A/N: Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts 333 – price.
Price for More Power
The price of his newfound power was that he might never be able to return to the life he had before. But that was a price he was willing to pay, if it meant being able to protect all those things that were precious to him.
It was a price he'd always been willing to pay, from the day he'd let Rukia stab her zanpakuto into his chest and transfer her Shinigami powers into him. Because that day he became the substitute Shinigami, he tossed away all chances for a normal life. And that was okay, because it meant he'd been able to protect Karin and Yuzu. It meant he'd been able to protect the people he'd loved so very much.
And he continued to protect them. Orihime. Tatsuki. Chad. Rukia even – and, slowly, that number began to grow and include so many others, from both Soul Society and earth. And now he was fighting for the entirety of that other world. Sacrificing his current self once again to transcend to a new level of power.
It might mean that he would cease to become a substitute and become a Shinigami. It might mean that he would forfeit his mortal, human existence: that he would never be able to go back to that home and live with his family, and go to school with his friends.
But he needed to protect everyone first. And for that, he needed that extra power.