Chapter Two: Reckoning

Urahara Shop took up an otherwise vacant lot on the outskirts of Karakura Town. To the humans it was a small exotic candy shop stocking everything from pocky to crickets dipped in peppermint cream. The shop doesn't see a lot of visitors, mainly because of how out-of-the-way it was. Not that Kisuke minded really, it kept the humans away and left him time for his real job.

Urahara Shop was the single largest underground distributor of soul reaper merchandise outside of the Soul Society.

If a soul reaper on assignment in the World of the Living had need of anything, from a gigai to a soul pager, Urahara's was the place to visit. He also had a vast storehouse of knowledge on how to adapt to the world of the living and carried a variety of goods from the human world specially for soul reapers. To make sure his little operation stayed a secret, he wiped the memories of all his customers after they'd made their purchases and recreated them to keep his secret.

In short he was the main reason no one knew of the Soul Society yet. Everyone knew of him but none remembered him.

"Please go and make sure Ichigo is tended to," Kisuke said," and keep him warm. Ryosuke and I have much to discuss."

Tessai, a big bear of a bespectacled man with a handlebar moustache nodded and rushed off, leaving the two old friends alone.

Ryo sipped his tea quietly in the living room as Kisuke sat down. Marveling at how many exiles were gathered in one room Ryo picked up the teapot and poured himself a cup as Kisuke set his mug on the table. They stared at each other in awkward silence.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it Kisuke?" he asked softly.

"That it has," Kisuke answered just as soft.

The anger at Ryosuke's reappearance had abated somewhat, only to solidify into a deep and profound hurt. He hated that look all the more because he was the cause of it, and would have almost preferred his old friend's wrath to this, difficult to bear as it was.

"I see you have a new sword," Kisuke said awkwardly," What happened to Mizuhana?"

Ryo patted the zanpakto behind his right hip. "She is still here, but she has been forced to share my soul with someone else," he said softly.

"May I?" the shopkeeper asked reaching out a hand.

Ryosuke removed the sword, sheathe and all, from behind his right hip and placed it in his friend's hand. Kisuke ran an expert eye over the midnight black sheathe. He paused at the guard, the snowflake broken by a pair of lightning bolts. Wrapping a hand around the blue-green cloth that bound the hilt he drew her an inch out of her sheathe.

The sword howled in protest.

Kisuke quickly handed the sword back to it's owner.

"Arashiryo doesn't like anyone else handling her," he chuckled.

"Arashiryo? Is that the name of the blade now. I suppose it has something to do with the lightning element you acquired?"

Ryo smiled, "Perceptive as always."

"So, where have you been these many long years?"

The smile died a swift death on Ryosuke's lips.

"I'd love to tell you I had a good reason for everything I've done, but I don't. I yearned to come to you and Yoruichi ever since we came to this town, but I couldn't. My selfish pride kept you from seeing me like this," he gestured at his clothes, half bleached by his inner hollow.

"Better than to think you'd died?" Kisuke snapped.

"Better than to know that he got me too," he answered bitterly.

"Aizen," the shopkeeper growled after a moments thought.

"Yes. I waited for years to pay him back for what he did to Shinji and the others. To pay him back for what he did to you! The moment I let my guard down he struck me down and left me in this pitiable state! Years of planning ruined!" he was screaming now. A century of pain rising to the surface.

Kisuke laid a calming hand on his shoulder and Ryo exhaled heavily and took his head in his hands.

"Tell me everything."

"I don't know where to start," he said brokenly.

Urahara allowed a wry smile to soften his features," I find the beginning is always the most helpful."

Ryosuke laughed so unexpectedly he almost cried. Leave it to Kisuke to make you laugh when the world has fallen down around you. Ryo didn't realize how much he missed him until that moment and bitterly regretted not coming to him sooner. He composed himself and lifted his head off the table to take another sip of tea.

"Yeah, I suppose it would huh?"

Kisuke grinned and took a drink from his mug.

Taking a deep breath he began his tale. Difficult thought it was at first, as he went on, it became easier. Until eventually the words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush to be heard.

"After you and Yoruichi were exiled, I confronted Aizen and told him I knew everything. I was trying to scare him into slipping up, but you must know how well that went over. He was like stone Kisuke, playing the perfect new captain along with Tosen and Gin. I waited for years trying to find proof that he was behind the hollowfication experiments and not you."

Kisuke stared into his mug swirling the contents with the motions of his hand.

"Decades rolled by and I was promoted to lieutenant in Squad Thirteen. After that, I used my position to keep investigating. Even when Captain Ukitake ordered me to stop. I almost had him when a hollow devoured several of our men and nearly took the life of our third seat, Kaien Shiba. Everything about that had Aizen's hand in it. I must have been getting close, because that's when Aizen struck back," his eyes darkened.

"I was sent on assignment in the World of the Living. A basic job, exorcise a hollow who was terrorizing a town. Something any rank soul reaper could have done. This hollow was smart though Kisuke, smarter than usual. He ate three soul reapers before I was called in. I tracked him for eight days before I finally caught him. We fought, he had such low spiritual pressure I thought the others had been careless and just as I struck him down I realized why the others had been killed."

"What happened?" he asked gently.

"The bastard was a vasto lorde," he growled.

Kisuke sucked in a sharp breath. A vasto lorde was the highest class of hollow. Just one was stronger than any captain in the Soul Society.

"I fought harder than I ever have before, but in the end it just wasn't enough. He broke me, he beat me, he damn near destroyed me. Then he began to devour my soul. Slowly, so I'd feel every ounce of agony there was to feel as his teeth gnashed at me. I grew desperate then, out of my mind with fear and pain just as he was about to finish me off. I released everything inside my soul in an attempt to bring him down with me. There was a brilliant flash of light and a screech of agony. I'm not sure if it was his or mine."

Kisuke stared in awed silence, his mug forgotten, and the tea growing cold. Ryosuke hands were shaking violently now and he stared hard at them until they stopped.

"I woke up inside my soul, but it was radically different. The glacial sea remained the same, but a dark and ominous thunder cloud covered the sky. I looked around and saw him, the vasto lorde, wading through the water. He was bound with heavy chains. I'm not proud of it but I took my chance. I stabbed him through the chest and pierced one of his lungs. A gargantuan pillar of ice rose from underneath him and I was ejected out of my own soul. When I awoke I was as you see now. A hollow mask laid beside me. I knew I couldn't go back after what happened to you and the others. So I left the Soul Society and eventually met up with Shinji and the others," he trailed off into silence.

For several long minutes neither man said a word. Ryosuke kept his silence because he was physically and emotionally spent after bottling that tale up for so long and finally releasing it. Kisuke kept his because there was nothing he could say to comfort Ryosuke.

"I'm so sorry," he said eventually.

"Its not your fault," Ryosuke shrugged as a thought occurred to him," hey, where's Yoruichi? I thought I felt her around here somewhere."

Kisuke smiled, eager to be away from the previous lines of conversation," she's off training some hopefuls. They're human, but they have a lot of potential," his eyes flicked toward the back room where Ichigo was recuperating.

Ryo caught the look.

"Speaking of," he said, "what's with that boy in there? You seem to have taken an interest in him."

A peculiar gleam lit shopkeeper's eyes. He had seen it before, it was the look Kisuke got when he began a new project.

"It's a long story but, hopefully, we can give it a happy ending."

Ryosuke didn't stop to wonder at the word "we" meant in this particular situation. In retrospect he should have.

Kisuke explained everything that had happened over the last few months. Rukia Kuchiki transferring her powers to Ichigo, the fight with the infamous Grand Fisher, the Quincy and the battle with the Menos Grande, and finally the Soul Society coming to take Rukia back.

"It seems you've kept busy Urahara," Ryo commented.

"You know what they say about idle hands," he said picking up a fan and covering his face to hide a smile.

"So Yoruichi's off training the same kids who were affected by Ichigo's spiritual pressure?" he scratched an itch on his cheek.

Kisuke nodded pouring himself some more tea.

Ryo held out his mug for more. "And you figured Rukia's gigai would keep the hogyoku safe?" he asked.

Kisuke nodded pouring him another.

"Good call," he said dryly.

Kisuke was about to reply when a piercing scream jerked them out of their conversation.

"What the hell was that?" Ryo cried rising to his feet.

Kisuke rose leaving his mug on the table and retrieving his cane," That would be Ichigo waking up," sure enough Tessai's voice rang out a moment later.

"Boss! You wanted me to tell you when he was awake!"

"Come on, lets go greet our patient," Kisuke said cheerfully.

Ryosuke rose and followed him into the back room.

Author's Note: Understandably, Kisuke was upset at Ryo's deception. However it was Ryo's pride that kept him from seeing his closest friends. Pride is one of his long standing flaws when it comes to himself, but it seems to have dimmed somewhat after his hollowfication. I think it's because he sees himself as less of what he was before and doesn't take pride in himself anymore. It took me a long time to find his origin story for the hollow half of him and I hope you enjoyed it. It's a topic of great pain for Ryo obviously, because it was the moment of his greatest failure. The failure to avenge those closest to him and you don't go through something like that unscathed. I wanted to show the bond between Kisuke and Ryosuke a little bit, the bond of brotherhood, as how Kisuke would react to his friend's torment. They're awkward around each other at first, because of the fact Ryo allowed Kisuke to believe he was dead, but I think they opened up a lot by the end. Of course, there really aren't any words of comfort for something like that, but I think Kisuke did a good job anyways. The last little bit, briefly introduces Ichigo to Ryosuke and brings him up to speed on the bleach storyline.