teenagers while at the same time trying to injure Ichigo.

This had to stop. And Harry had the means to do so. He once again summoned Prongs and sent him after Jikininki. Then when the monster was distracted by attacks on many fronts he casted in quick succession multiple stunners. Once the abomination was immobilised boys had no problems with finishing it off.

Harry cancelled the barrier that was protecting Yasutora and Ishida and using Elder Staff as a walking stick he slowly made his way towards Ichigo. His back hurt like he lost an intense fight with an evil chiropractor. He could feel an overflow of additional magic buzzing under his skin uncomfortably. And he was angry at his friends for being dumbasses. But unfortunately, no matter how much his new meatsuit wanted to throw a tantrum at the unfairness of all of this he liked to think he was mature enough to not let his temper rule him.

By the time he finally was next to Ichigo, the teenager was sitting on the pavement. Exhaustion from the fight was clearly catching up. There were some wounds, but at first look nothing that needed a hospital visit. Ishida and Yasutora who quickly joined them also looked relatively fine. Thus Harry steamrolled over any protests and with Yasutora’s help dragged their two moronic friends towards Harry’s flat.

“It looks like a gigantic kitchen knife.” said Harry squinting at the multicoloured sword. It took Ichigo a good half hour to rematerialise it once they crashed at Harry’s flat, but there was no arguing with the effects. The sword glowed with a mixture of black, red and blue energies. Looking at it for too long made his eyes tear up and gave him a spiky headache. A rather unnerving discovery.

“It does not!” spluttered Ichigo.

“It sooooo does! I bet you could cut a huge cake in half with just one swipe!”

“….Why are you like this, Arashi?”

A confused and subdued Ishida was watching their bickering like it was a prelude to a bar brawl instead of a simple banter between friends. Poor socialisation was added to the growing list of issues he noticed in his interactions with Ishida Uryū. At this point, Harry started to wonder if there was something fundamentally wrong with Japanese society that screwed over kids or it was just his natural charm that attracted battered youngsters to him. Even Kojima and Asano showed signs of complicated family situations. Arisawa so far looked the most normal of their friends but Harry wouldn’t be shocked if one day she declared to be some kind of superhero. That was his life now. He just had to accept it.

Going off by the smell, Yasutora was finishing whatever food he was making in Harry’s kitchen. And that was some good thinking there. No matter how prickly Ishida could be, a full stomach was bound to knock out some of that attitude. Why all kids who somehow fell under his wings couldn’t be this sensible?

Yasutora ended up cooking a rather simple dish made out of rice, chicken and vegetables. Considering how spicy it was, Harry suspected it was a Mexican dish. He was so going to bother Yasutora into writing the recipe down.

Eventually, after they ate, the lack of questions from them bothered Ishida enough for him to start spilling beans on his own. A summary of his tragic past included. And while Ishida’s explanations cleared up some things for him- and solved his dilemma of how to pass on the knowledge he gained from Shichisai without revealing their existence- it still left him with questions. Questions that he didn’t think Quincy sitting at his table could answer.

Just as Ishida was explaining how Harry and Ichigo’s reiryoku was attracting Jikininki- which he called Hollows- a suspicion was born in Harry’s mind. While normally he would dismiss it, the idea made too much sense to do so.

“Say, Ishida, you wouldn’t happen to manipulate Yamada-san into bullying me to join clubs, would you?”

“… I simply suggested to her that you might need help with adjusting to the new school.”

“She spent two months harassing me to join clubs at every opportunity. She is more relentless than army recruiters!”

“I couldn’t just let you wander around and endanger more people while I was stuck in after-school activities.”

“You couldn’t just talk about it with me? I know you followed me around. You had to see me banishing ghosts.”

“And risk you throwing me out of a window? I saw how twitchy you get when you are using those weird powers around people.”

Ishida might have a point. Hypothetically. Not that Harry was going to admit it aloud.

“Wouldn’t Arashi staying longer at school also endanger people?” Ichigo finally rejoined the discussion saving Harry from saying anything.

“My family ensured that public buildings like schools, hospitals and government buildings are protected from Hollows.”

Huh.

Harry might need to bully Ishida into showing him whatever protections his family weaved into buildings. It would be nice to learn something new about magic.

Harry ended up bullying his friends into a sleepover at his flat. Akira in particular was helpful. Seeing Ishida so clueless about how he should deal with a cat was both hilarious and sad. That sadness transformed very quickly into a pure cold rage when Ishida told him he didn’t need to inform anybody about him staying over at Harry’s place.

It was one thing to have parents who had no time to show up at school events. It was an entirely different thing when a child was convinced their parents wouldn’t notice them not sleeping at their home. If Harry didn’t have guests staying over he probably would have a fit over the whole situation. And lots of ranting and planning with his familiar.

Later that night when his friends were sleeping, Harry’s back pains were keeping him awake. Events of the day and Uryū’s story were haunting him.

It was clear that Harry hadn’t been as careful as he wanted to believe he was. Uryū almost a year ago spotted him sending off ghosts and instead of asking questions decided it was safer to stay under the radar. He didn’t know if there were any specific cultural connotations in Japan when it came to staves, but using Elder Staff outside of the safety of his flat made Harry twitchy. He needed to find a way around this issue.

And then there was the sad tale of how Quincy became almost extinct. Harry was sure there was more to what Uryū said. Because 14-year-olds lacked nuance and distance to understand politics. But it was another reminder that there was something seriously wrong with this world.

Humans being hunted down by Shinigami for protecting themselves and other humans from being eaten by supernatural beings. Madness. Utter madness.

Surrounded by his friends sleeping on the floor covered by pillows and blankets, Harry made a vow. Things needed to change. And change will come no matter what supernatural beings or vanilla humans wanted.

The next morning when his friends were getting ready to go home Harry stopped Uryū from leaving his flat. He still needed to talk with Ichigo about his reckless behaviour, but he had no idea how to tackle the problem. In fact, Harry was starting to understand why Hermione turned grey so early in her life. Thus he decided to deal with the other problem child of the group. And quite possibly solve another problem if he was lucky.

“Now that Ichigo-san and Yasutora-san are gone, let's talk. I understand why you decided to go full cloak and dagger about… my situation, but I still feel you owe me one for two months of harassment I received thanks to your plotting.”

And just as Uryū looked like he was going to protest, Harry continued speaking.

“You are going shopping with me.”

Uryū’s confused face was hilarious. It was good to see that Harry didn’t lose his touch.

“Shopping.”

“Yup! Shopping. I need a new bow. And more precisely recurve bow, not yumi.”

Uryū nervously corrected his glasses and then quickly nodded.

“I know a few good archery shops, but we need to catch a train to Shinjuku.”

Ah yes, Shinjuku one of Tokyo’s districts. Not that Harry ever visited it, but one couldn’t live so close to Tokyo and not have a general grasp of the city’s districts.

“Alright, let me grab Akira and we can go to the train station.”

“…why are you taking your cat with us?”

“What is a wizard without his familiar?”

To that Uryū evidently had no idea how he should respond. Which was good because they were wasting time on bickering.

It wasn’t until they were making their way through the crowded streets of Shinjuku, Akira sleeping in Harry’s backpack, that Uryū spoke up again.

“Sasaki-san, I know you know much more about Shinigami and Hollows than you are letting on. I won’t ask you where you gained that knowledge. But answer me this: are there any Quincy in the Kurosaki family?”

Harry looked at Uryū. He knew very well where that idea was coming from. Ishida- at least as far as he knew- was the only Quincy in Karakura. With a seemingly bad relationship with his parents the lure of mysterious adults who were just like you would tempt even an adult. It took much less to manipulate teenagers. Harry would know, that was how he never questioned Dumbledore’s decisions until it was far too late. It was one of many reasons why he was so wary about supernatural shenanigans in Karakura. It was also yet another reason why he decided he needed to integrate Ishida into their little group. Hunting monsters on your own wasn’t safe even if you were experienced, and no matter how good Uryū’s archery was, he was inexperienced in combat situations.

“I can see where you got this idea- that sword looked similar to your bow.” He said, taking a moment to Look at Ishida. On such a sunny day, nobody would notice the glow of his eyes.

If Ichigo had a dragon soul then Uryū’s soul was like a jam that needed some more gelatin. It was… more fluid than Ichigo’s or Yasutora’s. And on the edges, there were foreign-looking chunks. Based on Ishida’s explanations Harry thought that those chunks were energy Quincy borrowed from his surroundings. And while there certainly was a vibe similar to what he saw in Ichigo’s soul, it wasn’t his ginger-headed best friend who had the most similar soul to Uryū’s.

No. It was Yuzu. Yuzu who had less what he now knew was called reiryoku than Karin, yet performed just as well in their magic lessons. Yuzu’s soul was more solid, wilder than Ishida’s, but there were visible chunks of foreign energy that concerned him.

He turned off his Sight.

“I believe there were Quincy in Ichigo-san’s family. It isn’t his father.” Because while Harry still had no idea what Kurosaki Ishin was, his soul didn’t look anything like Uryū’s. “Maybe his mother or grandparents on his mother’s side.”

Uryū looked thoughtful if a bit disappointed. Harry being an opportunist, decided to take advantage of the opening.

“Look, once per week Yasutora-san, Ichigo-san, his sisters and I meet up for magic lessons. You are free to join us. Maybe you can even figure out if either of Ichigo-san’s sisters has an aptitude for Quincy arts.”

Ishida shot him a look. It was a look that said, “I know what you are doing, stop right now.”. Harry gave Uryū a sunny smile in return. After all, if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. And Harry was an expert in bullshiting his way out of problems.

It took them some time and Harry ended up spending a pretty penny on his new archery equipment, but Harry was satisfied with his new purchase. The idea for this project came to him in dreams. It was an insane idea that he would never have considered if he hadn’t heard Uryū’s explanations of how Quincy worked.

Creating energy weapons like Ichigo or Uryū would put a target on his back. Shooting colourful beams of energy from Elder Staff also would be suspicious. But a human using a normal-looking bow to shoot normal-looking arrows that do more damage to Hollow than expected? Much easier to explain away. And if said normal-looking arrows exploded on impact? Well, Harry was counting on Shinigami not being familiar enough with the living world to know better.

The idea behind his future bow was simple enough on paper. Each time he drew back the string bow would pull some magic from him and some reishi from his surroundings then transfer it to an enchanted arrow. This way he would look less suspicious and could save some magic during fights.

The only issue- aside from figuring out the specific rune array for this project- was the bow itself. Riser- the central piece of the bow- was aluminium and the “limbs” were fiberglass-carbon fiber composite. And while it made the bow light and durable, it also meant he couldn’t just carve runes into the bow and hope for the best. Putting aside the issue of how deceptive synthetic materials in enchanting could be, with this level of tension a deep enough scratch could result in the bow shattering in the middle of the fight.

It certainly was a tricky project.

After he was done analysing bow and arrows he left them along with the Elder Staff on his desk. There was no need to banish the Hallow just because he needed to make himself a coffee before he attempted tinkering with arrows.

And then he heard it

CRUNCH.

The sound startled Harry so much that he poured hot water over his left hand instead into the cup. He disregarded burns and rushed towards the source of the sound- his room. The first thing he noticed was puffed up and hissing Akira. The second thing was what was lying on his desk.

On his desk, there was no more recurve bow made out of synthetic materials or Elder Staff. Instead, there was a bow made out of Elderwood in the exactly same shape his newly purchased recurve bow was.

He looked down at Akira. His familiar looked up at him.

“What the fuck.”

Akira nimbly jumped onto his desk and nudged the bow. Then once again looked up at Harry. Harry grabbed the bow and flicked it around. Then swore.

There was no going around this ridiculousness. His staff ate his newly bought bow. Now that he once again was holding Elder Staff was even more bizarre. And frustrating. After all, he had just spent a good chunk of his savings on a bow only for one of his Hallows to have a fit and eat it…

In the end, Harry went back to the kitchen to treat his injuries and boil another kettle of water. Hallows were part of his mantle. He lived long enough to know that when it came to the supernatural, sometimes the best thing you could do was nod and go on.

Time went on. Ishida joined their little magic learning sessions. Him being partially trained unsurprisingly both made learning easier and harder. In the end, it was Yuzu sitting down with Uryū and explaining to him how she was casting spells for Uryū to fully grasp what Harry was teaching them. After that touching moment, Harry felt both impressed and terrified. Ishida took to folk magic like fish to water. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say like master enchanter to setting wards up. Because after Uryū hesitantly showed him the most basic magic Quincy used Harry could see plenty of similarities between Folk Magic and Quincy magic.

This created a friendly competition between Uryū and Ichigo. Because while Ichigo still had issues with control he made up with his ridiculous learning curve.

Uryū and Harry were dragged to regional archery championships by Igarashi-sensei and once again they crushed their competition. Their coach wept like a newborn baby when the results were announced. Harry ended up handing Igarashi-sensei tissues and patting him on the back. Meanwhile, Ishida awkwardly stood next to them clearly not knowing what to do.

Harry kept experimenting with plant samples from the Contamination Zone. If his calculations and data reading were correct he was getting close to creating potions that could heal people without horrible side-effects.

And that is how on August 5th Harry found himself in the Contamination Zone. Standing only 7 metres away from the mysterious long-clawed stranger wearing a white outfit.

Chapter Text

I love the way your face lights up when someone says, "It might be dangerous." [I am glad we are friends.]- A Softer World

If Harry wasn’t highly strung up he would say their first direct interaction looked like a stereotypical standoff in a Western. Sun was high, aside from Akira there were no other living creatures near them and they were staring at each other instead of doing anything else. Like talking. The only thing they were missing were guns, but between the stranger’s claws and Harry’s staff, there was no need for any other weapons.

“You can see me.” 

“Yeah.”

“You are an odd human.”

“And you are rude.”

For a moment Harry wanted to slap himself. This was his second in a row standoff with an unknown magical creature and yet again he let his mouth run on its own. Next time around when he casts the spell he used for his reincarnations he will try to weave something to prevent getting meatsuit with a more… creatively wired brain.

The creature looked… both baffled and slightly amused? Then his (?) eyes sharpened. 

“You’ve chosen a rather odd place for gathering herbs, human.”

“A forest full of odd plants? A pretty good place for gathering herbs, wouldn’t you think?”

The stranger slowly came closer and closer. And even as he was looming over him, Harry did his best to stay calm and not react to this attempt at intimidating him. Akira, who was sitting next to his right leg, wasn’t making any fuss or attacking the creature and Harry sure as hell trusted his familiar more than his paranoia-ridden mind.

“I’m going to ask one last time, what are you doing lurking around my master’s prison?”

Harry froze. It was as if somebody shot at him the missing puzzles out of a machine gun.  His brain shifted into high gear rearranging the information he collected so far into a completely different picture.

“You mean, all this natural disaster was created by someone being imprisoned with magic?”

Apparently, that wasn’t the reaction the stranger expected because he slightly backed off with a surprised look. And Harry wasn’t about to let him regain the advantage he just lost.

“Whoever imprisoned your master didn’t give any fucks about Karakura and just made a seal that bleeds magic into surroundings?” He was on a roll. A very angry roll because he could understand the long-term implications for their surroundings. Akira lead him to the bank of the river, not a spot in the forest. That meant the creature’s “master” was imprisoned at the bottom of the river. Rivers were used to disrupting magic, which meant that the “prison” fed off the “prisoner’s” energy and someone fucked up enough while setting wards up causing a leak. Or the “prison” was fuelled by an energy source close to the river and that energy source radiated enough energy to mutate plants nearby. The implications of this revelation were truly disturbing. And scholar inside of Harry wanted to hunt down whoever was responsible for this and shake them until their marbles fell into proper places. 

Unfortunately for his scholarly curiosity, the creature picked that exact moment to ditch him. By teleporting away (?) with some pretty lights. He supposed he deserved this after he badgered the mysterious stranger with personal questions. But if this is how the stranger interacted with everybody, Harry could understand why Shichisai called him “a nuisance”.

Disgruntled, he pulled his gloves from his bag and started looking around for new samples of plants.

Harry was by no means a Wards Master. When he had occasion to learn he wasn’t interested in the massive amount of reading it would require for him to even begin the process of earning mastery in that area of magic. And in his last 20 or so reincarnations, he hadn't visited worlds with structured magical societies. The closest he got was that one world where some humans figured out how to bind less cautious demons to Victorian-styled masks and use them as their magical foci.

But the truth was that once you were familiar with enchanting, figuring out how to create or modify wards was simpler than any Wards Master would like to admit. After all, what was place but a large collection of objects?

So once Harry managed to convince Ishida to show him the “protections” placed by Quincy on public buildings he dived into this task with his mind widely open. It took a very little time for Harry to spot issues. Quincy didn’t create Ward Stones like wizards. Instead of anchoring their protective spells to one point, they made multiple anchoring points on the building. That in itself was an interesting take on warding, but the problems started when anchoring points got damaged or they weren’t regularly powered up.

Harry felt like a fire marshal inspecting buildings of a very cut-throat corporation. The Karakura Hospital? Anchor points used to be damaged, but someone other than Uryū fixed them and powered them up. Karakura Junior High? Undamaged anchors, but underpowered. The town hall? To Harry’s horror whatever protections Ishida’s family created for the building were destroyed by the recent renovation of the building’s facade. 

On the intellectual level, he could understand the situation. For whatever bizarre reason Shinigami only cared for the dead souls and what with the Quincy being almost extinct, Uryū couldn’t be expected to protect every single person from supernatural shenanigans. But that part of Harry that empathised with Dobby? It was raging. It was raging so hard, that Harry could spit fire. Normal non-magical humans shouldn’t need to depend on a group of teenagers and occasional incompetent Shinigami for protection. 

As much as it pained him, Harry had to leave the town hall unprotected. He needed more time to figure out how Quincy’s wards worked. They were on their way to the train station passing the newly opened LaLaport Mall when a thought struck Harry.

“We have been going around the western part of Karakura, but what about that district full of empty houses and warehouses in the eastern part of Karakura?”

Uryū’s expression darkened. He kept silently walking beside Harry, so naturally the wizard kept quiet. After all, if he ever learned anything from Albus Dumbledore it was how to make teenagers start talking.

“I don’t know details. My grandfather once mentioned an exiled Shinigami living in Karakura. I believe they live in Mitsumiya district.”

Harry furrowed his brows. Japanese cities often didn’t name their streets instead using a combination of district names, block numbers and building numbers to specify addresses. Karakura used to be an industrial town in the past with a focus on the textile industry and transporting goods via a convenient river. If Miura Satoshi’s rants were to be trusted Karakura started out as a small town built around a sawmill that used Onose river for transporting wood. Then somewhere during the Meiji Period textile industry swooped onto Karakura. Karakura ended up growing into a city with 12 districts surrounded by forests in almost all directions. Japanese, just like most civilisations, tended to use their surroundings to name things. And some very snarky person decided that the district mostly composed of warehouses and a small temple dedicated to Kannon Bodhisattva should be called “the third temple”.

If a Shinigami lived there long enough it could explain the name of the district. It would also explain a lot of other odd stuff happening around Karakura. 

“That would explain the misdirection ward.”

This only earned him a blank look.

“I tried to locate the magical signature Akira detected in that neighbourhood. Needless to say, I failed.” 

“For someone who jumps at every shadow, you are remarkably reckless.”

“I don’t jump at every shadow. Just those that try to eat me.”

“Uhuh.”

Harry had to stop himself from smiling. It was good to see Uryū slowly relaxing around their friend group. And a little snark from a teenager hardly could hurt Harry’s feelings. Even if there was some truth to what he said.

They continued their bickering, Ishida leading them in a truly bizarre way. Finally getting fed up with them taking yet another turn he gave a look Uryū.

“We are being followed. It seems you have a stalker.”

He did?

“I do?”

“You aren’t very observant, are you?”

“…shut up.”

They passed what looked like a museum of...creepy dolls? Harry needed to investigate this location later. Thanks to this trip he was discovering more and more interesting spots in Karakura, but he was getting tired of constant walking.

“So who or what is stalking me?”

They passed a pet store, beauty salon and hairdresser. Before the summer break, Fukuda-sensei tried to hint to Harry that he should get a haircut. An advice he immediately disregarded. Unfortunately, his hair was curlier than even Rosalie’s which meant that keeping them “presentable” while they were short was a challenge. 

"It isn’t Shinigami. It isn’t quite Hollow either. Humanoid, tall, brown hair and wearing white. Long claws.”

Maybe Harry should have expected this. There were plenty of magical creatures that were shy when you tried to approach them but gladly stalked you for weeks if you were “interesting”. Like feral cats. Only the worst thing a feral cat could inflict on you was rabies. With magical creatures, it was Russian Roulette of what kind of horrible fate would befall you. 

How did the creature he met a few days earlier manage to stay off his radar while at the same time stalking Harry? He had no idea. But what was important at that moment was getting away from it and then meeting with it on his terms.

“Once we reach the closest side alley grab my arm. I’m going to teleport us to my flat.”

Next to him, Uryū groaned and quietly complained, but once they were in a side alley he grabbed onto Harry’s left arm with enough strength to leave a bruise. And just as Harry turned on the spot to disapparate, he could swear he saw the creature reflected in one of the windows.

When they arrived back at Harry’s flat he and Uryū sat down and started marking buildings they visited on the map. As the newest member of Team Sasaki-Kurosaki started pointing out other buildings they had to check out Harry stared at the map deep in thought.

From his understanding of wards, the bigger area you wanted to cover the more power you needed. The major difference between enchanting and warding was living beings constantly moving around, triggering the activation of wards. From anti-pest wards shooing away or killing insects to intention-based misdirection wards confusing humans who wanted to snoop around your property. That was one of the reasons why back in his original world pureblood wizards and witches tended to build their massive mansions in the middle of nowhere. Wards created for those mansions were powered by both inhabitants and leylines, so living near people without magic would drain inhabitants more.

In a way Quincy living in the Karakura had the right idea- covering the city in one big dome of magic was bound to fail. Warding each house individually was a cumbersome task and recharging wards individually was bound to become tedious pretty quickly. But warding only public buildings and hunting roaming Hollows also wasn’t a good solution. In this world, there were no leylines as far as he could tell. But even the most magically untalented human seemed to have that little shard of power waiting for something to activate it…

“Uryū-san, how many shrines and temples there are in Karakura?”

Ishida who was in the middle of of talking about Karakura High School, was surprised but quick to answer.

“Twenty-one. Ten Buddhist temples and eleven Shinto shrines.”

Harry had no idea if there was any significance to the number 21 in Eastern numerology, but he wouldn’t be surprised if there was. In Western numerology 21 would be reduced to number 3. And three was one of the most stable numbers in not only numerology. A stool with three legs was stable even if its legs were uneven.

“Can you circle them for me with a different pen? I have an idea, but I need more time to think about it.”

Harry waited five more days before setting out for the Contamination Zone. Partially because he was petty and didn’t want to make the creature think he would just bend to their whims. Partially because he was busy enchanting arrows. And so on cloudy August 13th Harry once again met the mysterious creature. Uryū would be so pissed off at him if he ever heard that Harry went out on his own to confront his stalker.

“It’s polite to introduce yourself. I can start if you are too shy.”

It was rude and risky, but pissing off the creature was much safer than letting it stalk him. Persistence hunters were a nightmare to deal with if you didn’t have the right tools.

“Muramasa.”

Right, so he was haunted by either the master blacksmith himself or someone who was named after him. Fantastic start to the conversation.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sasaki Arashi.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Huh?”

“Your Reiatsu fluctuated. You are lying.”

“It’s the name of my current incarnation.” He wasn’t sure why he said that. When he bothered to share this bit of information about himself people tended to treat him as a nutcase. Maybe, just like Ishida, he secretly wished to reach out to people who were like him. Stars, it was so long since the last time he hung out with quasi-immortal beings he could tolerate.

“Souls don’t remember their previous incarnations.”

“Then I guess I must be special.” Harry said, doing his best to hide his giddiness over the newest puzzle piece he was given on a silver platter. “You don’t seem to be Shinigami or Hollow. What are you?”

Muramasa shifted in place, flexing his long clawed fingers almost restlessly. Maybe the creature wasn’t used to peacefully interacting with other intelligent beings? He certainly was quick to either flee or threaten Harry.

“Zanpakutō spirit”

“And what is Zanpakutō or Zanpakutō spirit?”

At that, Muramasa seemed to be even more confused. Harry really wished people would stop assuming he was some kind of all-knowing almighty being just because he could make pretty decent guesses using what little scrapes of information he gathered. As… flattering as it was, he was quickly getting tired of constantly committing faux passes. 

“You don’t know what Zanpakutō is?”

“It would be rather disrespectful if I wasted your time asking you about something I knew already, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be.”

There was a tense moment. And just as Harry was sure Muramasa would once again bolt, he spoke.

“Very well, let me explain…”

Harry stared at the spirit. Back in his first life, he dedicated a considerable amount of time to researching Soul Magic. After all, dealing with Voldemort was bad enough. So even if Ministry employees were squeamish about his questions and the files he asked for, nobody made too much fuss. Being thrown through the Veil of Death significantly complicated his life, but also gave him well of knowledge when it came to souls and how- at least in theory- afterlives worked. What Muramasa described raised all alarms in his head.

Zanpakutō spirits were a representation of Shinigami’s swords and, supposedly, were part of Shinigami’s soul. And from what Harry understood, Zanpakutō were created as pseudo souls by someone called Nimaiya Ōetsu. The question was where the “materials” for Zanpakutō came from? They couldn’t come from the Shinigami who got Zanpakutō- as far as Harry knew their souls weren’t anchored to the physical world so they would fall apart from being bisected if they were the source of “materials”. Using something or someone else as “material” for pseudo souls and attaching them to preexisting souls would be much safer for Shinigami.

In a way, Zanpakutō spirits reminded Harry of how golems were created in one of the worlds he lived in. Take a massive amount of magically treated clay, shape it into your preferred form, write instructions into the golem’s future flesh, create a magical circle to summon a proper elemental spirit and then swiftly trap the spirit in the golem’s flesh before it catches on what you are doing. The result was horrifying- a mindless magical construct following its master's orders powered by a sentient being trapped inside the golem until the construct was destroyed. Some golems continued to exist long after their creator died. 

Only elemental spirits returned to their plane after golems were destroyed. Zanpakutō spirits on the other hand died with their Shinigami.

Harry couldn’t imagine how heartbreaking and dull existing like that must be. To constantly only be a spectator to someone’s else life. To depend on your “host” for your continuous existence. Which raised a question…

“Your… master is imprisoned in that river, right? So how come you are separated from him and terrorising local magic users?”

“I guess I also must be special.”

Right, Harry might be a bleeding heart, but Muramasa wasn’t a friend. He needed to tread carefully here. 

“Listen, I don’t care about your Shinigami, afterlife or you for that matter. What I do care about is Karakura Town, because that is where people I care for live and where I keep my worldly possessions.” He took a moment to think about how to communicate the real issue. In the end, he settled for the most direct approach. “That seal keeping your master imprisoned? It’s bleeding magic and twisting everything around it. Give it a few more years, a decade at most and it will start to corrupt Karakura. It needs to go.”

At that, the Zanpakutō spirit visibly relaxed. Harry didn’t think Muramasa was trusting him now, but recognising him as not-enemy clearly calmed the spirit down. 

“The only person who knows how to break the seal is Sōtaichō Yamamoto.”

“The seal is bleeding magic, so it’s either damaged or very sloppily constructed. I’m not a Ward Master, but if you let me take a look, I might be able to figure out how to dismantle it.”

There was a moment of hesitation, but eventually Muramasa nodded.

“Very well, follow me.”

“By the way, who is this Sōtaichō person?”

The spirit sighed.

Not wanting to risk raising any potential alarms by trying to get a read on the seal from a larger distance Harry was forced to get up close and personal. He casted Bubble-head charm around his head. Hopefully, the local fish population was less bitey than the bamboo shoots. With that last thought, he left his familiar and the Zanpakutō spirit on the bank of the river and dived into it. Karasu river wasn’t very deep but the swift currents forced Harry into some quick thinking and even quicker staff work. Who would have thought that dismantling brooms and illegally learning what kind of enchantments broommakers use would save his ass one day?

Cutting away aquatic plants that were disturbingly acting like tentacles, Harry got closer to the seal. Floating only a few meters away from it was… an experience. He could feel pins and needles all over his skin from sheer power radiating from it. Magic radiating from the seal felt angry. Like a pissed-off tiger prowling near the bars of its cage looking for even the smallest opening. Harry didn’t dare to swim any closer. Even if he wouldn’t trip build-in alarms he had a feeling he would end up like that one Gestapo agent from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Harry took a deeper breath and Looked at the seal with his Sight.

His first reaction was to immediately close his watery eyes. Harry imagined that if he had his Sight back in his first life, Looking at the Hogwarts would be just as intense experience. Only he suspected he would still have high respect for whoever set up Hogwarts’ wards as opposed to the mess he saw when his eyes partially got used to the brightness. What he saw he could only call in one way: a quick slap-job that at a later date somebody tried to patch up. Multiple times, with poor results. In fact, if the seal was a program he probably would call it bloated spaghetti code.

Harry swam around the seal trying to get a better read on it. There were multiple… cracks- if one could use that word in this context- in the seal. Some of them looked like they were inflicted from the inside. Some of them looked like they were side effects of bad design- power around the seal was distributed unevenly. But none of the cracks looked like they were created from outside. Did Muramasa never try to destroy the seal by himself? Too concerned about potential harm he would cause to his Shinigami? Lack of knowledge about how seals worked and how one would go about dismantling them? Or perhaps someone regularly checked the seal and repaired the damage to the seal? If so, how often do they come around? Perhaps if Harry couldn’t figure out how to safely take apart this seal they could jump whoever was responsible for the seal’s maintenance and force them to take it down?

There was still a lot that he didn’t understand about how the seal was functioning, but using Sight to Look at such a bright object for so long was giving Harry a headache. He turned off his Sight and floated near the seal for a few more moments, not quite ready to return to the surface. He couldn’t put his finger on it but he had a strong feeling Muramasa wasn’t fully honest with him when he spoke about the so-called Sōtaichō and Divisions. Maybe it was leftover of misguided loyalty to the organisation his “master” belonged to. Maybe the spirit shared an opinion with Shinigami- that the living had no business knowing about or interfering with spirits. Or maybe he was testing Harry. Testing for what? He had no idea.

Frustrated, Harry combed through his hair with his right hand. He was still missing puzzle pieces and had no idea how many more he needed to get a somewhat clear picture. 

Explaining to Muramasa the whys and hows of Harry needing more time to research the seal took the better part of an hour. The Zanpakutō spirit was both anxious and distrustful so he had to take his time explaining. By the time he was ready to leave the Contamination Zone, Harry’s clothes and hair were dried out by the warm weather. 

That's when Akira emerged from nearby bushes expertly carrying a struggling hare. Poor creature didn’t have much chance considering his familiar grew to be slightly bigger than the average Maine Coon and way smarter and stronger than a normal cat had any business to be. 

“Are we having a hare stew today?”

Akira let out a low growl and made no attempts at explaining what he wanted him to do with the hare. Fair enough, they could talk when they get home.

“All right, all right. We can keep it alive, but then you won’t be able to ride in the basket.” He quickly stunned the Hare with magic and put it in the basket at the front of his bicycle only for his familiar to quickly climb onto his shoulders. A ten kilos of furred living furnace sprawled on his shoulders on a sunny August afternoon. Wonderful.

He should have expected this. After Akira destroyed yet another of his bags Harry has been meaning to buy a new bag and properly enchant it with extension and feather-light charms, but his misadventures and research distracted him. Harry sighed. Tomorrow he will buy a new bag. Maybe even invite Uryū over to see if the Quincy had any talent for enchanting. It would be nice to have someone around who could keep up with him in that department.

As it turned out, his familiar caught for him a hare so Harry could have a living subject to try out potions he was working on. After Harry casted a strong expansion charm on his wardrobe and transfigured arrows he destroyed during his experiments into a cage for the hare, he rewarded Akira with raw fish he had in the fridge. As much as he didn’t like harming animals, it was better to test out potions on a hare than accidentally harming his friends.

Time after Harry met Muramasa seemed to speed up. Between researching the seal, exploring Quincy wards, experimenting with magical ingredients, and teaching kids Harry managed to meet Shichisai once more. The magical creature wasn’t impressed with Harry interacting with the spirit. Eventually, they agreed with his reasoning for helping out Muramasa but continued to warn him. 

The newly magically expanded wardrobe quickly was turned into storage for his magical ingredients and all the notes he made on his experiments. Protecting it only by simple misdirection ward was only a temporary solution but it was better than no protection until he found time to figure out something better.

And time was one of the things he was in dire need of. Japan’s education system was different from the UK’s. Way back in his first life, Harry didn’t have to pass any exams or do anything special to get into secondary school. All Petunia had to do was deliver his documentation to the school which had a catchment area in their neighbourhood. And that is how he was enrolled into Stonewall High. Or rather he would be enrolled there if Petunia didn’t know he would end up in Hogwarts anyway. As for Japan? Things were more complicated. Junior High school ended with graduation exams and secondary schooling wasn’t mandatory. Which meant that high schools had tuition fees and considering Sasaki’s household income they didn’t get reduced fees. That wasn’t the problem part of the situation. No, Harry had a problem with the other side of the coin. Because secondary education wasn’t mandatory, most high schools had entrance exams. Karakura High included.

And thus much to the amusement of his familiar and thumping coming from his wardrobe, for the first time since he Awoke Harry was forced to sit down and study. The horror.

September, October and most of November passed before Harry noticed. Miura-sensei was acting even stranger than before the summer break. Ichigo crashed at either Harry’s or Yasutora’s flat at least once per week, but neither of them dared to question the gingerhead. Uryū made good use of Harry’s open invitation and showed up at his place a few times per week. Like a bloody cat. And if Akira attempting to groom Quincy’s hair was anything to go off, his familiar shared this opinion with him. Harry managed to create a few potions he could relatively safely use on humans- there was still a potential issue of overdoses, but that wasn’t something he could test on the hare. After way too many attempts at biting Harry, he decided to name the hare Dracula Jr. And surprisingly enough so far it survived all tests relatively unharmed. Harry wasn’t anywhere near being done with testing his creations on the hare but he was starting to wonder what he should do with it afterwards. 

And things probably would continue like that if it wasn’t for November 30th. 

On that particular Thursday, it was raining cats and dogs. Strong wind was threateningly bending branches of trees towards their classroom’s windows. Harry and his friends were eating lunch in the classroom when out of the corner of his eye he briefly noticed a big shadow outside of one of the windows. Students quickly scrambled to look through windows, but bad weather made it impossible to see anything clearly.

“It’s useless, all I saw was some dark shape on the ground.” Complained Keigo as he sat down in his seat. 

Harry had a bad feeling about the situation. Their classroom was on the fourth floor and above them there was only a roof. Just as he was about to get up and try using magical means to get a better read at the situation, the intercom hanging above classroom doors came to life.

“Attention students, please return to your classrooms and remain there until your homeroom teachers arrive.”

Harry frowned. Then a thought struck him. 

“Has anyone seen Yamada-san?”

It took an hour for Fukuda-sensei to show up. Blinking bright lights visible through windows was enough confirmation of what happened to Harry. Because Hanako was too much stickler for rules to not return to their classroom after the announcement. As it turned out the rest of their classes for the day were cancelled. 

The next day their school held an assembly where Yamada Hanako’s death was announced.

Harry Potter had a strange relationship with death. He had to, otherwise, he would have gone insane centuries ago. Death was not a real entity that picked and chose who would die. No, humans were very clever and talented beings who could give gods a run for their money no matter what category one would choose. 

Harry learned how to accept death decades before he was thrown through the Veil. Participating in wars didn’t give one comfort of being in denial after all. But suicide remained a difficult area for him. On the intellectual level, he could understand all the reasons why somebody would commit suicide. On an emotional level, he couldn’t understand why Hanako would jump. Harry could list all her accomplishments until he was blue in the face, but he knew it didn’t matter. The facts were as such: the suicide rate among Japanese students was worryingly high and Harry wasn’t close enough to Hanako to notice anything off.
 
With much less enthusiasm and energy Harry continued to study for exams, research the seal, work on his personal projects and teach his friends. He probably could relatively quickly get over Hanako’s death if it weren’t for a series of events that made him question everything he learned so far.

On December 20th Harry dragged members of Team Sasaki-Kurosaki to the only classroom in the building that was never occupied. Some students speculated that the classroom was haunted and that was why nobody ever used it. Quincy wards carved on the ceiling told a very different story.

“I have no idea what is going on, but obviously we are dealing with a supernatural problem here. Over the last month, we had 10 suicides on the news that happened in Karakura. On average nationwide there is around 20000 suicide per year. Maybe we shoul-“

A loud female scream disrupted Harry’s explanation. Followed by another. And then wet squelching noise and steps. Knowing better from experience he almost tackled to ground Uryū and Ichigo. Much to boys’ protests.

“Shut up. Whatever is happening, I doubt that is a Hollow walking down the corridor.”

A person-shaped shadow stopped by the door, seemingly peering through the window in the door. They held their breath and didn’t move. Then Harry realised that whoever was on the other side of the door was muttering something. Growing more and more agitated.

Then finally the shadow moved. Harry counted to 10 then quietly as possible moved to the door to peek out. Walking down the corridor was a man wearing formal clothes stained with blood. In his right hand, he was holding a knife.

Harry probably would have closed doors, called 110 and waited for the police to deal with the situation. That is if at that moment one of the students didn’t come out of the bathroom at the end of the corridor, putting herself in direct line of sight of the man. The moment she spotted the stranger making his way towards her she froze. Any thoughts of letting professionals deal with the situation flew out of Harry’s head.

“Run! And call the police!” Harry shouted, fully coming out of the classroom. That seemed to shake the student out of shock because she quickly ran towards the staircase. The stranger turned around and started briskly walking towards Harry.

Only when Harry saw the man’s face he recognised him.

Miura Satoshi. Their slightly unhinged history teacher. Walking stiffly, holding a knife and covered in blood Miura Satoshi.

It was a crazed look in the man’s eyes that made Harry start doing things instead of just standing. He quickly casted Petrificus Totalus at the teacher. The man fell to the ground like a bag of bricks and for a moment it looked like that would be the end of his crime spree. Only after a few seconds even more stiffly- almost like the man was a puppet, not a living human being- Miura-sensei got up. Limbs grotesquely locking and unlocking as if he couldn’t break the curse but fought against it with supernatural strength. With jerky motions he lunged at Harry, forcing him to dodge. 

Harry rushed towards the classroom he left only minutes ago, grabbing Ishida who was peeking out to get read on the situation. As soon as they were inside and closed the door the ward array on the ceiling briefly lit up. As far as Harry could tell it was a combination of misdirection wards and intention-based shield that switched on only if Quincy entered the classroom. But he didn’t have much faith in them. Not when he had no idea what they were dealing with.

Miura-sensei slammed into the door. Then he proceeded to scratch at the window in the door and scream some nonsense about demons. Then he slammed himself into the door once again. Harry tensed up, ready to summon Elder Staff but wards so far were holding up. 
 
Then the man suddenly stopped and took a step back. Seconds later Harry heard a squelching noise once again and suddenly the window was covered with red liquid. Then there were more and more wet noises until finally there was a loud thud. 

Harry focused on keeping boys from rushing to the door. They didn't need to see whatever awaited them on the other side of the door. And there wasn’t much they could do for their history teacher.

A few days later Harry was once again standing at Karasu river’s bank trying to shake some warmth into his bones. Something about magic radiating from the seal caused bone deep chill to spread inside him. Which made his research on the seal harder than he expected.

The… incident from Wednesday left Harry feeling bitter and angry. Police arrived pretty quickly after Miura-sensei killed himself. Initially, police officers were all nice to their group. Seemingly understanding that being almost murdered by your teacher was a rather traumatic experience. That changed quickly after Detective Ashikaga arrived. The man took one look at the crime scene, one look at their group and came to a very xenophobic conclusion. After all, he was clearly faced with a delinquent who dyed his hair, two foreigners and the son of a respected hospital director who fell into bad company. And when one contrasted that impression with Miura-sensei’s reputation it was easy to see how Detective Ashikaga decided that evidence gathered by officers not necessarily fit as nicely as laws of physics or common sense would claim.

There was no perfect justice system. Harry would know- after all he participated in all roles available. But unless you had influence and/or money just being actively investigated could ruin your life. If it was just him, Harry would probably let things flow naturally. He had his magic, he could easily stage a prison breakout in the worst-case scenario. But Ichigo, Yasutora and Uryū didn’t deserve this. So Harry… corrected the situation. The Confundus Charm left the detective dazed, but at first glance didn’t seem to cause any brain damage. Not that Detective Ashikaga needed a brain to figure this case out. Harry was sure that the blood he saw on Miura-sensei belonged to the only other dead person in the building- Fukuda-sensei.

Christmas in Japan wasn’t an national holiday, but thanks to the Incident school was closed down and their winter break started early. Originally he came to the Contamination Zone to ask Shichisai if they knew any creature that could be behind either a recent wave of suicides or Miura-sensei cracking up. When he saw Muramasa once again sadly standing on the bank of the river like a kicked puppy, he decided to rant at the spirit. And when his brain caught up with what his mouth spouted he threw himself into the river out of both embarrassment and annoyance. Stars, he hated being a teenager.

“It might be a powerful Hollow.”

“Huh?”

“A Hollow might be behind both suicides and murders.”

“Don’t usually Hollows hunt other dead people and humans with high reiatsu levels? Both Yamada and Miura were small fry.”

“You think this way because you only met low-class Hollows. The more powerful Hollow is, the smarter they become. Many of them develop unique powers. Although powerful Hollows usually stay in Hueco Mundo.”

“So what? A powerful Hollow is doing snack runs where it mind-controls humans into killing themselves so it can scoop fresh souls and get back into… Empty World?”

“Not necessarily… mind-controls them, but perhaps it creates illusions? Or manipulates brain chemistry? I cannot say for sure unless I meet this Hollow.”

Harry stared at the river thoughtfully. What Muramasa said made sense, but something felt not quite right in that line of thought. He shook his head and looked back at the spirit. They didn’t have enough data to tell one way or another, but he would tell kids to look out for potential Hollow encounters.

“Will you help us if it turns out to be a Hollow?”

The Zanpakutō spirit tensed up.

“…I’ll attempt to help you. There is a powerful Shinigami living in Karakura. If this-“ here Muramasa gestured at the river” -is going to succeed they can’t know I’m around.”

Harry had to wonder if the spirit was naive or perhaps desperate enough to believe he was sneaky. All it took for Harry to spot Muramasa was to visit the Contamination Zone when the spirit was angsting over his imprisoned Shinigami. And as Uryū pointed out, Harry wasn’t the most perceptive person. If Shinigami living in Karakura was invested in keeping Muramasa away from his master, then they would have done something about this ages ago. But there was no point in pressuring the spirit. For all he knew maybe the mysterious Shinigami will finally move their lazy ass and deal with possible Hollow. 

Doubtful, but it could happen!

So Harry just nodded and once again casted warming charms at himself.

Things slowed down for a few weeks. Suicides still happened, and there were a few instances of murder-suicide, but instead of multiple deaths per week, there were only one or two incidents per week. Or at the very least that was what Harry could tell from reading newspapers and watching the news. Maybe a Shinigami did take care of whatever was hunting people in Karakura. Maybe the creature moved to another hunting ground. Maybe Muramasa was right, and they were dealing with a very intelligent Hollow who was bidding its time. Harry didn’t know and it was slowly driving him insane.

The only reason he wasn’t prowling streets in search of the mysterious creature was that between the two of them, his cat was the sane adult with working impulse control. And Akira was brilliant at either distracting him or outright stopping him from acting like a madman. In the end, Harry channelled all his frustration into his projects. After finally admitting to himself that creating a large enchanted trunk from what basically was a handful of branches was impossible, he adjusted his expectations. He settled on building a miniature chest with heavy-duty expansion and protective enchantments. 

He hesitantly started working on warding arrays he wanted to use in potential city-wide sets of wards. Things would be much simpler if he had some literature to check if he was going in the right direction. Unfortunately for Harry, wizarding books on warding were out of his reach and Uryū couldn’t locate any artefacts or books belonging to his grandfather. Harry started to have a nasty suspicion that Ishida Sr was trying to discourage Uryū from being Quincy by depriving him of any information. Which was both stupid and ridiculous. In most of the photos Harry could find, Ishida Ryūken was wearing a tie with bloody Quincy crosses. There was no way he didn't know what he was doing.

So with only a rather limited number of intact examples of Quincy wards and Harry’s limited experience with wizarding warding, Harry was reinventing warding as a branch of magic. All while tightly clutching to his enchanting mastery. To say it was nerve-wracking experience would be an understatement. Later, Harry would blame all that stress for letting kids talk him into hanging out at LaLaport Mall.

March 4th was an overcast Sunday. Remnants of snow were sadly lying on sidewalks and advertisements hanging from buildings. Ever since the murder-suicide incident at their school there was nervous energy around Karakura. And more police officers on patrols. Which forced Team Sasaki-Kurosaki to limit their ghost-busting outings. Not that Harry saw many ghosts around Karakura. He wasn’t sure if Scruffy was more diligent in his duties or if opportunistic Hollow took care of them. In fact, Harry didn’t have enough energy for this outing let alone to care about what happened to ghosts he never met.

All that stress and paranoia meant Harry slept poorly. To make matters worse, wanting to be prepared for potential attacks for the last few weeks he limited how much magic he used. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t getting used to his magic as quickly as he wished. He could feel it buzzing under his skin. His hands shook, his temples pulsed in the same rhythm his magic was buzzing and he was pretty sure his heart was beating a little too fast. Using up an excess of magic would help. But even his familiar had limits to how much magic he could absorb at once and Harry was too wound up to give up a potential advantage in a fight.

So he put on the softest hoodie and jeans he could find in his wardrobe, put the best face he could muster on and went to the meeting place. 

LaLaport Mall was huge. Four floors full of outlet shops, entertainment areas and other businesses. Then there was a roof where a playground was combined with a botanic garden. Karakura Town contrary to its name wasn’t a town. By all measures it was a city- in fact, the “town” part in the name was a popular topic during local elections. Candidates would rally their voters with promises of changing Karakura Town’s name to Karakura City. They would get elected and they would announce a referendum then something truly bizarre would happen- an overwhelming majority of voters would vote against changing the name of their city. And while it was true that voters could have many, many reasons for making their choices that would never occur to Harry, the other side of the coin was much more straightforward- the average person didn’t read all those political pamphlets or listen too closely to speeches. All in all, it was an intriguing issue to contemplate. In fact, if he was in the world without supernatural shenanigans Harry probably would repeat career choices from one of his previous lives just so he could write scholarly articles about it.

Harry shook his head. He was getting distracted. He took a few deeper breaths. He needed to pay atte-

“Woah, is everything alright?” said Yasutora, removing his hand from Harry’s shoulder just as Harry was doing his best to calm down.

“Of course.”

His tall friend didn’t look convinced but didn’t question him. And this was why Sato Yasutora was his favourite in their friend group. Level-headed, doesn’t rush off to be almost eaten by monsters and knows that sometimes sitting back and observing is the better part of valour.

Their friends joined them not long after that. They spent some time shopping. At one point Uryū dragged Harry to a crafts store. While the Quincy was busy browsing the Sewing and Fabrics section Harry wandered around the store until he stumbled upon the Painting and Drawing section where a set of rapidographs caught his eye. That was the moment when an idea struck him- if he found a way to create an ink with magical properties, he could make enchanting much more accessible. For all his intelligence that allowed him to absorb theoretical concepts, Uryū had a hard time with practical aspects of the art. He never taught enchanting to someone who wasn’t a wizard or a witch so he had no idea what exactly was the problem. But if he eliminated some potential problems from the equation, he could figure out the issue. Using magical ink had a lot of downsides for long-term projects, but even for his own personal projects, it could be useful. 

Harry shook his head. The lack of sleep and ADHD were getting to him. But the idea was sound so he grabbed them.

And just as they were going towards the food court to grab lunch Harry felt hairs at the back of his neck rise. As discretely in his jumpy state as he could he tried to check for anyone observing them. With so many people at the Mall, it was hard to tell who triggered this reaction. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as discrete as he wanted to be because Ichigo standing next to him stiffened. Before he could comment on Harry’s behaviour or ask any questions they heard screams.

When Harry finally visually located what caused the screams he paled and started dragging Karin and Yuzu towards the nearby Dzi Beads store. A man repeatedly hitting his own head into any flat surface that wasn’t scrambling away from him wasn’t something kids should see.

“What is going on?” almost growled Karin once they were inside hidden from glass windows in front of the shop by shelves. It was easy to see she was doing her best to put up a brave face during a scary situation.

“Remember how I told you that we suspect something supernatural is hunting people in Karakura? Well, I think a smart Hollow might be behind all those strange deaths.”

“That man doesn’t seem to have high levels of reiatsu. Why would a Hollow go after a small fry?” Uryū almost nervously corrected his glasses.

“…maybe it’s trying to bait humans with stronger reiatsu to help the victim. Maybe it’s trying to pull away prey from a group…” muttered Ichigo almost absentmindedly. And while that was an excellent point something about how his best friend spoke unnerved Harry even more.

“Or maybe it wants its victims to kill its food for it? You know, if you don’t have homemade, store-bought is fine?” mused Yuzu on his left side. Harry had to almost physically stop his jaw from dropping. Clearly whatever was going on in the Kurosaki household should concern him more if the first thing a ten-year-old girl says in response to a man systemically bashing his head in is a food metaphor.

“…those observations are interesting, but I think we sho-“

More screams, this time sounding like teenage girls. Very close. And that obviously meant that Ishida- ever gentleman- had to rush towards the front of the shop. Quickly followed by Yasutora. Harry chased after them quietly cursing. As it turned out Uryū might have been right to run to save damsels in distress because two very familiar teenage girls were doing their best to avoid being bitten by a woman who was acting like a zombie on steroids.

“Tatsuki-chan!”

“Stay behind me, I’ll deal with this!”

The woman who was attacking Arisawa and Inoue acted more like Miura-sensei- stiff, not reacting to Arisawa’s punches and relentless. The dark-haired girl was already sporting multiple bite wounds on her forearms. Harry had to wince. Bite wounds from humans were notoriously nasty when it came to healing. Both Uryū and Yasutora were unsure how to join the fight in a meaningful way. After all, how does one react to a human acting like a feral hungry animal?

When once again zombie woman lounged at the girls suddenly a triangle shield sprung in front of them held by beings that weren’t that dissimilar to dewdrop fairies. Deciding that he might as well stop hiding his powers since his friends were clearly in danger and there were no Shinigami around Harry, he casted Impedimenta. As it turned out that jinx worked much better than Petrificus Totalus because the woman was moving like she was submerged in molasses.

“Quickly, get inside!” he whisper shouted. Luckily Arisawa was quick on the uptake and dragged Inoue into the shop. Once the girls were inside Harry in collaboration with Uryū quickly created a barrier in front of the entrance.

“What is going on?!” almost shouted Arisawa.

“Supernatural shenanigans. We can bicker about this after we are out of danger.” He responded. 

Arisawa looked like she wanted to further argue, only to be interrupted by a loud THUMP coming from the front of the shop. Harry took a peek around the shelves. The spell on the zombie woman had to wear off because she started to do her best to break through the shop’s windows. By tossing herself at the glass like a panicked bird. 

“We can’t stay here. Right now only the zombie lady is trying to get inside but I don’t want to see how well we would fare in the Dawn of the Dead scenario.”

“It seems most of the shoppers panicked and fled when more people started to be affected. Perhaps we could subdue the… “zombie lady” and try to either sneak out or find Hollow responsible for this?” Ishida whispered. Harry had to give him points for keeping his head cool under pressure so far- the gallant rush to save ladies excluded. So instead of questioning him on how he planned to effectively sneak out a group of 8 teenagers through the mall with not that many hiding spots, he raised another issue.

“Can you sense the Hollow?”

“I can sense traces of it, but nothing solid. I believe these are interfering with my ability to sense reiatsu.”Said Uryū pointing at shelves full of Dzi beads.

“They have reiyoku?“

“They have something. No idea what. They feel like high-pitched bells if that makes sense.”

It did, and as interesting as it was, there was no time to investigate it further. The next THUMP from the front of the shop was followed by the sound of glass getting cracked.

“Alright, I’ll restrain the lady. Ichigo-san, Uryū-san there is the map of the mall near this shop. Try to figure out how we can get out of this building without getting into more fights. Yasutora-san, girls, keep an eye out for anyone or anything approaching us. And if anyone tries to be a hero I will murder you and tie your ghost to this mall for the rest of eternity.”

“…you can do that?” both disturbed and intrigued Arisawa broke the silence.

“I’m sure I can figure it out if I’m motivated enough.”

He didn’t wait to see reactions. He speed-walk towards the store windows arriving just as the zombie lady broke through the window falling to the ground along with pieces of glass. Harry had to stop himself from wincing and instead casted Incarcerous at her. Thick rope and chains wound themselves around the woman before she could react.

“Couldn’t you do that from the start?” Harry could already see that Arisawa would be one big headache through this adventure. Being sceptical had its place and time. In the middle of being hunted by supernatural creatures, there was no time for that. But he could understand being scared and trying to protect your friend, so he didn’t take it personally.

“For non-supernatural inclined humans it’s easier to explain away someone moving slower or fainting than suddenly ropes materialising.” He turned towards her, trusting that at the very least Yasutora and Uryū would make sure they wouldn’t get jumped by possessed (?) humans. “Look, you don’t trust me. You hate depending on people who don’t want to share information. I get it. And I’ll explain everything best to my ability. But only once we are safe. Right now we are being hunted by something and I don’t want to risk any of us getting seriously hurt because we wasted time.”

Arisawa’s expression changed to something a bit warmer, but he had no time to ponder over this as Uryū and Ichigo returned to the rest of the group. 

“According to the map, there are two elevators, four escalators and four emergency staircases.” Started Uryū.

“We shouldn’t use elevators or escalators. They are out in open spaces.” Continued Ichigo.

“Agreed. Also if electric power was cut off we would be screwed up. So which staircase do you think we should take?” Maybe it was a risky move on Harry’s part, but he was a firm believer in teaching through experience. He would still be there to shore up any strategy they come up with and it might improve their teamwork. Harry not trusting himself to look after a pet rock in his current state was beside the point.

While boys were bickering about which routes would be viable he pondered. They were on the third floor. Or rather “Japanese third floor”, because for some weird reason, both Americans and Japanese counted the ground floor as the first floor. Dzi Beads shop was nearer the back of the Mall and while in theory there should be available emergency exits on this side of the building Harry didn’t trust the owners of the Mall with the lives of these kids. Obviously, there was a chance the police would arrive before they got out of the building, but what they were going to do? Call Ghosts Busters? He almost snorted.

“Alright, we are running out of the time. Any plans?” 

“The quickest route would be sneaking towards the northeast staircase. It’s the closest to the main entrance on the first floor.” Stated Ichigo

“We would be out in the open for a considerable amount of time.” Countered Ishida

“Yeah, but the quicker we get out of this building the safer we will be.” 

“We have no guarantee the Hollow won’t just follow us out of the Mall and engage in combat on a busy street.”

“Alright, guys. You both have good arguments for and against Ichigo-san’s plan. What is your plan Uryū-san?”Harry interrupted them. Ichigo’s plan was simple and simple plans were almost always the best when you had to escort civilians. Only they were most probably dealing with a highly intelligent enemy. Basics might not cut out.

“We should take the southwest staircase exit one floor down and go to the northwest staircase. The second floor has a children’s art exposition on the main part of the floor so in case we had to sneak or fight we would have somewhere to hide. It will take more time but it would be safer for Arisawa-san and Inue-san who have no experience with Hollows.” Harry had no idea how but apparently the twins managed to bully Uryū into not treating them like civilians. It would be hilarious in any other situation.

“It will take longer. We have no guarantee more people didn’t do the same as we.” Ichigo almost half-heartily argued, then he turned towards Harry. “Can’t you teleport us somewhere safe?”

Could he? Apparating himself and seven additional people would take multiple “runs”. Splitting the group and leaving people vulnerable felt like a horrible idea. And that was putting aside the problem of his piss poor concentration due to lack of sleep and stress from being hunted for months. Splinching was almost guaranteed. And he had no idea how Portkeys would interact with reiatsu exuded by humans he would be transporting.

“I can’t transport all of us at the same time. And we aren’t even sure if we are being hunted by a single entity. If we split the group we might end up in even more danger.”

Ichigo gave him an odd look. Harry wasn’t sure if the gingerhead was disappointed or if he simply noticed how stressed out he was. His best friend could be oddly perceptive for all his claims of “not being good with people”. Harry shook his head. There was no time for his brain to puzzle out this interaction.

“I think we should use Uryū-san’s plan. There is more room for adjusting the plan to unexpected attacks. And girls, I have nothing against you. But if we are in a combat situation I don’t want to risk someone freezing up and getting hurt or even worse getting in the way.” He waited a moment but nobody protested. “Alright. Ichigo-san, Yasutora-san you stay at the back of the group. Uryū-san and I’ll stay in front. Girls stay in the middle of the group. If we end up in a combat situation take cover. Everybody ready? Then let’s go.”

On the way towards the staircase, they didn’t encounter anyone. Which was both relieving and suspicious. In the last few months, you couldn’t walk around your neighbourhood without spotting at least one police officer patrolling. Where was the police? On paper this kind of incident would make fleeing civilians call emergency lines. The longer he thought about it the more it looked like a set-up.

Things went smoothly until they were almost halfway through the second floor. Aside from occasional bodies and general disarray, they didn’t encounter anything out of the norm. Which made him even more twitchy. And as it turned out that twitchiness saved their lives.

“Agh.”

Harry turned around towards Arisawa who was behind him. Her moves were more sluggish and she kept tightening and relaxing her hands.

“Everything alright?”

“Yes, just a headache.”

Something about the situation triggered almost all the alarms in his head. He began turning around searching for something. And then he spotted it. It looked like a hole in the reality full of eyes staring at them. The hole was hovering maybe three meters above the ground. Without any hesitation Harry summoned his bow, conjuring a simple arrow at the same time and shot the Hole.

Whatever was on the other side didn’t like that. At all

The reality around the hole seemed to crack like glass. Loose fragments falling off and quickly widening it. 

Then he saw it.

Eyes.

Hands.

So many clawed hands, each with an eye embedded in the palm.

The Entity tumbled out of the hole. 

There was no head. 

There was no visible Hollow Hole or Hollow Mask.

Just a gigantic nightmare tumble of hands and eyes connected by presumed corpus.

For a brief moment, Harry thought that this was the end. He once again pissed off a eldritch entity and this time there would be no escape. But then he noticed what wasn’t there. 

The reality wasn’t twisting and shifting around the Entity once it exited the hole. 

So not an eldritch horror. He had no idea if it was Hollow or not, but at least it wasn’t an indestructible alien from outer planes. He could work with this. Without letting the Entity out of his sight he addressed the rest of the group. “Karin-san, Yuzu-san take Arisawa-san and Inoue-san and find a place to hide. Guys, let’s try to keep it away from pillars.” If the ceiling caved in, they would be screwed up.

He quickly ducked behind the display with the map of the area and set up a barrier, cursing as he looked through his bag for a quiver of enchanted arrows. Just as he was finished with securing it he heard a rumble. Like something straight from Katamari Damacy the Entity was rolling towards him, grabbing on its way anything that wasn’t nailed down. Sometimes even that didn’t stop it.

He abandoned his hiding spot and apparated away. Almost immediately the Entity changed direction of its roll towards Harry’s new position. Smart enough to either hold a grudge or attempt subduing the strongest enemy and can track his reiatsu. He made a mental note. He heard one of the twins scream but unfortunately, he had no time to investigate. He would just have to trust that Ichigo would run to girls to check on them.

He apparated away again and shot an explosive arrow at the monster. The arrow hit the monster but Harry couldn’t tell if it made any significant damage because that was the moment the monster stopped rolling and instead tossed a plastic table at him. He cursed and threw himself to the ground. The table flew above him hitting one of the electronic displays behind him. Glass, sparks and electronic parts rained on him while he was trying to get up. Trying was a good word for that. Before Harry got up a big clawed hand grabbed him and squeezed. Squeezed hard. Breath was knocked out of him. Ribs and arm bones protested the rough treatment. Claws digging into his clothes and skin. 

Back in the background, he heard multiple crashes. His friends shouts. He couldn’t breathe in air-

Suddenly there was a lurch. The hand released him and he fell.

He coughed, the air finally getting into his lungs. Pain. His right ankle was throbbing. Just as his palms, chest and arms. Somebody was helping him to get on his feet but grasping Harry around his chest awoke a new wave of pain. He probably blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew he was sitting on one of the plush chairs in a furniture store. Yasutora hovered for a moment, apparently not quite sure what he was supposed to do before saying something about Ichigo and rushing off.

Harry blinked.

Did…

Did Yasutora have an armoured right arm?

He wasn’t sure how long he was sitting there before he managed to muster the energy to do something. The first thing he did was Accio-ing his bag. Enchantments on it hold strongly because it looked no different from how it looked that morning. As quickly as he was able he looked through his bag for potions and once he found a pain relieving potion he took a sip. The effect was instant. It was like somebody corrected a slightly tilted picture. Harry looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. Fingers moved. He didn’t feel his fingers. He clenched his right hand into a fist. He could see skin tightening and bigger blood vessels slightly bulging. But still no sensation in his hand.

Well, this was going to be…an interesting fight.

He stood up and took a few steps. It was… wobbly. His right ankle had to at least be twisted. He also felt almost drunk. He probably took too big a dose of the potion. Not big enough to kill him. But just enough for him to make dumb decisions. Voices from his right snap him out. The twins, Arisawa and Inoue are hiding behind a solidly build desk. It made sense for Yasutora to take Harry to the same place the girls were hiding at. There was only one detail that didn’t make sense.

“Why Arisawa-san is bound up like a gammon?”

A wave of voices rose and Harry suspected he was too out of it to communicate with girls in a meaningful way. What he manages to grasp is that Arisawa did her best to emulate the zombie lady. Somehow it made sense so he just nodded, told them to hold the fort then turned around. The world wobbled for a moment. Harry didn’t blame it. Life was unfair and if he could, he probably would give it a stern talk. 

Nevertheless, he walked out of the store almost mechanically. He stopped by the nearest pillar to lean in on it to let his ankle rest. Then he remembered he was a wizard and summoned the Elder Staff. The first few attempts at spelling into existence a split for his ankle looked more like ferrets than a split had any business to be. That was until Yuzu grabbed his arm.

He wasn’t entirely sure what she said, but the sentiment was clear enough: let me help you. So he did. After all, who was he to question the most stubborn person in the Kurosaki clan? Yuzu quickly used ferret-bandages and pieces of wood from a chair that fell victim to the monster’s throw. After she was done he took a few steps to test it. Solid job. He probably would give her meaningful praise but that wasn’t on the menu. So he just nodded and continued walking, using the Elder Staff as a walking staff. Yuzu walked beside him. Which was one part nice of her and two parts reckless. He approved.

Finally, they get close enough to the fight for Harry to see some details. It… wasn’t looking good. As far as he could tell the monster did not have any significant injuries. This had to end. Quickly. He rose his staff and casted Sectumsempra. Or at least attempted to cast it, because the effect of the spell did not match with the result.

The Entity kept angrily tumbling around in an invisible box Harry somehow managed to create. Cool if a bit disturbing. Both Yasutora and Ichigo stood outside of the box observing the monster. Harry stared. The monster kept angrily bouncing around its enclosure. Impatient Yuzu carefully guided Harry towards the closest bench and almost forced him to drink some water from a bottle. Where and when she got it he had no idea. But he got the message. He was acting odd and scarring kids. He took a deeper breath and focused on the magic circulating in his body. He started speeding up and slowing down it. It wasn’t safe. Or a smart way of purging foreign magic from his body. 

After a few moments of odd pinprick sensation, he felt the texture of the plastic bottle under his fingers. The pain of his injuries. Oddly burning sensation in places where the monster’s claws dug into his skin. The potion wasn’t fully purged, but at least he was less loopy. Which was the exact moment things once again went to hell. 

Scruffy in his awkward glory finally arrived at the scene. Harry had no idea how much time passed since this mess started. But if that was Scruffy’s usual response time it was no wonder the monster was still terrorising Karakura. The Shinigami ran towards the monster only to bounce off the barrier and fall on his ass. And that would be hilarious if it wasn’t for what happened next. Scruffy got up, brushed the dust off his ridiculous get up then made some gestures and produced a light-show. The barrier shattered and the monster pinballed between nearby pillars. The ceiling started to crumble threatening to bring two upper floors onto Ichigo and Yasutora. Harry quickly got up from the bench. The wave of pain made him dizzy, but he managed to cast Arresto Momentum on falling debris to slow them down. 

His friends quickly evacuated the area. So did the monster who was once again rolling towards him. There was no way he could muster enough concentration for proper apparition or that he could run around with his fucked up ankle so he put up the strongest barrier he could and hoped for the best. Even though he wasn’t touching the barrier he felt the monster crashing into it. Dozens of arms tried to scratch their way through the barrier to get to him and Yuzu. The attack stopped as quickly as it started. He wasn’t sure what Scruffy did but it angered the monster enough to leave them and go after the Shinigami. There was a brief chase during which Scruffy produced some more light shows, but when you brought one sword to a fight with a monster that had more arms than Harry’s Hogwarts graduation class your chances were not great.

Scruffy kept dodging grasping arms until he wasn’t. Just when he once again attempted to cut off one of the monster’s arms he missed another reaching for him. Shinigami ended up being held similarly to what Harry experienced. Only instead of just holding Shinigami or tossing him away monster reached with that arm under itself.

Suddenly there was a loud wet crunchy noise. Seconds later a new pair of arms emerged between preexisting arms.

Harry swore out loud. 

And sure enough, the monster started once again rolling towards him. So he braced himself and powered up the barrier. The monster once again crashed into his barrier. Grasping. Scratching. Ignoring all attempts from his friends to either harm it or distract it from Harry and Yuzu. And just as Harry thought the barrier would shatter, something unexpected happened. An arc of crimson energy shot through the monster bisecting it and stopping just before the barrier. 

The body of the monster fell apart showing on the other side an unfamiliar man. He was tall, thin, and had blond hair. If Harry was in the world with a wizarding society then the man’s wardrobe choices would make him think he was dealing with a wizard. The sword he was holding made it clear that the man was most probably the mysterious Shinigami living in Karakura. Harry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. But life didn’t give him time to ponder that question as the bisected corpse of the monster started to move again. The split in the middle was healing. Just like bisected earthworms, it seemed that the two parts of the monster could operate separately as they rose without making any effort to join the other part.

If that abomination worked under Hydra physics he had to end it immediately. Harry tightened his grip on his staff and casted Fiendfyre.

Just as the monster struggled to get away from all-consuming fires he looked at the Shinigami. The shadows from his hat made it impossible to see his expression.

Chapter Text

I love to think through when there's a missing link

Scribbling thoughts, almost kissing ink- "Sky's The Limit", Persona 4 the animation

Noon on March 10th found Harry in his little kitchen, splitting his attention between stress baking and preparing meals for the upcoming busy week. His right ankle was still sore from the fight, and Harry suspected his ribs might have some micro-fractures. Breathing was sometimes a bit difficult. But the blasted Shinigami did a decent job, much to Harry’s annoyance.
 
Not that Harry got much time to interact with the mysterious man. Shortly after he managed to extinguish the cursed fire, Harry almost collapsed. The combination of his injuries, adrenaline, magical exhaustion, the remains of an experimental potion, and whatever the fuck monster’s claws were covered in hit him like a delivery truck. The events that followed were either very hazy or did not exist in his memories. Harry managed to get some bits and pieces of what happened from his friends but due to exams, everybody was busy. They decided to meet up on that Saturday at his flat to discuss everything away from overly curious students.
 
From what he pieced together, the Shinigami introduced himself as “Urahara Kisuke, a humble candy store owner”. The man was suspiciously eager to help a bunch of kids who had just been entangled in a supernatural catastrophe. Maybe Harry was too paranoid, but there was something off about Urahara’s offer. Unfortunately, his friends didn’t have much choice. Harry was unconscious at that point and between everybody’s injuries and the sheer damage to LaLaport Mall, they needed an adult’s help. He couldn’t blame them for accepting Shinigami’s help. Adults taking care of problems instead of depending on teenagers was something he would have appreciated back in his first life.
 
Harry stirred minestrone as he continued to reminisce.

What followed was Ichigo giving Harry a piggyback ride to Urahara’s candy shop, where the Shinigami performed whatever medical procedures he deemed necessary. And there was the crux of the matter. Urahara had unlimited access to Harry’s body and soul. Harry had no idea if Shinigami even had a concept of Soul Magic, but as a practitioner of that branch of magic just the idea of Urahara meddling made him want to crawl out of his skin. There was also the issue of the debt. No matter how one looked at the situation, Harry and his friends would have died without the Shinigami’s intervention. Which meant his magic recognised Life Debt hanging between him and Urahara. And that was a whole other can of worms.

In truth, he never investigated how or why Life Debts formed. Maybe he was a coward or hypocrite because of that. But after tasting freedom when he finally figured out how to transmigrate he didn’t even want to consider ever being bound again. Even by his own magic. 

And that was what it was- a self-applied binding. In most cases, it was created by an enemy or total stranger risking their life to save the life of a wizard or witch. In some cases, it acted straightforward- a person influenced by the Life Debt felt the need to help the “debtee”. In others it was more subtle- a person tripped when they were supposed to chase the “debtee” or their magic stopped working for just that moment.

Harry took a look at his left forearm. If he were in his spirit form, there would be a trace showing everyone he was honour-bound to somebody else. Constantly shifting, urging its victim to go and help the person who caused it.

There were ways of dissolving it. Very tempting ways. 
 
He could erase it using Soul Magic. It would hurt. It would leave a permanent mark on his soul. But it would be easy. It wouldn’t be the first time he changed himself at a fundamental level… 
 
But was it worth it? Was it worth using that kind of magic just to free himself from a Life Debt?
 
Harry added more beans and started to fish out bay leaves from the slow cooker. 
 
There were other ways of dissolving this kind of magical contract. Urahara could dissolve it with a few precise words. He would need to know it existed and fully understand the consequences of magic to dissolve it. But would the Shinigami dissolve the Life Debt if he knew about it or would he use it against Harry?
 
No.
 
Without knowing why after months of lying low Urahara intervened, it would be too risky to reveal the Life Debt to the Shinigami. 
 
The timer pinged. Harry hastily grabbed kitchen mittens and pulled out the tray full of cookies.
 
So for now, all he could do was put on his detective hat and try to figure out what the heck was going on in Karakura. The dreaded entrance exams starting on Monday were rather annoying. Life as a teenager sucked.
 
Just as Harry was finishing stacking cookies on a plate he heard his flat’s front door opening. That had to be Uryū; Ichigo at least had the decency to knock before coming in.
 
“I’m in the kitchen.”
 
He heard soft voices and shuffling. So Uryū wasn’t alone. And sure enough, he was accompanied by Arisawa and Inoue. Once they entered Harry’s kitchen they stopped 
 
“Are you considering a career change?” asked Ishida while judgmentally staring at various pastries and cookies laid out on plates in the kitchen. Perhaps Harry overdid it a little.
 
“Yeah, I’m going to ditch High School and open a cat cafe across the street from that candy shop. I’ll peek from behind curtains like a suburban housewife and silently judge the Shinigami until he fesses up.”
 
Amused snorts and a slight relaxation of the girls' postures were promising.
 
“Help yourselves to cookies and pastries. It’s not like I’m going to eat all of this on my own.”
 
Inoue was the first to pick a cookie from one of the plates.
 
“Bit dry.” She said after swallowing her first bite. “Could use mayonnaise and soy sauce.”
 
Ishida and Arisawa both had horrified expressions upon that announcement, but then Arisawa’s expression changed to intrigued.
 
“Sasaki-kun do you have-“ started Arisawa
 
“Somewhere out there, there is a god taking notes on your crimes against the culinary arts.”
 
“You are such an old man.”
 
Harry refused to take the bait and instead took all the condiments he had in the fridge and carried them to the coffee table in the living room. His kitchen appliances might not be living beings capable of experiencing trauma, but that didn’t mean he was letting this blasphemy take place in his kitchen!

They were sitting on the floor in Harry’s sitting room. Decent progress in destroying his baking goods was made much to Harry’s disgust. Culinary preferences might be personal but some things weren’t meant to be witnessed. 

He let Uryū do most of the explaining in favour of observing the girls. Things… didn’t look promising. The Mall Incident clearly left both girls with some trauma. And it wasn’t surprising. Suddenly learning that all along creatures were hiding in plain sight who considered you a “lunch” was never pleasant. That could be swiftly fixed with some self-defence classes and some self-confidence coaching.

But as he observed them reacting to his fellow archer’s explanations Harry realised there was a much more serious underlying problem that this situation was reinforcing. Inoue was tensing up and subtly flinching when Uryū was talking about fighting. Arisawa on the other hand was antagonistic and questioned everything. But it was how the girls seemed to “feed” off each other’s trauma that was the crux of the problem.

Harry never studied psychology in depth. It wasn’t something that ever appealed to him. But his many lives left him with enough knowledge of human behaviour to make educated guesses. Arisawa’s behaviour was easy enough to explain- losing control over your body was traumatic enough. And when combined with her seemingly Type A personality, made it for an explosive mix. Inoue might have possibly had some previous trauma in her past that was never resolved. Bullying? Abuse? He had no idea. But Arisawa and Inoue seemed to have… some kind of preexisting codependency considering what he had seen before the Mall Incident.

It would be so easy to teach Inoue how to defend herself from the supernatural, give her the means to contact their team in case she got over her head and mostly leave her out of the supernatural business. She might even appreciate this. It would be relatively easy to train Arisawa and let her feel like she was a knight to Inoue’s princess.

But that would be doing a huge disservice to the girls and Harry couldn’t do that. 

Harry took a deeper breath and took a Look at them.

Arisawa’s soul almost made him wince. At first look, it was an ordinary human soul with maybe slightly higher than average reiryoku. But once he took a closer look there were… anomalies around her head. He would even go as far as calling them scars. Those had to be from the monster.

Harry almost groaned. He sincerely hoped that the monster from last week was the Hollow equivalent of a mutated fish with additional eyes, not a brand new supernatural cricket. With the way things were going, he wasn’t sure he could keep up with yet another faction popping up on his threat list.

Inoue’s soul on the other hand made his brain come to a screeching halt. 

Harry could write up a multi-tome work on… his condition and all the good and bad that comes with it. For all his recent attitude, he had spent centuries researching and exploring the limits. Not all realities had something one could call “gods”. And some attributes ascribed to gods weren’t exclusive to them. “Earmarking” mortals and their descendants by giving them Boons was one of those things.

Blessing that created a connection between a supernatural entity and a mortal, granting the human a skill, protection or gift. However you wanted to call it. And somewhere back in the time multiple ancestors in Inoue’s family tree managed to impress different supernatural creatures enough to be blessed. Some of them were minor others were bigger, but once combined in Inoue Orihime they became a completely new ability. And there was no mistake what kind of a terrible, terrible ability it was. A form of wish granting.

No matter how Harry looked at it, he had no idea how the girl was supposed to power up that Boon. She was a living human with decent reiryoku levels. Could she drain her surroundings from reishi to power her skills like a Quincy? Was she only limited by her own reiryoku? If so what would happen if she tried to overreach? 

He needed to figure out how to mute that ability or teach the teenager to not use it outside of emergency situations. He decided. He could only imagine what the Shinigami or a smart Hollow would do if they realised what Inoue was capable of.

As if he already didn’t have enough on his plate. This had to be some kind of supernatural payback. He didn’t want to believe this concentration of supernatural nonsense in one location could be natural. 

His magic shuffled uncomfortably under his skin.

The sound of knocking on the front door followed by the opening of said doors forced him to stop freaking out over the newest discovery.

“…why is there soy sauce on the table?”

“Don’t ask questions if you are not prepared to hear the answers, Karin.”

“What was that monster, anyway?” Arisawa finally asked. Most of Harry’s baking had been demolished by their team effort, while they went over what happened last Sunday. Harry hadn’t learned many new details, besides how weirded out kids were by Urahara’s… pretty much everything. Starting with his mannerisms and ending with measuring Yuzu’s pupillary distance. Hearing that kids were wary of the Shinigami was reassuring. Still, maybe Harry should get himself a corkboard? Keeping track of all this information was starting to get difficult.

“It had similar energy to Hollows, but I’ve never encountered a Hollow this powerful,” said Ishida, clearly troubled by the implications of his statement.

“From my research, powerful Hollows tend to reside in their own separate reality, just like Shinigami,” responded Harry, grateful Muramasa had revealed this information to him. “If we are lucky that Shinigami actually did his job and we get some peace.” Wishful thinking on his part, sure but after months of this nightmare he needed a break. “For now let’s keep track of any suspicious deaths and be prepared for any other wackiness.”

Some of the tension in his friends dissipated.

For all his faith in magic. 

For all the wonder he felt when he explored new ways supernatural beings developed. 

For all the joy he felt when he was teaching. 

Sometimes he had moments where he hated all of that.

He hated what he was doing to these teenagers. They should be free to explore themselves while they still have a safety net created by adults. Not hunting supernatural monsters. But supernatural creatures didn’t care much for how humans organised their societies. All the people in Harry’s living room could be potential victims of hungry spirits. Jikininki. Hollows. Whatever you wanted to call them, keeping these kids ignorant was both detrimental to their survival and beneficial to their development. 

The quicker he figured out a way to protect Karakura from both Shinigami and Hollows, the better.

“If you are open to it, I would like to invite both of you to our supernatural self-defence classes.” He continued half-jokingly while looking at Arisawa and Inoue. 

Inoue once again looked toward Arisawa for guidance. Arisawa on the other hand tensed up like she was preparing for a fight. Then she almost forcefully relaxed her posture.

“At least you are giving me a choice.”

“Excuse me?”

“That candy store creep tried to erase my memories. After his gizmo exploded he let me go.”

Harry could hear his blood rushing. He could feel magic crackling just under his skin.

Apparently, Shinigami had a technology to erase or change humans’ memories. And Urahara was perfectly willing to meddle with the memories of one of Harry’s friends. Wonderful. Fantastic. Exactly what he needed to hear at that exact moment. 

Pop.

Glass rained over their heads forcing everyone to back off.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop

Light bulb after light bulb all around the apartment shattered raining glass all over the place.

In sheer mortification Harry hid his face in his hands. He couldn’t remember the last time he had performed accidental magic.

Only then did he feel sticky wetness on his fingers. Even before he lifted his face from his hands he knew what it was. Blood. From bleeding in his nostrils caused by the magical surge.

Evening of the same day Harry found himself preparing for an investigation. Up until that point he hadn’t time to take a closer look at the LaLaPort Mall ruins. And if the newspapers he had managed to get his hands on were true, the disaster zone earned that title.

Once Akira hopped into his backpack, Harry casted Notice-me-not Charm on himself, put on the Invisibility Cloak, and apparated to one of the alleys near LaLaPort Mall.

Harry had to take a moment to take in the sight.

Photos in newspapers didn’t do the real thing justice. The front part of the Mall was reduced to debris. Which covered a considerable part of the pavement and road, forcing the police to cordon off the road and evacuate a few nearby buildings just in case. But the back of the mall where the Dzi Beads shop was located was still standing. 

Harry came closer to the building dodging a few tired policemen guarding the Mall. Between the part of the building where the battle took place being destroyed, the passage of time and the cursed fire, all traces of the monster had to be destroyed. But there was still something he could do.

Hoping for the best, he apparated to the third floor.

The good news was the spot where he landed didn’t immediately start to crumble. Nor did the ceiling start to fall. The bad news was he landed on a dark stain that suspiciously resembled old blood. This was why he was there. 

He took off the Invisibility Cloak and let Akira out of his backpack then started walking.

“Is anyone here?” he asked quietly.

Silence.

According to the newspapers, 53 people died that Sunday. Neither he nor his friends had time to search out and banish any ghosts. Scruffy was eaten by the monster and as far as Harry knew up until this point Urahara didn’t bother with Shinigami duties, so why would he start now? Unless the monster ate all of those souls, there should be some ghosts.

He looked at Akira. The cat was sniffing the air and making confused chirps. That was interesting. Harry drew a quick magical array on the ground with a sharpie, activated it and took a Look. He frowned.

This was the third floor, not the second floor. Even with a specialised array to amplify traces of magic, there shouldn’t be anything to see. And yet Akira was once again right. Three relatively fresh energy signatures showed up. None of them looked similar to his friends’ reiryoku.

He turned off his Sight. Had the Shinigami sent someone to investigate? 

Akira mewed impatiently near his leg. Once his familiar was sure he had Harry’s attention, he ran towards the Dzi Beads Shop. That was the other thing he was hoping to investigate during this trip.

He followed Akira at a much slower pace. This part of the building wasn’t as damaged as the part where the monster had destroyed the supporting columns, but that didn’t mean much. 

The Dzi Beads shop didn’t look much different from how he remembered it. There was more broken glass and some merchandise was lying on the ground. The body of the woman who had attacked Arisawa was also missing. Harry’s familiar was near one of the necklaces lying on the ground doing something bizarre. He batted at the jewellery, jumped back like he was electrocuted, and then watched in confusion the item for a moment before repeating the process.

Truly the most cat-like behaviour he had ever seen.

Harry knelt next to Akira then grabbed the necklace. He immediately had to drop it. 

He looked at his palm there was no trace of what felt like a bite and something sucking at his magic.

“What the fuck?”

He exchanged looks with his cat then took another approach. He casted Levitation Charm on the necklace. The jewellery didn’t even budge. Harry dug through the pockets in his jacket until he found his gloves. After he put them on he tried to grab the necklace again and this time he succeeded.

It was warm. Uncomfortably warm. And while the nerve endings in his hand were telling him he was holding a solid firm object, he was also getting a strange phantom feedback of holding something fleshy. 

Out of sheer confusion and frustration, he took a Look at the object.

In a way Uryū was right. The bead on the necklace felt like an echo of an old melody. Like something dead or sleeping but hanging on by its nails. Like an acrid hiss. Which should make no sense when one perceived all of that with sight. But that was too often the case with the supernatural- humans’ senses and languages weren’t equipped to deal with that. And for all Harry was god Master of Death he was still limited by his form.

He placed the necklace on the ground and glanced at the rest of the merchandise. The beads woven into other jewellery pieces were much duller, quieter, maybe even dormant? He turned his Sight off. 

Harry had no idea what he was dealing with here, he definitely needed to do some research. But it was clear he couldn’t just leave the Supernatural Jewellery TM in a destroyed building. Whoever owned this shop- putting aside if they even knew what they were selling- wasn’t going back for their merchandise. No sane official would let them. And with plans to create wards around the city, the last thing Harry needed was a bird disrupting the wards by placing a Dzi Beads necklace near one of the anchoring points.

Before he could say anything Akira ran off, only to shortly come back with a big hiking backpack. He scratched his familiar behind his ears before grabbing the backpack and starting to fill it with the jewellery.

Finding all the supernatural jewellery took over an hour. Seeing how easily a few layers of cloth nullified their influence was surprising, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He took one last look around the shop before apparating, when a broken mirror caught his eye. 

Mirrors.

Huh.

That could work.

Afternoon the next day found Harry in Karakura’s graveyard standing in front of Hanako’s grave with a bouquet in hand.

Graves in all different shapes and forms were both a sign of creatures’ high intelligence and ability to grieve. Graves were altars of worship. Graves were reminders of one’s deeds. Graves were…

Graves were for the living. 

Some dead attached themselves to graves because of their beliefs. But the truth was, graves were there for the living to grieve.

And Harry finally allowed himself to grieve a friend whose life was cut short. He quietly apologised. He talked about how much he and his classmates missed her. He talked about all that happened while she wasn’t there. He talked… he wasn’t even sure what he was rambling about. But talking helped.

He wasn't as close to Hanako as to his other friends. But Hanako possibly being one of the first victims of the Hollow going after people with high reiryoku levels changed things. Normal humans shouldn’t be targeted because they were close to someone with high reiryoku. 

No.

Humans who had nothing to do with the supernatural shouldn’t have to wonder if, for example, a werewolf could attack them. That was up to whatever local supernatural governing body to deal with.

And yet the local “supernatural police” were an example of one of the most inefficient institutions in the history of law enforcement.

Then he felt a worried pull of his bond with Akira. Up until this point his familiar had been quietly sitting in his backpack, so Harry wasn’t going to ignore it. He quickly summoned Invisibility Cloak, wrapped it around himself and as an extra measure he casted Notice-me-not Charm.

Locating what or rather who Akira sensed took him a few minutes and lots of navigating through the densely “populated” graveyard, but when he finally spotted them he was intrigued to say the least. In the middle of the graveyard two Shinigami were talking. A woman who was rather short and thin with short dark hair. A tall man with white (bleached?) short hair and a white overrobe. Harry came closer to the pair taking care to not make too much noise.

“-didn’t expect you here, my apologies Ichimaru-taicho.” said the shorter Shinigami. For all her words and tone, she didn’t look very sorry.

“Given… the failings of the previous seated officer your division stationed Sotaicho felt an experienced officer should keep a closer eye on Jūreichi until you get comfortable. I’m already investigating Mamiya-san’s death so I volunteered.” Cheerfully responded the male, making the other Shinigami visually annoyed.

…were there internal conflicts in Gotei 13? Different departments in human organisations overreaching or shirking their duties were very common. But with how Muramasa described Shinigami and Gotei 13, Harry had the impression that somewhere during Shinigami’s training their mentality skipped straight into blue-and-orange-morality territory. If Shinigami were both in a metaphysical and mental sense still human souls, he could manage dealing with them. For all his annoyance with teenagers, he knew how human adults worked both on an individual level and as organisations.

"I appreciate your… kindness Taicho, but I assure you there is no need for further concern.”   Said the shorter Shinigami. And oh boy she sounded like she was 5 seconds away from force-feeding glass shards to the other Shinigami. Someone hit a nerve? Short temper? Natural rivalry between the Divisions?

“See that you don’t raise further concerns, Kuchiki-chan.” Responded the tall Shinigami smiling even wider. And was that guy talking with closed eyes??

The “Kuchiki-chan” was first to leave, but the “captain” didn’t linger around either.

More puzzles for him to fiddle with and even more questions he didn’t know he needed to ask.

After he dealt with Muramasa’s master and set up a warding system around Karakura he was going to go on vacation, Harry decided. Somewhere warm and pet friendly so he wouldn’t need to hide his familiar.

It was like suddenly resurfacing from freezing water. His lungs burned. Eyes in panic searching for something.

Light. Pain. Fear. Voices shouting.

It took him an undetermined amount of time to slow down. To start breathing instead of hyperventilating.

It took him even more time to realise he was in his bed. That he was tightly gripping his damp pyjama shirt with his right hand. That just a meter away Ichigo was sleeping on a futon. That Akira was licking his left hand.

Breath in. Breath out. Breath in. Breath out.

He managed to muster the energy to get out of his bed. To leave his bedroom and stumble into the bathroom. 

Harry splashed his face with cold water, chasing away sleepiness. Then he stared at his hands. He could feel his magic angrily bubbling under his skin. He hadn’t tinkered with his seal in months, yet his body wasn’t getting used to the magic as well as he hoped. 

Harry groaned and combed his hair with his fingers. It was 4 AM, he had even more tests in the morning and he was bone-deep tired. Future!Harry could deal with this problem.

A half-hour later found Harry in the kitchen with a cup of tea scribbling potential designs for a warding anchor in his notebook when he heard steps. Akira jumped off his lap and ran up to the freshly woken-up Ichigo to beg for pets.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“No, you didn’t. I…” the redhead stopped like he was searching for words. “Never mind.”

Akira tilted his head while staring at Ichigo, then ran back to the kitchen table, jumped onto the table almost spilling Harry’s tea and stole Harry’s notebook. Stars, his familiar could be such a menace. 

“Tea?” he offered instead of chasing after the cat.

Ichigo nodded and proceeded to stay quiet even after Harry made tea for him. It seemed his usual tactic of out-waiting kids until they cracked and spilt the beans wouldn’t work with the redhead. 

“Nightmares woke you up too?”

“…Yeah.” Finally said Ichigo with a slight tremble in his voice. “… I dreamed that the Geta-bōshi made a mistake while cutting the way out for us and the building collapsed.”

Yes, that sounded exactly like the kind of nightmare his best friend would have. Not being mauled by a Katamari straight from hell. Not being hunted for months by the said creature. No. It was his friends dying in front of him and Ichigo not being able to do anything about it. 

Harry still had no idea what exactly caused such deeply rooted survivor guilt nor did he know why Ichigo insisted on taking on his barks- Well no, that wasn’t quite true. Harry knew perfectly well the answer to those questions. It was Kurosaki Sr, heedless of the psychological damage he was causing, pushing Ichigo to be “more responsible”. It was Kurosaki Isshin not dragging the redhead to a psychologist so the teenager could work through his trauma. It was Ichigo’s father who insisted on training his son instead of providing a safe space for his kids.

Each day brought Harry closer and closer to the moment where he would snap and shake damned Kurosaki Isshin until all marbles in man’s brain fell into proper places and his actions finally started to align with his words. Because from the few times Harry saw Kurosaki Sr with his kids, he knew the man cared for them. And when one ignored training sessions he was a decent father for the twins. 

“I don’t know what I dreamed about. I remember some sensations. Mostly fear and pain.” He instead responded. For all the fights his best friend had with his father, he wouldn’t appreciate Harry dissing Isshin.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Ichigo spoke up again.

“Sometimes when we fight Hollows I can feel what they feel. It’s always hunger and desperation. Like a wild starved animal.” the redhead stopped for a moment before continuing. ”That creature we fought last week felt like pain.”

Empathy. Supernatural empathy that was possibly only activated during hostile encounters. That was heartbreaking. Vanilla, standard human empathy was a burden in a fight. But being able to feel what your enemy feels? That could quickly turn a simple fight into a catastrophe. Not to mention how psychologically devastating such an ability would be. Harry pulled at his bond with his familiar and urged Akira to comfort the teenager.

“Ichigo, I want you to understand I’m asking you this so I can make sure I understand the situation. Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” he said once his purring cat was curled up on the teenager’s lap.

There was a moment of hesitation on Ichigo’s part. Harry patiently waited.

“At first I didn’t notice. I thought those were my emotions.” Slowly started Ichigo looking down at Akira. “But when I realised they were Hollows’ emotions I… I didn’t want to stand out more.”

Harry felt like he was kicked by a horse. Somewhere in all this chaos, while focusing on solving problems he had given this teenager the impression that talking about his problems with Harry would be a bother. 

“Ichigo, please look at me.” 

The redhead took a moment before almost hesitantly looking up.

“Ichigo, I don’t know what made you feel this way, but your feelings are valid. No matter what bothers you, you can always talk about it with me.” He stopped to take a sip of his cold tea. “We will figure out how you can control this ability. As a team.”

He stopped talking for a moment to give Ichigo a chance to speak, but the teenager did not speak up. So Harry continued.

“Thank you for trusting me.” 

And that broke the dam. Ichigo lifted Akira up and buried his face in the cat’s fur. Harry stood up from his seat, rounded the table and proceeded to give the teenager a half hug- just tight enough so he would feel his care for him and loose enough so he could get out of it if he didn’t want it. 

Ichigo didn’t move either way.

Harry had no idea how much time they spent like this. It didn’t matter. Ichigo needed that time and attention. That was all that mattered.

Eventually Ichigo calmed down.

Eventually Harry dragged the befuddled redhead to his magically enlarged closet to show him what Harry jokingly dubbed the Conspiracy Board.

The first hurdle was Ichigo staring at Dracula Jr. 

“Don’t mind him, he does that a lot.” The hare standing on his hind legs and seemingly gripping the cage’s bars didn’t make things look better. 

“Why do you have a hare in your closet? Why the hell is your closet so large???”

“In reverse order- magic; I need to test my potions on something and you really don’t want me testing them on humans. Now can you take a look an this?” He said pointing to the board.

Ichigo stared. He couldn’t blame the teenager, the Conspiracy Board was busy. It was filled with both confirmed information and Harry’s theories. All colour-coded and and annotated.

“If for whatever reason something happens to me-“ he had to hold up his hand up upon seeing Ichigo’s expression ”I don’t expect something to happen to me, but planning for it gives me peace of mind. Anyway, IF something happens to me you can consult this board for information on what to my knowledge is going on in Karakura. I’m going to leave some clues with Akira, but that is a work in progress.”

For a moment Ichigo looked conflicted before finally nodding.

“I’m also going to pass this information to Uryūu-san, just in case.” He stopped, taking a look at the corkboard. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened last week”

Next to him Ichigo relaxed slightly.

It wasn’t until Wednesday, March 21st that both Harry and Uryū could meet up.

Harry was in the middle of figuring out his newest potentially catastrophic idea.

It should be noted that Harry hated reading magical texts written before the 19th century. Grimoires of the old were always written in such a convoluted and coded way that everybody but the apprentices of the author couldn’t figure out the trade secrets. And Zoila Nieves under whom he apprenticed loved inflicting such old texts on him.

The Celestial Formulae: From Lead to Light, A Pilgrimage Through the Mysteries of Transformation by Aelric von Verne was one of such texts that stuck with him. In the most simple terms, it was the diary of a slightly insane 13th-century alchemist who dabbled into ritual magic while living in a castle of a German noble. Between all the gossip Aelric collected and his highly philosophical rants on the nature of the local lake there was a grain of truth.  And the said truth was: gathering energy for a ritual from places not connected to Leylines was prohibitively resource wasteful; use living subjects, you dummy.

And that was true enough if you were a 13th-century alchemist living on the premises of his noble patron’s castle. 
 
But Harry James Potter was living in the 21st century and did not need to make human sacrifices to power up his schemes. Not when he could use the achievements of science to help him out. 

Theoretically, any energy could be converted into magic if one were stubborn enough. But procuring and lugging a power generator to the Contamination Zone was such a bad idea even before the Shinigami started sniffing around. The Karasu River’s current while deceptive wasn’t strong enough to power whatever contraption he could come up with. And while using a thunderstorm to power up his ward-breaking idea could work out, it would mean waiting until fall due to Karakura’s climate. And that… was less than optimal.

Modern mirrors made out of thin glass and aluminium were lighter, making transportation and setting them up easier. Aluminium also didn’t share silver’s alchemical properties which meant he didn’t have to worry about accidentally creating an anti-vampire death ray-

Huh.

Why had he never created on purpose anti-vampire death ray?

Akira who up until this point was sitting on Harry’s kitchen table watching him work suddenly tilted his head and then bolted towards the front door. The sound of someone almost aggressively opening the door was followed by heavy steps, only to be disrupted by Akira’s enthusiastic chirp. Uryū arrived and if Harry had to make a guess he was also aware of the new Shinigami in Karakura. 

“What are you doing?”

“Solving the world’s energy crisis. Or getting myself sent to the ER with a face full of broken glass. One of those two.”

“… you are not sleeping. Again.”

At that, Harry laid the mirror on the table and took a sip of his cold coffee before he spoke up.

“I would be surprised if any of us got a good sleep after what happened in LaLaport Mall.”

“I don’t believe anyone else pretends to be a mad scientist in their free time.”

“Oh, now I’m hurt. I don’t pretend to be a mad scientist. I’m a scholar. An artificer if you really want to push it. But not a scientist.”

That got him only a raised eyebrow. It was worth a shot.

Finally, Ishida took a seat at the table and curiously looked at the mirror Harry was working on.

“Are you going to use… this to power the wards you want to put around Karakura?”

At this, Harry had to stop and take a moment to consider what he could say. Strictly speaking, Harry never lied to his friends. He didn’t tell them some things, but he didn’t lie. Telling them about the Contamination Zone or its denizens wasn’t safe for either side so he never brought it up. And while they might believe him if he ever told them about his status or his previous lives… there was no point. The moment all natural and artificial anchors keeping him in this world were severed he would be back in his realm. 

“I’m not sure. Mirrors are very conspicuous and fragile. Maybe for the initial power up…”

They sat quietly. Harry was once again trying to figure out how to tackle the Arisawa-Inoue-shaped problem, meanwhile Uryū was working himself up into a conniption.

“Yuzu-san called me today.” Finally, Ishida broke the silence.

Harry only nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

“According to her Ichigo-san and Yasutora-san helped a new Shinigami defeat a Hollow,” said Uryū nonchalantly, making him choke on his coffee

“Excuse me, what??” Harry managed to wheeze out after he stopped choking.

“And there was a possessed bird involved somewhere. She wasn’t clear on the details.” Continued uncaring the Quincy. 

“…at least please tell me the Shinigami didn’t see what they can do,” Harry said while burying his face in his hands. Urahara having an idea of what they were capable of complicated things enough, but with the man’s murky and probably complicated connection with other Shinigami they had a decent chance of flying under the radar. If an active soldier spotted them? Or worse that tall white haired investigator? They might as well start faking their deaths.

“As far as they can tell she thinks they are simple spiritually aware humans.”

Well, there were small mercies…

“Ichigo-san thinks it would be safer to limit contact with him and Yasutora-san until the Shinigami leaves.”

…the small mercies were shoved out of the window to their death.

“She won’t be leaving any time soon. She seems to be Scruffy’s replacement,” despaired Harry after lifting his head. “At least they didn’t catch the eye of the albino Shinigami.”

“…Just how many Shinigami are in Karakura?”

“At the very least three. I went back to LaLaport Mall to investigate and found three fresh reiryoku signatures that didn’t match what I know about human and Hollow signatures. Later I accidentally stumbled upon a meeting between two new Shinigami.”

“You didn’t mention this.”

“Well excuse me, between exams and other people’s family obligations setting up a meeting to get everyone on the same page feels like trying to set up a session of Call of Cthulhu.”

At least Uryū had the decency to look chagrined. Ryūken took the opportunity of early end of the school year for graduating classes and decided to drag Uryū on a family trip. Harry didn’t ask any questions and instead wished the Quincy good luck and a proper rest from Karakura’s insanity.

“The short woman is there to smack around Hollows and send souls to the afterlife. If we are lucky she will do a better job than Scruffy and we can focus on schoolwork. The more dangerous one is the tall man with short white hair. He seems to be stationed in Karakura to investigate the LaLaport Mall incident.” He continued.

“Surely, this won’t take too long. Even Shinigami can’t be that incompetent.”

At this point, Harry had to physically stop himself from pinching Ishida’s cheeks at the naivety of that statement. Either Uryūu’s grandfather didn’t have time to pass crucial information before he died or Quincy in general didn’t have Harry’s understanding of how souls worked. It didn’t matter which one was the case, he was going to share the depressing truth.

“Uryūu-san, do you know how long ants live?”

“A few weeks. Why are you asking?” the Quincy narrowed his eyes as he spoke.

“I’ll explain in a moment, but first answer one more question. Shinigami are trained souls of dead people with high reiryoku. Would you agree or disagree with this statement?”

“…agree.”

“Imagine you were sent to observe an anthill for a study. Sitting and watching ants for one day won’t give you much data. Maybe even a few weeks won’t give you enough data for the study…”

“Are you suggesting Shinigami could be investigating that Hollow attack for years??”

“That is the thing- I have no idea what they consider appropriate procedures in a situation like this. I understand how souls of dead people work, but Shinigami’s administration? I have no idea.”

Harry gulped down the rest of his coffee and stood up. 

“Come on, I have something to show you”

Ishida’s reaction to his magically extended closet wasn’t as funny as Ichigo’s, but that was given- the Quincy witnessed more of Harry’s magical shenanigans than the redhead. 

Harry left Uryū to stare at the Conspiracy Board while he searched through ingredient samples and bottled potions for experimental magical ink he had prepared for the Quincy.

“181,” suddenly spoke up his fellow archer.

“Huh?” Harry turned around only to see Uryū staring at the map of Karakura where he had marked occurrences of suspicious deaths.

“181 dead people.”

“That is the most deaths I could attribute to the monster. The lowest number would be 93.”

“It was stalking you.” Continued the Quincy. Harry had to stop himself from wincing. There was no denying that. Not when the map clearly showed the Tsubakidai and Mashiba districts being the epicentre of the incidents- places where Harry spent most of his time. Not after the monster had so aggressively targeted him during the fight.

“That is my suspicion, yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” There was so much anger and disappointment in that one question. Harry just kept screwing up one interaction with the kids after another one, didn’t he?

The most honest answer was that Harry was dumb and never quite grew out of his self-sacrificial tendencies. Another honest answer was that he knew how overdramatic and dumb both Ichigo and Uryū could be. But that level of honesty would only hurt and make Ishida feel useless. Perhaps even making him feel patronised. 

Harry couldn’t do that to the teenager. Not when he knew Uryū only had a father whom he didn’t trust and teenage angst. Once upon a time, he was in that position. It was a sad and unhealthy position even when you didn’t have supernatural horrors lurking just behind your back. 

“How about we go back to the kitchen, grab something to drink and talk?” he said while spotting the blasted bottle with ink near a backpack full of Dzi Beads.

A few minutes later they were once again in Harry’s kitchen. Uryū was weighted down in his seat by Akira, glaring at the kitchen table as if it personally offended him.

“Have you ever wondered why we are never attacked by Hollows when we are in this building?” He started.

“I’ve assumed you placed some kind of protection on the building.”

“I didn’t. I searched the building quite a few times, but so far I haven’t found any clues. Whoever did place wards over this place, knew what they were doing.”

Uryū looked stunned. Aftera all they spent a considerable amount of time going over what he knew about protections set up by Quincy in Karakura. Yet at no point the teenager pointed out the apartment building as one of the protected buildings.

“Hell, as far as I know, my mother could have placed wards on this building.” Harry joked. “What I’m trying to say is I knew that if I got cornered I could teleport back home and be safe. Alternatively, at school I could drag you guys back to that classroom and hide for a few hours. But what I was hoping for was something else.”

He took a sip of coffee considering how to phrase what he needed to say.

“There is something fishy going on in Karakura. It had been going long before my parents moved me here. Did you know Ichigo met only one Hollow before he met me?” Harry finally looked up from his cup at the surprised teenager sitting next to him. “Stars, Ichigo not being targeted by Hollows when he has higher reiryoku levels than me doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“And you… what? Suspect this isn’t Urahara’s work? That there is another party keeping Ichigo-san and his sisters safe?”

Harry drummed his fingers on the table as he thought.

“I don’t know what to think about the who. What I do know is that whoever is responsible, they are very selective in who they help. They didn’t help you or your grandfather. They didn’t protect me from Hollows. They didn’t protect normal non-spiritually aware humans. Only one teenager who has more power at his fingertips than he knows what to do with it.”

Maybe Harry was a bit manipulative there. But honestly, giving the Quincy something else to chew on was the only strategy he came up with on the spot. And in the light of recent events that was something his own brain tended to chew on when he wasn’t occupied otherwise. 

“…does Ichigo-san knows about this?”

“About the monster targeting me? I showed him the corkboard, but he didn’t ask me about that so I have no idea if he spotted that map. That there is something strange going on around him? I have no idea how to tell him that without coming off as a paranoid nutjob.” And as smart as Ichigo was, Harry had doubts when it came to the redhead figuring this out. When you were slowly submerged in hot water. When you trusted a person who was about to stab you. When everyone around you acted like what you were experiencing was normal. It was easy to miss the signs. 

It was easy to be turned into a suicide bomber.

Harry shook his head as if to shake off the intrusive thoughts. There was something else he wanted to show the young Quincy.

“I have created magical ink to use for your enchanting lessons.”

“Is that blood???”

“…if I say no, would you believe me?

“…”

“It’s not just blood, okay? There are many other ingredients in there. I promise you. Don’t give me that look!”

By the time April 4th rolled in, Harry was truly fed up with the newest developments in Karakura’s supernatural nonsense. 

As far as he could tell the short Shinigami did a decent job handling Hollows and ghosts. Not that he could verify this- other than occasional phone calls from the twins he did his best to stay away from the Kurosaki siblings and Yasutora. And going on hunts with only Uryū didn’t feel right.

The tall Shinigami on the other hand tended to show up in the strangest places. And no matter how much Harry didn’t like to admit it aloud, he was fairly sure he was being stalked by the investigator. Considering this was his third stalker within a year, it really said something. 

That probably should have prepared him for what he later dubbed as “The Standoff”. It didn’t because even by wizarding standards the situation was starting to be ridiculous.

On April 4th’s afternoon, Harry was going home on his own. Uryū was stuck in Home Economics Club and both Arisawa and Inoue still were hesitant in their interactions with Harry. For all his worries about the duo, Harry decided to let them approach him on their terms. After all the last thing he needed was creeping out two teenage girls he needed to train.

About halfway from Karakura High to his flat in the Tsubakidai district, Akira who was once again sitting in his bag, nudged their bond. They were being followed. Again. Harry ducked into the next alley on his way swiftly covering himself in the Invisibility Cloak and casting notice-me-not charm for a good measure. 

He didn’t need to wait for very long. Just as Harry suspected a tall white-haired Shinigami walked into the alley he was in. Well maybe “walked” wasn’t the correct word since the investigator was seemingly walking on air a few meters above the ground. 

Harry made note of the newly discovered ability while observing the Shinigami. The man’s face and body language was closed off. Yet he wasn’t staring in Harry’s direction so at least he didn’t need to worry about that.

Just as Harry was contemplating sneaking off and apparating back home another Shinigami arrived. Wearing the exactly same ugly hat and old-fashioned clothes Urahara Kisuke appeared in the alley. That broke the white-haired Shinigami out of whatever state he was in.

“Long time no see Ichimaru-kun,” said the man while pulling seemingly out of nowhere a paper fan. “A little bird told me you were promoted. Congratulations.” Between the ugly hat and annoying fan, Harry couldn’t see Urahara’s expressions, but he had a feeling that if he could take a peek he would see a smile sharp enough to cut a steel sheet. 

“Urahara-san there is no need for that.” The smile on “Ichimaru’s” face was wide but felt strained. Harry could relate, the Life Debt felt like a burning brand on his left arm. There was no obvious danger to Urahara but the cold hostility between the Shinigami probably triggered the debt. There was no way he could get away before he either intervened or the two Shinigami stopped pissing each other off. 

“So how is Aizen-san these days. Still busy with his experiments?”

“I couldn’t say. After all, we are in different divisions.”

“Maa such workaholics.-“

“-and then they scattered like pissed-off cats. I swear Shinigami are the oddest people I have met in Karakura. What kind of people start a dissing match in an alleyway after their target got away?” complained Harry that evening. On the other side of the kitchen table, Ishida was carefully scribbling an enchanting array on a piece of wood. So far Uryū didn’t blow up anything and managed to make working enchantments. Even if they were “wobbly”, it was a net positive.

“Indeed, I cannot imagine who could do that.”

“Wow, now I’m hurt,” Harry responded jokingly. It had been less than a year since they dragged the Quincy into their group but the young man had come far. A friend group wasn’t a proper substitute for caring guardians, but Harry did what he could.

“…Is there any way to enchant an object with different mediums?” asked Uryū after he finished writing out the array. Harry took the piece of wood and activated the array. A barrier sprung around him. It still wasn’t as solid as he would have preferred, but progress was progress.

“Of course! Depending on the materials you want to use sometimes burning or painting the enchantment onto the material could not be possible. Sewing enchantments into cloth is complicated but doable.” He said knowingly. Ishida’s handwriting was much more clean and precise than his own, so one would think that the Quincy should be better at this. In practice clean handwriting helped someone else figure out what you did, but did little to improve the enchantment itself. Most Master Enchanters tended to have horrible handwriting as a result. After all trade secrets were worth one’s weight in gold.

“Although I would need to figure out a way to give magical properties to the thread. Hmmm.” He continued. Ink for enchanting needed to be thick enough to dry quickly. Dunking the thread into it would result in coarse and flaky thread weakening the enchantment…

Suddenly there was a knocking on his front door.

They exchanged looks. It couldn’t be Ichigo or Yasutora for obvious reasons and 8 PM was a little late for twins to visit. He went up to his front door, Uryū only a few steps behind him.

Much to his surprise on the other side of the door weren’t twins.

On the other side of the door stood Arisawa Tatsuki and Inoue Orihime.

“We need your kind of help, Sasaki-san” was the first thing Arisawa said.

Chapter Text

“There's no place here for me to hide my cries
Night and day, I'm missing you, ooh
I know I'm here for the magic
All your stars guiding me through and through
Ooh, why does this loneliness feel like forever and ever?”
Fallen Angel by Mitsunori Ikeda for Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Getting the girls to calm down and sit at the kitchen table with cups of tea took some time and light prodding. If whatever they experienced had shaken them enough to run straight to Harry’s flat, then the situation needed to be taken seriously. He didn’t ask any questions; he just fussed around his kitchen to give the teenagers time to sort themselves out.

“Something is… haunting Orihime-chan’s apartment,” Arisawa finally said as Harry was laying down store-bought Taiyaki on the table. 

“What makes you believe that?” asked Uryū as Harry sat down next to him. Not the smoothest way of gathering information, but the Quincy needed practice, so he didn’t intervene.

“I… stuff in my apartment was moved or damaged over the last few days. My brother’s photo was knocked over. My plushies were destroyed…” started Inoue, her shoulders tense almost as if she were ready to bolt.

“I thought Orihime-chan had some creepy stalker after her, so I offered to stay with her tonight. Everything was ok until we were eating dinner.” continued Arisawa. Harry had to give her points; her looking around was almost subtle. “But then we heard a crash from the kitchen.”

“Sora-oniisan’s favourite cup was shattered. I kept it safe in the cupboard-“

“I’m pretty sure I saw something passing through a wall-“

Harry needed only one look at the teenagers gathered around his table to make a quick executive decision. He lightly kicked Uryū under the table to stop him from whatever insensitive nonsense his facial expression suggested he was about to spout. He probably should do something about that since Ryūken had failed spectacularly in socialising his son. Was fifteen years-old too late to set up playdates? He probably should have dug through his sealed away memories before he suggested that.

“Girls, I believe you. Something weird is probably going on around Inoue-san. But I need to ask you to calm down and answer some questions so we can figure out what exactly is going on, ok?” Harry said. There was a brief moment of hesitation on their part, but they ended up nodding. “Good. Now did you see anything else before you got here?”

“I don’t think so?” responded Arisawa. As bad as it sounded, Harry didn’t expect her to notice if there was something off. For all the trauma Arisawa experienced during the LaLaport Incident, she was an untrained civilian freshly clued into the supernatural. He turned towards Inoue with an encouraging smile.

“I think that… this thing was following us,” said Inoue finally looking up from staring at the table. “I felt like someone was staring at us the whole time.” 

Arisawa once more stiffened up, probably gearing up for more supernatural shenanigans.

“It’s ok. Whatever was following you can’t get into this building. You are safe here,” Harry quickly assured them. Some tension eased away, but it was clear they didn’t fully believe him. 

“Inoue-san, did anyone close to you recently die?” asked Uryū. A decent question, although it could use some improvement.

“Other than oniisan, I don’t know. Saori-obasan didn’t mention anything in her last phone call.”

Harry had to physically force himself not to show the sheer, pure outrage he felt. His own current life parents sucked at parenting. The more pragmatic part of him was glad; if they were around, he would have to put up with being treated like a teenager even at home. But apparently, Orihime was yet another orphan running around with no adult supervision. At this rate, Japan was looking more and more like Neverland than a proper country.

“When did your brother pass away?” prodded Uryū.

“… three years ago,” replied subdued Inoue, forcing Harry to stop quietly fuming. Three years to a ghost could be both a long and short amount of time. From what he managed to gather so far, there was no rhyme or reason for how long ghosts could hold out before they changed into a Hollow. 

“Inoue-san, did you recently move into a new building? Maybe one of your neighbours passed away?” Harry asked. Fixating on one theory this early in the investigation was a horrible idea.

“Orihime-chan lived there for years,” supplied Arisawa.

“I…I don’t think that any of my neighbours passed away recently.”

“Alright gals, here is an idea: I’ll go with Uryū-san to grab something for dinner from a fast food place around the corner. After we eat, you stay overnight, and in the morning we go back to Inoue-san’s place for your things. After school, we can deal with whatever is creeping around that apartment,” he offered.

“And your parents won’t mind us staying over?” asked Arisawa almost aggressively. If anything, Uryū and Inoue’s almost baffled expressions confirmed his suspicions. Arisawa, in a very Japanese way, was trying to piss him off without outright challenging him. Perhaps there were side effects to what happened during the LaLaport Mall Incident. Perhaps Urahara’s gizmo did some damage to Arisawa’s mind before it exploded. And now Harry had to fix those screw-ups. Stars, people who complain about the British being passive-aggressive have never met annoyed Japanese folks.

“I imagine they would have a hard time realising you are staying over without me calling them,” he said, while examining the tea leaves at the bottom of his teacup. A dragon? He turned the cup a bit and squinted. Maybe a hammer? Either way, if he believed in divination, those would be bad omens. “They are too busy making a “documentary” on Bigfoot. Last time they called, they were on the northwest coast of the USA.”

That seemed to perk up Inoue and soften Arisawa’s posturing. Not wanting to risk another outburst before he cleared his head, he grabbed his wallet and keys and went towards his front door.

“Coco Ichibanya should still be open,” he said once he and Uryū exited the building. At least he hoped they were still open. If they had to go to Saizeriya or Shakey’s Pizza, he would raid the closest vending machine and beg the girls for forgiveness. 

“It can’t be Inoue-san’s brother,” started Uryū. “Three years is a long time, even for Tsukirei.”

Harry quickly shuffled through his mental dictionary of supernatural terms used in this world. Tsukirei, a possessive spirit that bound itself to a person. Not a particularly bad theory at first glance, only…

“Even if it’s the ghost of her brother, it can’t be a Tsukirei. It took almost a month from her awakening her powers for her to spot that there was anything wrong. None of us spotted a ghost hanging around her,”he huffed. “There is not enough information. For all we know, it isn’t anyone Inoue-san knows but some random ghost that spotted a pretty girl and decided to harass her.” 

“…if it’s a spirit, it’s a strong one. Most spirits can’t affect the physical world. And Hollows don’t have the patience to harass their victims for so long. Do you think…?”

“I sincerely hope it isn’t another multi-handed monstrosity. Last time, it took the combined efforts of all of us and help from a Shinigami to take it down.”

They turned the corner and stopped next to the doors to Coco Ichibanya. Luckily, it was still open; the smell of curry wafted from the vents.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Harry muttered.

Afternoon the next day, found Harry, Uryū, Akira, Inoue and Arisawa in the supposedly haunted apartment. As far as he could tell, there were no changes in how the place looked since their brief visit in the morning. A few broken dishes and cups, pillows tossed around the living room area, a few photographs flipped… it started to look more and more like a work of low powered poltergeist rather than what ghosts around Karakura usually did.

“So how are we going to go about this?” asked Arisawa.

“We are making tea,” Harry responded, but seeing the girls’ baffled expressions, he continued. “Sending ghosts on their merry way to the afterlife isn’t a precise science. As long as you can interact with a ghost, there is a chance you could help them pass over without resorting to any supernatural shenanigans. But unless we know who it is and why they are stuck, we can’t do anything about it.”

Things were much more complicated than that, but kids didn’t need those details. How one went about banishing ghosts very much depended on ghosts’ beliefs and the culture they grew up in. But almost every culture had a tradition of either sharing their meals with the dead or throwing a feast in the name of the deceased. Thus, an impromptu tea party as an invitation. 

Not that Harry wasn’t going to cheat, after all, they had better things to do than wait for a shy ghost. He materialised the Resurrection Stone in one of his pockets, and as discretely as he could, turned it around focusing on encouraging any nearby ghosts to come closer. Up until that point, he avoided using it. Kids didn’t have any of his shortcuts. Using around them powers granted to him by his status would invite uncomfortable questions. And judging by the puzzled look the Quincy was giving him, Harry’s meddling had not gone unnoticed.

And sure enough, ghosts started to appear. The first one was a middle-aged office worker with red stains on his white shirt. He let Uryū deal with this one while he led the girls away so they could observe while he quietly explained what was going on. Considering how socially awkward the Quincy was, it would do him some good.

“The easiest way to banish a ghost is to talk to them until they are comfortable with you, then do some verbal probing combined with applying some reiatsu. A lot of ghosts are anxious about passing on and just need some pep talk and an energy boost to go on their own,” he stopped there and observed the interactions between the Quincy and the ghost. Uryū was doing a decent job, but he could use some pointers. “But sometimes ghosts are attached to this world for one reason or another. And that is where problems start.”

“So what do you do if someone doesn’t want to pass on?” chimed, Inoue. She was looking attentively at what Uryū was doing. Interesting.

“The same things you do when dealing with difficult people,” he responded. “Dead people being traumatised or unable to let go of their lives is valid. But you need to find a way for them to let go,” he continued, using the same terminology that Inoue used. If she didn’t want to reduce their patients to “ghosts” or “souls”, that was fair. That kind of empathy could get her far when it came to banishing ghosts. “Sometimes reassuring them is enough. Sometimes you may need to argue with them or show them something. It isn’t an easy process, but it’s for their own good,” finally, Uryū managed to get the ghost to pass on. Just as well, as a ghost of a young woman phased through a wall.

“I want to try to help her,” spoke up Inoue.

“Alright, Uryū-san will assist you,” he said loudly. The Quincy took it in stride and simply gestured for the redhead to come closer to him. “Relax,” he continued quieter towards Arisawa. “She will be fine. Uryū-san won’t let anything happen to her.”

“I know! I… I just…”

Harry let her fume for a moment, but when Arisawa didn’t continue, he spoke up again.

“Look, you ended up in a horrifying situation. Losing control over your own body is traumatic, and learning that you aren’t as safe as you used to believe doesn’t help. I can’t tell you how to heal, but you need to remember that your freedom ends where your friend’s freedom starts. Be there for her and help her, but let her make her own choices.”

“I’m not tr-“

“You know, I was kidnapped once,” Harry interrupted her. “My friend and I were competing in a school competition when we were kidnapped by a supernatural entity. We appeared in the middle of a cemetery. I ended up being bound to a gravestone while they killed my friend.”

He stopped talking for a moment. The teenager standing next to him stayed quiet.

“Later, they cut the rope keeping me tied up and tried to make me do what they wanted with magic.”

“…how did you escape?”

“The same way you did- I was lucky. I was lucky and didn’t hesitate to use the opportunity,” he made another pause. Inoue was cheerfully chatting with a very confused ghost. “It isn’t easy, and sometimes things can feel overwhelming. But you can’t let that experience rule your life.”

They stayed quiet, watching. Arisawa’s expression was closed off, so he had no idea if he managed to get through to her. But there was no point in further badgering her. Mental health was like a garden; it took time, resources and constant tending to bloom.

“I did it, Tatsuki-chan!” said Inoue excitedly, walking towards them. “I helped her pass on!”

Both of them congratulated the redhead on her success, although Arisawa was more subdued. No new ghosts appeared. Harry let Inoue’s chatter pass over him while he checked his phone for new messages.

Things continued like that. Kids helped two more ghosts pass on; Harry made more tea and pulled more “offerings” for ghosts out of his bag in the shape of cheap cookies. None of their “visitors” had acted hostile or mischievous so far. In fact, Harry started to worry that whoever was responsible for scaring gals wouldn’t show up, and he would need to be more creative in his approach.

Then Inoue’s apartment was filled with chilly air, and Akira, who was sitting next to him started to hiss. A ghost of a young man with brown hair and eyes phased through one of the walls. There was something very familiar about him. 

“Nii-san?” asked the startled redhead. Harry looked between Inoue and the ghost. The resemblance was undeniable, from the eye shape to the similar jawline, to-

And then he spotted it. The chain coming from the ghost’s chest only had one link left. That… that could turn messy very quickly.

“Orihime-chan,” he man said, “It’s good to see you still remember me.”

“I never forgot about you!”

The ghost’s eyes sharpened into a frown, and the genial smile fell off his face.

“You stopped praying to me, imoto,” the man said, “You spend ti-“

“No. You don’t get to do that,” Harry interrupted him. “I’m sure that whatever happened to you was horrible, but you don’t get to take this out on the living.”

Inoue’s brother didn’t back off and instead straightened up. The air turned colder, and the single chain link on his chest rattled ominously.

“I don’t get to, huh? And what would you know? What would you know about the pain and suffering of-“

“Plenty.” Maybe Harry was reckless. Maybe there were better ways of handling the ghost of a young man who was bitter about his demise. But that did not matter. What mattered was the well-being of Inoue, who was cowering behind Arisawa and Uryū. And letting a ghost of her brother bully her because he was miserable was not acceptable. “I know plenty about people who are miserable and make it everyone else’s problem. If you really love your sister, why are you hurting her?”

The ghost stilled. The air in the apartment became heavy, and the single chain link on Inoue Sora’s chest rapidly disintegrated. Harry didn’t wait. He summoned his staff and placed a barrier around him and his friends.

The eruption of energy crashed against the barrier as the physical form of the young man twisted and turned. What emerged from the light show strongly reminded Harry of a Naga. Sure enough, the Hollow started to circle the barrier as if he wanted to find a way to crush them. Like a boa constrictor.

“Please. Please don’t hurt my brother! I know I should do more for him!” Inoue almost screamed, making both Harry and Uryū freeze. Because what can one say to that?

Harry took a moment watching the Hollow circling the barrier. They could fight him and probably win without anyone getting seriously injured. But was that worth traumatising a young civilian girl?

“Inoue-san, I need you to be sure of what you are asking from me,” he finally spoke up. “Uryū-san told you how souls work. I can make… Sora-san stop harassing you without sending him to Soul Society. He would end up in the same place other Hollows do. Is this what you want?”

“…will it make him stop hurting?”

“I can’t guarantee you that. The only thing I can promise you is that he won’t hurt other people.”

“…yes. He deserves to be around people who would understand him.” That was an interesting interpretation of how Hueco Mundo worked. For the redhead's sake, he sincerely hoped there was some truth to that.

Harry shoved his right hand into one of his pockets and grasped the Resurrection Stone. He focused on it. In that very brief moment, he could feel every soul in Karakura. A ghost of a young child was playing around on a playground a few streets away. The Kurosakis were eating dinner in the neighbouring district. A whole section of the city on the east was muted. It was overwhelming.

He gradually focused more and more on their location until he could feel the magic contained in the Resurrection Stone latch onto the Hollow. 

A long, long time ago, his people believed that whoever was Master over Death could command the dead. That they could conquer nations with just a swish of a very special wand. That they were immortal. All of those things were true from a certain point of view. 

And a “certain point of view” was enough for him to implant a compulsion in the Hollow’s mind to not seek the Living World. It was enough to banish him to Hueco Mundo.

It was also enough to give Harry a nosebleed and the Mother of All Migraines.

As much as Harry appreciated his friends fretting over him, things were starting to get ridiculous. Between Uryū and the girls, he was offered everything from cold compresses to some herbal tea to half of the medicine cabinet in Inoue’s apartment. One would think Harry was on the brink of death, not having a nosebleed and a migraine.

“-so sorry! It is my fault! If I had only kept tending to Sora-nii’s shrine, none of this would have happen-“ babbled the redhead. Perhaps Harry should just save up some money and drag his friend group to group therapy? Surely he could get a discount if he brought enough traumatised people at once?

“Would you do the same?” asked Uryū. That stopped the stream of words coming from Inoue. Harry raised his head slightly, only to see a very puzzled Inoue.

“If you were in your brother’s place, would you do the same?” continued the Quincy. Harry shoved his face back down and collected more blood with a tissue. Uryū’s argument wasn’t exactly bad, but he wasn’t sure it would work in such an emotionally charged atmosphere.

“Of course not! Nii-san always took good care of me; I couldn’t hurt him.”

“I’m guessing that what Uryū-san is getting at is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. I’m sure Sora-san was a good older brother when he was alive. And not being able to interact with living people probably sucks. But you cannot spend the rest of your life tending to his shrine. You have your own life to live.” He raised his head slightly and examined the tissue. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, unlike the stabbing pain just behind his eyes. “Inoue-san, graves are for the living to grieve. Getting attached to them isn’t healthy for either the living people or the dead.”

There was a lull in the conversation, and other than Akira’s purring, it was quiet.

“Um… I could…” hesitantly started the redhead. When Harry raised his head, Inoue was pointing towards her hair clips.

“I’ll be fine. We don’t know how your powers work, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself over a headache.” Then an idea struck him and he looked around the apartment. “Although, would you mind if we came over during the weekend and placed protections around your place?”

By the time April 14th rolled in the evil gremlin pretending to be Harry’s brain had cooked up another plan to spread chaos. And this time, Uryū wouldn’t be spared from partaking.

"Put on shoes and a jacket; we are going out to commit crimes!”

“Excuse me??”

"I’m done trying to puzzle out everything on my own. We are stealing those books on Quincy Arts from your father.” The wards Harry put on Inoue’s apartment held up, but so far no Hollow had attempted to breach them, so he had no idea how effective they were. 

“I have looked all through Ryūken’s house…” The Quincy stopped for a moment, as if struck by an idea. “The hospital.”

“Yeah, I’m also thinking he might have hidden them there. As a director, he could control how space was used and which parts of the building were off-limits.”

“It has to be on the underground level. There are only morgue and storage rooms there.”

“You know, for a class president, you are oddly eager to rob one of the local hospitals. What would the girls in the Home Economics Club think about this?” Harry gently teased. The Quincy only huffed and started to put on his jacket.

An hour later, found Harry and Uryū walking under the Invisibility Cloak through the corridors of Karakura General Hospital. As it turned out, the cloak not only stopped anyone from noticing them but also stopped Uryū from being able to sense reiryoku beyond the cloak. After a short freakout, they settled on Uryū sticking his hand from under the cloak so hopefully he could sense where Ryūken hid Quincy supplies. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if they spawned a new urban legend that night.

As they slowly walked around another corner, Harry contemplated. The decision to sneak out and break some laws was spontaneous on his part. Being limited in what he could do by the Shinigami’s presence in Karakura was really getting to him. Remembering Uryū mentioning his father going to a medical conference was a blessing. Even if they didn’t find any books on how Quincy created their own wards, getting another semi reliable source of information would be good.

“There is something very faint behind those doors,” Uryū finally said, pointing at a very bland-looking door. No number on the door, no plate with information about what was behind…

Harry took a quick look around the corridor. No cameras or employees. He pulled off the Invisibly Cloak and tapped a sticky note with the muggle-repelling ward inscribed on it to the closest wall. If they were lucky, the standardised temporary ward taught at Auror Academy would keep employees away until they were done.

Expecting the door to be locked, Harry cast Alohomora. The lock clicked, but when Harry grabbed the surprisingly cold handle, the door refused to move even an inch. It was as if someone had glued the door to the doorframe. Suspecting supernatural shenanigans, he gestured for Uryū to try opening the door. Without any effort, doors opened under the Quincy’s hands.
 
The room behind was overflowing with cardboard boxes of various sizes and dust. In the light coming from the hallway’s ceiling lights, Harry could see places where the dust was thinner. Most likely traces left by Ryūken when he searched the boxes for something.

“That… is going to take some time.”

The moment Harry stepped into the room, he felt a cool, disapproving aura lightly press on his skin. If his friend noticed anything, he didn’t mention it. Harry opened the cardboard box closest to him and was immediately greeted with a stack of very dusty books. He took one out and dusted it off. The book’s leather cover had no title, so he opened it.

In archaic German, handwritten title said, Ancestral Shadows: Memoirs of Baron von Steiner. 

He turned a few pages, and after seeing more overly fancy handwriting and humble bragging in outdated German, he closed the book with disappointment. Autobiographies could be useful, but he would prefer a straightforward textbook, preferably written in a language Uryū could easily understand.

Then he heard Uryū make a surprised noise. He dropped the book back into its box and turned towards his friend. Uryū was holding something that looked suspiciously like a very long white glove.

“It’s the Sanrei Glove. My grandfather gave it to me, but it went missing a few months ago.”

“I see...”

Then enthusiastically- well, enthusiastically for Uryū- the Quincy proceeded to explain how the artefact worked. Halfway through the explanation, Harry wanted to rip the glove away and set it on fire. Bargains for power with supernatural creatures weren’t that uncommon. But when humans created an embodiment of a Faustian bargain that so deeply interfered with a soul… it was hard not to have a deeply visceral reaction.

Yet, trampling all over Uryū’s Quincy heritage by being overtly negative was bound to backfire spectacularly. Choices, choices…

“There is no shame in retreating,” Harry interrupted. The teenager looked both confused and annoyed. Good. Harry was about to shake that emotional cocktail even more. “This glove sounds very useful. But what would you do if you came face-to-face with a very powerful Hollow you couldn’t defeat? Would you retreat to get backup? Or would you use this glove to get a few seconds of power up and spend the rest of your life wondering if a Hollow is just right behind you?”

Uryū’s expression turned into what Harry liked to call “stupidly stubborn”. That was alright. He didn’t need to convince the Quincy on the spot, he just needed to plant doubt in the teen’s mind.

“Take it. It’s a memento of your grandfather,” Harry said, almost forcefully relaxing his posture. “But if you ever consider using it, please think about the long-term consequences before you do so.” 

Uryū still looked annoyed, but he didn’t comment. They continued looking through the cardboard boxes. They found more books in various European languages. The rare and rather interesting find was a book that looked like a cross between a collection of fairy tales and a history book. Slightly faded illustrations showed a Quincy fighting with monsters. 

Armours, books, rare artefacts… lying covered in dust, hidden away in the basement of the hospital, because people who lived, who cared about this culture were exterminated. Because his friend’s father, either out of worry or spite, decided to hide this treasure trove.

Truly, humans were capable of both the greatest and the worst deeds. 

Harry pulled the enchanted chest from his pocket and tapped it on its lid. It grew from the size of a £1 coin to the size of an average Chihuahua. They couldn’t take everything from Ryūken’s hoard- even the enchanted chest had its limits, but staying up all night searching through the books was a terrible idea.

The next day, they spent time sorting through their haul. Or rather, Harry sorted through the books while Uryū played around with Ginto. Because while Uryū had a decent level of comprehension of modern German and Spanish, that was less helpful when one was trying to decode the ramblings of a German noble who lived in times when dictionaries were a luxury instead of common household objects.

So far, Harry had managed to find two textbooks on the advanced theory behind creating and using energy bows in Japanese. Both were drier than drywall and filled with graphs that made little sense to Harry, but Uryū seemed to understand the terminology in them.

Harry was paging through Urlic von Steiner’s autobiography, trying to figure out if there was anything worth taking a closer look at when he spotted something that made his eyebrows slowly but steadily rise.

“Did you find something interesting?”

“I guess so? I can’t give you an exact translation without a proper dictionary at hand, but this guy claims that some Quincy could travel through shadows. And that they served a Kaiser?” Harry quickly scanned the next few pages, but there were no further mentions of shadow travel. 

Spends most of the time bragging about his deeds. Drops a shocking and interesting fact. Doesn’t elaborate. Harry really shouldn’t be surprised by the quality of pre-20th Century historical written sources.

“I wonder if that is possible,” he said. “Some creatures can use shadows to rapidly travel between two points. But what would be so special about shadows to Quincy for them to be able to travel this way?”

“Well, how do you teleport?”

Harry despondently looked into his empty mug. Explaining the theory behind Apparition beyond what was taught in Ministry-approved classes was never fun. But he could try to explain. So he grabbed an empty sheet of paper and a pencil.

“Alright. Imagine you are half a centimetre tall and standing on this part of the sheet of paper,” he said, making a dot on the paper. “And you want to get here,” he made another dot on the paper. “What I do when I teleport is-“ Harry proceeded to fold the sheet of paper and made a hole with the pencil in spots he had marked earlier.

“… you make wormholes?” The Quincy looked like somebody just slapped him with a fish. 

“That isn’t quite right, but I guess it is close enough.” 

And that right there was why wizards and witches were terrifying. Maybe they couldn’t walk on air. Maybe they couldn’t move as quickly as Shinigami. Maybe they couldn’t travel through shadows like the Quincy supposedly could. But in their day-to-day life magic users step-danced on both the laws of man and nature, without much regard for anyone’s opinions. Scholars researching magical theory could all argue about Gamp’s law or Phyrlin’s principle until they were blue in face. But even if the “rules” of magic tended to be internally consistent, any attempt at asking “but why???” or “how????” was an invitation for upcoming headaches. Why a grown-up Animagus, after turning into a cat, weighted as much as an average cat? Where did all that mass go? And how exactly was Animagi’s form decided? 

If wizards and witches ever lived in this world, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were exterminated. Just like the Quincy.

“… are there any other useful pieces of information in that book?”

“I don’t think so. Unless you want to read about how the author used… Reiner Flugschritt to pick his fiancee's ribbon from the top branches of a tree growing next to his house.”

Uryū frowned, puzzling out the German words Harry quoted. Then his eyes widened.

“Do you mean Hirenkyaku?”

“What is Hirenkyaku?”

A week later, Harry was sitting on the bank of the Karasu River with Muramasa standing nearby. At this point, Harry probably knew more about the seal than its creator. He had no need to sit there and watch the river in the company of the spirit. He could use that time reading more books they had stolen from Ryūken. Or refining warding schemes. Or spying on Shinigami…

Maybe the anger and sadness of seeing what was left of the Quincy was getting to him. Maybe he felt kinship with this Zanpakuto Spirit and wanted to cheer him up. Maybe Harry was finally feeling his age…

All, none, and some things could be true. 

Recently, he felt like someone had once again placed Slytherin's locket around his neck. Only it was much, much heavier. He couldn’t explain it. Sometimes breathing felt almost impossible. Sometimes Harry felt odd bursts of energy that had nothing to do with his magical outbursts. And for all he knew, he should investigate what was going on, but he was too afraid to do so. 

Too afraid to admit that T̷̰͖̯͆̉̾ȟ̴̻̭͗̌e̴̘̖̋̑͝͠ ̴̢̔͂̕H̴̢̺͔̋̅̆͜͝o̷̦̫̘̦̞̅ṙ̷̜̅́r̴̡̥͑͋̑̄o̶͎̦̝̹̓̓̈́̌͝r̶̙̪̪̿s̵͈͇̰̒̈́̓̇ that almost captured him; that almost unmade him, left a deeper mark on him than he liked. That they could slowly kill him.

“You know, I never saw an afterlife. What is Soul Society like?” He spoke up, startling the spirit standing next to him.

“Are you suggesting you used to be a Hollow?”

“No, I don’t think that works for me like that.” And wasn’t that the crux of the problem? Afterlife was for mortals, and Harry was a death deity to people who didn’t need an afterlife.

“Soul Society is divided into districts-“

“I didn’t mean it literally. I guess I wanted to know what the quality of life is for people who get sent there.”

“… it depends.”

Yes, it always came down to “it depends”, didn’t it?

“I have decided on how to deal with the seal.” 

Muramasa’s head almost snapped towards him.

“We need to wait until June 21st. The summer solstice symbolises rebirth, so it would be a good time to tackle this.” That fact that it also symbolically weakened magic connected to death and thus theoretically should weaken both the seal and the Shinigami trapped in it helped Harry to make up his mind. Because, as much as he wanted to trust Muramasa, Harry wasn’t too optimistic about this “master’s” reaction to being finally free. Solitary confinement was a surefire way of inflicting mental scars on someone. And spending decades or even centuries like that? Without being able to change your own surroundings or possessing any means to escape? Harry had to stop himself from shuddering. 

“I’ll break down the seal. You need to run with your Shinigami as quickly as possible.” Harry would have preferred to deal with the situation sneakily instead of using Ward Breakers. But at every avenue he could think of, he was stalled by factors outside his control. 

Wards on Inoue’s place held up against Hollows that tried to hunt down her, and Harry finally found a book explaining how Quincy warding worked. But he couldn’t set up city-wide warding before he dismantled the seal in the Contamination Zone. There was no telling how it would impact the wards without testing. And he couldn’t do much testing without catching even more unwanted attention from the Shinigami. He couldn’t use his normal misdirection tactics to send both Urahara and “Ichimaru” on a wild goose chase because he didn’t believe for even a moment they wouldn’t see through them. He couldn’t ask Urahara for help because he didn’t trust the man. He couldn’t ask Uryū’s father for help because the man did everything he could to stop his son from interacting with the supernatural. Why would he help Harry? 

It was as if he were back in his first life, trying to solve his problems through official Ministry channels. Lots of running from one department to another, filling out truly ungodly amounts of paperwork and in the end, you were told “no” anyway.

And Stars, he missed his friends.

Uryū really tried to help in his awkward way, and teaching Inoue and Arisawa kept him busy. But something needed to change quickly.

Harry snapped back to reality, only to see Muramasa watching him contemplatively.

“There is something… different about you.”

Harry only raised one eyebrow at the comment.

“Your reiryoku acts differently than it used to.”

The second eyebrow joined the first one.

“How… differently?”

“I believe the professional term would be “irregular frequency”. You emit your reiatsu in an erratic manner. But I’m afraid I don’t posses the medical knowledge required to theorise why your reiryoku acts this way.”

Fantastic. And where was Harry supposed to find a medical professional who could tell him anything useful? Ishida Ryūken was a doctor, but he doubted he got his diploma in Spiritual Healing at Quincy U. Urahara? He didn’t trust the man enough to ask him for help in matters that didn’t involve his body acting weirdly. Why would he give the Shinigami free access to his body?

“Be careful, Sasaki-san,” said Zanpakuto Spirit before fading away.

Then, Harry noticed Shichisai emerge from the nearby forest. It seemed that there was more nagging and lecturing scheduled for him.

May 26th found Harry cursing out his teachers. Japanese high school wasn’t much more interesting than middle school. So far, the main difference had been the amount of homework. Homework that was interfering with his spiritually-inspired activities. And with Uryū almost permanently living in Harry’s apartment, ignoring homework was not an option.

Restraining a groan, Harry opened his Japanese Literature textbook at page 47, just as Ōtoribashi-sensei had asked them, fully expecting to see yet another poem. What greeted him instead was a series of mythological tales about Lord Enma in slightly outdated Japanese.

Tales of Enma being the first human to die. Tales of Enma becoming a judge for human souls. Tales of Enma’s vengeful nature…

The quiz and assignments that followed the source text almost didn’t register in Harry’s brain. Instead, his mind was focused on absorbing everything it could from the stories. Folk tales, legends, mythologies, urban legends, and rumours- all of these usually weren’t reliable sources of information for mortals. 

But if enough people believed…

If enough people killed for the idea…

Enough lived, loved, and breathed the idea…

It could become a Truth constructed out of Facts and Faith and Hopes and and and….

Harry closed the textbook and put it aside. It seemed he needed to visit a local library.

Days and weeks flowed like water through Harry’s fingers. Between his own personal projects, schoolwork, stacks of books from Ryūken’s hoard, and chasing any information he could find on Enma, it was hard to find free time.

So, when the afternoon of June 21st arrived, Harry felt like he hadn’t done his homework and should email one of his professors for an extension. Nevertheless, Harry apparated to the Contamination Zone just as he had promised and began prepare the site for the ritual.

Ward Breakers were a class of rituals that allowed the rapid removal of wards around magical properties. Back in Harry’s first life, they were outlawed so thoroughly that only the Head of MLED had access to full information on how to perform them. Even then, permission from both the Minister of Magic and Wizengamot was required to use them. And considering who supported Voldemort… It wasn’t surprising that in both wars against him, they were never used.

That and the tendency of those rituals to change the flow of Leylines.

There were no leylines around Karakura, but Harry wasn’t sure how the magic that had already corrupted the Contamination Zone would react to the ritual. In the best-case scenario, it would be burned up in the ritual and stop further corruption of the environment. In the worst-case scenario, it would spread the radius of contamination but lessen the density of magic.

Harry transfigured some twigs into poles and began placing modified mirrors around the ritual site. Normally, the weakest version of the ritual would take at least seven wizards or witches to power it. Converting mirrors into magical solar panels turned out better than he had expected. They had lower power output than the average Auror, but as long as Harry didn’t overcharge them, they could keep going longer than a magical person. So Harry set up nine mirrors and crossed his fingers that he hadn’t miscalculated.

Then he dove into the Karasu River to spread some Dzi Beads around the seal. It was a gamble, but he hoped they would absorb some magic from the seal’s fallout. 

Once he was done preparing the site, he walked towards Muramasa, who had been calmly observing Harry from the bank of the river. 

“Everything is ready. We can start if you are sure,” he said. On an intellectual level, he knew why this needed to happen. On an emotional level… Harry was split. On one hand, this would be a step forward in making sure his friends would be safe. On the other hand, “returning” Muramasa to his "master" filled Harry’s mouth with a taste of ash. But making decisions for the Zanpakuto Spirit would be just as bad, if not worse. It would reduce Muramasa to an object instead of treating the spirit as an intelligent being capable of making his own choices.

And Harry couldn’t do that. Not after working so long on reforging himself from what he had become in his first life. 

The spirit seemingly hesitated for a moment, looking at Harry almost pensively. Then, Muramasa shifted his stance to something more tense, but not necessarily confident.

“We… We should start.”

“Alright.”

Harry activated the mirrors and began chant the incantation for one of the lower-powered rituals. The air in the Contamination Zone quickly filled with ambient energy. Harry could feel his teeth vibrate, and the tissues in his nostrils and mouth were fighting against pressurised blood that wanted to escape the blood vessels. But Harry’s idea was working. Layers of the seal were slowly stripped away until something resembling a coffin appeared on a small island in the middle of the Karasu River. Then, even that disappeared, leaving only a man standing in its place. 

Harry stopped the ritual, deactivated the mirrors, and watched enthusiastic Muramasa rush towards the released Shinigami. Only for the Shinigami to stab Muramasa with the physical representation of the Zanpakuto Spirit. 

Once upon a time, Death walked among mortals. He ripped parts of himself and gifted them away. Sowing chaos and discord like a trickster he was.

Chapter Text

Be creative, chart your course
You must know what lies ahead
Driving through the deep end of the ocean
Leaving obscurity
Persona 4- Pursuing My True Self

Harry’s first thought was Shit.

His second thought was “Why do things never work out smoothly?” accompanied by an almost audible whine. He fully expected Muramasa’s Shinigami to maybe have some kind of meltdown or attack Harry. Not to stab his own Zanpakuto Spirit.

Once the man pulled the sword out of Muramasa and let the spirit fall to the ground, Harry Apparated to Muramasa’s side and disarmed the Shinigami with Expelliarmus charm. The sword landed next to Harry, but that did not slow down his opponent, as the man picked one of the halberds lying around and charged at them, forcing Harry to quickly create a barrier around himself and Muramasa.

“Koga… Why…?” almost begged the spirit as the halberd crashed onto the barrier. The Shinigami made a few more swipes of the halberd, trying to destroy the barrier before he started to shout.

“You didn’t answer me! When I was on the verge of being sealed away, I called for you…”

“You called… for me?”

“You refused to lend me a hand…”

At that point, Harry confusedly listened to Muramasa explaining whatever transgression “Koga” perceived in the Zanpakuto Spirit’s behaviour. It was clear he was still missing some context, just as it was clear that Muramasa’s Shinigami was an overconfident dumbass. So far, Sereitei’s response time to Hollow attacks left a lot to be desired, but Harry doubted they would be as slow to react when one of their prisoners attempted to break out.

The wind picked up on the small island, and over their heads, Harry could hear thunder crackling. In the distance, there was a distinctive sound of glass breaking. He risked looking around. No Shinigami so far, but at least one of his mirrors was destroyed.

“It’s meaningless if you’re not there when I need you! I, a Shinigami, gave birth to your power! All you need to do is to do as I sa-” ranted the dumbass, and at that point Harry gave up on letting the duo work out the problem on their own. It was time to either force them to flee or separate them.

“Nah, you don’t get to spill that kind of bullshit,” he interrupted, dragging the attention of “Koga” to himself. “That is five years old’s type of thinking. ‘Me, me, me! I’m the centre of the universe and everybody should bow to me because I’m so great!’” Harry continued with a sharp smile. And the Shinigami didn’t disappoint.

“You dare, hu-“

“Sure, why not!” Harry responded, talking loudly over the man. “I’m daring you to act your age and not treat people like objects. Surely, that isn’t too tall order for such esteemed Shinigami?”

That touched a nerve for “Koga,” because he immediately attempted to destroy the barrier again by chopping it with the halberd. Harry had to restrain himself from sighing as he watched the shaft of the polearm crack. Halberds had points for a reason and even if the point on that particular halberd was stupidly long it was the proper tool for the task “Koga” attempted to do. Harry took a peek at Muramasa. The Zanpakuto Spirit was pale and slightly shaking, but the bleeding seemed to stop.

“Muramasa isn’t a person,” the Shinigami scoffed after yet another swipe at the barrier bounced off it. “I don’t need an unstable sword like him, my powers alone are enough.” The “silly human” was very much implied.

Cruel, dumb and overconfident. Harry’s behated combination.

“From where I’m standing, you just spent the last few minutes trying to destroy a magical barrier created by a human teenager. It seems you need all the help you can get.” Harry snarked, then, to buy himself more time, he used the Expelliarmus charm again to steal the halberd “Koga” was using to batter the barrier. Only, instead of getting disarmed, the Shinigami held strongly on his weapon. The ensuing tug-o-war was one of the silliest experiences in his current life. “Muramasa,” he hissed towards the downed Zanpakuto Spirit. “I don’t want to rush you, but you need to make a decision. We can’t stay here for much longer, and this… gentleman clearly made up his mind.” He couldn’t make the decision for the spirit, but he could at least extend a friendly hand.

There was a moment when the only sounds Harry could hear were Muramasa’s wet coughs and “Koga’s” swearing. He held his breath and focused on annoying the Shinigami.

Then a very quiet and broken voice said.

“…I’ll go with you.”

Harry quickly took a look at their surroundings. If he wanted to disengage from the fight in a clean way, he needed a distraction good enough for the dumbass to latch onto without too much fuss. And just as he was starting to think he would need to engineer their escape, his luck smiled on him. Or cruelly smirked, he wasn’t quite sure.

The white-haired investigator arrived at the scene. Sword brandished and eyes fully open in surprise.

Not one to waste such opportunity, Harry stopped Expelliarmus charm resulting in the Muramasa's Shinigami stumbling back. Then he quickly casted Confundus charm at “Koga”, grabbed the sword laying near him and helped Muramasa to get up. Just as he twirled to Apparate, he saw 'Koga' launch himself at the confused Shinigami.

The facts were as follows:

Harry wasn’t a healer. He theoretically could fix whatever was going on with Muramasa with some soul magic, but he had no idea what was wrong with the spirit.

Thus, he went to the only person he somewhat trusted when it came to obscure supernatural knowledge.

“Shichisai,” he shouted as they landed deep into the forest. “I need your help.”

Muramasa was heavily leaning against him, hacking up something that was too dark to be blood but carried a metallic scent. When combined with shivering and clammy too warm skin it didn’t spell out anything good.

Finally, the creature emerged from behind a tree too thin to hide them. The overtly complicated red braids waved in strong wind and their expression was even more unimpressed than normally. Shichisai didn’t speak up and merely raised one very judgemental eyebrow in clear ‘What the hell is he doing here?’.

“His Shinigami rejected him and attempted to kill him. I… I’m not sure what is going on with him. I need your help.”

Shichisai took one look at Muramasa and scoffed.

“This Kekera fed off Jikininki,” Shichisai stated. They tilted their head as if they were watching a show. “The Enma’s servant may have rejected him but the bond between them keeps him in one piece.”

Kekera? A fragment? Fragment of what? Was Harry’s first thought only to be pushed away by the idea of Muramasa eating Hollows. He shook his head, there was no time for that.

“Is… is there anything we can do for him?”

“A weapon needs a wielder to be a weapon,” said Shichisai staring intensely at him with their golden eyes. “Just as a god needs followers to shape them.”

Harry froze up stuck in his flight or fight response. No one was supposed to know about his status. Life after life he carefully walked lines of just getting enough sustenance to not Fade and at the same time never attaching himself enough to let humans to Shape him. How someone who so rarely interacted with him recognised what he was?

“Perhaps I may offer you a deal,” continued the creature. Their expression was unreadable. “You are a god of Change and Death, correct? I shall help you save this Kekera, youngling god.”

Shichisai wasn’t correct; he wasn’t young anything and Change was his secondary domain. But he wasn’t going to correct the creature. Deals with gods were never done lightly and despite the time-sensitive nature of Muramasa’s condition he couldn’t help but feel intrigued.

“And in the exchange?”

“And in the exchange, I ask you for a Change. What Enma did cannot continue.”

The fate of one person in exchange for toppling a system that survived a thousand years by murdering its oppositions. There were tall orders and there was this. Absolutely insane.

But Shichisai didn’t specify what kind of change they wanted. Perhaps they intended to prey on what they perceived as a young and inexperienced god. Perhaps after so many years, they had a hard time visualising what “a change” would look like to them. Perhaps they thought their goals aligned close enough to Harry’s nature to make him predictable.

But the terms of the deal were loose enough for Harry to work out something without risking too many negative consequences.

“Muramasa,” he said without looking away from Shichisai. “I’m willing to agree to this deal. But this is your life. I cannot make this decision for you,” he continued. He ignored the implications of how Shichisai’s help would look like. For all his experience with soul magic, hot glueing two souls together when one of them was unstable and the other one was him… was not something he wanted to do on his own. And that was when one put aside the morality of doing this.

For a long moment, Harry just stood staring down the creature, Muramasa feeling heavier and heavier against him as the spirit spewed more and more questionable substances. The rain and wind seemed to pick up. And then the earth started to shake.

Stars, what the hell were Shinigami doing???

“… are you sure, Sasaki-san?”

Muramasa’s voice was quiet, scratchy and pained.

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t offer. If you believe we can’t work together I promise that once things settle down I’ll figure things out. I’ll find someone more compatible with you or find a way for you to exist on your own without eating Hollows. I consider you my friend and I don’t like watching my friends die. Especially when I can do something to prevent it,” said Harry finally looking at his companion. The Zanpakuto Spirit was even paler than before, lips blackened from whatever he was hacking up and there were shadows under his eyes.

Muramasa sent him an unreadable look. Harry was almost sure he was going to refu-

“I accept,” spoke up the Zanpakuto Spirit.

“Very well,” said Shichisai then swiftly like a snake they plunged their hand into Harry’s chest.

All nerves in his body felt like they were suddenly awakened in very electrifying way. There was no pain, blood or gore. Just a weird awareness of something touching his soul and shifting things around. Then a purple light started to emanate from the place Shichisai’s arm was sticking out of Harry’s chest. Suddenly he felt an echo of fear and concern from his connection with his familiar. Harry did his best to reassure Akira while breathing through whatever Shichisai was doing.

Slowly, the purple light travelled through the creature’s arm through their chest, down their other arm to Muramasa’s chest. The Zanpakuto Spirit’s breathing became even more strained, and he leaned even heavier on Harry, almost toppling him. Minutes tickled by slowly, and Harry began to suspect that there was something very strange going on. There was a strange feeling… Almost as if a splinter- whose existence he hadn’t been aware of- was slowly being liquefied.

And then suddenly everything stopped.

Slowly, Shichisai pulled out their hand from his chest. Dizzy, Harry turned towards the Zanpakuto Spirit. Muramasa no longer looked like he was about to keel over. He stopped leaning over Harry and his skin looked much healthier. There was something off about his left ear but with how wild his hair was, Harry had problems with seeing what ex-

“This Kekera should be stable enough for the transfer now,” spoke up Shichisai. “Perhaps you shall consider claiming luck or misfortune as your tertiary domain? Your enemies certainly are sabotaging you.”

Harry turned towards the creature, intending to ask some pointed questions-

And then he caught a glimpse of Shichisai’s arms as the creature hurriedly hid them in the wide sleeves of their old-fashioned outfit. Skin marked by what looked like purple ink stains. The colour was the only thing stopping him from searching out their surroundings for eldritch horrors in pure terror.

“How are we supposed to do “the transfer”?” asked frustrated Muramasa.

“The same way the first of your kind sheltered yourselves a thousand years ago instead of standing against the common enemy. The same way your owners share their powers with mortals,” said Shichisai before swiftly walking behind the closest tree and disappearing.

“So, a god?” asked the Zanpakuto Spirit, one perfectly sculptured eyebrow raised. Harry forced himself not to wince. He was still off-kilter and would prefer to not have this talk any time soon, but it was understandable why Muramasa would ask now. People who were weapons weren’t nice people- Harry would know. With the recent betrayal, the spirit needed to feel in control of this fate. Even if he was risking death by delaying the procedure.

“It’s so much more complicated and longer story than Shichisai thinks, but I’m a god. I’m not native to this world and when everything anchoring me to this world gets severed I’ll probably get sent back to the same pocket universe I always return to.”

“Why play a human, then?”

“My people didn’t need me,” Harry said bitterly. His origin story as a god and how wixen souls worked always were sore subjects. “I was a death god to a people who didn’t have an afterlife. And then they banished me,” he stopped there. As much as he liked Muramasa, he couldn’t keep talking about that part of his life. Not when they were on a limited timeline and didn’t have hard alcohol at hand to at least partially numb the pain unpacking would cause.

They stood like that, looking at each other and ignoring the rain, wind, and the shaking earth itself. Harry suspected Muramasa would choose death over binding himself to someone who had lied-

The Zanpakuto Spirit lifted the physical representation of himself that they brought with them to the clearing. Then he stepped back and pointed it towards Harry’s chest.

“Very well. If this creature is right, and we can use the same process Shinigami use to lend their power to Humans…”

The tip of the sword touched Harry’s chest. If he hadn’t recently been chest-fisted and drained out of emotional energy, he would have been very concerned.

“My people used to call me Potter Harry.”

“For all it is worth, I’m glad I met you Potter-san”

Harry stood at the edge of the forest, observing the Shinigami fighting while covered by the Invisibility Cloak. In his chest, just under his ribs, he felt an odd sensation, like a swarm of bees happily buzzing. At the same time, he felt…

Lighter.

Or rather, not weighed down.

He wasn’t sure whether that feeling was caused by Shichisai poking around his soul or by Muramasa transferring himself, but for the first time in months, he felt like he could take a deep breath. Between this and being drained of emotional energy, he was pretty much ready to just get back to his flat and pass out for at least a few days. But he couldn’t leave without making sure that Muramasa’s Shinigami wouldn’t be able to harass them.

The Containment Zone was swarmed with Shinigami, and 'Koga' was thoroughly getting his ass handed to him. The Investigator in particular looked like he got in a fight with a big cat. His clothes were barely hanging on him, and visible skin was covered in wounds and burns.

Perhaps Harry overpowered the Confundus Charm? Or perhaps Muramasa’s Shinigami was naturally this vicious?

And just as once again “Koga” dodged “Ichimaru’s” elongating sword- Harry had so many questions for Muramasa once the Zanpakuto Spirit became responsive- an elderly man arrived at the scene and with some theatrics set the escaped convict on fire.

Harry quickly cast the Bubblehead Charm on himself, created a Cone of Silence around himself, and firmly focused on the newcomer. The last thing he needed was to have a panic attack from being reminded of his own burning at the stake.

Soon enough, the newcomer was approached by “Ichimaru” and a man wearing a long flowy scarf. The white-haired man made what looked like a short report before gesticulating towards the scarf owner. Then the second man deeply bowed and monologued for a solid minute before presenting his arms as if he was about to get cuffed. Was he asking to be arrested? Why??

Harry shook his head. Clearly, he wasn’t getting any useful answers anytime soon, and he was still too disoriented to try to hunt down information he needed. He took one last look at the Shinigami and Apparated to an alley near his building.

Standing in front of Harry’s front doors were Arisawa and Inoue.

“We were hoping you were home, Sasaki-san,” sheepishly admitted Arisawa.

“There is something odd going on,” said Inoue, staring pensively through the corridor’s window.

…If the relatively untrained Inoue felt something going on from this distance, Harry could only imagine the amount of bitching he would get from Uryū once the Quincy figured out what had happened.

“Do you think we are getting an alien invasion? Oh and-” the redhead start to happily babble while Harry unlocked his front doors. No sooner had he opened the doors than Akira rushed toward him and quickly climbed onto his shoulders.

“Aww, your cat missed you. That is so cute!”

His familiar added weight made his already weakened body stumble. He shuffled his way towards the sofa and sat down. Only to be pushed down by his own cat.

Outsmarted by his own familiar, he thought tiredly as the girls tittered in the background while Akira kneaded the same spot in his chest that had been stabbed not too long ago. Luck truly wasn’t on his side.

An hour later, Harry was still pinned to his couch by his familiar. Akira eventually settled down and started napping on the wizard. Muramasa was still quiet, but as much as he wanted to check his mindscape so he could see if everything was ok, he was hesitant to do so while the girls had free access to his kitchen. With how this day was going, they would probably end up summoning a minor demon. So he let his mind drift from one subject to another while staying awake.

"It isn ’t a Shinigami. It isn’t quite a Hollow either. Humanoid, tall, with brown hair and wearing white. Long claws.”

Uryū’s words from many months earlier rang in his head like a church bell. Muramasa eating Hollows would explain why the Quincy was confused. As far as they knew, there were no humanoid Hollows. Nothing in the stolen books suggested as much, and neither Shichisai nor Muramasa ever mentioned such a thing.

Souls cannibalising each other and not becoming Hollows … Surely, Muramasa couldn’t be the first one to do so…

And just as Harry got sleepy enough to drift off against his will, Akira woke up and looked towards the front door. Something in Harry’s mind shifted. Like a startled bird. Then, his front door was opened so aggressively that it bounced off the wall and hit both Uryū and Ichigo in the face.

The day just kept giving and giving …

Once everybody settled down enough to communicate in indoor voices, it became clear that a) the boys had recently got into a physical altercation—which wasn’t unusual for Ichigo, but Uryū tended to avoid those- and b) they didn’t come without a reason.

“Rukia was kidnapped,” stated Ichigo. As if it was supposed to mean anything to anyone.

“Who or what is Rukia?”

That seemed to dial down Ichigo’s enthusiasm and shift him back into his guilt-ridden standard state. “She is a Shinigami.”

“I suppose you mean the Shinigami who was supposed to keep Karakura Hollow-free. Why was she kidnapped?”

Uryū and Ichigo exchanged looks, which should have been a warning in itself.

“Kuchiki-san let herself get arrested by other Shinigami,” stated the Quincy.

And as the boys started loudly arguing about definitions of arrest and something about albinos and pineapples, a voice at the back of Harry’s head spoke up. She must be from the same clan that Koga married into.

Harry could almost hear all the information clicking into right place in his mind. The scarf guy and the Shinigami sent to exterminate local Hollows looked similar enough to be members of the same family. “Rukia” being stationed in the same area where her relative was imprisoned while the said relative escaped, put a shade on her. From a law enforcement point of view, it made sense to at least bring her in for questioning.

Only it was Japan. Japan, where innocent people who were arrested started to doubt if they were innocent due to social conditioning. Japan, where once innocent people were accused of crimes, their social circles crumbled around them. Harry could only imagine how much worse the situation was when one was part of military forces.

Good to hear you, Muramasa. I was getting worried.

As he watched boys bickering, he decided there was no point in keeping the truth from them. Both of them were too smart for their own good and they were invested in this situation. If he tried to keep the truth hidden from them, it would come back to bite him later.

… I’m glad to reassure you.

The Zanpakuto Spirit sounded even more skittish than when they first met. It was part disappointing, part understandable. Unfortunately, as it was usual since his parents moved him to Karakura life tossed one problem after another at him keeping him too busy to keep up with everything. And then the boys mentioned something that distracted him.

“Excuse me? Did you just say Uryū-san stopped you from getting into a fight with two experienced officers arresting Kuchiki-san?”

Ichigo started to sulk and mutter something only to be drowned out by Uryū’s response, “I couldn’t let Ichigo-san get himself killed. You were right…”

Harry had to discreetly pinch himself. Did he manage to actually get through the Quincy’s thick skull? Stars, hopefully that translated into Uryū caring about his own safety.

“We could have defeated them,” protested Ichigo.

“I’m sure you could if you put your mind to it, but that would just bring more and more of them. Like kicking a beehive,” said Harry, doing his best to brace himself for what was coming next. “I have a confession to make. I suspect I’m partially responsible for Kuchiki-san’s arrest.”

Harry expected many things. A physical altercation, a shouting match, maybe Ichigo feeling so betrayed that he would leave. What he didn’t expect was a growl. It was a deep animalistic growl that fitted more like a big carnivore than a teenage boy. A distant memory of teenage Teddy acting the same way a day before the full moon knocked around his mind. Trusting his instincts, he fell back on the same strategy he had used when dealing with a certain juvenile werewolf. He relaxed his posture while maintaining eye contact with the teenager.

“Are you done?” He asked in an even voice. Showing a weakness or being aggressive would only aggravate a werewolf. And while Harry had no idea what exactly was going on with Ichigo, using that as a baseline seemed to work because his friend looked more confused than angry. The girls and Uryū on the other hand shifted away from the gingerhead. They really needed to work more on unit cohesion.

“What exactly do you mean, Arashi-san?” finally spoke up Uryū. Harry looked back at Ichigo. There was something off going on with his friend.

“Wait a moment,” he said as he got up and made his way towards his room. He quickly returned with gloves and a jar of preserved bitey bamboo shots. They weren’t alive any more, but the teeth in the small mouths injured his hands often enough to make him use personal protective equipment when handling them around reckless teenagers.

“Many, many months ago I discovered an area of forest along Karasu River that was contaminated with magic,” he said as he donned the gloves. Then he fished out one of the shoots. Inoue who was closest to him gasped as she noticed the mouths. “All living creatures in the area were twisted. Like this bamboo shoot,” he continued laying the plant down on the table.

“Eventually I’ve managed to find the source of the contamination- a magical prison created by Shinigami for one of their criminals on the bottom of Karasu River.”

“Then why interfere with it?” asked Ichigo. Just as Harry thought, the teenager was too quick on the uptake.

“Take a look at this map.” He said laying down a map of Karakura Town. Then he started to mark spots on the map with a marker. “Here is your house, here lives Inoue-san, here is Arisawa-san’s house, here lives Yasutora-san…”

“All of those places are in the southern part of Karakura along the Karasu River,” spoke up Arisawa. “Are you saying that the river was mutating people??”

“I believe Inoue-san and Ichigo-san’s powers are inherited. Initially, I thought that it would take at least a few more years before the spillover would affect Karakura’s citizens. But considering how often ghosts gather in Minamikawase and Sakurabashi districts and how many spiritually aware people reside in there so close to the river…”

“It is hard to tell how this would affect Karakura in the long run. Not that it would matter. The prisoner had an accomplice who was working towards freeing him." Harry continued after a moment of silence. “Even if I never interfered your Shinigami friend would always be a suspect as long as she was stationed here during his breakout. After all, they belong to the same clan.”

“That… that doesn’t matter right now. We need to figure out how to save Rukia,” hesitantly said Ichigo. Harry had to stop himself from reacting visibly. Back when he came up with the idea of how to dismantle Koga’s prison, he was betting on Shinigami either being too busy chasing Koga or that they would turn on the Shinigami stationed in Karakura. With luck, he would have enough time to set up the ward scheme and the misdirection component would keep Shinigami from finding Karakura. Urahara’s presence was something that could disrupt his plans, but the Life Debt meant he couldn’t directly go against him.

He hadn’t foreseen Koga being an absolute asshole. He hadn’t foreseen Ichigo getting attached to a Shinigami.

Things really… weren’t working out for him lately, were they?

“Are you sure?” he asked wanting to buy himself some time. That was when he noticed he made a… misstep. Ichigo grew more wary and tensed up as if he was prepared for a fight. And this time, he wouldn’t back down so easily.

Isolation and discovering what Harry was up to really put strain on their relationship, didn ’t it?

“I’m not saying we should abandon your friend, but what exactly is the plan here? We have no idea how to get to Soul Society. And even if we got there then what? You want to storm a military base and kidnap one of their officers who willingly went with them when military police arrested her?” he continued not willing to give in. It was a fight he knew he couldn’t win- not after landing this Rukia in trouble in the first place- but giving in this early would be a mistake. If Ichigo wanted to do something this risky, he needed to think things through.

"We could ask Geta-Boshi for help with getting there,” said Ichigo. The teenager seemed to slowly realise what he was asking for, but he was unwilling to back down.

“I suppose we could try smuggling out Kuchiki-san out Sereitei. But what would we do with her once she is back in Karakura?” picked up Uryū.

Harry watched as Ichigo tensed up more and more without providing any arguments.

He mentally slapped himself. Clearly, he was too exhausted to make reasonable decisions if he thought that using this approach would work when Ichigo was fixated on someone’s life being in danger.

No. This called for a change of tactics.

“Let’s cool our heads before making any rash decisions. I’m going to take a walk, stay here and patch up your wounds. We can talk again when I get back,” he said as he got up from the sofa. Akira quickly transferred himself from his lap to his shoulders.

“Shouldn’t someone come with you?” asked Uryū.

“As you can see Akira won’t let me go anywhere without him,” he said, grabbing his jacket and shooting his familiar a look. The cat looked very unimpressed and sprawled himself on the wizard’s shoulders even more. Fine. The evening wasn’t cold, he could put the jacket on later. “Don’t worry. I’ll be alright. I’ll even bring some food back,” he continued upon seeing an unconvinced look on the Quincy’s face. The kid was smart to not believe him. Not that Harry was going to advertise his newest harebrained scheme.

So he just waved at his friends and opened his front door.

That blue-haired boy… who was he? Spoke up Muramasa making Harry almost miss a stair.

So the Zanpakuto spirit could see Harry’s memories when he recalled them? As intriguing as that was…

That was Teddy. He was my godson in my first life. He was a werewolf. A wave of nostalgia-sadness-love-pride rolled through him. Losing people was always hard, but it was worth meeting them, befriending them, helping them grow-

Humans are special. In their freedoms. In consequences of their actions. In how they came to be and in how they faded.

He could feel Muramasa’s curiosity, but the Zanpakuto spirit refrained from asking any more questions.

“Alright, mister,” he said, poking at one of Akira’s front pawns. “I’m going to fill you in on what exactly happened. But I need to shake some trees for information, so you better behave!”

Picking his victim was easy. He couldn’t bully Urahara because of the Life Debt. Picking on Kurosaki Ishin would probably result in an uprising once he got back to his flat. For all of Ichigo’s complaining, the teen cared about the insufferable man. And Harry still didn’t know what Ishin was. Which left him with the third option.

Ishida Ryūken entered his office only to stop and look at Harry as if he was a rather robust colony of cockroaches. The wizard in question smiled brightly and made himself more comfortable in the Quincy’s chair. Akira shifted himself in his lap and chirped at the man, making Ryūken’s eyebrow twitch. Theatrics were sometimes important and his familiar was smart enough to ace his assignment.

“Good evening Ishida-sensei!”

“I’m calling the police. First you rob me, now you break into my of-“

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. After all, you wouldn’t want Uryū-san to be hurt.”

The man froze.

Just as Harry suspected.

At first glance, Ishida Ryūken’s office was incredibly boring and generic. Bookshelves full of medical journals. Walls dotted with medical graphs and diplomas. A desk with stacks upon stacks of paperwork, a computer, and an ashtray sitting on it. A chair that looked as uncomfortable as sitting in it felt.

No family photos. No Quincy artefacts. Not even bottles of alcohol or porn mags.

It wasn’t until Harry realised that one of the drawers in the desk had a false bottom that he found a treasure trove. Photos of people who looked like younger Uryū and people related to him. A silver arrowhead. Copies of Uryū’s school reports. Papers that looked suspiciously similar to books on Quincy techniques. 

Ishida Ryūken was a terrible father- there was no doubt about that. But he cared. He cared, and it didn’t matter if he expressed that towards his son. Harry had a hook, and he was going to metaphorically shake the Quincy’s brain until it gave him the expected results.

The glow of freshly formed energy bow lit up the office.

“If you har-“

“Don’t be silly. Your son is perfectly capable of landing himself in trouble without me lifting even a finger,” he once again interrupted the man then grabbed a pen lying on the desk, transfigured it into a chair, and levitated it to the other side of the desk. Doing it without the Elder Staff was taxing, but messing with Ryūken was more important. “Take a seat and let’s have a productive discussion.”

The man did not turn off his weapon nor did he even make a step in the chair’s direction. Predictable. After all, Uryū had to get his dumb stubbornness from somewhere.

“I told my son to stay away from you. I shouldn’t have listened to him and sent him to Ichikawa Gakuen. Away from the Shinigami business.”

Harry almost snorted. If Ishida Senior wanted to have a real influence over his son’s actions, perhaps he should have put some time and energy towards building a relationship with him. Neglect, combined with attempts at disciplining, only led to kids making absurdly bad decisions. He would know; after all, his own son ran off and joined the opposite side in a civil war.

“Ishida-sensei, you strike me as a reasonable and sensible sort,” responded Harry. This would be so much simpler if this was a random man with no connections to his friends. But between Harry not being able to safely use mind magic on the man and not being able to follow through with his threats in any meaningful way, the only option left was playing mind games. And for all the trickery and misdirection he tended to fall back on, this kind of situation reminded him too much of Albus Dumbledore to be comfortable. “Your son is about to put himself into a life-and-death situation. I doubt any attempts to isolate Uryū-san would work when he is truly committed. I need your help to make sure he survives what he is about to do.”

Ishida Ryūken kept staring at Harry and not extinguishing his Heilig Bogen. The wizard simply leaned back in the chair and petted his cat.

“You are talking about the explosions Shinigami caused in the forest south of Karakura.”

“Of course! There is more to it, but the most important part of the situation for our discussion involves possibly visiting Soul Society if I don’t manage to talk Uryū-san out of it.”

“…What do you want,” said the Quincy while extinguishing his weapon and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

“Information. I want you to share with me everything you know about Urahara Kisuke, Kurosaki Ishin, Kurosaki Masaki and your relationship with them,” Cheerfully responded the wizard. It was a long shot. Considering Ishida senior’s current lifestyle it was entirely possible he ignored those people. But in his experience, supernatural folks tended to have at least a very good idea of who was who in such small communities. And with both Kurosaki kids and Uryū being at least part Quincy there was no way Ryūken didn’t know anything.

Whatever was going on in the Karakura, Urahara Kisuke was at the centre of it. At the same time, Urahara Kisuke was possibly the only person who could arrange non-lethal passage to Soul Society for them. Alarm bells in Harry’s head were ringing loudly and clearly. He couldn’t directly go against the Shinigami and maybe not even indirectly. But for all their dumbassery, kids were smart, creative and sometimes even lucky.

Often that was all it took to outsmart a metaphorical dragon.

The question was: was Urahara Kisuke a chess player or a poker player?

The Quincy snorted and raised one of his eyebrows. “And how that information would help you?”

“Maybe it won’t. But I have… a hunch, let’s say.”

Ryūken took a moment longer staring at him, then he took one cigarette out of the box, lit it, and sat on the chair. “Fine, I’ll give you whatever information you are seeking. As long as you keep my son safe.”

It wasn’t a Deal in the supernatural sense. The Quincy didn’t know what he was dealing with, nor was he wording the exchange correctly. But at the same time…

At the same time, it wasn’t like Harry wouldn’t do it anyway.

“Let’s start with Kurosaki Masaki. She was a Quincy, wasn’t she?”

“Indeed, she was Echt Quincy. I presume you are familiar with the term?” the man said while flicking ash off the cigarette. “Kurosaki clan was annihilated when she was a teenager. My family took her in.”

Harry had to stop himself from wrinkling his nose. If Echt Quincy were anything like pureblood wixen, then the implications were nasty. Masaki would be fostered by the Ishidas with expectations of marrying into the family. And yet she married an outsider who wasn’t a Quincy. She sounded like a ballsy and resourceful woman.

“Come to think of it, we never learned what or who took out the Kurosakis.”

“I presume Masaki-san wasn’t there to witness anything?”

“Her parents sent her to train under my mother’s tutelage.”

Oh. So there probably was a marriage contract, or at the very least an expectation that Ichigo’s mother would marry into Uryū’s family. As interesting as it was, it wasn’t very useful information.

“I see. When she met Kurosaki Isshin?”

“It’s actually Shiba Isshin, a highly-ranking Shinigami.”

What.

What?

“What?”

“I suspected you didn’t realise that. Between his gigai and Urahara’s meddling, it’s hard to spot,” Ryūken took another drag from his cigarette and looked off to the side, contemplating something. “Masaki-san was always a kind hearted and strong-willed individual. She didn’t care much for our traditions… and that is what ultimately doomed her…”

“About 20 years ago there was an odd Hollow attack. I don’t know the details, but Masaki-san defeated a Hollow who was about to kill Shiba-san. During the fight she must have been infected with Hollow reiatsu,” the Quincy took another drag and turned back towards Harry. “The textbooks on Quincy health and medical procedures don’t give justice to what happens to us in those cases.”

“… and this is the moment Urahara Kisuke enter the picture, I assume?”

“Indeed. We transported her to his shop. He used an experimental procedure that ‘connected’ her soul to Shiba-san’s soul. It stabilised her condition.”

Harry froze. Suddenly the damage to Isshin’s soul made sense, but the implication of two souls being so tightly tied was nauseating. Living souls were much more flexible compared to dead souls or supernatural creatures. Harry was intimately familiar with the side effects of just a small shard of a soul being constantly in contact with his soul. He could only imagine how that would work for Masaki.

As much as he didn’t want to make any assumptions about the relationship between Ichigo’s parents, there was no way this procedure didn’t affect Masaki’s decisions. But at the same time, there was once again Urahara. Casually offering complicated medical procedures that could affect his patients in the long term. The urge to find a way to safely abandon his mortal shell to examine what the Shinigami did to him was strong.

“Did… did Urahara-san ever explain what he meant by ‘connecting souls’?”

“If he did, I never heard about it. He only spoke about the balance between Shinigami and Hollows.”

This time, Harry couldn’t stop himself from snorting. Ryūken raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. It was for the best.

“Can you tell me anything else about Shiba Isshin and Urahara Kisuke?” as interesting as learning about Kurosaki Masaki was, he didn’t have time to explore this angle further.

“Urahara is often visited by a group of people whose reiatsu is… unusual,” said Ryūken, then he extinguished his cigarette and shot a longing look at the pack of cigarettes lying on the desk. “Neither Shinigami nor quite Hollows. They kept triggering protections generations of Quincy placed on buildings. We ended up modifying protections on all buildings.”

“I’ve noticed that protections on most buildings were either damaged or neglected.”

Ryūken shot him a look over his glasses. Harry wasn’t sure what kind of look it was, but he didn’t like what it was suggesting.

“Considering you stole most of my library and had enough time to at least browse it, you probably have a decent grasp on the anatomy of souls.”

That one was easy. Wixen souls were like bottles full of smoke, capable of truly incredible deeds but very fragile. Quincy souls were like jams that needed more gelatin and had fragments of fruits floating in them. “Hollows are composed of multiple souls. Like a brick wall. Shinigami souls are solid and heavy like boulders.”

“Using your metaphor, those people are like a handful of tungsten marbles. It’s true that Quincy protections in Karakura are neglected. But actively maintained protections are damaged each time these individuals show up,” Ryūken said while picking up another cigarette from the pack and lighting it. “In fact, a few members of the group are currently in Karakura.”

Neither Shinigami nor quite Hollows. Isn ’t that how Uryū described Muramasa’s presence? So there was what? A group of Zanpakuto spirits feeding on Hollows roaming around? Urahara’s experiments? Both? Neither? Something in between?

Harry felt like he should just lie down and ignore reality for a few hours. Urahara was bad enough for his mental health, but the idea that somewhere out there was yet another faction of supernatural beings who were somehow connected to the shopkeeper was exhausting. He wasn’t even going to consider how his ward matrix would hold up to people who regularly shredded Quincy wards just by existing.

Falling apart wasn’t on the menu for the day, so he fell back on his practised law enforcement mask. “Alright, Ishida-sensei, that will be all for now. If you remember anything else you believe would be helpful, you can contact me with this number,” He said while writing his cellphone number on a sticky note he found in one of the drawers. Akira sensing he was about to get up, climbed back at his shoulders. Ryūken continued to observe him, took a drag of his second cigarette.

“Sasaki-san,” said Ryūken when Harry got up. “What are you?”

That was rude.

“Someone who cares about your son,” he said as he was passing the Quincy. He gave the one last look at the room. No decorations. No signs of any hobby. Long hours with only occasional visits home. Carrying about his son, yet isolating himself… “Ishida-sensei, both depression and cancer are terrible ways to go. Think about your son.” Then he left before the Quincy could respond.

It was getting late. Hopefully, the small ramen restaurant near the hospital was still open.

The building was still standing, which was as good a sign as any.

Armed with takeout and an overprotective familiar, Harry opened the door to his flat. No burn damage, no smashed furniture, and no girls. Ichigo and Uryū were sitting in the kitchen with cups of tea. All signs of the fight they took part in were suspiciously gone. Kids.

“Sorry for keeping you guys waiting. I had to cool my head, threaten some people, find a decent place for food…”

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re joking or not," said Ichigo, squinting at him. Uryū just groaned, clearly too used to the wizard’s antics to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Don’t worry, I made sure not to leave any evidence," he continued cheerfully, sharing the takeout with the boys. “I’ve managed to collect some interesting information while I was out.”

“For example, Ichigo-kun, did you know your father is a Shinigami?”