I am so, so sorry for the wait! Life is uhh, kinda crazy. Classes, work, um... capsizing kayaks? I've had a busy few months. Oh well, I hope you enjoy the first official chapter of my little labor of love! (Comments and F&F are always appreciated)
"Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards"
-Vladimir Nabokov
Ichigo sat in the driver's seat of a grey sedan, occasionally glancing at his partner nestled comfortably in the passenger's seat and the little 'stowaway' in the backseat. By partner, he meant his wife, Akiko, and by his little 'stowaway' he meant their daughter and resident troublemaker, Himari. Ichigo, although his attention was divided between the road and Akiko, flicked an amused glance towards his two ladies before focusing again on the road. Akiko looked to be barely masking her own amusement, but kept it carefully masked under playful scolding.
For you see, in the past ten minutes, in addition to the miserable half hour that had preceded the car ride itself, Akiko and Ichigo had adopted a little… ruse, so to speak. It was the classic Kurosaki reverse psychology, because due to Himari's… disposition for mischief, the only way to get her to come along for the trip without a fuss was to make her think she wasn't supposed to go. Genius, right?
At least, Ichigo and Akiko thought so. Ishida had been quick to scold Ichigo on the dangers of raising his daughter on the principle of doing something if others told them not to, developing dangerously "rebellious" and "disrespectful" tendencies… Well, Ichigo has always shrugged and kindly reminded Ishida that his picture could be in the dictionary next to those two words.
Ishida, of course, had returned the sentiment with a few choice words of his own.
The thoughts of Ishida lead to memories of their time together, the time with his nakama, which inevitably strayed to thoughts of that time of his turbulent life. War.
Ichigo, however, had learned, after much practice, not to let it show. His hands tightened unnoticeably on the steering wheel, but that was all. He clenched his jaw and forcefully shoved the echoing howls of hollows and wails of the wounded, the bloodsoaked sands of Hueco Mundo, the countless eyes he had seen lose their spark of life… No. No more. He had cut himself from that world after the war, after he had outlived his purpose. Ichigo carefully boxed that part of himself away into a corner of his mind and left it there.
Well, except for the occasional (daily) sparring sessions. Old habits.
It continued like that for some time. Peaceful. Normal, for them at least, but a far cry from mundane. Happy. Just a family on a road trip to meet some friends. Ichigo never participated much, just drove and listened and enjoyed their presence, on days like these.
Sometimes, later, he would regret that. Not doing more.
Suddenly, Ichigo felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Something was wrong. His eyes darted across the empty road, panic and fierce protectiveness at once shooting across his consciousness as he registered his trapped position. There. There it is.
Appearing as if by magic was a group of figures shrouded completely in black, covering the entire road some way ahead of Ichigo. Immediately he slammed his foot on the breaks, spinning the car sideways in an attempt not to hydroplane, thankful that this portion of road was virtually deserted.
"Ichigo! What-" Akiko exclaimed, desperately holding onto her seat. She looked ahead at the road, her eyes skipping over the ominous ninja-esque group in front of them.
Ichigo didn't answer her. He was too consumed by the knowledge that this car wouldn't stop soon enough, the damn rain and water on the road just made it keep going, and at this rate-
The car, thankfully only at Ichigo's side, slammed into something and, while it stopped, had crushed the driver's door like tin foil in a suspiciously humanoid figure.
"What did we just hit?" Akiko said, panicked. She looked back at their daughter, breathing a sigh of relief to see that she was unharmed. That relief, however, faded into horror as she turned to look at her husband…
"I'm fine," Ichigo said curtly, ignoring his crushed arm and leg. "You two need to get out of the car."
"But you're hurt!" panic was rising in Akiko, her voice raising and hands trembling.
"I'm fine," Ichigo placated again, desperately attempting to turn a blind eye to the ominous figure outside of his door. "Akiko, you and Himari have to get out, right now. Get over the edge of the road, at the bank. Whatever we hit also damaged the engine, it could catch fire and explode-"
"How are you so damn calm, damn you!" Akiko cried, but nonetheless complied, getting Himari out of the car and helping her over to the bank. Ichigo saw her flip over her phone with shaking hands out of the corner of his eye. He thanked the Soul King for his level headed wife. Although emergency personnel wouldn't get there quickly enough to be endangered, they would arrive in time to, at the very least, help his wife and daughter. He wouldn't dare hope the Onmitsukidō would allow him to keep his earthly body intact if his hunch was right.
"Get out of the vehicle." A low growl from his right broke Ichigo from his thoughts. He raised an eyebrow at the black-clothed man, calmly keeping up the farce of struggling to free his mangled legs- his right completely crushed into the door, his left not much better off- but the shinigami understood. "Out of your body, then," he corrected.
Ichigo, however much he knew it was coming, hesitated to reach for the Substitute Shinigami badge kept in his pocket. He knew, for the safety of his family, that he should comply, but… his rebellious nature had never truly gone away, now had it?
The Onmitsukidō, however, was far too good at his job, it seemed. "Whatever you're thinking, Kurosaki, don't do it," he warned. He leaned forward until Ichigo could feel his breath against his cheek through the broken window. "Unless you think you are capable of protecting some twenty-odd living souls scattered across the Living World, then be my guest," he hissed. "Try it, Kurosaki."
The taunt, ten or so years ago, would have thrown Ichigo into a destructive rage. Now, however, it only caused him to clench his jaw and tighten his eyebrows. Akiko would see it as pain. That was fine. He would not allow his family, his nakama, his friends who still remained in the Living World from a discreet death by way of undead assassin by complying with the Onmitsukidō, then dammit he would do it. If that was what it took to protect them, he would sacrifice anything.
That commitment, however, did not lessen the pain in his chest in the slightest.
Slowly, Ichigo reached for his badge, and used it to exit his body. Immediately, several Onmitsukidō surged forward to restrain him, as if they thought they would have even been given the chance had he not decided to comply. Nonetheless, they wasted no time in strapping every reiatsu dampener, seal, and shackle on Ichigo. Under the weight of so many restraints, Ichigo felt his already suppressed reiatsu stifled into nothingness. As if he hadn't felt helpless enough already.
Glancing at the car, Ichigo saw smoke rising from the hood. Fantastic.
"Move it." The Onmitsukidō who seemed in charge clamped his hand on Ichigo's bound wrists.
One of the Onmitsukidō activated a fire-type zanpakuto and walked behind Ichigo, towards the car.
"Wait," Ichigo said. "At least let me-"
His words were swept away by a deafening boom behind him. Ichigo felt blistering heat at his back. The car had exploded. Damn it! Now his body was completely destroyed.
A heart-shattering wail rose on the wind, accompanied by soft, quiet sobs. In the same moment, the Onmitsukidō grabbed Ichigo roughly and shunpoed away.
Ichigo scowled as his wife and his daughter's cries faded behind him.
(This would be the Onmitsukidō's, the Seireitei's, the whoever's last mistake.)
(He swore it.)
To Akiko, the arrival of the emergency vehicles was muffled under a veil of grief and disbelief. In the ten, maybe five minutes it had taken them to arrive- too late too late- she had cried and sobbed and held Himari closely, both to comfort her daughter and herself. She nearly attacked the first officer who came near her, tentative, with a clipboard and a pen and a sympathetic, sorrowful expression she herself had worn too many times.
Eventually, Akiko had allowed the questions, and the haze of confusion lifted somewhat. Gave way to urgency, to routine.
(In what way was this routine?)
Yes, they had hit something.
No, she didn't know what. She had been looking away, she hadn't seen.
It was another car, they said. It must have gone right-to-center, from their car's blind spot. The force of the wreck had sent it off the shoulder, into the ditch, hitting a tree. The driver died on impact.
(She never saw any car make a dent quite like that.)
She had been traveling with her husband, Ichigo Kurosaki.
(That Ichigo Kurosaki, the doctor? They asked.)
Yes, that one.
(What does it matter now?)
Yes, her husband had been trapped inside.
(She couldn't get the image of his legs, crushed by the warped metal of the car, the bloody mess of blood and muscle and shards of bone.)
He told her to get away from the car- it could explode.
(His voice had never wavered once.)
Yes, it had exploded soon after.
(The last sight of Ichigo, her Ichigo, his orange hair obscured by all-consuming flame and a thunderous roar.)
He had passed out from the pain shortly before it happened.
(He had gone limp, slumped in the seat, like a puppet with its strings cut.)
"Take solace, ma'am, he didn't feel the explosion, at the very least."
Like that helped.
"We're sorry for your loss."
Like hell.
The questions went on for too long, in Akiko's mind. She wanted to grieve, but she pushed her heart aside in favor of her mind the minute she caught sight of Himari's tear-streaked face, curled up and huddled underneath a blanket by the ambulance. She had a daughter to comfort. She had affairs to put in order. She could cry, she would, for the love of her life, but that could wait, at least for a moment.
To say Ichigo was angry would be the understatement of a lifetime (maybe an after-lifetime too). He was livid. Nobly, he attempted to keep the expression from his face, exuding a calm demeanor and blank face in order to confuse his captors.
Or he would have been, but the slight onmitsukidō who kept inching away from Ichigo in fear every time they caught sight of his thunderous expression told a different story. It had been proceeding this way for well over an hour, and Ichigo was already sick of it. He didn't even know where "here" was, just that he had been blindfolded, restrained, transported, and then shoved into this dark, dingy room. It was straight out of a badly-cliched thriller.
Enter: the ass in charge and the cronie who blew up his body. Rude of them, really, to make him stew for over an hour and then walk in, smug as if they'd managed some nigh-impossible feat. It only served to make Ichigo angrier.
"Well, Kurosaki, I must say," the guy in charge crossed his arms. "You certainly cooperated more readily than we had anticipated." The man tilted his head and Ichigo could just tell that under that black mask the man was smirking self-contentedly. "Though of course, the possible deaths of your family and precious nakama might have helped."
Ichigo couldn't help but growl at that. "How will I know they're safe?"
"Oh, don't worry, the shinigami stationed over them will be removed in a week's time. We would remove them sooner, however, we want to be sure you don't contact anyone before you're taken to the Seireitei," the Onmitsukidō answered.
"Why?" Ichigo was fairly certain he knew, apart from the obvious, but still…
"Because, to the Living World, and even Soul Society, you will be dead."
Alright, he understood the first part, but to Soul Society? Ichigo couldn't help but voice his confusion. After all, the Onmitsukidō were a branch of the Gotei 13, how could Soul Society be lead to believe Ichigo was dead and gone?
"Well," Ichigo could practically feel the smugness radiating off of the bastard. "You are an anomaly. You possess qualities of both the living and the dead, despite being alive. So, no one is quite sure what would happen to you if you died. Would your body simply die? Would you move on to Soul Society as normal human souls would, or perhaps Hueco Mundo, since you are also part Hollow? Or," the man leaned a bit closer to Ichigo. "Would your hybrid soul break apart, tearing itself apart- a contradiction of yourself." He straightened, attempting to tower over Ichigo. "With no evidence of you in the Living World or Soul Society, the latter would have to be assumed."
The fiery anger in Ichigo's chest was mixing uncomfortably with a cold, creeping dread beginning to take root in his heart.
"That being the case," the Onmitsukidō shifted to expose an armband of two concentric octagons. "The Central 46 saw fit to take advantage of this uncertainty to tame a certain wildcard."
Oh.
Those pompous bastards.
"Monsters are only acceptable in war, Kurosaki, remember that."
The shinigami began to exit the room, soundlessly padding across the concrete floor.
"You were always living on borrowed time."
The cell door- because that's what the room was, a cell- slammed ominously on their way out.
Ichigo knew it was intentional.
"The hell are you looking at?" Ichigo snapped at the slight Onmitsukidō "guarding" him.
The poor thing eeped and jumped like a startled rabbit, before settling their gaze on Ichigo's (understandably) angry face.
"S-sorry, Kurosaki-dono, er, Kurosaki-san. Uh! I mean, um, Kurosaki… sir!"
In a different situation, Ichigo would have laughed at the guard's spluttering. It was not, however, a different situation, he was still stuck in this shitty metal chair with a shit-ton of shitty restraints on in a shitty excuse for a jail cell. Thus, Ichigo Kurosaki glared on.
"I just wanted to tell you that we'll be leaving for the Seireitei in a week's time, sir!"
Another week of inaction in this shit-hole? Fan-fucking-tastic.
The sentiment must have shown on his face, because Ichigo had never seen someone exit a room so quickly in his life, and he'd been taught shunpo by the flash goddess herself.
Ichigo gathered what little self-restraint he had learned over the years, and somehow managed to stamp down his pride to near nonexistence.
"Please," he begged the asshole Onmitsukidō in charge. "This is the only thing I'll ask."
"Absolutely not," the man said gruffly, but obviously loved making Ichigo squirm. He just had to be compensating for something.
"I'm begging you," Ichigo grit his teeth. "I'm begging you! Let me see my wife, my daughter! Just once before I go."
The Onmitsukidō snorted derisively.
Damn it!
Feeling whatever dignity Ichigo had remaining leave him, Ichigo bowed his head to the man who had shackled him. "Please!" He ground out. "They aren't even spiritually aware. They won't see me- they won't know I'm there." He allowed his voice to waver, just once. "I just want to see them one last time, to say goodbye."
He could feel the gaze of the Onmitsukidō raking over him, contemplating, and then-
"Tomorrow. A half an hour. Less, if the weather is bad. You'll be under heavy surveillance."
Ichigo let out a slight sigh of relief.
He only needed to see them. That would be enough to right things.
(Ichigo Kurosaki was many things, but as a grown man- not the reckless teenager much of the Seireitei remembered him as- he was no fool.)
(One thing about Ichigo always remained true, though.)
(Everything he does is with purpose.)
Wow! that took way longer than I thought it would. I realized about halfway through that I've been shifting tone and style, like, a lot. But oh well. Let me know if it works or if its distracting, please. Thanks for reading!
Lot's of love,
TheFullmetalSociopath