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CRASH
There’s no point in looking out the window, but the woman does anyway. She pulls back the curtains just in time to see the last of a colossal hand, gray and clownish in proportion, dissolve into dust-like pixels from where it landed in the street. Fat globs of red rain down on the ground, filling the cracks from the impact like the blood never left its body’s veins.
A leg, identical in color to the hand, bombards the street in pieces. The neighbors across the way run out of their house, crying out in horror at whatever explanation their unknowing minds have decided they are capable of handling.
Her eyes cast down in shame, the woman withdraws into her green-roofed home, and the curtains fall back into place.
More Hollow parts rain down on Karakura Town. Some are mauve, some spindly, others reminiscent of zoo animals. Fitting, as all Hollows are creatures hardly recognizable as the humans they once were and on whom they now feast. They are predators designed to kill, mindless and starving. If any human soul is to survive, they require a hunter. Not one of their own.
His reiatsu flaring, Zangetsu flashing in the moonlight, Ichigo has answered the call. He was warned of the danger of his attacks, even though he was there to see the consequences the first time: such a concentration of reiatsu is bound to attract the Hell-bound and open the gates again.
It’s sound advice. But how else would he draw out the Hollows to strike them down? Bait wishes it were this effective.
The monsters have no hope of overwhelming him one on one, but much as he begs for their numbers to compensate for their powerlessness, he can mow down a line of them without breaking a sweat. Luckily, they just keep coming, so while the exercise isn’t a challenge, it is rote monotony designed to keep him in the moment rather than clawing at internal photobooks of memory.
Well, one memory is allowed to stay. In it, he is standing high in the sky, just like now, tendrils of reishi holding him aloft like a guardian, an angel, a god. City lights flicker beneath his feet. Car engines hum, babies cry, and dogs howl in a perfect image of humanity. He crosses his arms as he admires the scene, and the long sword strapped to his back rubs against his shoulders. Content and smug, he smiles at the reassurance of his blade: no matter his appearance, no matter that this is his birthplace, he does not belong here. He is a dead spirit whose one remaining material tie, his bear trap of a body, lies propped up in a desk chair in the house he grew up in. No human is capable of standing as high as he. No human could dream of slaying beasts with his brand of fearless determination. No human could he possibly be.
He has ascended to his rightful place.
He is the one who protects.
Past and present collide, and a battle cry roars from Ichigo’s chest as he slams Zangetsu straight through a Hollow’s mask. The resulting blast of blue energy disintegrates the thing and pushes right through to the Hollow behind it, and the one behind that, and on and on until the blue morphs into silver moonlight, then pure darkness.
It is beautiful.
But just as a smile finally cracks open on his face, his stomach falls into a familiar pit, and his heart shoots into his throat. His vision blurs.
The Hollows begin to flail and cackle like a pack of hyenas, but even if he can’t see them, he is not letting them go. “Getsuga Tensho!” he roars, shredding his throat with the release.
He fells six of the beasts, but many more escape the chaotic push of his attack.
On cue, the present regains control over the past, gripping it by the chin and forcing it to look him right in the eye. “This is what you’ve done,” the present snarls. “This is what you’ve done to me. Look at the damage you caused because you were too weak to stop it.”
The blurry blue of the night sky drowns out the Hollows, but Ichigo doesn’t dare wipe his eyes. More crescent-shaped reiatsu bears down on the growing mass of fiends, all shrieking their displeasure.
The present throttles the past, only to fall with a sickening smack as the past grabs it, pins it in place by the throat. “I did what I could,” the past growls. “Don’t blame me for wanting to forget.”
Crescent after crescent streams down at the city. Whether they meet Hollow or home is no longer of concern.
“I could never forget you,” the present chokes.
Shielded by one final attack, the scream that accompanies it, Ichigo ditches the Hollows entirely and rises higher into the sky, right into the light of the moon. His eyes, already wet, glisten more against its brightness. Higher he climbs, higher than is necessary for even surveillance, high enough to where the Hollows lose interest in their chase. As if the closer he gets to the moon, this ever-changing inevitability, the greater the likelihood that he will return to the backdrop of the night a sword pierced his abdomen and changed his life forever. For while the sun does its work during the day, the moon is braver. No matter the darkness of night or the shadows that crawl all over his life, it radiates light he knows he can depend on. Even when it must renew itself and he is left to fend for himself.
Because the moon always comes back, doesn’t it? Not out of obligation or some social responsibility. It’s always there to receive him, to caress his face or drive a blade through his chest.
Suddenly furious, Ichigo unleashes his reiatsu in full. It’s no longer a draw, but a forcefield pushing back this idiotic distraction, this world he has never once belonged to.
“Take me back!” he shouts. “You know I can’t stay here, so just take me back! I’m right here!”
The moon glows silently.
He snarls. “I was supposed to stay with you, and you know it. This isn’t my life. Let me come back, let me come home! You know I’m useless here!”
His chest burns hot, like a brand labeled “HUMAN” is pressing into his heart.
He whips his head side to side. “This isn’t who I am! You know this, you have to know this, Rukia, Rukia—”
And there it is.
The love of his life is sitting on the engawa, the bags under her eyes disappearing with the glory of her smile.
She’s gasping in quiet delight as he grabs her in an empty hallway to kiss her deeply.
She’s holding him close after a nightmare.
She’s healing him in silence after a training session gone too far.
She is releasing his hand within seconds of him taking it.
She is tearing up at the other end of the table.
She is telling him she can’t do this anymore.
“This.” She can’t even bring herself to say it.
But he knows that “this” is just the beginning. “This” is him joining her in a realm they both find comfort in. “This” is him acknowledging the trauma of their experiences, but loving her enough to cling to the peace still humming between them. “This” is not just something you throw away. “This” is not a lie, and “this” is real, no matter the words coming out of your mouth!
The night goes quiet. A howl echoes into silence like a child realizing they’ve spoken out of turn. The wisps of clouds have stopped their drift through the sky. The moon is as bright as the sun.
Zangetsu heavy in his hands, Ichigo lowers his arms as he stares at the heavenly orb before him, nearly blasting him with its light. His chest still burns; in the night’s silence, there is no distraction from its raw ache.
“Why?” he whispers to the moon. “Why did you do it? I loved you, and you loved me. Weren’t we happy?”
He knows the answer. He asks the question anyway.
“Why, why? We had everything, and you ruined it. You ruined it, you ruined it, you ruined it.”
The Hollows beneath begin their cry once more. They can feel the humanity raining down on them, but they’re too hungry to understand it.
Ichigo swipes the back of his hand across his face. “You weren’t supposed to do this,” he whispers. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? Don’t I mean more to you than that?”
He glowers at the night, its serenity. His chests hurts so much it may as well be on fire.
“Would you just SAY SOMETHING!” he snarls.
beep beep beep
beep beep beep
Wide-eyed, Ichigo stares into the white moon.
beep beep beep
Habit more than interest has him grabbing at his pocket, only for him to nearly fall out of the sky when he reads the three characters on his phone’s screen.
Deep inside him, past defers to present without a second thought. Only to push present into action when it realizes it doesn’t know what to do.
On the last beep, Ichigo answers his phone. “Hey,” he says weakly, only to clear his throat of anything like emotion and replace it with a more characteristic “yo.”
“Hey,” Rukia says. Much as he wants there to be a lingering question in her tone, one that tells him she’s been screaming at the sun, there is only something businesslike. More finite. Not quite reminiscent of the cheer he saw right through when she bombarded Renji’s call the day before everything went to literal Hell, but not anything like what the past wants.
He swallows down his disappointment before it chokes him. “Can I, uh, help you?”
She pauses on the other end, only to come back with the full presence of a captain. “Ichigo, why is there a Senkaimon standing open over Karakura Town?”
A Senkaimon? “Uh, one of your people leave it open? You know I can’t open one.” Not true: he purposely forgot her lessons after deciding he’d never need to open a Senkaimon again.
“No one in my squad has come or gone from Karakura today, but it was definitely a Shinigami who opened it.”
He rolls his eyes. “So shouldn’t you be contacting the Twelfth about this and not me? Not like I’m making sure you all pay the toll.”
There is a notable pause. “Ichigo, it is my responsibility to keep an eye on the regions under my jurisdiction,” Rukia says softly, more hurt than defensive. “Especially with the Hell fiasco in Karakura Town just last week.”
So swift, so soft, and the fight is driven from him. He feels weary all of a sudden, but he knows better than to use his frenzied Hollow baiting as an excuse. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “Where exactly did you say the Senkaimon is?”
“You haven’t noticed?” Rukia says with genuine incredulity. “It’s right above the Kurosaki clinic.”
“What?” Ichigo glances left and right, then down when the Senkaimon still won’t show itself. “Rukia, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Ichigo, calm down—”
“There’s an inter-realm portal over my house,” he snaps, trying to squint through the darkness to find the clinic’s green roof. “You can’t expect me to—oh.”
“Ichigo, what is it?”
He does not register her words. Not when she repeats them, not when she begins to shout them into his ear. Of course he didn’t notice. He thought he left it in the past. But for all that still lingers where he can no longer touch it, right behind him, unequivocally tangible, stands the largest Senkaimon he has ever seen.
He casts his eyes down on Zangetsu.
“Ichigo, please,” Rukia begs through the phone. “What is happening?”
“I-I found it,” he whispers.
“Okay, and what’s going on? Is Karakura being invaded?”
“I-I’ll call you back.”
He ends the call, despite Rukia’s flood of questions. Habit once more brings his phone back to his pocket, but along the way, his hand shudders against the heat still burning over his heart. But...there is nothing internal about this sensation. He presses against his chest, winces when his Shinigami pass, held exactly over his heart, rages with raw heat through his shihakusho.
So it happened again. His badge, hearing him just as he convinced himself no one would. Only now, rather than accidentally sentencing a dead captain to the depths of Hell, it has summoned a different kind of gate. Other than its massive size, this is a classic Senkaimon, one befit for a Shinigami’s passage, just as he’s known for the last thirteen years.
Only, he hasn’t known a Senkaimon. He’s thought himself trapped, and to a degree, he’s right.
Ichigo blinks at the absolute brightness. No figures, dead or otherwise, emerge from the gate. No one has come for him. Just the Senkaimon itself, making as resolute a declaration as it can:
I’m waiting.
Far below, where it cannot reach him, a Hollow roars.
With a single, shaking hand, Ichigo reaches for the doors, bathed in light from the moon at his back and the world at his fingertips.