Chapter Text
Ichigo closed his eyes, letting the darkness settle in around him. Enveloping his senses, it took everything with it. A lone tear slipped down his cheek. He knew that nobody would be coming for him. There wasn’t anybody too look for him anyway.
Not that they could find me if they even tried…
It was just himself alone with his thoughts. It was suffocating. His mind felt too large, too empty but full at the same time.
The teen knew he was slowly but surely going insane. Echoes sounded in his head, as if those he loved were right next to him.
“We are here.” GetaBoushi’s voice sounded from next to him. Ichigo rationally knew that it was impossible. His eyes were closed, but he could see his mentor as if it were a sunny day. “We’re here, Ichigo.”
“You’re dead. Don’t lie to me Kisuke.” Voice shaking, he couldn’t help but take in the obvious hallucination.
“Never said I wasn’t.”
“I know.” He shivered. “You shouldn’t have tried to stop them..why? Why for me? They were able to exhaust your reiatsu in an instant. You knew they could. Why? Why did you protect me? This is worse than death and now you’re dead too!!” and Yuzu...and Karin...and Dad...and Shinji. Idiot shouldn’t have stayed here.
“Ichi-kun, you know why. You would’ve done it for us.”
The harsh truth of the matter of course, was that he would’ve. Even if it meant his family crying over his dead body just as Yoruichi had over Kisuke’s. Shaking, sobbing uncontrollably until she just...stopped. Limp. Alive, but.. She couldn’t stop them either.
It had been a year into his stretch of powerlessness. Ichigo -- and everyone else -- had though the spirit world would never bother him again, which in itself was enough to make him depressed, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the pain that followed.
Unknown to him (and the others in Karakura), Soul Society had been healing. Unfortunately, this included the reformation of the Central 46. Predictably, this new body was even worse than the previous, and, upon catching wind of the former-substitute-shinigami’s hybrid status, they decided that he was too dangerous, and must be dealt with .
The other Vizards didn’t know. (Except Shinji, who was screwed over for knowledge yet again. Ichigo could see his dead eyes staring up at him again and again, glassy, empty, devoid of any signs of life.) Central 46 acknowledged that Aizen had made them that way; plus, it would be much too suspicious if they disappeared again.
And so, with no warning, -- seeing as nobody knew, not like they paid any attention to Ichigo anyway these days -- they struck.
He’d come home from work, calling out to tell Yuzu and Karin that he’d returned. When he heard nothing, he grew worried. There’d been a sense of unease all day, but he’d attributed that to the hollows he knew his *old* friends took care of. However, with undealt with memories of war flooding him, his pulse picked up, eyes widening in horror as he entered the kitchen.
Blood dripped from the counter onto the floor soaking the rug. Shaking, Ichigo had let his eyes follow the path it took, nausea building quickly until a bloodcurdling scream tore itself from his lips.
“Run… Ichigo...Run..And always know..I might have not been the best father, but I’ve always loved you. I’m so proud of you and the man you’ve become. I can never tell you that enough. I wish I told you more. I love you, son. Now run. Run...and LIVE!!”
And so he ran. Ran from the dead and dying bodies of his family. He knew that whatever was after him, he couldn’t see it. Hollow or otherwise. His suspicions were confirmed when Shinji slammed him into a wall, covering him with his body.
“Ichi, I won’t be able to hold them off for long. I’m so sorry.”
By this point, the teen was in shock, unknowing of more horrors ahead.
“It’s Central 46. I’m sorry, I didn’t know until too late.” The man had pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Please run.”
And he had. Because Shinji wouldn’t let him do otherwise. But Kami, did it hurt. It felt as if a dagger had ripped itself into his heart, tearing open all past wounds and letting hurt flow like the bloodiest river.
Lastly, there was GetaBoushi. Urahara Kisuke. The man who cared for him, helped him attempt to heal, never treated him differently. The last line of defense, as it were.
He’d managed to kill most of them, but…. The last got him. Trapped the genius in a seal that he had to have known about previously.
And then it was all over. Central 46’s agents picked up the shell-shocked teen, and, with no trial -- no nothing, threw him into Muken. Forever. Complete Sensory Deprivation. Forever. With no way of escaping.
He shook, harsh breaths wracking his chest. Not even that was audible. There was no use talking out loud or screaming. He couldn’t hear it, and nobody else could. It was, frankly, a completely useless endeavor.
“Ichigo. Snap out of it.”
He shook himself out of the flashback, looking back at the hallucination of his mentor. “Huh?”
Kisuke flapped his fan. “Think for a second. You feel like you’re going insane. We’re dead. Your ‘friends’ aren’t coming and probably don’t even know you’re gone.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in,” he interjected.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. What is there to do anyways?” he sighed.
Getaboushi looked at him with disapproval in his eyes. “Nothing? Mah, mah, Ichigo, our deaths have made you weak. Where did you go? Did you think ‘this is helpless’ when rescuing Rukia? Did you shy away from battling Aizen because it was impossible to kill the man? Did you succumb to your more than fatal wounds after doing so? Where did your resolve go? Without it, you are helpless. And you know that.”
“Damn you, you manipulative bastard.”
“Aw, is that how you talk to your dead Sensei?”
“Yes.” Ichigo deadpanned.
“Think about it for a second. You can’t bring us back to life, but.”
“But what???!!”
“We weren’t always this dead. I mean, we were dead but not this way. Ichigo. You’re in a reishi deprived environment, but right outside there’s tons. Your mother was a Quincy, I don’t think we ever got to tell you that.”
“Goat-face told me..”
“Good. but you’re also part hollow, and they made a fatal design flaw when they thought this prison up.”
“Nani.”
“Youuu touched the hogyoku!!!”
“Of course I did. What do you want me to do? Make a fucking miracle? I’m not a miracle worker! And apparently no good deed goes unpunished, since I’m stuck here for infinity slowly going insane! And I know you’re technically me hallucinating, but you’re insane too you mad scientist, because if it escaped your attention, I really can’t do anything right now! I know. Inconvenient.”
“Well, Ichi-kunnn, think of it this way. You were holding it at some point in time. And time, is fluid. Fix this, Ichigo. Not just this. Something went wrong. Events were not supposed to progress this way. And you’re the keystone. You bring change. Fix this. I know you can.”
“You want me to…” the teen settled himself in his mind, quickly catching on and focusing his remaining energy on the task.
“Exactly. I want you , to turn back the clock.”
And the world went white.
………………………………………………………………………………
Soft grass welcomed him as he came back to consciousness. The sensation on his back almost made him sob. I’m so touch starved it’s pathetic…
Understandable, actually, aibou.
‘We finally reached you…’
At this, he did actually sob.
“Hey…” a warm, deep voice sounded gently slightly above him. “You remember something cuz?”
Wait what? Cousin????? Ichigo looked up into the eyes of a near doppelganger of himself. It took all his willpower to not gawk at the sheer Shiba-ness of the person. A person he’d only heard of. A person who was dead. Oh kami it worked! Wait, remember? So he must think I have amnesia? Do they have memories of me? “Eh?” He sat up slowly, breathing in the reishi-filled air with more relief than he had ever thought possible.
“You collapsed. Did a memory come back? Is it worse? You didn’t remember anything a couple months back when Kukaku-nee and I found you, completely bloody. How you lived...I’ll never know. But we hoped some would come back over time?”
Ichigo scowled at him. “So you took me falling over as a cue that I got memories back?” upon seeing Kaien’s excited but still serious nod, he sighed. “No, Kaien. I’m just exhausted because you kept me up all night!!!” it was a shot in the dark, but judging by the fact that he was related to Kukaku and Goat-face and Ganju, he bet it was pretty accurate.
Kaien’s expression grew sheepish. “Well I’m sorry that you’re my favorite cousin!!” He grinned widely, giving Ichigo a nuggie. He scowled and batted the hand away.
“Ugh, give me space Kaien.”
“Only if you call me Kaien-nii!”
“Hell no.”
“Then I’m not leaving you alone. Besides! You’re going to the Academy tomorrow!! I’ll miss you!!!”
I’m doing what now???????? “Fine. and then leave me alone.”
“No promises!” was the cheerful response as the Head of the Shiba clan darted back into the building.
Ichigo lay back down on the grass, staring at the sky. He felt warm. So much warmer than he had in...weeks? Months? Years? He didn’t know. Shiro and Ossan curled their reiatsus around him protectively, unnoticeable to the outside world. (Kisuke had developed, made, and taught a kido seal to him for exactly this purpose. It restricted his reiatsu to a much smaller output, allowing him to seal Zangetsu and avoid detection. It’d been a blessing towards the end of the winter war. Of course, he could unseal it, if he so chose. There were ten levels to the seal, which he could already predict being highly useful. It’d taken 3 months to learn, but Kami was it worth it.
The sun was too bright on his eyes after so long in Muken, so he closed his eyes. Red filtered through his eyelids, proof of light around him. Well that’s fun. Guess I won’t be comfortable in complete darkness ever again. Joy.
It suddenly hit him that he was in the domain of the Shiba clan, at least a hundred years in the past -- judging by Shinji’s reiatsu signature from somewhere in the Seireitei --, and everyone was alive. Nothing had happened yet.
I’m going to cry or break something when I see Goat-face aren’t I.
Yep!
Fantastic.
He laughed, a peal of it echoing through his mental city. “I did it. I really did it.”