Chapter Text
Lute's hands trembled and her pupils dilated. A cold sweat ran down her back. She couldn’t understand how this was possible. The hound girl standing before her shouldn’t be alive. Her heart should have been pierced by her spear, this made no sense. Why hadn't her spear gone through her? Why had only a miserable centimeter of the tip pierced the skin on the chest of this bitch, spilling only a thin thread of blood?
But even more baffling, why were there glowing blue lines on that sinner’s chest, radiating from the point her spear had struck, like cracks in crystal, making it seem as if she had struck a wall rather than flesh. Why did this hound have them?
It made no sense. Why did this hound have these energy lines, this defensive power? There was only one individual in all of Creation, maybe two now, but the other was only months old, so his abilities were still unknown, who had this power. The power of the man she now proudly called brother. The one with whom she and the exterminators had shared so many moments, from grueling training sessions to simple sandwich lunches. The same one who had given her a firm handshake to congratulate her and wish her good fortune when she was appointed lieutenant of the exterminator corps. The one who had welcomed her back after the last extermination and, despite her failings as a lieutenant, had consoled her when they had taken Adam and so many of their sister exterminators.
The one who had every right to slaughter her for coming back with her “tail between her legs” after her incompetence, arrogance, and childish desire for revenge against the traitor had cost Heaven so many lives, but instead, he had knelt before her, embraced her in a warm hug, and promised her that “Hell would not robb anyone from us again.” Words seared into her soul.
A year had passed since the signing of the new treaty. He had taken command of the exterminator corps, and this was the first extermination under his leadership. He had prepared them with intense training, pushing them to their limits every day—so brutal that the only word to describe it was "savage",earning him a formal reprimand from Lady Sera. But he had simply responded, “I’d rather see them collapse from exhaustion here than die at the hands of our enemies.” No complaints were heard again, and all the exterminators threw themselves into training with renewed conviction.
That orange-haired man who had arrived in Heaven like a meteor, whose “particular” personality had made him such a beloved and respected part of everyone’s lives. The one who had married Lady Seraphiel and given her many years of a happy married life, and recently, the joy of conceiving a charming little one. The one all the exterminators affectionately and respectfully called “-niisan” despite his perpetually furrowed brow.
The one who deemed her worthy of knowing his past. A substitute shinigami who also possessed hollow powers, whose lineage held a hidden secret. A man scarred by the tragedy of losing loved ones. A son who lost his mother to the claws of greedy monsters. An older brother who lost one of his little sisters after a group of sinners kidnapped her to use her as bait to force him to break the chains of damnation. A sweet and innocent little sister who vanished during the collapse of that circle when he interrupted the ritual, only for her essence to be absorbed by Hell.
Wait a moment, this hound’s fur was a very similar shade to her brother’s hair. This must be a coincidence... right?
Lost in thought, Lute barely managed to block the punch from the other hound, with black and silver-gray fur, using the staff of her spear. Though seemingly breathless, the girl’s gaze burned with unwavering determination to protect the orange-furred one. A punch wrapped in glowing red veins.
Just… who are these hounds?
Lute saw the hounds collapse to their knees, exhausted to the point of fainting after using this ability. She had seen her brother use both techniques before. Blut, he had called it. Many questions swirled in her mind, but she pushed them aside to focus on the decision before her. Her subordinates approached, having finished off the nearby sinners who had made a futile attempt at resistance.
“Lady Lute, we’ll soon begin our return home. What should we do with these hounds?” one of the exterminators asked.
“Restrain them and seal their magic. We’re taking them. Lord Ichigo needs to see this,” Lute ordered, regaining some of her composure after the events.
Infirmary of the Exterminator Corps Headquarters
That night
Ichigo Kurosaki, Lord Protector of Heaven, walked solemnly toward where Lute awaited him. At his side, his wife Lady Seraphiel—Sera—accompanied him, while two girls from Lute’s unit guided them. They had implemented several measures to improve the efficiency of exterminator deployments. One such measure: organizing them into five-person units to watch each other’s backs and fight together, protecting one another.
As they reached the room, which was surrounded by an anti-Hell barrier, they stopped before the two girls guarding the entrance.
Over the decades—and thanks to intense training with Adam and Sera, Ichigo had perfected his control over his reiatsu. It also helped that after the incident classified as “Hellbreaker” (as Adam named it), and with Sera’s support in the aftermath of losing Yuzu, “Old Man” Zangetsu had finally been completely honest about his hybrid nature, revealing secrets that his father, the damn “Goat Face”, should’ve told him long ago.
A son born from the union of a shinigami captain and an Echt Quincy infected by a hollowfication virus created from an experiment by Aizen (seriously, that guy who loves the sound of his own voice and plotting, and is as crazy as Urahara). The same mother who died because her powers failed during a fight with Grand Fisher, sent by Aizen (damn egomaniac with a god complex), due to Ywach’s Auswählen. If Ichigo ever returned to the world of the living, a lot of asses would be kicked into the next century, and he’d punch Urahara in the face just on principle.
After that revelation, and once his hollow-shinigami zanpakuto stopped being an idiot long enough for a serious conversation, they were finally able to unleash his true power, revealing the real Zangetsu. This was followed by near-suicidal training that nearly destroyed the archangels’ training dimension. Ichigo emerged tired but satisfied, with a katana much like his bankai sheathed in black, strapped to what was left of his hakama pants, greeted by a slightly blushing Sera, who scolded him for four hours about responsibility and the importance of controlling one’s powers. After a brief tea break, she gave him three more hours on his newly discovered affinity with angelic spiritual energy.
From that moment on, decades passed in intense training. He mastered every aspect of his soul’s nature, his hollow powers responding to instinct, his Quincy powers to his protector’s spirit, and his warrior side manifesting through his shinigami powers. In dreams, a voice revealed fragments of the past and truths behind many events. Curiously, books and scrolls began appearing in his quarters, detailing techniques of zanjutsu, kaido, bakudo, and hado, which he studied diligently, and shared with Sera and Adam, his self-proclaimed friend/brother/sensei/wingman/guru of cool stuff. Though after several incidents, and Sera’s scoldings, Ichigo began to regret helping Adam perfect Shakkaho.
Ichigo could feel the confusion and doubt in Lute’s reiatsu. He was worried. She’d had a rough year, and though she had performed excellently as a lieutenant, so much so that he sometimes felt like a lazy captain (Ehem, like Kyouraku), he hoped she would soon find peace and smile sincerely again. After all, he understood her pain. She had fallen in love with Adam.
However, what truly put Ichigo on alert were the other two reiatsu in the room, one strikingly similar to Ishida’s, and the other… one he never expected to feel again in this life: small, gentle… one he thought lost forever.
“King! That reiatsu, no way. What the hell is happening?!” cried a stunned Hollow-Zangetsu (or White, for short).
“You two, calm down! I know this is impossible, but we must proceed with caution. Ichigo, you’re releasing too much reiatsu!” reprimanded Quincy-Zangetsu (or Juha).
Sera noticed immediately, both from the energy escaping and her husband’s shocked expression.
“Ichigo, are you okay? Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned for her partner, and slightly relieved that their baby was safe with Emily and the other angels. She had been in the reception area for returning units from this extermination, ready to greet her beloved husband, an encounter interrupted by Lute’s exterminators, who insisted they come to an isolated area of the medical complex.
Thanks to Juha’s words and the sensation of Sera gently gripping his arm, Ichigo regained a bit of composure, just enough to utter a name. Her name.
“Yuzu…”
Then he rushed into the room.
He was greeted by a confused Lute and approached the beds where two unconscious Hellhounds lay, one with black and silver-gray fur, the one emitting a reiatsu similar to Ishida’s, dressed in a punk-goth style outfit. The other, smaller, with orange and white fur, had bandages on her right leg and arm and wore a tattered yellow raincoat barely preserving her modesty. She was the source of the reiatsu he thought lost forever.
He slowly approached and gently brushed away some strands of hair covering the orange hound’s face. Feeling his warm touch, she nuzzled his hand and slowly opened her eyes to see him. With a sleepy and exhausted smile, she called him the way she always had:
“Ichi-nii…”