Important: This is part of an on going series, known as the "Zanpokuto-Ichigo!Verse" on AO3. I've marked it down as 'completed' here, but it isn't-not really. Each chapter will be a stand alone fic unless expressed as otherwise in the Author's Note. Updates will be slow as my muse for this fandom is a shriveled up husk of what it once was (what the fuck are you even doing Kubo? e.e )

Each chapter will have its own summary, as the description for this fic was more of an outline of what is to come. Please and thank. :3

Summary: The first time Masaki was sent on a solo mission to the human world to kill a Hollow, she rescued a doctor.

Or, a story born from a "what if". What if Ichigo had been Masaki's zanpakuto? Hint: Urahara is a scheming dick, Soul Society remains its dick-ish self, and Ichigo still becomes a "Kurosaki".

The first time Masaki was sent on a solo mission to the human world to kill a Hollow, she rescued a doctor.

At the time, it had all seemed so inconsequential—routine. The man was pinned by the Hollow's giant hand, crying out in pain as the thing crushed him into the concrete. It had barely even noticed her presence before she had cut it through and through at the mask.

Masaki gave the human a passing glance to be sure he would not die from his injuries. He appeared to have sustained minor wounds, a few scrapes and bruises. She had arrived in the nick of time.

As Masaki turned to leave, sheathing her sword as she went, he called out.

"W-wait! I— thank you for saving my life."

Those few stuttered words changed Masaki's life forever—for better or for worse was hard to say.

One year after Masaki had saved Isshin from a Hollow, she made a decision that would set her life on a course fated for destruction. She decided her love for Isshin was greater than her loyalties to the Gotei 13.

Masaki was never an unhappy child. She had grown up well fed and well loved, and when she started at the Shinigami Academy, she had discovered a passion for saving lives. Masaki enjoyed her life in Soul Society, and prospered under the care of her teachers and peers.

Masaki graduated the Shinigami Academy at the same speed as any other student, but climbed the Seats in her assigned Squad faster than anyone had anticipated. She was not a prodigy, no, but Masaki was far from average.

It had been noted by her Captain—Byakuya—that she seemed to share an unusual bond with her zanpakuto. Masaki trained hard like all the other Shinigami, he reported, but seemed to gain far more skill and knowledge faster than any other who had served under him. The stoic Captain had tried brushing it off as her growing stronger more quickly than most, but that didn't quite fit. She mastered Shikai, and was on the steady road to Bankai as far as he could tell, but she did not appear to be growing outward other than with her blade.

It was strange, yes, but not strange enough to garner any real attention.

A year after Masaki had saved the life of Isshin—as the 14th Seat of the 6th Division of the Gotei 13—she broke her ties with Soul Society, and ran to her precious Doctor. Only one obstacle slowed her down through her journey into anonymity: a high Seated officer of the 5th Squad. It was reported that she broke the surface of her zanpakuto's second release during the confrontation—and that the raw power and destruction it unleashed had ended the fight within minutes, and Masaki had escaped into the World of the Living.

It would be months before Masaki could reach out to her zanpakuto like that again—to simple old or speak to him—and never would she suspect the future laid before her beloved Ichigo—or that they'd ever be parted.

Masaki's escape into a life with her lover had come at a steep price: her zanpakuto.

When her mind had been made up, when she decided that Isshen meant more than the Gotei 13, she hadn't known who to turn to—how to make escape possible.

Opportunity found her.

It came in the form of a traitor Captain, of a mellowed out old man who ran a candy shop.

The offer was shady—too good to be true, the payment hardly doing a thing for the ex-Captain. And yet… she took it, in the sudden surge of desperation to be with Isshin Kurosaki.

It was simple—Masaki would be put into a Gigai that would slowly drain her of her Shingami status, and she would owe Urahara a favor.

"Nothing to strenuous," he'd promised. "I know Isshin too, you see. This is a small town. He's a friend in love and I am simply helping the young Romeo."

Masaki took the offer, the ex-Captain aided in her escape from Soul Society, and put her on the path of mortality.

The night she arrived in Karakura to stay, hours after releasing her Bankai for the first—and last—time, Urahara Kisuke named his price.

"Ichigo," the ex-Captain had said, as though he was stating the weather. "It's not like he will be with you much longer. The Gigai has already begun to drain you—your zanpakuto will vanish with it."

Maski cried, but did as told. Ichigo had cried as well, in her raining inner world. His parting words were small, whispered—but genuine.

"Be happy."

Masaki didn't think she'd ever see Ichigo again.

Six months after Masaki left the Soul Society to never return, and a month after she became Masaki Kurosaki, Urahara appeared in the dead of night with a baby bundled in his arms.

She may not have been a Shinigami anymore, but Masaki's Spirit Energy had not dwindled to the point that she did not recognize the presence before her.

"Ichigo?" she remembers calling out, tears running down her cheeks as she held out her arms for the sleeping babe. "Why?"

But she knew the answer—or thought she did. Urahara Kisuke was kicked out of the Soul Society for illegal experiments, so of course this is what he had wanted of her precious sword.

"Some tweaking to the spell I think," the man had muttered before he left—no remorse in his voice. "Though I doubt I'll get another opportunity like this for a long time to come. Take care of the zanpakuto, Masaki. Raise him as your child if that's what you wish. I am done with him."

Masaki was in agony for a very long time—deep wounds ripping open whenever she laid eyes on the rosy faced child; racked with guilt. What tortures had her Ichigo been through at the ex-Captain's hands, and now for all his power to be crammed into the small body of a human infant. But slowly it relented as she watched her zanpakuto—their 'son'—grow into a little boy.

And then, one day, ironically, Masaki died at the hands of a Hollow, rescuing her Ichigo like she had Isshin so many years ago.