AN: Relevant trigger warnings - Rats eating people, psychological trauma, angst, horror, fairly graphic violence at future points.
The smell of something old, musty, stale, and the distinct stench of something rotten is what hits him first. Ichigo's eyes snap open. He squints in confusion at his surroundings, from where he is… sitting in an armchair? Slowly, he looks around. He's in a room, obviously. Judging by the chairs and couch arranged in a semi-circle around the fireplace (except for his, far away and right by the boarded-up window), the cupboards, and the bookshelves standing against the walls, it's a living room. But the shelves and the things on them are covered in dust, the walls are cracked and the wallpaper is peeling off, the windows boarded, and the smell … He restrains the urge to retch. It's strange, that the place is so old, so abandoned, so dirty.
Zangetsu is propped against the side of the armchair, in the usual sheath. Standing up, Ichigo slings it over his back as usual. Now that he can see over the backs of the other armchairs, he realises four are occupied. Creeping forwards, taking care not to make too much noise, he walks over to see who it is, and hisses in surprise.
They seem to be sleeping, all of them: Yuzu, Karin, Orihime, Rukia. However, before he can call out, or move closer, or do anything at all, they start to stir.
"I-Ichigo? Where are we?" Yuzu's voice is quiet and muffled with drowsiness. She blinks rapidly, trying to clear her head. "What is this horrible smell?"
"I don't know," Ichigo admits, frowning. "I woke up seconds before you did, I have no idea where we are yet."
He walks over to the window to wrench off the boards covering it, leaving the girls to clear their heads. The wood is dry, splintering apart in his hands when he tries to pull the boards off. It's easy to just break them with one light punch, and soon enough he's sliding the opaque window pane open.
Rukia comes over just as he manages it, and both of them stare out at the view.
The glinting expanse of the river one street over from theirs catches Ichigo's eye first. Then he see the edges of the sidewalk, leading out to the docs, and the other half of the city across the river. The sky is stained orange and grey by the sun, but Ichigo has no way of knowing if the sun is setting or rising. His watch is useless for helping figure that out, something tells him, and they'll just have to wait and see.
The buildings, the colours, the skyline… Nothing looks remotely like Karakura, or any other place Ichigo has ever seen.
"Ichigo-kun, where are we?" Orihime asks, worry threading her voice.
Ichigo and Rukia exchange glances, unsure of quite how to answer that.
"We… we're not in Karakura anymore. I have no idea where we are," Ichigo says honestly, turning back to squint at the city.
It's quiet, he realises. Far too quiet, for any kind of city, at any time of day except perhaps the dead of night. There's no people in the street under the window, and maybe it's just this street, but Ichigo doubts that. There's no birds that he can hear, no distant sound of voices or traffic or anything. Just the distant rustling of wind, but nothing more.
Rukia looks just as troubled as he feels.
"There's no reiatsu signatures nearby, not even humans, I don't-" She breaks off, frowning at something. Ichigo curses his lack of reiatsu sensing skills. It's been four years since he first got shinigami powers, he should be able to do this by now, but nope, he can't. "No, wait. I can sense Urahara-san, Yoruichi-san, and their two children somewhere close. And your father, he's… downstairs, apparently."
"Then I guess we should go meet up with Urahara-san's group. If they're also here, then maybe they know what's going on. I-" Ichigo shakes his head, trying to clear it of the residual fog of unconsciousness. "What were we doing before we woke up here?"
"Last thing I remember is dinner at your house, Ichigo-kun," Orihime bites her lip. "And everything was normal. I can't remember anything strange happening. Does anyone remember more?"
No one speaks up, and Ichigo sighs quietly. Of course his life couldn't be as neat and simple as someone remembering what happened, and somebody else knowing how to reverse it.
"I guess we should go check on Goat-face, then, and get moving." The back of Ichigo's neck prickles, like he's being watched , and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't think we should stay in this place. Rukia, Orihime – stay on your guard, I have a really bad feeling about this."
The two nod back at him.
The door of the room crumbles at his touch. Ichigo gingerly walks down the hall and to the staircase, half-expecting it all to give out under his feet, disintegrating to dust.
However, the stairs are in better shape than he expects them to be, and despite the endless creaks and groans of protest, do not collapse under everyone's weight. The stench of rot recedes as they go down, so, well, at least there's already one plus in Ichigo's book. The door to the closest room looks pretty solid too, and swings open with a loud squelch when Ichigo pulls on the door handle, instead of splintering.
The room is clearly a kitchen, what with the dark, stained stove and wooden cupboards. Ichigo sees his father slumped over the table, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Probably only just woke up.
Typical. Probably hasn't even realised it isn't their kitchen, despite the fact that everything is covered in dust, the wallpaper is peeling, and most importantly, the place neither looks nor smells like their actual kitchen.
"Oi, Goat-face. You noticed we're not in Karakura yet, or are you too busy sleeping?"
His father looks up at him in confusion, then shakes his head and looks around in clear surprise.
"Eh? What's happened to our house?"
Ichigo can hear Karin roll her eyes behind him.
"We don't know. Which is why we're going to go meet up with Urahara-san. Rukia can sense that he's somewhere nearby."
For a second, his father's face contorts to show annoyance and disappointment, that then vanishes again.
"Haven't you thought of asking your own father first? Why is seeking your wise parent's council not your first course of action?" he wails loudly.
The temptation to roll his eyes along with Karin is strong, but Ichigo restrains himself. They might get stuck like that if he does it too much, and his idiot father isn't worth that kind of stupid inconvenience.
"Well, fine, what's your opinion of this?"
Isshin blinks, and pauses, thinking, with his gaping mouth open. "Er, I don't know."
"That's what I thought, which is why I didn't bother to ask you. Come on, let's find Urahara-san."
Evidently, that's the wrong thing to say. Isshin immediately turns to the nearest wall and starts to wail, again .
"My own son values the opinion of some shady stranger over me! Oh Masaki, my beloved, as my children have clearly outgrown their need of me, I will soon be joining you in death! Wait for me, my love!"
Melodramatic, much? And wow, so rude to Urahara, who's been almost nothing but helpful in the last four years.
Ichigo groans quietly, and retreats back to the hallway to look for the exit.
Curiously, the door leading to the street is bolted shut from the inside. It's as though the residents had never left the house, even though the decrepit state of the place shows otherwise, and there is no sign of, human presence, recent or otherwise. However, he can't say he really wants to ponder that mystery very much. Not with the lingering smell of rot that must have been coming from upstairs.
After a few seconds of pulling at it, the bolt comes loose. The door swings open, rusted hinges screeching in the quiet. Rukia pushes past him, to lead the group.
The street is still deserted. Ichigo notices with unease that the windows of all the houses that they pass are all dark. Many of them boarded up, too. What kind of freaky ghost town is this? The houses are old , crumbling, shop display windows either opaque with dust, or shattered. The architecture is unfamiliar, too.
He can sense Urahara's and Yoruichi's reiatsu, now that they're close enough that the effect of them having muted it is not quite as effective. They are gradually getting closer, too.
The heavy atmosphere of the deserted streets presses down on them like gravity. Wary, watchful silence reigns over the group; all of Yuzu's attempts at starting up a conversation had sputtered out like candles in a strong wind.
Ichigo finds that his hand keeps drifting to Zangetsu's hilt, even without any clear reason to be wary. Well, a reason other than being trapped in a deserted city he's never seen before, unable to remember how he even got there. Which, to be fair, is a rather good reason to be tense. Even for him, this is an odd situation.
He registers a strange sound. Ichigo spins around, looking at the shadowed alley they just passed, to see a strange creature emerge from the darkness. It's tall, maybe twice as tall as he is. Vaguely humanoid, with arm-like appendages ending in spikes, and seems to be made entirely out of strange, twisted stone. Its face, or at least what Ichigo presumes to be its face from the two,vaguely eye-shaped glowing spots, is turned to the group. It moves slowly, every jerky, strange movement of its arms punctuated by the sound of grinding stone. A trail of glowing spark is left hanging in the air behind it as it approached.
Ichigo draws his sword. Rukia does the same.
The thing doesn't seem to be malicious, Ichigo thinks, watching it. It moves slowly, so it shouldn't be hard to fight against, though of course appearance can be extremely deceptive...
It lunges. Much faster than Ichigo thought it would be able to.
Rukia shouts an incantation, throwing out her hand. Nothing happens. It's only Zangetsu rising in the spike's path that saves her from being pierced. The creature moves to strike with its other arm. Both of them have to dodge, now. Ichigo jumps back, before stepping to the side and forward, sword raised with intent to skewer the thing through the chest.
He swings his sword. Zangetsu bounces off the rock, instead of cutting through it, the impact jarring Ichigo's arm painfully. He moves back immediately, out of reach, trying to think of a plan.
Rukia leaps forward, swinging her sword to strike at a crack in one of the arms-
A scream pierces the air, followed by a sickening cracking and squelching sound. Ichigo spins around, to see Yuzu, who had backed away from the fighting, skewered on the arm of another monster. It shakes its arm. Yuzu slides off, leaving a bloody trail on the spike, and falls to the ground.
No.
It can't be.
Not Yuzu. Not like- not like this.
Ichigo stares, frozen, as the creature turns. It lunges again, going after him with the same stabbing motion as the other had, the blood coated spike reaching for his chest. All Ichigo can think of is Yuzu, lying on the ground in a growing pool of blood from the hole in her chest. Dying. Dead?
A green blur moves between the creature and Ichigo, the spike aiming to kill him, deflected by a sword. It's Urahara.
Within a second, Urahara is moving again, dodging the creature's other arm. He leaps up and using the flat edge of the spike as an impromptu platform, stabbing Benihime through one of the glowing eyes. He pulls her out, as the thing staggers, and then stabs the creature through the neck at such an angle that the sword sinks into its chest. Light runs through the cracks and joins. The monster freezes. Then Ichigo is being pushed down to the ground, right before the thing explodes into light..
Shards of rock rain down around them, Urahara shielding Ichigo from the worst of it.
Another explosion sounds from behind them. The other monster must have been felled too.
Dazed, Ichigo tries to think. That happened so fast, everything... Yuzu..
He scrambles to his feet, and runs to where his sister had fallen.
Orihime is standing over her, trying to heal her. The golden aura fails to form around the body, dissipating in golden sparks. There's only one reason for that, he know. It's too late.
Ichigo knew that. From the second he saw where the injury was, he knew that the spike must have gone right through her heart. He's still shocked to see Yuzu just lying there. Pale. Motionless. Dead.
His knees buckle, but he manages stay standing, propping himself up with Zangetsu. Distantly, he can hear screaming. Karin. His father too, probably.
"I'm so sorry Ichigo-kun, I can't- I can't help her." Orihime's sounds like she's speaking from very far away, voice muted, and-
Ichigo tries to take a deep breath. Then another. And then another.
She's… she's dead. And that really hurts. But there's no way to know how many more of these things are out there. No way to know if they will get attacked again any moment now. He has to focus. If he wants... if he wants everyone else to live, he has to focus. There's no time to grieve.
Ichigo makes himself turns away from Yuzu to look at the rest of the group. Rukia and Yoruichi are holding back a crying Karin, whispering something to her. Isshin is standing, expression frozen in horror, staring at where Yuzu's corpse lies. Ururu and Jinta are standing nearby, watching, wide-eyed, afraid. Must have come with Yoruichi and Urahara.
"We have to leave here, Kurosaki-san," Urahara murmurs from behind him, only barely audible. "The sounds of fighting might have drawn the attention of more monsters. We already fought one of them on our way here, as it was. We have to leave, or we risk having to fight. And neither shunpo, nor our Zanpakuto, not even kidou seems to function here. We have reiatsu, we can still sense it… we just can't use it, apparently. Combat is too risky. We have to leave. "
"Yeah, I… I get it. Do you have any idea where we should go, or…"
"We should keep moving as quickly and quietly as we can, I think. See if we can find a different district, a district with people . There's some very faint signs of something from further away." He frowns, staring at the shards of rock that used to make up the monster. "Perhaps nothing has a lot of reiatsu here. These things certainly did not have so much as a trace. Faint signs may mean much more here than they do back home."
Ichigo nods absently. It's hard to think, hard to not remember Yuzu's scream, her face… But he has to.
"Kurosaki-san, I am so sorry we didn't get here faster. I am so sorry," Urahara whispers.
"You couldn't have known we'd run into a monster, Urahara-san. Not your fault. Let's- let's just keep moving."
Urahara hums his assent, and starts moving down the street that Ichigo's group came from. He gestures at the others to follow them. Ururu and Jinta hurry forwards to catch up to him, to stay as close behind him as they can, heads turning warily to stare in every direction.
Right. They were attacked, too. And now, they must be… they must be really afraid.
Ichigo hangs back, letting the others go in front. He can keep any eye on them that way, see if there's anything coming from the alleys they pass. Protect them from any more monsters.
Rukia has to pull Karin along with her. Karin who's staring past Ichigo, at where... where...
He can't think of that. Not now.
Vaguely, he sees Orihime join the two, whispering something that makes Karin nod, and wipe her with her sleeve.
Yoruichi joins him at the back of the group, staring at him in vague concern, but not saying anything. Ichigo is grateful for that. He doesn't want to talk, to admit anything happened, anything changed.
He doesn't look back. He doesn't think he could leave if he does.
Instead, he simply stares at the houses in their street, at the haps between them, and try as he might, after a while, all the houses start to look the same.
They're not, he knows, that but they blur. They all have old cracked stone and faded signs and dark windows, all of them are empty and abandoned, closed doors everywhere. There's no more monsters emerging from the shadows, no more attacks, but he can't help staring at every alleyway they pass. Can't stop twitching every time a cobblestone cracks or shifts under someone's foot. Can't bring himself to take his hand of Zangetsu's hilt.
Quiet whispering reaches his ears, but none of it registers as words.
It's getting darker, Ichigo realises. The sun is setting, the sky turning darker, which bodes ill for them. None of the street lamps are working, from what Ichigo can see. They won't be able to continue walking. Probably won't be long before it will be too dark to see, and then it would be far, far too easy to be ambushed.
Doubtlessly, the same thought must have occurred to Urahara. Paying more attention to him, Ichigo realises that the man has been carefully scrutinising the buildings they've been passing, slowly, very slightly turning his head from side to side, occasionally slowing down just a little as a detail catches his eye. Of course. They technically already have shelter available to them. They can keep walking until the sun sets, and then go into any of the nearby buildings.
Ichigo halts, abruptly, jolted out of his thoughts. The streetlamps...
Earlier, when they had all been off , even as the sky darkened. Now, they're glowing with light. And, actually, the houses look in much better repair. Even if all the windows are dark, and there's still no sign of people, the houses don't have broken windows or dirty falls. Maybe they'll even have electricity, if the street lamps are any indication of the general state of repair.
They walk for a while longer, the sky getting darker and darker, until the last hints of sunlight fade. Urahara pauses in front of one of the houses, staring at it consideringly.
"He thinks we should stay here for the night." Ichigo's quite forgotten that Yoruichi was walking right next to him, and her voice takes him by surprise. She frowns, staring at the building, eyes skimming over it. "Why… ah, the window."
Indeed, there's a half-open window on the first floor.
"Why's that important?"
"If the door's locked, he'll be able to climb into the house through it, and open the door from the inside, if the key is inside, or it's just bolted shut. No use breaking the door down and destroying a barrier from potential threats, never mind giving away that someone's been here."
Well, that makes sense.
The door does turn out to be locked. Ichigo watches Urahara scale the wall, using the ridges and decorative lines as handholds, until he reaches the window, and climbs in.
A second later, a light flickers on for a moment in that window, and the neighbouring one on the left, before going out.
Electricity must be working, as he guessed.
A short while later, the door swings open with a quiet creak, admitting them inside. Ichigo, the last to go in, is greeted with a hallway illuminated by several small light fixtures on the walls.
He shuts and bolts the door behind him the door, noting that there's no sign of ageing on either the wood or metal, unlike in the last house they were in, despite both places being apparently devoid of inhabitants.
"The electricity is working, but I wouldn't recommend turning on any lights that would be visible from the windows. Draw the curtains if you must switch the lights on, but the less attention we attract, the better," Urahara murmurs to the group. "I saw fresh-looking fruit bowls with fruit around the place, but I would advise being cautious. There might be preserved foods in the kitchen. That should be... safer... to eat. I suggest you all share rooms when you pick a place to sleep, and that we all take turns keeping watch over the entire house during the night."
No one disagrees, and people wander off to explore the house.
Ichigo lingers by the door, lost in thought. It takes Urahara quietly calling his name for Ichigo to notice that everyone has left, and not only left, but looked through the house briefly, and decided to congregate in the kitchen. Ichigo is startled to realise that he's hungry too. But then, it has been a long evening, and they've been walking for a while. Still, it's strange that something so simple, so ordinary, still matters.
The kitchen is well-stocked, it turns out. There's bread and fruit that don't look or smell remotely stale. There's ting of fish, whale meat, and preserved fruit, too, the labels written in English, of all languages. The tap in the kitchen works, but none of them feel like risking drinking from it, not quite yet. Not when they have found bottled water and fruit soda - Padilla Pear Soda, apparently, although Ichigo has never heard of such a place.
Karin doesn't eat much of what's offered, Ichigo notices. He can't blame her. Not when his own memories are still so vivid , no matter how much he tries to repress them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Urahara watching him from under the brim of his hat, his expression unusually serious. Even worried, maybe. For Ichigo?
The house has three floors, with the upstairs floors hosting study, a living room, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Electricity and water works everywhere, and there's no sign of the place being derelict... There's also no sign of where the residents could have gone.
Slowly, everyone disperses to various rooms. Ichigo takes the small study with the one single couch in it. The room is a tad creepy, dried insects in glass cases standing on the floor by the walls, and attached to the walls. What looks like some sort of laboratory is set up on the table, too, but the light that shines through the closed window is dim enough to obscure the details, and Ichigo can't care for more than that.
His father offers to take first watch, which does nothing to put Ichigo at ease. Knowing him, he'd fall asleep and miss a whole horde of monsters walking upstairs. He tosses and turns on the surprisingly soft, comfortable couch (had the owner spent a lot of nights working late, late enough to not bother leaving the office and needing to sleep on the couch instead?), listening for any strange creaks, for the sound of grinding stone. Zangetsu lies on the floor right by the couch, within easy reach.
Every once in a while, he hears the wooden floor outside creak. Goat-face, pacing around the place to stay awake.
It's hard to remain alert for long, however. The silence and darkness and exhaustion cause everything to fade, become distant, make his thoughts slow and stop, dulling even the undercurrent of fear and uncertainty and repressed grief. Maybe he can sleep, now, even with… remembering everything that had happened earlier… Subconsciously, he's counting Isshin's pacing now. It's regular, far more than he expected (but then, he had been a gotei captain once, hadn't he? He had to have some sort of discipline somewhere in him) and it lulls him further to sleep.
His eyes fly open, and he's not sure what startled him. There doesn't seem to be any noise, any disturbance, nothing seems to have changed, and yet...
The counting. The pause is too long, too irregular. And he can't feel the faint reiatsu of his father anymore. Though, of course, Isshin might have muffled it on purpose, to avoid attracting attention… But why would he do that even more than he already had , before everyone else had gone to bed?
It could be nothing. Maybe he decided to sit down, or someone's taking over for him and walking too quietly. Or in a different rhythm, different pattern. His father's reiatsu might be muted to nothing because he's asleep. Could be nothing at all.
Or it could be something.
Giving up on trying to relax, Ichigo rolls of the couch and picks up Zangetsu. Creeping through the house as quietly as possible – the girls are sound sleepers, but he expects that Yoruichi and Urahara aren't – he checks the upstairs floor, first.
As he walks, one of the doors swings open. He's about to relax, when he sees Yoruichi creeping out of it, looking around and frowning.
They stare at each other. Then Yoruichi taps an ear, gestures around, and makes a 'No' sign, while raising her eyebrows questioningly. Ichigo shakes his head, and shivers slightly. For both of them to have noticed that something's off… She walks over to him, and he notices that she's holding a long iron poker in her hand.
Isshin isn't in any of the room on the first or second floor, and neither is he in the kitchen – but the door to the street is bolted shut from the inside.
Ichigo frowns, as he registers some sort of noise. He can't tell where it's coming from, what it is, it's too muffled…
Yoruichi taps him on the arm, and point to the dark space behind the stairwell, formerly occupied by crates. Formerly , because they've been moved away to reveal a solid metal door.
They both have to lean against it to push it open. The door much heavier than he expected. Grudgingly, it swings open with a long, drawn-out groan to reveal a staircase leading downwards, lit by faltering electrical lights set into the ceiling.
The muffled sound is no longer muffled. Something's moving in the room the staircase leads to. There's squeaks and hissing and strange tearing sounds, and there is a strong smell of decay and blood .
"Goat-face?" Ichigo calls. The sounds stop for a second before resuming, but now with the addition of strange skittering added to them.
Ichigo walks forward, Zangetsu held at the ready.
When he gets to the bottom and looks into the room proper, he almost screams. Yoruichi sucks in a shuddery breath behind him.
A massive swarm of rats is congregated around a body, writhing like a nest of serpents, squeaking and fighting in their efforts to get at the gruesome feast.
His stomach rebels at the sight of the mass of bloodstained, feasting rodents, the stench of death, the sounds of tearing flesh, and it's all he can do to not throw up then and there.
The rats notice them too, and half the swarm detaches from the body to rush at them.
Ichigo reacts without thinking, slashing at the grey tide with Zangetsu, cleaving through several at a time. Bits of rodent and splatters of blood fly everywhere and distract the living rats that are too frenzied to realise that it's their own brethren that they're feasting on, not intruders. Behind him, Yoruichi stands ready with the poker, beating back any rat that gets past Zangetsu, smashing their heads in with perfect precision. The sounds, the smells, are absolutely disgusting, but Ichigo is too busy whacking at the rats to process them fully.
The rest of the swarm, noticing the deaths of their fellows, rushes at them, but with no more success; their mindless rush forward leads them to very, very quick and messy deaths.
It feels like mere seconds later that the cellar falls silent, floor covered in dead, dismembered rats. Blood seeps into the soles of Ichigo's shoes.
Ichigo's stomach makes its displeasure known again, and he has to stagger to the corner of the room to throw up, the smell of the rats, of the corpse, just too much .
The taste in his mouth is horrid, and he almost retches again, just from that.
"It's him." Yoruichi's voice breaks the short-lived silence. "His clothes, even if torn to shreds. Stupid idiot… should have gotten someone else to go with him. I'm sorry."
Numbly, Ichigo nods.
First Yuzu. Now Goat-face.
It... it has to be a nightmare. Just a nightmare.
It can't be real. It can't be.
"I'll go tell Kisuke. I don't… I can go wake the others to tell them, if you'd rather not say it yourself?" Yoruichi asks, her voice quiet, steady.
"This… this can't be real, it's got to be- some sort of nightmare, some sort of illusion, right?" His voice is hoarse, grating. Too loud. "This… this can't be it. They can't be gone, just like that. Not Yuzu. Not my father, even if he… even if he is an idiot."
He can't help staring at the corpse. The skin and most the clothe, are gone, the rats having torn everything apart almost to the bones. The floor is stained with blood, shreds of flesh and viscera everywhere. But it can't be real. No matter what his senses are telling him.
"Let's go upstairs. Don't look anymore. It won't help you."
It's oddly easy, to follow such clear instructions. To go upstairs, leaving bloody footprints on the floor behind him. Leave behind the remains.
Yoruichi shuts the heavy door behind them with a loud clang, then hurrying upstairs. To go wake the others. To tell them what happened.
Ichigo stumbles to the nearest bathroom to rinse his mouth, to wash his face with cold water. To try to focus.
They have to get out of the city. Somehow. Soon. Before anyone dies in another unfortuante accident like that, to another unexpected danger lurking in the shadows.
There's footsteps, someone coming up from behind and hugging him.
He turns around to see Karin, her face red from crying. Wordlessly, he pulls her closer.
Yuzu. Their father. Gone.
Gone, just like that.
It's not fair. It's so not fair.
It takes him a while to realise that he, too, is crying.