Shoot A Catching Star

By Irritated Reader

Disclaimer: Bleach is the property of Tite Kubo.

DECADES AFTER THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE VAIZARDS

The challenger seized Kenpachi by the throat and held him up like a trophy. The motion snapped the sinew connecting his shoulder to his body, and his arm drop to the ground with a long strip of his captain's haori trailing behind like a bloody surrender flag. Pain pulsated from his shoulder, his jaw, and from the gushing slash in his chest.

What a ridiculous ending to his life, dangling in the air as his life seeped from him, from the same sucker move that he himself had used to defeat the Kenpachi preceding him, worse, in front of everyone that had ever regarded him with a modicum of respect. He cursed himself for only just now realizing the absurdity of Squad 11 and its Kenpachi. Really? He headed an entire squad motivated by, of all things, fighting? He was an idiot for ever grabbing the seat it in the first place. Well, this new Kenpachi from the Zaraki district deserved it.

The hot tang of his killer's breath fogged on his cheek, and his peripheral vision faded to a haze framing the man's face. He hoped this guy's ugly mug wasn't the last thing his saw. Blood and spit dripped from the points of his teeth, and a scar gouged down the angular length of his horsey face. And people said he was the one who looked like a piece of work. Oh crap, this bastard isn't going to steal his clothes. . . .

...

20 YEARS BEFORE THE APPEARANCE OF THE ARRANCAR

What happens between death and rebirth in the soul cycle? The world came into focus, and it consisted entirely of God's benign smile which was dopey. Kenpachi remembered the final vista of his last life, and it disappointed him that his new one began no better. The smile gradually grew into an equally dopey countenance that seemed familiar.

"How are you feeling, Kenpachi-taichou?" the weird God said cheerily. Oh. He recognized him now.

"Urahara Kisuke, you prick," he croaked. "Are we stuck in hell together?"

He could see now that he lay in an ordinary bedroom with a ceiling fan creaking above him. Urahara sat beside him on the floor. During most of Kenpachi's first decade as a captain, they used to drink together occasionally, until Urahara went on the lam. He remembered Urahara as laid back, quick to laugh, and easily the smartest guy in the room. When the squad got drunk and wanted to find the tallest building to jump off of, or know what kind of octopus would be the hardest to wrestle, Urahara was their man. Before he left, he and the boys had even talked about designing a perpetual-fighting machine to put in the corner of the bar.

Urahara said, "We're in the living world, taichou. How are you feeling?"

"The living world? So what, I didn't die, and the new Kenpachi just thew me down here to be exiled along with you?"

"No, you did die. I was sitting here, drinking tea, and then I felt your reiatsu coming in bigger than a menos, and so I . . . I sort of caught you as you fell from the sky."

Kenpachi started clutching the sheets of the futon, frustrated that fatigue wouldn't allow him much else.

"Here, let me help you up so we can drink sake and talk properly." Urahara took his hands and heaved him to a sitting position. After making certain that Kenpachi was steady, he started rummaging in a cabinet for drinks.

Urahara had grabbed his hands when he helped him up, and there they both were, limp in his lap. "Before I died, I lost my left arm. I saw it lying on the ground." He rotated his left shoulder and found it fine, if not a bit stiff like the rest of his body. "But now it's like it never happened. Look, my badge is still on me too, with a scrap of my haori that got wound underneath it." He looked down at himself and took in his shinigami kimono, not ripped and bloody, but new.

Urahara handed him a sake cup. "I saw that. Did you notice that your badge is blank? What was the condition of your body when you died?"

Kenpachi tested his grip around the cup. His fingers felt thick and clumsy. He drained it in one shot, and the burn of the alcohol invigorated him. He held the cup out for seconds. "My arm was cut off and—goddammit the bum was taking my clothes like it was the Rukongai he knocked me out in."

"Did you see him actually taking off all of your clothes or just your haori?"

He tried to think as he nursed his sake. "Neither really. I could feel him pulling on my right sleeve, and then that was it."

Urahara, of course, had an explanation. Basically, he said that God, before sending them out for reincarnation, likely repairs dead souls and outfits them in whatever they were wearing when they died. As for the erased badge, they had to stretch for an explanation and guessed being a captain must have meant more to him than he realized, and so Kenpachi had subconsciously willed God to do it.

"Hey. Urahara." He took a deep drink. "Don't call me Kenpachi or taichou anymore. I forfeited those titles when that big son of a bitch killed me. My real name is Kurosaki."

Urahara smiled and raised his cup. "You know, I've never heard your real name before. Pleased to meet you, Kurosaki-san."

"Quit playing around," he poured himself another drink, "and tell me how I came to be here."

"Well, as I said before, I sensed you coming, and I thought if I stopped you from reincarnating, you wouldn't go through infancy and, consequently, forget who you are and the power you hold."

"Is that what you've been doing all these years? Kidnapping dead shinigami?"

Urahara looked stricken at the charge. "No, nothing like that at all."

"Then what do you want with me?"

"There are things going on, and when I felt you coming, I hoped I could count on your help when the time comes."

The story Urahara revealed to him was a wild one. He couldn't say he really knew Aizen, but he seemed like such a softy that he'd sooner believe Ukitake guilty of such treachery. Ichimaru, and his endless supply of happy, got on his nerves, down from his grin to his saccharine, "How was your mission yesterday, taichou?" However, he patiently tolerated Ichimaru, hoping to get close to Rangiku. But Tosen was a complete departure from Aizen and Ichimaru. One time Kurosaki had stayed late at the practice field by himself, and he sensed a pinprick of warning. He continued his exercises, waiting for a strike, but nothing happened, not even a sound. It was Tosen. He could feel him like a big stalking cat. Creepy. If anything, Tosen was the ringleader—definitely hiding something behind the shades and the silence. As for the eight shinigami who had acquired the power of hollows, Urahara knew as little about them as the rest of the Gotei 13. And this business with the, what'd he call it—hougyoku—Urahara was a idiot for creating such a thing. Overall, Urahara's side of the story did not impress him; it sounded like his own favorite excuse: It was like that when I got there.

"Do you know what I think? I think that you, Urahara, aren't exactly what you appeared to be either. Everybody says that you did some fucked up experiments, and the fact that you have that hougyoku thing proves it." He slammed his cup on the table. "You used it on me didn't you?"

"Kurosaki-san, I have never conducted experiments like that. You've got to believe I was set up. Shihouin Yoruichi will be here soon, and she can corroborate my story."

"Yoruichi's alive? Dammit, the few times I've sparred with that woman were some of the best. If she's been with you! All right. I can wait to hear what she has to say."

Kurosaki grabbed the sake bottle and moved to stand at the open window. A girl, with barrettes and untied shoelaces, walked down the street swinging a toy cat by its straps, and she paused at a lilac bush. Then she started pulling off all the petals to stuff them into her cat sack. He grinned and remembered the child who rode on Zaraki Kenpachi's shoulder. When he first laid eyes on the freaky bastard, Kurosaki thought he must be raising her to eat, but after seeing Zaraki tenderly set her on her feet, safely away from the fight, he obviously loved her very much.

He would admit that he might not be that different from Zaraki. The nature of the Kenpachi position attracted people who came off bad ass and threatening. As he fingered the braids of his full beard, he reconsidered his hair that he kept shaggy and wild, and the black paint of his eyes and lips that foreshadowed death. Despite his forbidding appearance, when he took the time to talk to people they usually wound up getting along. So maybe he could start himself over in the living world and forget ever being a member of the Gotei 13. He took the little girl and her filched flowers for a promise.

He turned back to Urahara and downed the rest of the sake as his eyes to adjusted to the dimness. No, he couldn't really start himself over. He may no longer be Kenpachi Isshin of Squad 11, but he was still a wholly immersed captain-class shinigami with a major threat looming in the future.

Kurosaki broke the silence, "It must have been hard, even for someone like you, to stop my soul from reincarnating. You never did say if you used the hougyoku."

Urahara watched a beetle crawling on the floor. "I did use the hougyoku," then he faced Kurosaki and said, "but I didn't change you. I only used its power to lure your soul down here and stabilize it, else, without an anchor, your soul would probably dissipate into nothing. You were not altered an any way." He turned back to the beetle. "It's not like you'll get a hollow tumor, or it affected your sperm or anything."

"So you say." Kurosaki strode towards Urahara. "You sound awfully dodgy about that thing. There's a lot you're not telling." He set the sake bottle down too hard, and it tipped over and rolled across the room. "Why don't you destroy it or throw it in the sea? Don't just keep it under that rock where you're probably hiding it."

"I can't destroy it." Urahara lifted his chin towards Kurosaki standing over him. "And as for hiding it, I'm doing a damn better job than stashing it under a rock. Until today it's been under the most powerful of cloaking and shielding kidou."

"All right, fine. Forget it." Kurosaki slumped in a chair. "What do I do now? I'm a ghost in two worlds."

A tall dark-skinned man slid the door open, "Urahara-dono, the new gigai is ready."

. . .

Kurosaki had just pulled himself out of the lake after a long swim—or he might as well have, as hard as it was to walk about in the new gigai. Not bad exactly, he thought he felt good. Like he had got his rocks off in the lake with a wild piece of ass. Gravity might have it out for him, but his attitude soared.

Underneath the shade of a giant maple, he tried jumping to the lowest branch, but he let out a shout and nearly fell when he failed to clear not much higher than his knees. He and Urahara laughed at the attempt.

"Is this gigai supposed to be like this? So heavy and sluggish?"

"Actually, gigai is a misnomer. What I've developed is an honest human body. It's designed to mold around your unique reiatsu and form a completely human you. Entirely, indistinguishably, human. You can go to the best healer—they're called doctors—have him run the most sophisticated tests, and he will declare you a normal specimen of man. And yes, being a live human comes with extreme physical limits."

They continued down the sidewalk that lead to a park. It was late afternoon, and couples giggled on the grass, boys shouted at the crack of a baseball, and mothers pushed their children to the rhythm of rusty swings. With his life as the fearsome Kenpachi he had never seen people so carefree, and the thought pained him: had it not been for Urahara's interference he might have been that drowsy infant snug in his mother's arms.

They bid the woman a good evening as she passed by. Her smile made it worth the time it took to shave and smooth his hair back into a ponytail. When he had scrutinized himself in the mirror earlier, he thought that, free from his terrifying embellishments, he had handsome face with his deep eyes and strong jaw.

They took a break at the next bench. "I'm sorry for all this," Urahara said. "I felt you coming, and the next thing I know, you're—"

"Don't apologize. I wouldn't really want to forget everything." Kurosaki sprawled out on the bench and asked quietly, "Am I right in thinking that the living world is nothing like the Rukongai or even the Seireitei? We don't have to fight to the death for everything?" The atmosphere here differed from Soul Society, where reiatsu flared as commonly as people farted, so that survival meant constantly determining its threat level. Right now, he only sensed the the resting reiatsu of Urahara and Tessai-san. Neither were worrisome.

Urahara said, "As we're in Japan, no. The hardest thing anyone has to do is learn a trade."

"How does anybody have any fun without a brawl over a bottle of sake?"

"Yoruichi might fight you," Urahara grinned. "But there's more I need to tell you about your gigai. I need you to be certain to vacate it periodically so as not to affect your reiatsu. It is still new and untested, so the side effects are unknown. A normal gigai is powered by reiatsu, and the excess is allowed to leach out, which is how Soul Society traces their agents, but this body does not leak reiatsu, so it, and your soul, are sealed within. I'm not sure what will happen with prolonged use, if anything at all. You might end up stuck in it forever with your powers lost to you. Are you listening?"

"Yeah . . . sure . . . you want me to leave the gigai every one in a while. . . ." Kurosaki had turned away to wink at the pretty girls sitting across from them.