Chapter Text
Yatsutora is used to being alone.
(Chad is was not.)
He’s not used to being lost, either. Though it’s a feeling he became accustomed to, running through the streets in Mazatlán, Sinaloa because his Abuelo was old and busy, and Yatsutora had done something silly to try and get a few more pesos, or keep himself entertained. The older kids – they had a purpose and a job and they needed people to help with it and he could help meet rent for the month, maybe.
The docks are always filled with things to do.
But his mother was gone and his father gone in a different way and Yatsutora had to stop getting into fights because his Abuelo always seemed so sad when that happened. He knows, now, that Abuelo didn’t want him to go down the path the older kids went – broken and hurt by pride and a long fall from grace because the younger kids didn’t have the ability to hide in the mountains until things smoothed over. You can hide at the docks, but there are too many people and you can’t trust them all.
(You can’t trust most of them, Yatsutora found out.)
It’s like his Abuelo dying all over again because Chad wasn’t there to have Ichigo’s back when he needed him there.
There’s nothing Chad could have done, except maybe get killed, because Aizen was far more powerful than the average Shinigami captain (and that first battle against one went so well for Chad – he knows that even now he wouldn’t be able to defeat the curly-haired captain who sat down and asked him about Ichigo, once Chad had been defeated, and offered him a drink of sake). Chad may have trained, and trained, and trained – with Urahara, against Abarai, under Yoruichi, but he’s not Ichigo, can’t increase his power and abilities with every single battle fought, and so he’s left behind with Ishida.
There’s something like resentment in Chad’s chest. It lies, a lead dragon with heart of cinders, curled into a marble that rattles and clanks next to the jar of his guilt at not having Ichigo’s back – at not having Ichigo’s back for the entire time they’ve been involved with the spirit world.
It was wonderful, those few hours when they’d first infiltrated Los Noches and Chad could prove that he has not been slacking, could keep pace – maybe a little slower than back when they were fighting humans under bridges and in alleyways, but still present. Still a support.
~IiI~
Chad spends the days following Aizen’s defeat building shelters and clearing rubble, working overtime at his job because it needs to be done.
No one quite knows what to make of the destruction of Karakura Town, but they pull together and reconstruction is started quickly, even as chunks of concrete litter the streets, iron supports twisting up to the sky like a steampunk parody of an uprooted tree. This kind of destruction shouldn’t look natural in the quiet town he’s lived in for the last four years.
These people were almost slaughtered for a madman’s dream and they go to bed each night ignorant of how close they were to dying. Chad’s friend is lying in a bed, in pain as his soul is slowly rent to pieces – or fully separated and locked away? Urahara’s explanation of how one can give up their powers in such a painful way was unclear, and Kurosaki Isshin, who is apparently a Shinigami, is no help whatsoever. Another friend is futilely trying to ease the first friend’s injury, the final friend is retreating into his own head, and there’s a protocol for how the clean-up is supposed to go.
Shinigami have been doing this for years, after all.
They’ve pulled out a larger version of the memory modifier Ichigo had told Chad about, although the town-wide version doesn’t look like a Pez dispenser, but more like a gigantic space anemone. (He’s not sure that that sight is any better than a Pez dispenser the size of Jidanbo. Maybe the actual version is simply more disturbing, because it reminds him of the Espada he and Ishida had fought. At least it isn’t pink.)
Regardless, it’s good to have something to focus upon that isn’t Ichigo, isn’t related to spirits or fights or war. There’s nothing to suggest that a week previously, Chad had been fighting for his life against an Espada that could make actual voodoo dolls and nearly crushed every organ of his like some people like to eat the ikura – the fish roe that tops some sushi or is inside some onigiri at the convenience store.
(Chad isn’t sure he’ll be able to eat that ever again, given how that battle went, but it’s a small price to pay, for getting out alive.)
Chad works, and works, and works, like he trained, and trained, and trained, and when he closes his eyes he can still see the bright white walls inside of Las Noches, he can still see the grey sands of Hueco Mundo, and sometimes he thinks he failed to destroy one of the lower level Hollows they ran into initially and he’s watching Ichigo or Ishida or even Inoue die because of his confidence, his arrogance, to think that he was ready for something of this scale.
He doesn’t sleep much.
~IiI~
Orihime, he knows, goes to see Ichigo every night after that final disaster, when they were told just what Ichigo sacrificed to remove the Hyōgoku from Aizen and defeat the madman.
Chad goes every day, too, though he has nothing to offer but his presence.
They don’t talk.
Ichigo is too far inside his own head, his own soul, trying to chase down his powers and their personifications, to speak with Chad. It’s fine. Chad doesn’t really need to speak all that much with Ichigo, anyways. Not now.
The resentment is still there, but it’s shrunk with the knowledge that Ichigo can’t go haring off again and leaving Chad behind as he has done in the past (now, that’s something Chad can do, and it’s not a comfortable feeling because he knows that he will have to – the Shinigami won’t step up their protection of Karakura Town, now that Aizen has been defeated. In part because it’s likely they no longer have that kind of man power, but also because they don’t seem to care about humans beyond ensuring that the balance of souls is maintained – Chad wouldn’t be surprised if some don’t have specific duties more closely tied with the tradition stories of death gods and soul reaping). In contrast, his guilt has grown because Chad knows that Ichigo hasn’t, with the exception of leaving to go and rescue Inoue, purposely tried to leave him behind.
But the coin his Abuelo gave to him rests heavy around his neck, the promise still echoes in his ears. He has a person to fight for, to protect, and Ichigo won’t let him. They’re no longer on the same level, and somewhere along the way, Ichigo has become as self-sacrificing idiot.
(Which isn’t fair – he’s always been one to dive in, head first, but he’d at least given some thought to it. What happened when they invaded Soul Society, or when he was dealing with his Hollow that caused him to think he wasn’t worth Chad’s friendship, Chad doesn’t know, but he wants to beat its – or their – head(s) in (as Chad doubts it was all Aizen’s fault) and knock some sense into Ichigo as well.
If he didn’t know Ichigo, Chad might suggest that losing his powers would cause Ichigo’s recently strengthened self-sacrificial streak to fade some, but he knows better. It’ll doubtlessly be reinforced, instead. At this point, there’s not much difference between a hero- and a martyr-complex.)
So they sit there in silence, and Chad leaves after an hour, goes back to his apartment (mostly unharmed by the destruction, surprisingly), eats, and spends as little time sleeping as he can get away with before heading back out to work on clearing away the rubble.
It’s a routine. It’s just enough to prevent Chad from completely breaking down.
~IiI~
School starts again. Chad makes sure to sit near Ichigo, when possible, and ignores the whispers and the side glances that come their way.
The Shinigami have performed their massive mind-wipe, but it doesn’t work well on those with even a hint of Reiatsu in their soul. Naturally, as this class has been exposed to Ichigo the most, after he’d received Rukia’s powers and then had access to his own, the majority have at least a vague idea of how something supernatural occurred, and who was right in the middle of it. If not, they’ve noticed how the four sit in a close group and block everyone else out.
(They’re hurting, wounded animals, and sometimes one dies with a bang, and sometimes one dies with barely a whimper, and Ichigo is the leader and he is hurting, so they close ranks, and Chad acts as a deterrent, a glowering gargoyle protecting his flock.)
Even the people who forgot about Chad after the first day of school take notice now.
One does not cross a Giant, nor a Devil, lightly.
(They quiver under his glares, and his power hums in delight.)
~IiI~
Arisawa, and Keigo, and Kojima receive an explanation at the Urahara Shouten. Ichigo, Ishida, and Urahara tell them what the they’ve missed, and there’s bickering and squabbling, and something in Chad’s chest eases. Maybe not all is lost, if everyone can still laugh and bicker and blush in embarrassment over some stupid (life threatening, especially in Ichigo’s case) stunts.
As a whole, they’re far more broken than when they left, but they’re better together than apart. It’s…nice, to be a part of a whole that’s more than the sum of its parts.
So he sits back, and lets the voices wash over him, inserting a comment here or there in support of what someone else had said, or fleshing out the story with a quick summary of his own experiences. If they can still meet like this, laugh like this, perhaps it will all work out.
~IiI~
Chad, with longer legs, always ends up in the lead when they rush from class, chasing Hollows.
“I need to use the bathroom.” It’s a flying type, something that wouldn’t be out of place in Jurassic Park, cero escaping its mouth like pulsing sonic waves. The Hollow goes down with a final punch driving an arrow through its skull.
They don’t question how a Adjuchas came through and a Shinigami wasn’t immediately on the scene.
“I’m heading to the nurse; I have a migraine.” A lower level Hollow that can somehow make whatever it scratches explode.
Inoue is the one to destroy it, Ishida offering cover for Chad, still recovering under Inoue’s healing shield. They discover it takes longer when she uses two aspects of her power at the same time.
Given the glint in her eyes, it’s something she’ll be working on.
Chad thinks he can hear her faeries giggle. It’s not something he wants to dwell upon. It’s not a training session he wants a part of.
“I’ll be back in five minutes.” It’s a swarm and they keep track of how many each of them purify – or annihilate, in Ishida’s case.
(Not that they know – the one’s Chad destroys are always sent to Hell. After all, it is the dominion of the Devil, who’s right arm he wields.)
Ishida wins.
(“Ishida-kun, you are a long ranged fighter. That doesn’t make things even!”
“Hm. I can use my arm as more of a cannon, but it is meant to be used in close combat.”
“But I still got the most.”
A glare and a passive stare.
“Ugh, fine. Each can count as 75% of one defeated in close combat.”)
“I need to go to the bathroom.” Another Hollow, another swarm, no Menos, but that’s a small blessing because Chad knows that Ichigo is dying by inches in the classroom, taking notes for them. Or, for Chad and Ishida, because Arisawa takes notes for Inoue, but then Kojima is taking notes, and Keigo, too, and Ichigo continues to fade from their circle.
Chad doesn’t like it.
But he has work - he wants to leave this place and he can’t do it without money.
He wants to leave, but he wants to leave with Ichigo, Ishida, Inoue. He doesn’t know if they want to leave, too, but each has lost someone important to them in this town, and with memories of the war?
No, they’re leaving, even if Chad has to pack them up himself.
~IiI~
He wasn’t always a background fixture – it’s hard to hide when your name marks you as foreign, even if your skin doesn’t, because it makes you a target – but he’s since learned to fade from people’s minds. It’s easier to watch Ichigo’s back (and now Ishida’s and Orihime’s) that way.
(He may also have asked Yoruichi-san for a few lessons on the sly, when he was training with Abarai, since she was once the captain of the Onmitsukidou Squad. Chad has no interest in becoming an assassin, but he has every intention of being able to protect his friends from any threats that would come their way, so he runs through the drills Yoruichi-san gives him between sparring with Abarai for hours in an effort to keep up with Ichigo. When Chad gets good enough, he incorporated the drills into the spars themselves, because what good are drills if he can’t use the skills in a practical setting?
Given how Yoruichi-san slinks over and twines herself between his feet, Chad assumes he’s done the right thing.
It’s heartening.
(Maybe he’ll be able to stand by Ichigo’s side once more, as a fellow protector, and not one of the protected, despite how well he did against that one Shinigami captain. Maybe he’ll be able to stand back-to-back with his friend, once again, and not have his place claimed by the red haired Shinigami he’s attempting to slam into the sand.))
~IiI~
(He fails.)
(Ichigo is still forced to fight alone, with no one at his back.)
~IiI~
In the night, Chad hears a howl, a shriek, a scream, and great ululation rising from somewhere beneath his feet in his dreams, but Chad rolls over, assured that it is not a Hollow – there is loss, yes, there are tinges of insanity, but there’s a lack of hunger that soothes his instincts, allows him to remain asleep, even if there’s a flash of worry.
But there’s a thrum of contentment, afterwards, and the frown on his face smooths out.
He will see Ichigo after school, they’ll walk, talk about meaningless things like school, or music, or books, or traipse about in silence, part, and repeat.
~IiI~
Chad reads on different locations. He has a bit of an advantage – he already knows Spanish, and it’s one of the most common languages in the world. It’s also a Romance Language, so if he decides to learn French or Italian or something, it should be easier to do so.
He works in a bar – well, he plays music in a bar that gets, if not a steady stream of foreigners, enough that he can find conversation partners easily enough. Sometimes he sings in English, and even if he’s not always certain what about he’s singing, he gets better and better at pronouncing the words.
It’s progress.
It’s a year until graduation and Chad is no closer to figuring out how to save Ichigo and the others than he was before. Ishida and Inoue would kill him if he up and tried to take them with him.
Ichigo might just follow for lack of anything else to do. (Or he’ll fight and die in the process, smile on his face, because he’s not living, not now and that’s one of Chad’s reoccurring nightmares.)
But that’s not Chad’s speed.
He’d also have to take the twins, and while Yuzu would probably go along – she’s clearly been worried about her brother the entire time – Karin would dig her feet in, and Chad…Chad won’t hurt her. Ichigo would kill him, and that’s just not something Chad is willing to do, he’s always wary of the “I’m doing this for your own good” mentality. It’s a slippery slope.
Inoue, Orihime, has a much better idea, anyways – or at least a better, more achievable plan. Chad is fine playing muscle. He has a fair idea of who to approach anyways.
(There’s something to be said for having participated in the beat downs of the majority of the local delinquents and low level yakuza, while still in middle school.)
~IiI~
Ichigo and he will walk along side, and drift further away because Chad has plans, not of the sort to get them out of town – Orihime has that covered.
(He’s pretty sure Ishida has, too.)
But Chad will plan for afterwards. They flee, but where will they run too? Will they build a home? Keep moving? Where will they go to? Where are the bad parts of town? What will they do when they’re not completely absorbed with watching over their shoulders? How will they pay for it all?
What will keep them alive, and not just surviving?
(Maybe that’s why the Devil encouraged Eve. What is life, if one is stagnant? Flight, terror, there has to be something beyond this fragile line of black ice rules they’ve all been walking since Kuchiki Rukia appeared in Ichigo’s bedroom a couple of years ago.)
~IiI~
Chad…isn’t very good at expressing regret. Usually, it’s easier to just show through actions – not repeating them, things like that. Except, he’s not sure there’s anything he can do for this.
He’d forgotten, that the others hadn’t been friends with Ichigo before their first year of high school. He’d forgotten that Ichigo is very, very bad about sharing anything, for all that he ends up shouting every time they fight someone, to teach them a lesson.
(Case in point, Abarai Renji. And probably his captain, since he’s Rukia’s brother and brothers, especially being an older one, have always been a point of pride for Ichigo and that captain so very clearly failed.)
“Inoue-san,” Ishida says. “When did you speak with Kurosaki-sensei?”
“Oh, I ran into him while I was heading back from getting groceries yesterday!” Chad tenses. That couldn’t have been more staged if the man had shown up with a sign.
“Really? Did he say why?” Ishida clearly knows something is not right as well. Maybe Ichigo did tell him….
“Why?”
“Why he was saying this – did Kurosaki ask him to say something?” Ishida is getting angry and Inoue is confused.
“No,” she replies, brow furrowing, hands clenching on the desk after making an abortive move towards her hair – her hair pins, “he just said it and then asked what I was making for dinner. He turned a bit green when I told him daikon, anko, leek, and egg soup, then left.”
That is so clearly Inoue, Chad almost wants to chuckle, but…now is not the time.
(He still wishes he could have seen Kurosaki Isshin’s face, imagining that kind of dinner.)
“So why do you think that Kurosaki would appreciate us ceasing to speak about the spirit world? He has friends there, and I’m certain he would appreciate knowing how they are doing. He also seems to appreciate knowing how many Hollows we encounter and how our fights go.”
“But Ishida-kun! Kurosaki-sensei is Kurosaki-kun’s father and he used to be a Shinigami…oh.”
Chad exchanges a grimace with Ishida, and when they look back at Inoue, she’s clearly realized that Kurosaki Isshin had an ulterior motive for speaking with her.
“Yes. But I’m not sure he’s been a very good father,” Ishida-kun mutters.
“He…isn’t,” Chad says, grimacing. It’s not his story, not his…secret…to tell, but they need to know, especially if he wants them all to leave.
This town isn’t good for anyone right now, not unless one is willing to play by the Shinigami’s rules, and that’s not something Chad is willing to do, after seeing what Soul Society is like, what they’ve cost his friend. What they’ve cost him.
“What?” Inoue looks like she wishes she’s wrong, that what they’re implying is wrong.
Chad resigns himself to breaking that illusion for her, slowly saying, “He tends to throw and kick Ichigo around, saying it’s training. He’s been doing it for…a very long time.”
Her face couldn’t scream a greater degree of denial. But Chad, for all that he is usually a gentle giant, is not going to allow her that delusion, that Kurosaki Isshin is a good father to his eldest.
Perhaps to his daughters, but then, he wouldn’t still be alive if he wasn’t.
“How long?”
“Before I met Ichigo.”
“Damn,” Ishida curses.
Chad looks back and wonders why he never mentioned Kurosaki Isshin to the others, before Inoue ran into him.
He’s not sure it would have made much of a difference…but then, Inoue might have smacked him, given how she’s looking at the moment.
She might have killed him, rejected him from his gigai, rejected his heart from his soul, rejected his power, splattered him on the street – if it were his soul, few would have noticed. She could have made it appear like a Hollow attack, especially if she’d called Ishida, with his Hollow bait. She would have removed one of the reasons to stay in Karakura town, and Chad would have thanked her for it and helped stage the body, just to make sure the Shinigami didn’t look into his death too closely.
~IiI~
Chad is ready.
Chad has been ready for nearly a year, but it cuts deeply to see Ichigo so submerged in his own sorrow, his own pain. There’s nothing for it – Chad will not get closer to him only to be removed by Kurosaki Isshin, by one of the Shinigami.
He might not be with his friend now, but he will not abandon him to this life.
Orihime has her own ideas that she’s working on – Chad has helped her secure new papers, new identification. He can help them navigate almost anywhere that speaks Spanish, English, a little bit of German, but Ishida can probably cover that. If the Quincy attacks are in German, even if his grandfather never taught him the language, Chad doesn’t believe for a moment that he didn’t look it up in his own time.
But there’s still a wall between them all, distance. They’re all hurting, have been hurting, and it’s easy to focus upon something else, throw themselves into work, into improving, into planning, preparing, but they’re not friends.
Not yet.
That doesn’t stop Chad from thinking about where Orihime would like to go, for planning a trip to Paris, at some point, because Ishida is in love with fashion, to a wide variety of pastry shops and sci-fi stores for Orihime, for visiting England, and the Globe Theater.
There’s a notebook, in his jacket pocket, on his nightstand, in his bag, that has plans and places and a wealth of things they can do.
He keeps it close, and it would be the second thing he packs, but he always has it on him, so when Orihime sends him the text, he’s already prepared.
Orihime has them headed to South Korea, to Hong Kong, to America, but there are no plans beyond that. That’s fine. Chad will have her back.
He accepts the moderately thick chain necklace, feels it settle and his powers feel stifled, but it’s a small price to pay for freedom.
They go and pick up Ishida, agree to meet him at the station.
Chad slips out the backdoor, using what Yoruichi taught him to step lightly, leave confusing tracks, be a whisper of shadow on the wind, a leave caught in the breeze. Orihime remains a few seconds longer to give Ishida a bracelet, and Chad can feel the tag in his pocket thrum with concentrated power. Ishida is wearing his bracelet.
His and Orihime’s tags have already been planted – two people who frequented the bar he once played at, both of whom are horrible excuses for humans, the humans he’s seen, at least.
(They aren’t aware, when the Onmitsukido arrive to take them, asleep and with satisfaction curling in their respective guts as blood dries on the knuckles of one, and another lays next to a pile of broken bottles, in a room with muffled sobs.
Their deaths are quick, and that is the only mercy Chad will grant them.)
But there’s another tag to plant, and as he ghosts through the town he knows just upon whom to plant it.
(He would be sorry, if the Shinigami wasn’t a plant, wasn’t there to keep an eye on them all, but it’s just desserts for a spy who never does any work.)
Then he’s at the platform, back in the shadows, the last one on the train by a mere second, in the last car, so he could see Ishida get on one car in front of Orihime.
The train pulls out of the station…and they’re gone.
(There’s a hole in Karakura town, a festering wound, but they’re gone and free of its bubbling tendrils.
It’s not their problem, not anymore.)
Chad’s grin is hidden in his jacket, but it’s small, and sharp, and as vicious as a shiv to the spine.
Human Arc, Fin.
And that's a wrap, for Chad, Orihime, and Uyuu at least.
Don't forget you can always come poke me (say hi, prompt me if you want to see other parts from their point of view in the future, remind me to update, etc.) at my tumblr: fins-illusion.tumblr.com
Finally: I'm going to be on vacation from tomorrow, December 25th, until January 1st, so if I don't reply to any comments, it's not because I'm ignoring you I swear. I'm just. Very slow.
~Fins