A much more recent tumblr fic title prompt, prompted by ptsdven over on tumblr! This was originally only about 600 words when I posted it on tumblr, but when I went to edit it my mind just... scattered everywhere. So, two more scenes, and nearly 3500 more words added the whole thing.
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Kisuke frowned and rose from his seat, wondering why Ukitake Jūshirō and Kuchiki Rukia were approaching the shoten alone. He'd sent the teens off to Soul Society for the day, but he hadn't expected to see them — or anyone else — until later in the evening.
Whatever had happened, he doubted he was going to enjoy this visit. Not with the way Ukitake's reiatsu was carefully controlled, and how Kuchiki's was edged with apprehension and despair.
"Urahara-san," Kuchiki called out as she slid the door open and stepped into the shop, Ukitake following in her wake. She was holding something odd in her arms, cradling the thing awkwardly away from her body as if she didn't really want to be touching it. "Uraha— oh, uhm." She startled when she caught sight of him already standing by the door, clearly awaiting them. "Hello?"
Kisuke smiled faintly, almost amused by how off-balance she was. "Good afternoon, Kuchiki-chan. Ukitake-taicho. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?" His gaze darted to Ukitake, who remained lingering in the background, a covered box held in his arms and his hands…
Kisuke's eyes narrowed, taking in the scarlet scratches across Ukitake's hands. A closer examination of Kuchiki showed the same: thin, lightly bleeding scratch-marks that Kisuke was very familiar with.
Cat scratches.
"We, uhm…" Kuchiki began, then hesitated and shot a pleading glance back at Ukitake.
"I'm sorry to come to you like this," Ukitake said, stepping up to stand next to Kuchiki and shifting his grip on the box. "There was a bit of… trouble during their visit. Kurosaki-kun and the others got involved, and… ah." With an apologetic look, Ukitake finished freeing one hand and carefully pulled open one flap of the box.
A very familiar, very angry hiss came from whomever was inside, and Kisuke moved forward with dread pooling in his stomach. He knew where Yoruichi was, and Soul Society was certainly not it.
It wasn't Yoruichi trapped inside that box.
He peered into the opening and blinked at the sight of four young cats, not quite out of kitten-hood, all huddled together in one corner of the box. This close, he could finally get a read on their faint, almost blurred signatures.
"Well this is certainly a mess," he told the four teens-turned-kittens wryly. He moved slowly, making certain that all four could track his motions, and made to reach inside the box. The teens were clearly stressed and panicking, like Yoruichi had done the first time she had changed.
(If he had learned anything from that event, it was that he needed to move slowly and telegraph his intentions every step of the way.)
(And to always lead with his reiatsu.)
"Be careful," Ukitake warned. "They're not—"
"I'll be fine," Kisuke dismissed the man absently, reaching out towards the teens with his reiatsu and judging the sensations he was getting in return. "They know me."
"They know us too," Kuchiki protested.
Kisuke hummed and gave a one-shoulder shrug, still focused on the kittens in the box. He supposed that was true, especially for Kuchiki, but neither of them had experience with newly-transformed souls the way he did.
(He still had a few silvered scars across his hands and arms from the first time Yoruichi changed. And she had done it willingly.)
"Come now, let's get a look at you," he coaxed softly, finally slipping one hand inside the box when he sensed the teens beginning to relax. He kept his reiatsu calm and steady, and made sure to keep it from swamping the four. Whatever had transformed them had also done a number on their output, and he didn't want to accidentally harm them.
His patience was rewarded when the fluffy orange kitten crept forward on unsteady paws, sniffed at his hand, then carefully stepped onto his palm.
"There we go," Kisuke murmured, bringing his other hand in to cradle Kurosaki's slender body and lift him up closer to eye level. He made sure to support the transformed teen fully, instead of goofing around the way he did with Yoruichi; she was used to antics like that, whereas Kurosaki was absolutely not, and had been through enough already. "See? Not so terrifying," he reassured the teen as he gave Kurosaki a cursory examination, trying to sense how the transformation was being held in place.
Kuchiki gaped at him in surprise, and even Ukitake was watching him with a thoughtful expression. Kisuke merely shot both of them a narrow-eyed look, then decided to pointedly ignore whatever 'revelation' the two Shinigami were deciding to have at his expense.
Kurosaki and the other three were his main priority, after all, and Kurosaki was decidedly unhappy. He meowed plaintively, tail drooping and expression pitiful, and Kisuke was hard-pressed not to fall into his usual antics and cuddle the teen.
"Now, now," Kisuke said, settling for rubbing a thumb behind Kurosaki's ears. "It's not all bad. I'm sure Yoruichi will entertain you while I work to sort this out." He chuckled at the exasperated look that Kurosaki gave him, then carefully tucked the transformed teen in the crook of his elbow, braced against his chest. "Do the rest of you want out?" he asked the other three, extending his now-free hand into the box again.
The slim black kitten darted forward next, stepping into the palm of Kisuke's hand and glaring up at him, as if daring him to do his worst. Kisuke smirked at the sight, then carefully lifted Ishida free and tucked him next to Kurosaki.
The other two came easily enough after that, though Sado was certainly larger than any kitten Kisuke had seen before. Whatever breed he had turned into was certainly larger than most, not to mention very fluffy.
Cradling the four kittens against his chest, Kisuke stepped back from the Shinigami. "Well? I believe there's a story you should be telling me?" he prompted the two.
"Some dumbass tried to pull a 'ha-ha look at me, I'm so powerful' stunt," Kuchiki told Kisuke without preamble, more at ease now that the unfortunate results were out in the out. "The five of us were training when it happened, and… uh… didn't… really notice it?" She shot Ukitake a sheepish look, then swallowed and refocused on Kisuke, continuing, "I think we startled him. He was waving this thing around, and hit something on it when we showed up."
Kisuke considered the hodge-podge device in Kuchiki's arms. At least her reluctance to be holding it made more sense now, along with why she had brought it in the first place. "Did it only hit them, or are there others?"
"Only them," Kuchiki answered with a grimace. "I was trying to teach them unit tactics, using myself as the opponent, so they were grouped together when we appeared in the training ground."
"I see. Thank you." Kisuke looked between the two Shinigami for a moment. He'd prefer to just chase them off immediately, but he couldn't carry the device while he was carrying the teens. Nor was he particularly interested in setting the four down, not when he could sense the way all of them, even Ishida, were leaning into his reiatsu. So unfortunately, he needed to deal with them for a little while longer. "Kuchiki-chan, if you could follow me to my lab, I'd like to get that device in place so I can begin work on reversing this."
He stepped quickly through the door to the private section of the shoten, glancing down at Yoruichi as she appeared at his side. She made no move to trip him, however, merely eyed his crossed arms with curiosity and kept pace as they moved to the lab.
In fact, she even had the 'kindness' to pry open his lab door for him.
"That door should have been locked," he said, staring down at Yoruichi with narrowed eyes. She just flicked her tail and stalked into the lab, ignoring his sigh. "Oh, whatever. Kuchiki-chan, if you could set that down over there?" Kisuke asked as he nudged the door further open and nodded towards a mostly-clean table.
Kuchiki obediently stepped over to the table and carefully set the thing down, then snatched her hands away and retreated to Ukitake's side. She looked relieved to have the thing away from her, and frankly Kisuke couldn't blame her; whatever it was, it had already transformed four people against their will. Who knew what else it could do.
"Anything else?" Kisuke asked the two Shinigami, stepping over the threshold of his lab and turning to face them again. "If not, I'd like to begin work, if you wouldn't mind," he continued, opting for an absent tone while giving the odd device a considering look.
(Let them think he was already lost in plans. Let them believe he was eager to begin.)
(It wasn't false, it simply… wasn't the entire truth.)
"No," Ukitake answered reluctantly, sending a sad look at the kittens just barely visible in Kisuke's arms. "You will inform us if you need anything..?"
"Of course, of course," Kisuke said absently, edging further into his lab and beginning to nudge the door closed. "But for right now I have everything I need to begin work. So if you'll excuse me…"
He slid the door closed and carefully leaned in to press his fingers to the frame, triggering the kido that would keep outsiders from disturbing his work. Satisfied with his security, Kisuke turned and moved to a far corner, snagging a discarded blanket on his way past. He settled on the floor and draped the blanket over his lap, then gently set the four kittens down.
"There now," Kisuke said, giving each of them a light ear-scratch in turn. He made sure his reiatsu continued to linger in the air around them, calm and steady and reassuring. "Let's just take a moment to ourselves, shall we?"
It was cream-colored Inoue who pulled away from the huddle first, taking awkward, hesitant steps across his blanket-covered lap and peering around with interest. She didn't go far, just up to perch on his knee, but her actions — and Kisuke's lack of reaction, he had no doubt — seemed to settle the other three a bit more.
They moved apart, looking around and taking in what they could see of the lab. None of them seemed willing to leave his lap, not that he'd expected much else. Yoruichi had told him that the world looked strange through feline eyes; not just the expected differences in eyesight, but in how large and unusual everything appeared when viewed from a different perspective.
(How much worse, then, for those not expecting the change?)
"So you can understand but not speak?" Kisuke asked, trying to get a better feel for their limits.
All four of them glanced up at him and nodded in agreement.
Kisuke made a thoughtful noise, absently petting Inoue-kitten's head when she pressed against his hand. It was reassuring to know that he'd been correct about that part of the transformation; with all of their reiatsu signatures so muffled and bound, he'd had a fear that the change was more a remaking rather than a transformation. But their ability to actually understand his words made that less likely.
"I'm not certain how similar this is to what Yoruichi does," he said, speaking his thoughts aloud now that it was just the six of them. "Her change was facilitated by a kido, though, and it sounds like this was something like that as well. And all kido can be undone, given time."
"And Kisuke is the best at what he does," Yoruichi added, setting her front paws on Kisuke's leg and taking in the kittens on his lap. "So he'll have this sorted out in no time."
Kurosaki-kitten looked between Yoruichi and Kisuke, ears forward and fluffy little tail twitching, then meowed firmly.
Yoruichi laughed and moved close enough to lightly headbutt Kurosaki. "Yes, he certainly is a genius, isn't he."
Kisuke arched an eyebrow at the indication that Yoruichi could understand the four, then reached out to gently scratch behind Kurosaki's ears. "Thank you for the vote of confidence, Kurosaki-kun." Kurosaki's exasperated look was priceless, as was the way his eyes began to slip closed as he leaned into the touch. "So. Food for you four first, I think. Tessai should have something in the kitchen that you can eat. Then I'll get to work undoing this."
And hopefully it would be an easy solution, but… he had a bad feeling about the whole thing.
(When did the inventions of power-mad fools ever turn out well?)
(He certainly couldn't think of any…)
Once Ukitake and Kuchiki had left, Kisuke brought the four teens-turned-kitten back out into the kitchen and set them on the floor. There was some leftover chicken in the fridge, and Kisuke made short work of tearing it apart and setting the shreds on four plates.
"Here you go," he told them, setting the plates on the low table and helping them up so they could eat there. "Get something in your stomachs, you'll feel better after."
He let them be, moving back to the counter where Yoruichi was perched and leaning against it. "Well?" he murmured softly.
"I can't see anything obvious," she responded with a scowl. "To my senses, they're just cats, albeit with some reiatsu."
"When you're hiding your reiatsu, you feel just like a regular cat as well," Kisuke pointed out. "And you did even when you were first changing."
Yoruichi's tail thumped against the counter-top, briefly drawing the attention of Sado before the teen-turned-kitten returned his meal. "Point," she conceded. "But I could also talk immediately, so I doubt whatever changed them is the same kido I used."
"No, that's unlikely," Kisuke said with a frown, letting his eyes unfocus as he considered what little he knew. Cursory scans of the teens were giving him nothing, and he was a bit hesitant to try anything more in-depth without first examining the device itself. There could be any number of traps woven into the kido, and he'd rather not find them at the cost of the teens' wellbeing.
(He'd need to be careful every step of the way.)
(He refused to lose any of them to his own carelessness and hubris.)
"You have a burr," Yoruichi said with amusement, drawing Kisuke's attention back to the present.
Kisuke looked down to see what she meant, then laughed and gently caught the kitten clinging to his sleeve, prying him free and bending down to set him back on the floor. "No, no, just be patient! I'm sorry this happened, but—"
"Ishida-kun is saying that you're a ridiculous liar," Yoruichi informed him from her perch atop the counter. She gave her paw a lick and rubbed at her ear, pretending nonchalance in the face of four humans-turned-kittens. "And oh my, I never realized Kurosaki-kun had a mouth like that." She peered over the edge at the fluffy orange kitten who had begun squalling loudly. "Where ever did you learn those words at your age?"
The orange kitten paused, looked up at Yoruichi with pure kitten disdain, then turned back to Kisuke and resumed squalling.
"You could help!" Kisuke protested, as the black Ishida-kitten began to climb his leg all over again, accompanied by the cream Inoue-kitten this time. He sighed and gently detached both of them, setting them beside Kurosaki and wagging his finger at all three of them. "Stop it, all of you. I'm not going to figure out a solution any quicker with all of you clamoring for my attention."
"No, I really couldn't," Yoruichi told him with a sniff. "They're not my kittens, they're yours."
"I didn't do thi— aaah," Kisuke broke off, biting back a squawk of pain and leaning forward as another kitten thumped against his back. Kitten-sharp claws dug into his jinbei — and thus into his back — for purchase, as the kitten tried to climb to his shoulders without falling. "Is that—?"
Yoruichi rose from her perch and ambled down the counter, peering at Kisuke's back. "Sado-kun, yes," Yoruichi informed him. "He truly makes a gorgeous forest cat."
Which explained the size, Kisuke mused, thinking on what little he knew of forest cats in order to pull his mind away from the pain of kitten-claws digging into his back as Sado scrambled onto his shoulder. Kisuke sighed and went to lift the other up, only to receive a flat, unimpressed stare in return.
"You are all ridiculous," Kisuke informed Sado-kitten dryly. He snorted and tipped his head back when Sado-kitten reached out and gently bopped his nose in response. "I have the thing used to transform all of you, but you all know I haven't had a chance to look at it yet," Kisuke said, rubbing at his nose. "I need some time and space to do my work, and kittens scrambling all over is the opposite of having space, you realize."
Needle-sharp claws in his waist drew his attention to Ishida-kitten, who was climbing his leg again, with Inoue-kitten not far behind. "What is it with the two of you climbing me?" Kisuke asked with amusement, gently detaching Ishida-kitten and ignoring his disgruntled yowls.
"Oh, just let him sit on your head or something," Yoruichi said with a laugh, though her eyes were serious. "He's not going to give up."
"But why?" Kisuke asked, pretending exasperation even as he dropped Ishida-kitten atop his hat, followed by Inoue-kitten. Whatever it was that Yoruichi could understand from the four that he couldn't, there was more to Ishida's attempt to climb him than just an attempt at being a pest.
(Or maybe it was simply what she could understand of their plight.)
"Because you're there, why else?" Yoruichi asked.
(Yoruichi had insisted on being up high for much of her first transformation as well, hadn't she.)
(The world looked different through the eyes of a feline…)
(Ah.)
Kisuke huffed, though he hadn't expected much else out of her, and it certainly wasn't worth arguing over. So instead he glanced down at Kurosaki-kitten and had to laugh at the kittenish scowl Kurosaki was directing at him. "Well? Do you want up too?"
Kurosaki-kitten huffed back at him and stood up, turning and trotting off towards the hallway on little kitten paws, fluffy tail bannered proudly.
Kisuke laughed and caught up with him in two easy strides, kneeling carefully so as to not disturb his other passengers. He scooped up Kurosaki-kitten and then stood up, ignoring the way Kurosaki yowled in protest at the manhandling. "Alright, alright. We'll all go to my lab again, but the four of you have to stay out of things, okay?" He gave Kurosaki a stern look, getting a sullen nod in return, then set him on his free shoulder.
Yoruichi leapt from the counter and landed with a thump, announcing her movements the way she usually didn't. "I suppose I should come to play translator, then," she told him haughtily.
"You're a terrible translator," Kisuke said, arching an eyebrow at her when she wound around his legs. "But I suppose you can come anyway."
"Why thank you for the invitation, I believe I will."
"Just don't go teaching them any more bad habits!" Kisuke stepped over Yoruichi and moved towards his lab, trying to keep his movements smooth enough to not disrupt any of the four kittens perched on him.
"Me?" Yoruichi darted in front of him only to shoot him a wounded look, tail drooping and the picture of dejection. "I would never!"
Kisuke snorted, then laughed when he heard Kurosaki making a soft mew of amusement. At least their banter was good for something. He hadn't been blind to how tense and uncomfortable all of them had been when Ukitake had delivered them back to him; they had been four miserable little bundles of fluff, huddled together and willing to lash out at anything and anyone who approached.
Even Ukitake hadn't been spared, though Kisuke doubted the man took it personally.
Well. He had some kittens to revert, no matter how adorable they all were like this. They were depending on him to return them to their true forms, and he wouldn't let them down.
Kisuke leaned back in his seat with a sigh, absently petting Ishida-kitten's head and listening to the sleepy purr. He'd taken apart the device while Yoruichi had kept the four occupied on another table, batting them about in mock combat. Now, all four kittens were curled up in a pile of fluff, sleeping by Kisuke's elbow and not even twitching an ear whenever he reached out to gently pet one of them.
(They trusted him so completely…)
What little he'd managed to learn from the cobbled-together device had only made him warier than before; it was a useless mess of thrown together pieces and half-completed kido. That it had even worked instead of blowing up was a miracle. That it hadn't done something worse than just transforming the four teens into kittens was an even greater miracle.
Kisuke still had no solid lead. He was going to need to do a more indepth scan of the teens themselves, and try to unravel how the kido worked from that instead of the safer route.
"Anything?" Yoruichi asked quietly, hopping up onto the arm of his chair. She frowned when Kisuke shook his head. "As in can't be undone nothing, or this is a mess nothing?"
"The second," he answered with a tired smile, thankful for small favors. He gestured towards the pieces shoved to one side and said, "There's nothing in any of that about transformation. In fact, there's nothing particularly coherent in any of that to begin with."
Yoruichi stared at the pile of scrap, tail twitching restlessly, then glanced at the sleeping kitten-pile. "What about altering what was done? Change it to be like my transformations."
"It's a thought," Kisuke said, lifting his hand away from Ishida-kitten's soft fur and crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. He tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, letting his mind wander through the potentials. "Don't know if that will be easier or harder than just removing it. And I'm not going to manhandle them right now to find out, either."
He would have, once. Before Kurosaki had come into his life and made him pause and think.
(There was something incredibly humbling about having Kurosaki's trust. About having all of their trust. Something that made him never want to disappoint any of them.)
(It was ridiculous, and yet…)
Yoruichi laughed softly and gave him a smug look. "And you wonder why I call them your kittens."
"Looked more like yours from where I was sitting. Play battles, Yoruichi?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and tilting his head to the side so he could fix her with a look. "Teaching them to be cats, hmm?"
She sniffed and coiled her tail around her paws. "Just in case even your genius is stumped for a few days. Besides, it tired them out, didn't it?"
"At which point you carried them over here to sleep. Still in your feline form," Kisuke said, smirking at the glower he got from her. "Mama kitty," he teased.
Yoruichi bared her teeth at him and pointedly brought a front paw up to groom it, giving him a glimpse of needle-sharp claws.
"Yes, yes, good threat. I feel very threatened. Congratulations," Kisuke told her dryly. "Now why, exactly, are they my kittens?"
"You really don't see it, do you?" she asked in surprise. Yoruichi huffed softly and cast a warm look at the sleeping kittens. "The way they've been clinging to you? How at ease they are in your presence, even now? They started to calm down the moment you started to carry them in your arms, and you know it."
Kisuke snorted. "A familiar face speaking gently and projecting calm through my reiatsu. It's hardly kido creation, Yoruichi."
She gave him a flat look. "Back further, then. How often are they here within your shoten?"
"Training and missions," Kisuke answered immediately.
"Ah," Yoruichi said with a nod that told him he was being particularly dense about people-things. "Training and missions. Of course. That explains the homework around the table in the evening, and the bookcase full of books you have no interest in but they do, and the sewing supplies you keep stocked for Ishida-kun, and the way they spend more nights here than their own homes these days. Training and missions, of course, how could I have been so blind."
Kisuke blinked at Yoruichi's matter-of-fact list, then glanced over at the teens. He tried to mentally step back from the situation, to examine the whole thing from the outside. If it wasn't him at the center of all this, then what would he conclude—
(Oh.)
(Oh. Well then.)
"I'll leave you to have your little revelation on your own," Yoruichi told him smugly, likely sensing his dawning understanding. "Do try not to coil yourself in knots over it, hmm? This has been going on for over a year at this point, and you haven't screwed up yet."
"But now I know," Kisuke whined, trying to snatch Yoruichi up before she could escape. Not that he succeeded. "And now I'm going to start over-thinking everything. Why would you do that to me."
"You'll be fine," Yoruichi told him firmly. "Just keep acting the way you've been. Kami knows they like you just fine as is, so the only way you're going to drive them away is if you actively try to drive them away."
Kisuke sighed and slumped in his seat, rubbing at his temple absently. Just… keep acting as he had. Okay. That was… he could do that.
(Oh, kami, why did the teens have to trust him so much?)
(What was he to them?)
No. This wasn't the time to start over-thinking and worrying about the future. He needed to solve the problem in front of him and get the teens back into their proper forms. Anything else could wait until after.
(And damn Yoruichi for her horrible timing.)