A/N: Thanks for all of my reviews and support, you guys make my week!
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just the things I make them do.
Chapter 2: A Hitch in the Plans
"Your son is safe." Urahara said as Isshin walked around one of the rocks in the training room. He was in full shinigami garb, and all traces of humor were gone from his face.
"Good. He wasn't ready yet, and Aizen would've come after him the instant he found out..." Isshin looked regretful about his son's part in the war.
"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" Urahara asked him, his eyes shadowed by his hat. "Because I can open the portal again and-" Isshin raised a hand to stop the shopkeeper from continuing.
"I'm positive." He pat his zanpaktou a few times, and said solemnly, "I'm gonna try my best to kill the damn bastard, even though it's suicide. It's my duty, both to my position and my...family..."
Urahara put a hand on the former shinigami's shoulder. "We've all lost something to Aizen. Now let's give the son of a bitch as many cuts as we can before we go down!" He unsheathed Benihime and lifted her into the air. "To Yoruichi!"
Isshin followed suit with his own zanpaktou and smiled. "To Yuzu and Karin!"
--
Rukia woke up from her nap with a start. She quickly looked around, cursing herself for letting her guard down when she realized where she was. Her old office in Soul Society. She grabbed one of the hollow eradication forms on her desk and checked the date at the top. It worked! We're six years in the past! I wonder how Ichigo's doing right now...I hope he made it too. She tried to remember how she acted six years ago, and realized she was still getting over the death of Kaien-dono and his wife.
Kaien-dono! She leapt out of her seat and rushed out the door, barely registering the first time she saw Sentarou and Kiyone in what seemed like years as she shunpoed by them. People were a blur as Rukia ran on the rooftops, trying to get to the house as quickly as possible. After running for what seemed like hours and wondering how she made it when she was recovering her spiritual energy, she came to a halt at where the Shiba residence was. Will be. She corrected herself as she looked on the empty lot in despair.
Distraught, she slowly walked all the way back to her division. "How am I supposed to apologize if I don't know where they live?"
"Apologize to who, Kuchiki?" She looked up and gasped. It was Captain Ukitake! She hadn't seen him since...
Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden, and she remembered Urahara's warning: "Realize that you'll see people that you remember as long dead, so please try to control your reactions." "No one, Captain. It's nothing." She said, fighting back her tears. After collecting herself, she put forth a serious face and said, "Are the training grounds available? I need to use them."
Ukitake was taken aback by the sudden change in his subordinate. For many years she had been depressed, doing only her paperwork, and he was getting worried that he would have to demote her since it was most likely affecting her fighting skills. He smiled and said the grounds were open, glad that she was able to get past her grief. If she could train herself enough, which he knew she would, he had a seated position open that Kaien would've wanted her to have.
--
Darkness. Insanity. The cloud surrounded him for what seemed to be an eternity. He couldn't know how long, since he was barely able to get a coherent thought out. All he knew was the sense of emptiness that was not unlike when he was taken over by his hollow...
Then there was a great feeling of pain, unlike anything he had experienced. He found his voice and screamed, and thought he heard a hollow's cry in the distance. The cloud of darkness slowly vanished, and peace engulfed him as he followed a hell butterfly up into the heavens.
--
A year later...
Rukia took a look at the day's paperwork and groaned. Although all she had been doing for the past year was grueling training, paperwork still made her stomach feel uneasy. In fact, she realized she had been so caught up in her training that she hadn't visited any of her old friends. Not that it mattered anyway. As far as she remembered, by now she was still depressed about Kaien, spending most of her time in the office.
Besides, she was now able to recreate her brother's favorite attack, "senka", in which she quick-steps to her opponent's back and seals his spiritual energy in one strike. Not only that, but she could almost release her sword without calling it's name and was working on reaching manifestation of her sword's soul.
She grabbed the stack and took a peek at the day's work. Why she volunteered to do Sentarou and Kiyone's work for the day she'd never know. The majority of the forms detailed the "death" of a hollow and how much money was requested for killing it. Other forms were grant requests to buy new supplies, official letters to the captain, and her least favorite, Ukitake's bill for his medical prescription, which was getting bigger every year. Sighing, she took off the top form. It's larger than normal. Must have been a pretty bad hollow. She took one look at the hollow's mask and her heart stopped.
It looks just like Ichigo's...I don't remember this! She flipped through the papers as fast as she could, growing more and more panicked as she read. "Strong hollow terrorizing Karakura Town for the past two years...strongly attached to a local clinic and it's owners...soul sent to Soul Society resembles a young teen with bright orange hair..." Rukia stared at the report with wide eyes. There was no doubt about it, the hollow was definitely Ichigo. But how? They had only come to the past a year ago! It said in the report that the hollow had been around for two years...Ichigo would only have been nine...
This couldn't be the past. Something must have gone horribly wrong with Urahara's calculations, because if this was their past then it would have been Ichigo's mother in the report, not Ichigo. Alternate dimension..., Rukia thought, her head in her hands...what have we done?
--
The next day Rukia decided to treat herself and skipped training to take a long overdue stroll around the grounds. Although it wasn't very relaxing since her mind was working to figure out what had happened and how they could fix it, it was nice to see familiar faces again. After walking through the Thirteenth Division she quickly ran by the Twelfth Division offices and went to the Eleventh, trying to remember if anyone she knew was posted there.
The twists and turns of the unfamiliar division started to get her lost, but soon enough she heard the faint sound of someone yelling and ran towards it.
"...and if I catch you idiots slacking again, I'll call Yumichika to deal with you! Is that clear?" Rukia's head whipped around as she heard a voice she had resigned herself to never hearing again. When he walked around the corner, she couldn't restrain herself and sprinted toward him.
"Renji! Renji! I'm so happy to see you!" She said as she hugged him as hard as she could, forgetting the state of their relationship at that time.
"R-Rukia?" Renji was dumbfounded. They hadn't spoken in more than thirty years, and the whole time he had been training hard to defeat Captain Kuchiki so he could get her back. Why was she here now? "W-What are you doing here?"
Rukia looked up at him in horror as she realized what she'd done and turned to run back saying softly, "I'm sorry Renji...I don't know what came over me..."
"Wait!" Rukia turned around, fighting back tears at Renji's hurt expression. "Rukia...can you just stay for a little while? I mean...if you don't have anything else to do..." She smiled weakly at Renji, who was looking at the ground, shuffling his feet, and mumbling something about her brother.
"Sure Renji." What harm could it be?
"R-really? Okay! Come on!" He grabbed her by the wrist and started running towards the Eleventh Division offices.
Unknown to both of them, Ikkaku was watching from the rooftops. Good job, stupid. I didn't think you had the balls to do it.
And there's the twist! Next chapter we take a peek at Ichigo's new life in Soul Society, so please leave a review!