This is a companion story to Dragon Eclipse, giving the Karakura Crew a voice about scenes in DE that occur starting from the beginning of the Invasion, in Chapter 16. Please read Dragon Eclipse in order to understand what's going on in here, because a lot of these scenes gloss over smaller things going on around the characters in favor of the thoughts and opinions of the viewpoint character.

Chapters will vary in length pretty drastically, because each is an individual scene from a larger chapter. Later ones do tend to be longer than earlier ones, however.

As Yoruichi explained about the kōryū and the danger they had been in, Ichigo kept Kaito in his peripheral vision. The man was hunched in on himself, shoulders up around his ears and hands curled inward to hide within his kimono sleeves. His gaze was blank, head turned towards the well-made buildings not far down the street, but Ichigo doubted Kaito was actually seeing any of it.

('There are factions out there that would sooner see me dead than living anywhere in the three realms,') Kaito had said. It had seemed so fantastical, something out of a bad manga, while they were safe within Urahara's training room, just the three of them and no one else.

(Ichigo hadn't wanted to believe that the afterlife wasn't the peaceful, good place that Rukia told him about. He had desperately hoped that the clues he was picking up were wrong, but here, now, faced with this…)

(He couldn't.)

(Not with the memory of Kaito's defeated, weary expression in his mind's eye. Not with the way Kaito was curled in on himself now, expression blank and empty like never before.)

So Ichigo stepped up to Kaito's side and cast about for a way to pull his friend from his thoughts. "So, this is Soul Society?"

"Yes." Kaito straightened a bit, shoulders dropping away from his ears. "We're standing in the Rukongai, where normal souls live. It's… well. Even if this is the first district, it's still nothing compared to Seireitei where the Shinigami live."

Which meant, Ichigo concluded with a frown, that the buildings just down the road were wear Seireitei actually began. The difference was clear, like a line drawn in the sand, separating those with power from those without. "You came from here, didn't you?"

That, at least, drew Kaito's blank gaze away from Seireitei and to the buildings around then, and then to the far distance beyond the street they were on. "Yes. Not this district specifically, but yes."

"Huh," was all Ichigo could manage without cursing up a storm, mind connecting the information he knew to draw a horrifying conclusion. If this was the 'first district', so close to the Shinigami as to be within walking distance, what did everything look like further out? How bad were the conditions where Kaito had grown up?

(Bad enough to grow up hating Shinigami.)

It left a sour taste in his throat, and Ichigo couldn't help but catch Ishida's gaze for a moment. His friend's lips were compressed into a thin line, shoulders rigid, and there was a distinctive tilt to his head that Ichigo knew meant 'distract him'.

So he did, with the first thing that came to mind.

The open road in front of him was an obvious trap—

(It could be nothing but a trap, given everything Kaito had let slip about Soul Society.)

—but Ichigo still moved to march up the street. A hand on his collar yanked him back to Kaito's side almost immediately.

"Baka," Kaito scolded him with exasperation. "Did all that running tumble loose the lessons I tried to pound into your stubborn head?"

"Ahaha… oops?" Ichigo pulled out his best sheepish look to mask how pleased he was to see the fond exasperation on Kaito's expression, in place of the blank emptiness of earlier. "It's a trap, isn't it?"

Over Kaito's shoulder, Ichigo could see Ishida rolling his eyes and tipping his head back, likely searching for patience in the face of Ichigo's choice of distraction. But as Yoruichi and Kaito began to banter, and the last of the haunted emptiness from earlier drained from Kaito's body, Ichigo knew he would happily act the fool as many times as necessary.

And as Ishida moved to bracket Kaito on the left — mirroring Ichigo's own position on Kaito's right — Ichigo knew he had an ally in his goal.

(Even if Ishida did think him ridiculous more often than not. It was a small price to pay to keep their mentor and friend grounded.)

(It was nothing compared to what Kaito had already paid.)