Author's Note:
I meant to update this story last night, but ffnet messed up and it didn't get uploaded properly even though the story subscription notification was sent out. If you were wondering why you couldn't get to the chapter via the email link, this is why!
Thank you Nila101, Scatter Hyourinmaru, and Cuzosu for the reviews, and to those of you who signed up to follow this story, thank you! :)
The first two days were uneventful; Ichigo even began to feel foolish as he sat, out of sight, at the top of a grassy slope overlooking the small soccer field where Karin was ordering her teammates around. She was good, he noted. Much better than the scrawny little boys who were trying to catch with her. They adored her, Ichigo could tell, worshipped her as their leader, and possibly a little beyond that. Innocent teenage infatuation, perhaps.
Ichigo stretched his legs and stared further out. If he squinted hard enough he could see Inoue's apartment complex. Briefly, he wondered how she was doing. He knew she worked part-time at a bread shop; she'd been nice enough to bring him some leftovers. At first, she came over almost daily and tried her best to cheer him up with her girly giggles and shy attempts at conversation. But over time, she began to sense the unspoken barrier between them, and her visits lessened, and eventually ceased altogether. Now their interactions were reduced to curt nods and stiff smiles..
He bowed his head, shoulders hunched. He did feel bad for driving her away, but he couldn't bear sitting there listening to her overly-cheerful laughter and funny stories. He could only force himself to smile so often; being around her, he felt compelled to smile, and it drained his energy. It was better this way, he tried to tell himself. She still had a crush on him, and that needed to stop. Ichigo knew he could never return her feelings; the sooner she realized that, the better for them both.
And then the third day rolled along, and Ichigo's efforts finally paid off. He waited around the corner, just outside the gates of Karin's middle school, and when his sisters walked out together, he peered out. It always fascinated him how different the twins were; Yuzu was gentle and reminded him of a daisy—a warm heart surrounded by untarnished innocence, while Karin was more like fire—steady as a pilot light on good days, but could just as easily flare up into a wildfire when she lost her temper. Just like him, Ichigo mused dryly.
He heard their voices, muffled but just enough for him to catch a few words here and there. Karin was asking Yuzu to go home without her. Yuzu offered to accompany her to wherever she was going—Ichigo couldn't make out the words there—but Karin declined. After a couple more minutes, he heard the girls bid each other farewell, then to his chagrin, Yuzu began to head his way.
Pressing himself against the wall, Ichigo willed himself to dissolve into the background, but to his relief, Yuzu simply marched straight on, her eyes trained only on the path ahead of her. Ichigo waited until she was at least six feet away, then, peeking his head out to make sure that Karin had her back towards him, he slid out soundless from the wall and began to follow her.
One good thing about his experience being a shinigami was that, even though he had lost his power, his body had become accustomed to strenuous physical stress and had become lean and strong. He had worked hard to maintain it over the past eighteen months. It wasn't easy; nothing could train his body as effectively as battles of life and death.
Still, whatever skills his body had picked up during his time as a warrior was enough for him to move without detection. But then again, he couldn't really say that he deserved all the credit; Karin looked lost in her own world, and probably would not have noticed even if he were to walk directly behind her. Her hands were stuffed deep inside her pockets, her baseball cap pulled low. Her hair had grown longer, but she still kept it tied up in a ponytail, and now it swayed in time with her stride, brushing the nape of her neck like a pendulum.
His brows furrowed as they began to enter a familiar part of town. With a start, he suddenly knew what that "weird store" was. He kicked himself for not figuring it out sooner; Urahara Shoten was, after all, quite possibly the shadiest shop on the planet. He felt a flicker of rage and curiosity in his chest—what had Karin got to do with Urahara Kisuke?
He had always had mixed feelings about that man. He quickly ran over some of the man's traits in his head and decided that he really didn't like the idea of Karin being anywhere near Urahara Kisuke.
But he didn't want Karin to know that he had been following her, so he waited outside the compound. Just as his patience began to fray out of worry, he heard Karin's voice.
"Are you sure I don't have to pay for these?" Karin said, sounding skeptical and a little suspicious.
Ichigo silently applauded her apparent distrust towards the sneaky bastard.
The shopkeeper's voice was thick with sweetness. "But of course! Your brother has done so much for us, think of this as a gesture of gratitude."
Ichigo couldn't hear his sister's reply, but judging from the amused chuckle from the blonde man, it must've been something not quite polite.
As Karin's footsteps approached, Ichigo held his breath and kept still. He stared at her back, and then his eyes went to the bag held in her hand—it was filled to the brim, the contents straining against the thin layer of plastic. He squinted, trying to identify the items, but all he could make out was that they were boxes.
If the person involved was not Urahara, Ichigo's first thought would be drugs. But since it was Urahara, he feared worse.
He waited until Karin rounded a corner and disappeared, then, no longer worried about being seen, he stalked towards the front door of the shop. But before he could knock, the door flung open, revealing the very person he was looking for.
"Ah! Here's a visitor we don't see everyday!" The striped bucket hat bobbed as the blonde surveyed Ichigo from head to toe. He sounded surprised, but Ichigo had no doubt that the man already knew he was there. Just because Ichigo couldn't sense reiatsu anymore didn't mean others could not sense him, especially someone as skilled as Urahara.
"Cut the crap," Ichigo growled, his voice a little rougher than he intended. But what's done was done, and so he just stood there and stared at the shopkeeper, his gaze boring into the grey eyes. "You know why I'm here."
Urahara raised his eyebrows and his easy smile dimmed slightly. Stepping aside, he gestured with his fan for Ichigo to enter the shop, and the boy did so without hesitation. He sat himself down at the low table in the living room—a place he was thoroughly familiar with.
"Tea?" the shopkeeper asked light-heartedly, as though Ichigo was here for a simple social call.
"Why was Karin here?" Ichigo demanded, blatantly ignoring the man's question.
The blonde settled down cross-legged at the table across from Ichigo. "But I think you already know, or at least, have some suspicions."
Ichigo glared at him. "I'm not here to play games. Just answer my question."
Urahara clucked and shook his head in feigned disappointment. "So impatient, as always, Kurosaki-kun," he said. Reaching up, he tugged his hat a little lower, and his eyes disappeared into the shadows. "As you know, you're not the only one in your family who has high spiritual pressure."
Ichigo grunted in agreement.
"You had the means to act on what you saw," the blonde went on. "Your sister, on the other hand, has no power to do so."
"What did you give her?" Ichigo asked, suddenly understanding what the shopkeeper was implying.
Urahara waved his hand dismissively in the air. "Oh, just a little repellent, a couple of self-defense equipments. Nothing dangerous."
"Self-defense?" Ichigo immediately perked up.
The shopkeeper eyes widened slightly in the universal sign of "oops". "Of course, she did not tell you," he said, sounding a little sheepish. "I should've known."
Ichigo felt a tremor of rage in his chest. "What happened?" His voice was sharp, his face fierce.
Urahara sighed as though it pained him to speak. "Almost a year ago, your sister was attacked," he began.
The boy was on his feet in an instance, fists clenched, elbows bent as if the attacker was in the room with them. "What? Why didn't you tell me?"
The blonde looked up at him through a fridge of pale eyelashes, not bothering to stand up himself. "And what could you have done if I did, Kurosaki-kun?" His tone was not condescending, but it hit a nerve.
One second Ichigo was standing across from him, and the next, the boy had his collar in a tightly coiled fist. Ichigo's mouth curled up in a snarl, his eyes narrowed into slits. "How dare you..."
Urahara rested a cool palm on the boy's trembling forearm. "Please, calm down," he said, his voice even as though he didn't have someone breathing threateningly in his face at the moment.
Asking someone like Ichigo to "calm down" at the height of his anger only served the same purpose as pouring oil onto a flame. The boy bristled, and his grip tightened. With a low growl deep in his throat, Ichigo said, "Don't treat me like I'm some weak, useless piece of—"
The older man interrupted, "I said no such thing." His voice remained placid, but it pissed Ichigo off even more to hear the shopkeeper speaking as if nothing was amiss.
"If Karin had been hurt—" Ichigo hissed, leaning even closer, his vivid orange hair brushing against the brim of Urahara's hat.
"She wasn't," the blonde said. "I happened to be close by."
Things would've been alright if he had stopped there, but he was unfortunate enough to continue, "Really, Kurosaki-kun, you need to have better control of your emotions."
Something snapped inside Ichigo.
"Better control?" He started laughing, his voice dripped with disbelief. "I've done nothing but control myself in the past eighteen fucking months!"
Urahara's eyes flickered with the realization that he had misspoken. "I didn't mean it that way, Kurosaki—"
Ichigo let go of the man's collar and staggered backwards. "Then what did you mean? That I should just suck it up and act like I don't give a shit that my sister nearly got killed—"
"Believe me, it was nowhere that dangerous," the shopkeeper said with a hint of exasperation.
"Do not patronize me, Urahara Kisuke." Ichigo's blood boiled at the sound of the man's voice. First he hinted at Ichigo's lack of ability to protect his sister, and then now he's playing it down as though Karin's safety was not a big deal? It was as though the man was challenging him with an unspoken "what could you have done anyway?".
At the thought, he stepped towards the shopkeeper and yanked the man to his feet by the collar. Urahara could've easily deflected that, but he stood up obediently, holding his body slack and letting Ichigo shove him around. The boy's eyes narrowed further.
"Do you pity me, is that what it is?" Ichigo growled, pushing the blonde into the wall, knocking over the displays on the shelf next to them. "Do you pity me so much that you won't even defend yourself?" He leaned into the man and breathed menacingly into his face.
"Kurosaki-kun, please, you're overreacting," Urahara said, an admonishing tone finally creeping into his voice. He caught the sudden dilation of the irises barely an inch away from his face and realized too late that he had once again misspoken.
"You want out of control? I'll fucking give you 'out of control'!" the boy snarled, digging his nails into the blonde's arm, pinning him to the wall. Then, with a harsh inhalation of breath, Ichigo drew his free arm back and swung it forward. His tightly clenched fist connected with Urahara's jaw with a satisfying smack; a jarring pain shot up Ichigo's arm, and Urahara's face snapped sharply to the side.
"Why won't you fucking defend yourself?" the boy hissed, his reddened knuckles still hovering in the air.
Blood dribbled down the shopkeeper's split lip, but the man did not utter a sound throughout the exchange. He simply stood there with his back pressed against the wall and looked at Ichigo through wary, half-lidded eyes.
The stare and the silence unnerved Ichigo. "Fuck this," Ichigo spat and let go of Urahara's arm.
Then, without a word, he turned on his heels and stormed out of the store, leaving the older man standing frozen on the spot. Urahara stared at the boy's retreating back with a thoughtful frown, oblivious to the throbbing pain from the deep cut on his lip.
To be continued...
Author's Note:
From here on, the storyline deviates from canon significantly. I'll be using the names of the characters from the Fullbring arc, but I'm planning to put a new spin on them, so if you haven't reached this point in the manga/anime, you may get a small spoiler in terms of characters and perhaps a bit of their abilities, but for the most part it should be safe.
