Created 30/09/17 pretty recent, this one is, lol.

White Noise of the Soul

by

Raining Sky Guy

Ichigo looked around him. He was pretty sure he was in his Inner World, just as sideways and screwed up as always but… there was something weird about it. He was used to it being of dull colors, mostly just white and black with shades of grey and bright blue everywhere. But now it felt fully monochromatic. Weird somehow, but not totally unwelcome.

He stared ahead again, focusing on the inverted figure in front of him sitting down at a low table which seemed to be stuck to the wall, as if it was the ground, inside a cozy-looking room, where there was just a hint of green as color. He stepped inside it, not really minding as gravity shifted again and he was standing upright in front of the figure. He stared at him without an ounce of fear for the first time. Gazing into those suddenly colorful eyes in a bland world. He had never stopped to think about it but…

He had never actually met Zangetsu.

The original Zangetsu, not the one who suffered through the Hollowification. How did he even look like? Was there any resemblance to this copy of Ichigo?

Knowing that he'd never know somehow hurt.

It was still weird looking at the Hollow, almost a carbon-copy of himself, with paper-white skin, golden over black eyes and a blue tongue darting out every so often to lick his lips as if… nervous.

How different Zangetsu had been, compared to how he was now?

"Ya've never asked though."

Ichigo blinked.

"What?"

The creature –spirit? – was staring at him eerily, not blinking, not moving.

"Ya have a lot of questions, but you never ask 'em."

"I don't even want to know why you know this." Ichigo replied, already on the defensive, just like always. For some reason this made the other Hollow frown, shadows creating creases on his porcelain skin.

"I'm you, aibou. I know you like ignoring me, but this is getting boring."

Now it was Ichigo who was frowning, like some sick game of Simon says. He saw terrifying shadows dancing behind his Hollow, more of a memory than anything tangible. "I thought we had agreed on this point. You're not me. I won't let you rule me."

Zangetsu fell silent instead of continue fighting with Ichigo. Golden eyes stared at him in silence and Ichigo was suddenly reminded that these same eyes had stared at him, wild, savage, new and scared.

It was different.

.

The spirit staring back at him, sitting down at a low table a cup of silver drink in his hand was not the demented voice that had tried to take over his body. The voice that had threatened to drown Ichigo in his own helplessness and viciously take control of his body surely could not belong to this spirit that was so placidly sitting, no weapon in sight and looking far more relaxed than Ichigo had been in over a year.

"Ya see now?"

Ichigo's scowl deepened, defenses high. "I don't know what you're trying to do."

"I'm not tryin' anything. I just thought ya' wanted to talk, and boy I needa talk." The white Ichigo said, raising his hands as if in mock-surrender, hands pale but blatantly human, unlike the claws Ichigo himself had seen before.

"What about?"

The white Zangetsu stared at him, silently. Ichigo blinked and suddenly his surroundings were dipped white.

"Aibou."

"Yeah?"

"Y'know, despite rejecting me so many times… you never objected me calling you that. You never questioned it either."

Ichigo blinked.

Aibou. Partner.

"Maybe, deep down, you already knew what your mind was so bent on denying."

Worried at the implications he was still not getting, Ichigo stepped closer, posture stiff and demanding. "I don't think I…"

"Ichigo." He called, stopping him short. "Do you hate me?"

Ichigo looked back up at him, realizing there was no shadow on his figure.

"No, of course not."

"Despite me almost getting your friends killed?"

"…" Ichigo's features that had started relaxing, hardnened even further. It was true. Ichigo wasn't sure what to think of it, but it was true. This thing… spirit had almost made him a murderer, had attacked his own friends. But somehow…

It wasn't this spirit in front of him… was it?

"You never asked, y'know?"

"Never asked what?"

"What was going on with us. How we were doing. It was always you." Zangetsu said with no blame in his voice. "I dun mind, really. Yer my wielder. Yer the King. But, I don't think it was too hard to ask."

They stared at each other, carbon copies.

"Ya never wondered what I looked like before Urahara butchered me up? How I was?"

Ichigo did not answer, because it pulsed strong between them. Of course he did, of course Zangetsu did.

"Well, truth is. I didn't have a form then."

"What does that mean?"

"Ya were raised a Human, I was just a part of you that was sleeping. I loved sleeping. And then I was rudely yanked out, naked and unaware to slice things up like some butcher knife. I was still not fully aware; I was still not fully conscious when you began swinging me around. Tha's a relief because I woulda gotten dizzy with all your amateur swinging."

Zangetsu lowers his gaze, pale hand going up his pale arm. He then mumbles, as if he was speaking to himself. "And next thing I'm aware of is… that we're dying. I didn't know how I had messed up so badly we had begun to die before I even figured out my form.

"And then the crazy came in." He tapped the side of his head with a slender finger, eyes open wide and staring at him again. "That thing you call hollow. It seized me. It forced me out. And I took the only shape I had ever known. Yours."

Ichigo blinked in surprise.

"It ain't half so bad, honestly." Zangetsu commented lightly, feeling the lithe muscles on his arms. He then reached behind him and lifted up a mask with three red striped under one eye. "Remember this? It was gift number one. I was trying to keep crazy under control, but it was stronger than me. It was your fear, your scared, your anger and my power. Not a pretty mix." Zangetsu paused. "Never told ya', never let you feel, but damn man, that crap hurt."

Ichigo felt something like pity surge up within him, but Zangetsu shushed him before anything could get through his lips. He noticed that there were no sounds besides the words they uttered, there wasn't even that static when you tried to strain your ears in an oppressive silence. The silence just was so… encompassing.

"I don' think ya ever noticed but… crazy liked you too. When I say gift, I mean it literally." Zangetsu said, a laconic smile in place as he traced the minute curves in an otherwise perfect mask. "This was its compromise. Power and strength, to keep you alive. It would do whatever it could to topple you but would come to your rescue in your time of need."

"I never asked for it."

For that, Ichigo was looked at like he had said some childish thing. Zangetsu scoffed.

"And ya think I did? Aibou, ya should just be glad we survived that at all."

Ichigo looked down, "I'm sorry." He said to the silence. He looked up to see him staring with an arched eyebrow still as laconic as before.

"Wha'bout?"

"I made you like this. I never really gave you a choice with the Hollowification." Ichigo said, feeling sorry for his spirit. For that he got an outrageous laughter.

"Ya gotta be kidding me! Didn't matter anyway! Ya would have made the same choice regardless! Bet ya would've convinced me it was a risk worth taking." Ichigo thought he'd be blamed, scorned. But all he could sense from his bleached mirror image was a sense of endearment. Zangetsu was leaning against the table, head propped by a single hand, lolling his head slightly. "No, I wouldn't begrudge you a single thing."

"Why?"

"'Why' ya say?" Zangetsu looked up briefly as if searching for an answer in the ceiling. "We are one, aibou. I exist to serve the King. Tha' would be you, if ya never lost to crazy. Whatever ya wish, whatever ya want. We help you get it."

"What… what do you get out of it?"

Zangetsu looked uncomfortable. "Stop talking as if we're two different persons, aibou. Until ya do, I don't think ya will understand."

.

Ichigo mulled the words in silence, still feeling odd at what Zangetsu was saying. The silence stretched between them, fusing with the white background. Color sparked briefly in the space between Ichigo's knitted eyebrows. "Are you content with just that?"

"Wha'?"

Ichigo made some useless and vague hand gestures as he tried getting his words out. "I mean, I… well, I don't think I would be alright just… just being a strength. I'd want to live my life, make my own choices. I like teamwork, but… this is not that."

"Of course ya wouldn't be happy. That's not yer role. Ichigo, I'm essentially your strength. I am ya, but… not everything of ya. I am your power, yer means to an end." Zangetsu shrugged when Ichigo was still not convinced.

"You wanted to take over my body. I don't think…" Ichigo trailed off, by the sudden guilt on Zangetsu's face. "Are you really happy just like this?"

"No, no, aibou. You got it all wrong." Zangetu mumbled, waving a hand noticing he had gotten his wielder worried. "I'm sorry, I sucked at keeping crazy at bay sometimes." He looked at the skeptic Ichigo before dropping his sight to his hands, no longer leaning on them. Beside them, the mask wavered like a mirage, to take the form of the skeletal face he had been hiding when Ichigo found him to reforge Zangetsu. His bowed back was reflected on the ground behind him as if there was a setting sun behind Ichigo. "We are one being, tha's clear, right? We have a body, a mind, a power and… well a corporeal ravenous beast. We are 'Ichigo', all of us. But we're not… we're not equal parts 'Ichigo'. You are the memories, the essence, the self. The Quincy, mahself and… well, crazy too, we're your strength. We're nothing more. We need nothing more."

The silence washed over them again, now Ichigo too had a shadow, pointed in the direct opposite direction as Zangetsu's.

"Don't think so hard, aibou. I'm yer sword. I'm here to protect you, make you stronger and annoy you. I'm a weapon with a mouth and a spirit made to protect you. We are closer than you might think." He said, bending forward, stretching out a hand and as if he had called Ichigo's shadow, it turned directions, extending until it melted with Zangetsu's own. "One and the same, aibou."

"That still doesn't answer why you… well, why the hollow was so bent on taking over my body. If it wasn't possible then…"

Zangetsu looked down. "It shouldn't be. But it is possible. Crazy wanted to fuse with yer spirit, eat your memories, yer thoughts, until it could become you, a sick copy."

Ichigo felt ill. "And what would happen to me?"

"You'd disappear. Us too. We'd die."

Silence again.

"I don't think you are just weapons." Ichigo suddenly stated, breaking the silence with his vibrant voice. Zangetsu stared, amused.

"Oh? Then what are we, aibou?"

Ichigo stared at him, as if he could find the answers on his face. "You said it. We are partners. We were born together, we were there together, we would have died together if I didn't give up my Shinigami powers, right?... You are more than a weapon… I think… that if I was ever to become a weapon, I would become you. No, I mean, I think… I think I'm starting to get it. I'm my own weapon. You are the Human boy, as I am. You are the crazy hollow, as I am. We are just parts of a single being. It just so happened that I was sorted to be the self. It could have easily been you."

"Doubt it." Zangetsu replied almost instantly, he hummed as he ordered his thoughts before he began, "Aibou, yer will to live. Yer will to protect… no, there's no way you would have been relegated to second place. Ye love life." Zangetsu softly shook his head, amused when Ichigo seemed to deflate softly. "Don't feel bad, aibou. We function just fine, no regrets or anything."

"Not even one?"

"Why? If crazy is chained and my King is safe."

"What about you?"

Zangetsu laughed softly. "Ya just don't get it, do ya?"

Ichigo scowled. "Well sorry about that."

"Nah, don't be. Besides, we have all eternity for us to figure it out."

"'Us'?"

"Well, can't say I have all the answers, aibou. Even I am not almighty." Zangetsu chuckled weakly when Ichigo rolled his eyes. But when the spirit's features softened as he looked at Ichigo, he couldn't help but wonder…

Who was Zangetsu exactly?

Not what, he was already pretty confused, and probably would need time to figure it out properly but…

Who was Zangetsu? What was his character like? What did he like? How similar was he to Ichigo himself?

.

When everything had come crashing down, when the rain would not stop and everything Ichigo knew was fake. It had been this spirit who had sewn his world together again. The only one that had never, would never, lie to him.

"Well that's that. All I wanted to say, ya can leave whenever." Zangetsu said in the sudden silence, waving a hand dismissively. He was surprised, however when his wielder walked up to the table and decided to just take a seat in front of him, a colorless cup of tea forming in the brief instant his shadow was cast on said table. Zangetsu just stared without words, blinking stupidly. "What'ya doing?"

"I'm sitting down, idiot."

"Well I can see that, dumbass." Zangetsu said with too much teeth. "Why ya doing this?"

Ichigo looked away scratched his head and then without further ado locked eyes with him. Zangetsu flinched. "I don't know. Probably because I have never done this despite you being a part of me. Despite having put up with me for so long."

Zangetsu blinked again as all answer. Ichigo grinned, briefly, brightly. "Better be prepared for some long ass talking."

The way Zangetsu's face slackened in a show of vulnerability in a brief instant made Ichigo know he had done the right thing. They had needed to do this for a long time.

What better time to start than now?

End

AN. Welcome back to yet another installment featuring Ichigo and Ichigo's soul. This time his Quincy did not appear, but I felt he could not really help with this conversation, it was just for these two, who need to sort themselves out. I really seem to love these three and how their relationship works, there's also Every Subject's Soul is His Own (a tear-jerker, I've been told) and Instinct to Protect (my own take on a certain scene) if you'd like to see more on them.

But forget about those (for now), what did you think about this story? Or more like drabble, nothing really happened and it was pretty dialogue heavy. I'd like to do a sort of part two with Quincy Zangetsu as well, because he didn't feature here and the alternative name of this fic would suit that much better.

Do you like these insights/ thoughts/ ideas about Ichigo and his convoluted soul? Have you read another story that deals with them? I'd like to read something as well.

Let me know what you think in a review!