"So, where are we going?"
Yukimaru gave Isshin a sideways glance, twitching minutely when Isshin didn't answer. His original plan had been to wander around Rukongai until he found a district that he liked – District 78 would be nice; that Zaraki guy was from 80, and he didn't feel like running into that madman yet. At least, not when he didn't even have a zanpakutō. He loved a good fight as much as the next Arrancar, but he wasn't suicidal. However, Isshin seemed to already have a destination in mind. Goat-Face never failed to be annoying even when he wasn't trying, he lamented in his mind.
"You'll see," Isshin replied cryptically. He wasn't going to call the man otō-chan no matter how much he whined about them being one big happy family now, and Ichigo – no, wait, it was Tsuzuki now, wasn't it – had always backed him up whole-heartedly on this, usually with a well-aimed kick to the face.
Yukimaru closed his eyes briefly, reining in the urge to just take off on his own. Goat-Face was probably waiting for him to do precisely that, so that he could be hauled back like some disobedient child. Although, he couldn't help but wonder if Isshin could actually catch him, if he truly decided to make a break for it. He was, after all, a student of the Goddess of Flash herself. It would probably take Suì-Fēng at least to have a chance.
Isshin raised a sardonic eyebrow, as if guessing his intentions. Yukimaru scowled.
They had been travelling for a while now, flitting across the rooftops at a speed too high for any non-seated shinigami to detect – to say nothing of ordinary civilians. Their reiatsu were suppressed to such a point that even a senior officer would have trouble sensing them, so even if there had been someone with eyes capable of following their movements, they would likely be written off as a hallucination. The imposing gates separating the districts from each other posed no trouble for them, who could clear the top of the boundary wall with a single leap. They were there to stop the civilians from mass migrating and potentially causing overpopulation in the lower districts of Rukongai – a leftover relic from the first Soul King – not shinigami.
"We're here."
Yukimaru eyed the district number painted on the gate they had just passed. Sixty-eight. Well, at least it was reasonably dangerous. He would have preferred somewhere in the seventies, but he supposed that he could always 'accidentally' wander off after Isshin left. The boundary wall only marked the borders of the populated areas, but much of Rukongai still comprised of unchartered wilderness even back in their own time. It wasn't like the natural wildlife would be much of a threat to him.
A horrible thought surfaced. Isshin wasn't taking him to a Shiba clan house, was he? He quickly shook his head. No no no, even the Shiba weren't insane enough to build a branch property in a district so far out, where help would take hours or even days to arrive. He turned to Isshin, about to interrogate the other man, but his voice died in his throat at the look on the other man's face.
Isshin was standing stock-still, face turned towards the horizon; he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, but his eyes were ever-so-slightly glazed over and the faintest shadow of a smile was tugging at the corner of his lips. It wasn't a happy smile. Yukimaru wished that he knew what to call it, because he'd seen it before, albeit only in King's memories, on the rare occasions where the twins weren't around and King chanced upon Isshin gazing at Masaki's poster.
He turned his attention to the street. There were a couple of roadside stalls, if they could be loosely termed as such, with hawk-eyed shopkeepers hovering over the scant few shoppers. In a district this high up, few people had the kan to buy what they needed, so thieves were the rule rather than the exception.
Speaking of which…
"Come back here, you worthless rats!"
A trio of children raced past, an irate shopkeeper hot on their heels. Yukimaru flicked a glance at what the boy in the lead was clutching in a white-knuckled fist. Food, hmm?
From his vantage point on the roof, he could see the furtive glances the others along the street were giving the quartet, but no one moved to stop anyone. It was better not to interfere, lest you get blacklisted by either the farmers or the gangs.
The children rounded a corner out of his sight, but it was immediately followed by a loud crash and the thuds of bodies hitting the ground. Yukimaru scrambled to the edge of the roof, where he could look down and see the children in a groaning pile on the ground. The panting shopkeeper was only a few moments behind, striding up to them before they managed to untangle themselves. Pale-faced, the boy shoved the two girls behind him, turning to face the shopkeeper defiantly.
"I'll pay for that."
Yukimaru blinked and leaned out further, catching the silhouette of a woman in the shadows under the awning of the roof he was perched on. Ah, so they hadn't tripped as he had first thought – they had run into someone. Although, that is a ridiculously generous offer, why would she do that? Maybe one of the children was hers?
"It's fine if I pay for them, isn't it?"
The shopkeeper squinted at her, but relented with a huff. "That'll be twenty kan."
Ignoring the outraged protest – "His sign said ten kan!" – behind her, the woman counted several coins into the shopkeeper's hand. He frowned down at them, before pocketing the money and leaving the way he had come.
The children lingered, the boy opening his mouth as if to speak.
"It was my fault you were caught, so I'll do it this once."
His mouth snapped shut with a click audible even to Yukimaru. After a moment, he bowed respectfully at a ninety degree angle, pushing the younger girl's head down until she bowed too, while the other girl followed his lead. Then they turned, and took off at a run.
"Thank you very much, Kurosaki-san!"
Wait.
What.
The woman left the shade of the overhang for the brightly-lit street, and for a moment Yukimaru could only stare at the waterfall of reddish-brown curls cascading down her back as she walked away, the achingly familiar sight branding itself into his eyes.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Yukimaru gasped, drawing in a large gulp of air. Only then did he realise his lungs were on fire, his stomach turning over as though he had eaten something bad, and for some reason he was feeling like someone had just punched him.
Human emotions were so confusing.
He channelled all his confusion into anger instead, because anger at least he understood. "Explain."
Isshin sighed, dropping down to sit on the roof with a last glance in the direction his – future wife? Past wife? – had gone. "I've told you how your mother and I met."
Yukimaru gave a brusque nod. "She saved you from a Hollow when you were on a mission."
Isshin rubbed a hand over his eyes. "That… wasn't the full truth." He paused for a moment, and Yukimaru had to bite his own lip to prevent his impatience from interrupting.
"It wasn't the first time I'd met her. Well," he corrected, "technically, it was the first time that I'd met her in that life."
Yukimaru decided, abruptly, that he needed to sit down too. He wished that Ichigo – Tsuzuki, Tsuzuki, stop slipping up – urgh, King was having this conversation with his father, not him.
"You knew her before she was reincarnated as our mother," he repeated flatly.
Isshin bobbed his head, eyes still far away. The story slipped out in bits and pieces, how Isshin had first met her while on his way back from a mission, how Masaki – true to the memory of her that Yukimaru possessed – had taken one look at his injuries and offered him a place to stay for a night. How Isshin had, after that, gone back again and again whenever he could find the chance, as though he were a moth drawn to her flame.
"I was going to ask her to take my name."
The light in his eyes dimmed, then, and Yukimaru knew without asking him to elaborate how this story would end. The only way to be reincarnated, after all, was to die in Soul Society.
"That kid – he said Kurosaki-san." He seized upon the peculiarity before Isshin could do something worse, like start bawling on him. "What's the chance of someone being reincarnated into the exact same family?"
Isshin blinked slowly at him, eyes soft with emotions Yukimaru couldn't – didn't want to – identify. "You know that Masaki was an Echt Quincy," he prompted, receiving a nod in reply. "During the Quincy War about a thousand years ago, shinigami scientists had observed that the offspring of two Echt Quincy usually had much greater reiatsu reserves than either of the parents. Desperate to win the war, the Echt Quincy families began practising the tradition of "pure" marriages, producing children with disproportionately large reserves of reiatsu, able to stand up to even shinigami captains."
"And one of them is the Kurosaki family?" guessed Yukimaru.
The corner of Isshin's mouth quirked up. "Yes," he affirmed. "To find out why, shinigami scientists tracked the reincarnation cycles of several Quincy families, and they found something –" his mouth twisted on the word "– interesting. After death, a Quincy's reiatsu is locked within the soul, such that they pass off as regular Rukongai civilians. Some may have slightly higher than average reiatsu, but generally not enough to pass the shinigami Academy entrance examination. And when two Echt Quincy have a child, the chance of this child being the reincarnation of one of their ancestors is much higher than usual. Scientists had reported seeing the same soul, over a period of several centuries, be reincarnated into the exact same family every single time."
"So…" Yukimaru struggled to follow the logic, the idea almost too preposterous to consider.
"So in addition to the parents' reiatsu, the child also inherits the latent reiatsu reserves from a previous reincarnation."
Yukimaru opened his mouth, and then closed it again. It was insane. And yet –
The story of how Masaki had killed White, the Hollow that had grievously wounded a shinigami captain, with a single shot. Her shooting it point-blank had nothing to do with it; the Eleventh Division could hack away at Zaraki all day and no one under Fifth Seat would be able to score a single wound on him. It took power of an equal or greater amount to actually make a spiritual being bleed. How Isshin had always said, if she hadn't lost her powers, Grand Fisher would never have been able to lay a single hand on her. The image of Ishida Ryūken amidst a sea of Hollows, face utterly blank as he took down a Vasto Lorde ranked Arrancar by himself, something that none of the shinigami could lay claim to. And, of course, the Wandenreich, any of whom was a match for a shinigami captain.
"Take care of her for me, will you?"
A blink, and he found Isshin already standing, dusting himself off. Without another word, the lieutenant crouched, and then leapt off the roof, headed back the way they had come.
Yukimaru turned to face the blazing afternoon sun, the gentlest of breezes brushing against his cheek. "I will, oyaji."
West Rukongai District 68 was a typical cluster of hamlets of the kind seen in some of King's history textbooks about the Heian era. Though, those mostly focused on the imperial court and the aristocrats, and were thus of absolutely no help whatsoever to Yukimaru's current situation.
It didn't take long, lurking on rooftops, to find out that newcomers to the district invariably went two ways: they were picked up by an existing household, or they ended up in one of the gangs. Rare were the special cases – those who did neither. There was one such man – boy, really, on the cusp of manhood – a few days ago, who had declared in the middle of the market square that he was a Fujiwara, and had been quickly ushered away by an officious man backed by several bodyguards. Just this morning, Yukimaru saw him leave through the gate to District 67, ensconced in a palanquin bearing the name Konoe on the side.
"That kid's an utter idiot. What would he have done if this was a district ruled by the Taira or the Minamoto instead?"
"The who?"
"Honestly," Tsuzuki huffed a breath of laughter, flopping down on the ground and crossing his arms behind his head. "You could figure out that you're in the Heian era, but you didn't remember the major clans of that era?"
Yukimaru gave a half-shrug, mirroring Tsuzuki's position. "How would I know that the aristocracy in the Transient World would translate directly into noble clans in Soul Society?"
Tsuzuki arched an eyebrow at him. "You just saw why today. Enough of those who could remember their pasts, demanding to be accorded the same luxuries as they had enjoyed in life, and you get a noble clan. Anyway, the Konoe are retainers of the Fujiwara, so they've probably sent him on to the Fujiwara stronghold in District 51."
It was funny. The ground should have been cold, seeing that it was made of what appeared to be obsidian, but it wasn't, not really – it pulsed internally with some unknown source of warmth. He gave the ground a suspicious look. Hopefully there wasn't a volcano buried under all that.
"I don't think our own mindscape can try to kill us."
He scowled at the man who was supposed to be his brother now, all things considered. "One day, these words will come back and bite you on the ass." King had, after all, nearly drowned in his own mindscape that one memorable time.
Tsuzuki flapped a hand at him. "Suit yourself. I'd be more worried about out there rather than in here."
"Not like anyone can find me," Yukimaru replied absently, propping himself up on one elbow so that he could tap the ground.
There was a pregnant pause at that. Tsuzuki turned his head slowly to face him. "Yuki, where exactly are you right now?"
"Ano," Yukimaru scratched his head. "There's a forest on the outskirts of the populated areas, and if you go in deep enough the trees are pretty big and comfortable…" he trailed off at the look on Tsuzuki's face, at the emotions pulsing bright and clear next to him, exasperation and amusement and resignation all at once.
"So basically," Tsuzuki summarised drily, "you were so anti-social that you decided to make like Tarzan."
He protested, the litany automatically falling from his lips, even as he considered the term. No, he didn't think anti-social applied. "It's more of – I don't know," he scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. "They aren't trying to kill me!"
The amusement beside him bled away slowly.
"They aren't trying to kill you, but neither are they people who had fought with you, bled with you, taken a sword through the chest for you." Their eyes met and held for a long moment, and then Tsuzuki blew out a long breath. "Yeah, I get what you mean."
Yukimaru sat up. "How do you cope?" he demanded. "I tried to walk down the street, but it was just so hard to hold myself back, to not react when they pass too near, to not respond as I would to a threat. How do you do it?"
"I think of those early days, before the Winter War started in earnest, when I could still pretend to be a normal high school student, just one who moonlights as a Shinigami Substitute." Tsuzuki gave a wry twitch of his lips. "It helps that few people dare to crowd the heir of the clan, and neither Yoru-nee nor Kisuke-san registers as a threat."
Yukimaru gave him a completely blank stare. "My first memory is of you," he reminded, "your fingers still brushing across the Hōgyoku embedded in Aizen's chest, his features twisted unrecognisable in rage, right before he swatted you through six walls."
The first time he had manifested outside King's mindscape, discombobulated and disoriented, sprawled ungainly over the rubble. The first time he took a shuddering breath and saw the world through his own eyes, felt the sharp debris cut into his skin, tasted the dust lingering in the air. The first time he could stop and think, crystal clear, without the hurricane of a thousand voices in his ear, howling at him to rip tear kill. They were still present, in the background, but muted somehow – more akin to a draught than a tempest, something he could ignore with the ease of decades of practice.
The first time he met Aizen Sōsuke face-to-face, he had staggered to his feet, weak as a newborn kitten, and seen the cruel smirk tugging at the madman's lips.
"Kneel and be welcome, my newest Arrancar."
As a Hollow, survival had always been the most important thing. Eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. The world was coloured a blessedly simple black-and-white. When someone stronger than you came along, you bowed to them – to survive. No doubt that was why even the self-proclaimed King of Hueco Mundo, Baraggan Louisenbairn, had swallowed his pride and knelt for Aizen.
The first time he had the ability to make his own choices, Yukimaru had reached instinctively for his zanpakutō.
Aizen had not been pleased.
It was also the first time he had died, speared through-and-through by a strike too fast to see, and he hadn't even seen Aizen move.
No, it wasn't a good memory, but it was all he had.
"Oh." Tsuzuki's eyes slid shut and he grimaced. "Right. You were born in the middle of the War."
Yukimaru snorted. "Sharing your head for four years must have messed with mine, because no self-respecting Hollow would have done that. They'd have knelt, to live another day."
Startled brown eyes snapped open and fixed on him. "Do you… regret it?" Tsuzuki asked almost hesitantly. Yukimaru didn't need to share his mind to know what Tsuzuki was thinking, that the other had somehow subconsciously influenced him into making that uncharacteristic choice.
"Don't insult me," snapped Yukimaru with feeling. "The first time my mind was my own, the first time I could think for myself, and I chose to do that." The miasma of guilt persisted, prickling uncomfortably against his skin like a particularly scratchy sweater, and he growled, rolling to his feet. "Let's spar."
Tsuzuki blinked up at him. "Eh?"
Yukimaru stretched languidly, feeling the pull in his muscles. "Knowing you, you'd somehow manage to make it rain in here too. I'm going to beat it out of you before that happens." He dropped to all fours, and without giving Tsuzuki the chance to even get up, swept out a leg with enough force to break a bone on impact.
Except that it never connected. The moment he had crouched down Tsuzuki had already started moving, and instead of wasting time scrambling to his feet he had gone for a backwards roll instead, pushing himself upright with his arms and leaping backwards to put more distance between them. Yukimaru grinned savagely. Yoruichi-san was going to rue the day she taught Tsuzuki – and thus by extension Yukimaru as well – how to incorporate gymnastics into his already-eclectic hakuda style. He almost felt sorry for the Shihōin Clan. Almost. They wouldn't know what hit them – literally.
"What was that for?" complained Tsuzuki, though he didn't relax his stance.
He could feel the grin on his face widen of its own accord, see the wariness melt off into hard resolve in Tsuzuki's eyes in response. Good. He hadn't had a decent fight for weeks, not since they'd found out the hard way that Aizen had resurrected his entire Arrancar army again. With the Resistance numbering so few by then, sending anyone out would have been a suicidal move without fresh intel, and so they had remained holed up in Urahara Shōten.
Yukimaru had never intended to hit Tsuzuki with that move, knowing that instincts if nothing else would have made the other dodge. "Nice to see you haven't completely lost your edge in your dotage," he replied breezily, and without waiting for a response lunged.
Tsuzuki planted his feet firmly against the ground, raising an arm to block Yukimaru's initial punch. Sparks of black reiatsu flew where fist met forearm, and Tsuzuki's other arm snaked out, lightning-fast, to grab Yukimaru's outstretched arm. Instead of struggling, Yukimaru allowed himself to be pulled closer, the sudden loss of resistance buying him the split-second of surprise he needed to duck into instead of away from Tsuzuki and flip him over his shoulder in a judo throw.
To his credit – though Yukimaru wouldn't have expected any less – Tsuzuki landed in a perfect roll, slapping the ground with a reiatsu-enhanced hand to propel himself backwards. He was already on his feet as he landed, skidding backwards in a ready stance. Yukimaru smirked. Looks like he was finally going to take it seriously.
As though cued by a silent signal, they burst into shunpo at the same moment, exchanging a flurry of reiatsu-enhanced strikes, deflecting what they couldn't evade. Karate strikes mixed with jabs at pressure points meshed together with staple street brawl punches, moves from a dozen different styles flowing fluidly into each other with the long experience only gained from a decade of fighting: first against humans, then against all manners of spiritual beings.
When the Winter War had taken a swing for the worse, Yoruichi had pulled aside the humans – easily the least experienced in the Resistance – and demanded to see their unarmed combat styles. Orihime had used a textbook karate style, the way that Tatsuki had taught her. Chad's repertoire favoured power over subtlety, featuring a variety of boxing moves. Uryū had pulled out some Quincy style from somewhere, all the while rather peevishly muttering that it was nearly impossible to disarm him and therefore all this was really rather unnecessary. His spar had ended with him face-planted in the ground and glaring balefully up at Yoruichi, who casually, pointedly, twirled his Quincy Cross around one index finger.
Then it was their turn.
Yoruichi wasn't known as a hakuda master for nothing, and thus despite being clearly caught off-guard by King's unorthodox moves, she dodged without missing a beat. After a mere few minutes of going on the defensive, she had switched to the offensive. All of her blows, the duo had quickly found out, didn't seem to have much force behind them, but they hurt. It was one of those times when Yukimaru wished that pain didn't transmit into the mindscape whenever he decided to lend King his reiatsu.
"I target nerve clusters," she had explained, after calling the spar to a halt. Even though it had barely been half an hour, every inch of them had ached and rattled as though she had shaken their very bones apart. To add insult to injury, the way she just seemed to twist away from all their attacks – even when enhanced with Yukimaru's speed – made them suspect that she had the advantage of preternatural feline agility.
When King had called her out on it, a familiar glint in her eye that they had come to associate – painfully – with nothing good appeared. "Oy, Kisuke!"
On the far side of the underground training grounds, Urahara Kisuke turned in their direction, one hand still holding some instrument that he had been fiddling with. Grey eyes widened comically as Yoruichi was suddenly in his personal space, foot flying towards his face in a move they had seen countless times from Hiyori – except Hiyori had never moved so fast. It was clear that the title Goddess of Flash was well-deserved. Had she just crossed the entirety of the training grounds in a single blink?
Then King's mouth fell open when Kisuke bent over backwards at the waist until blond hair swept the ground, his free hand shooting out to keep his bucket hat from falling off. Yukimaru would have laughed at Ichigo's resemblance to a fish, if he himself wasn't also busy gaping in astonishment when the shopkeeper neatly swivelled his waist to twist his upper body around the downward blow Yoruichi aimed at his chest, and then pivoted one-eighty on one foot to bring his own leg up to block her follow-up kick.
"This is fragile!" he had protested, cradling the gadget protectively to his chest without so much as a wobble, looking for all the world as though he was so used to balancing on one leg that he hardly noticed the difference.
Ignoring him with apparently the ease of long practice, Yoruichi grinned at her captive audience, lowering her leg slowly.
"As you can see," she had announced, the look on her face rather reminiscent of a cat with a saucer of cream, "it can be learnt."
Kisuke blinked in bemusement, looking from her to the teenagers. "Did I miss something?"
Instead of trying to "correct" his hakuda into something more conventional, like so many other instructors would have done, Yoruichi had taken one look at Ichigo's formless style and given him the tools to turn it into the finely-honed weapon it was today. His hand-to-hand had never been bad, but usually it was a case of him giving as good as he got, and he had had many a black eye to show for it.
Yoruichi showed him how she could not only hold her own, but come out on top in a world populated by giants brandishing even more gigantic swords. How the extra reach that their weapons granted them meant nothing when they couldn't hope to hit her even at close range, a feat that only a combination of her speed and flexibility could achieve.
Speaking of which…
"I doubt either of us did our daily exercises in the past few days."
Tsuzuki clapped a hand to his forehead, straightening. "Urgh, don't tell her."
At an unspoken agreement, they both turned to gaze into the endless horizon. Yukimaru bounced lightly on the ground. It would have to do – it wasn't like either of them risked falling from doing basic exercises, anyway.
"Five hundred cartwheels, here we come," muttered Tsuzuki cheerlessly, looking grimly resolute.
"We are never telling her about this," warned Tsuzuki, flopping down on the ground in exhaustion after having crammed five days' worth of exercise into one day. "She'll triple the current exercise regimen for her own sadistic pleasure."
"And probably halve the time limit," Yukimaru added, agreeing wholeheartedly.
About to open his mouth to no doubt commiserate, Tsuzuki shut it with a click, brow furrowed in faint concentration. "Someone just entered my room." Without warning, his body shimmered and vanished from their mindscape.
Yukimaru sat up straight, alarms pounding in his head. The intruder wasn't someone whom Tsuzuki had recognised, and thus by virtue of that fact was most likely not an ally. On the upside, it wasn't Aizen. On the downside… well, there was a lot of room for error between "Aizen" and "not a threat".
He got to his feet and began pacing, unable to sit still anymore. King would be fine; the only shinigami who could pose a threat to him right now was probably Aizen – and the sōtaichō, he supposed, and several of the eldest captains, but what were the chances of them sneaking into Tsuzuki's bedroom in the middle of the night? A brief vision of Unohana climbing through the window of Tsuzuki's bedroom like Renji used to do popped into his mind, and he had to stifle a very inappropriate snicker.
The ground trembled.
Yukimaru's right hand whipped instinctively to his back before he belatedly realised that, no, he didn't have Zangetsu strapped to his back anymore. Nor could he materialise in front of Tsuzuki anymore, he supposed. His hand clenched into a fist at the thought. Having spent most of his life in the other man's mindscape, he could recognise the signs immediately. For whatever reason, Tsuzuki had just released the tight hold he normally had over his reiatsu.
Although the ground was no longer shaking, concentric circles of disturbance continued rippling outwards from where he stood. With an effort, Yukimaru dragged his gaze off the ground. The dissonance between the stillness of the air and the movement in the ground was disorientating.
A shift in the air alerted to the sudden appearance of his zanpakutō spirit behind him.
"You wish to go to him."
It wasn't phrased as a question, but he replied anyway for lack of anything better to do. "Of course!"
"Why?"
Yukimaru's head swivelled around, pinning his zanpakutō spirit with an incredulous look. Why? What kind of question was that? "He needs me!"
The figure's serene expression didn't change. "Does he?" Without giving Yukimaru the chance to retort, the spirit continued, "You just said it yourself. Save for Aizen, no one else is likely to pose any danger to Tsuzuki at this time of the night. And Shihōin Yoruichi is but a single room away from him. Does he really need your assistance?" Its gaze sharpened. "Or are you simply craving bloodshed, little Hollow?"
It took Yukimaru several moments to find his voice, and even longer to formulate a coherent response. "How dare you," he snarled. "I may have been a Hollow once, but that has nothing to do with –"
"Do you deny your heritage?"
"I have been many things," snapped back Yukimaru. "I have been a Hollow, then a zanpakutō spirit, then a Hollowfied spirit, and finally an Arrancar. This doesn't change who I am now."
"Ah, yes, an Arrancar. Tell me, former Arrancar, what was your aspect of death?"
Yukimaru's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, momentarily thrown by the question. "Defiance." His voice was quiet, but his chin was up, just daring the spirit to challenge him on that. He wasn't necessarily proud of the fact – an Arrancar's aspect of death was, after all, their main weakness and what usually got them killed – but it was a part of him, and to hell with anyone who dared to tell him that defying Aizen had been the wrong, the stupid move.
Did they think he didn't already know all that?
If he'd knelt for Aizen that day, the War would have been over long ago. The newly-born Arrancar had access to all of King's memories – starting with the locations of and the passwords to every single Resistance stronghold. He had no doubt Aizen would have been able to imprison King within his own mindscape, leaving him in charge of the physical body. It would have been horribly easy to pass off as the human teenager – moody and sullen wasn't hard to pull off – and to shred the wards protecting Urahara Shōten when Aizen came knocking. The wards had been designed to withstand traitors from the inside, of course, but King had helped to erect the wards in the first place with his massive reiatsu reserves, and was thus keyed into the foundations.
He could have been on the winning side of the War.
"And yet, knowing all of that, you challenged Aizen anyway." Eyes the hue of sunset pierced through him. "Drunk on your newfound freedom, engorged with your own self-importance, did you do it for the novelty of making a choice –"
Yukimaru's growl was very nearly subsonic, and the ground shivered with his rising reiatsu. "I would have thought my own zanpakutō spirit would have known me better than that." He couldn't quite hide the disappointment dripping from his words, though his tone remained acerbic. "I did it because it was the right thing to do!" Unbidden, an image of Karin and Yuzu on their first day of middle school floated to mind. It had been before the War had started in earnest, and their big brother had specially taken the time to see them off at the school gates. It was possibly the last time he had seen King smile. "There are some things in this world worth fighting for, worth dying for."
He breathed in, deeply. "Yes, I like fighting," he was mature enough to admit that, "but I'm not a Hollow anymore. I don't fight for the sake of causing mindless destruction. If you can't accept a former-Hollow for a wielder, then fine – I don't need you!" Better a soulless sword than a zanpakutō that didn't trust its owner, or worse, actively undermined its owner. One Quincy-Zangetsu was enough for one lifetime.
His zanpakutō spirit inclined its head regally, and for a moment the perpetual flames cloaking it grew too bright for him to keep his eyes on the enshrouded figure within.
"We will speak again."
When he looked up again, Yukimaru found himself standing alone once more. He blinked rapidly in bewilderment. What had all that been about?
It being only mid-February, Rukongai was still caught in the throes of winter. Sitting on a convenient fallen log, Yukimaru examined his only change of clothing critically. There was no helping it, he decided. He would have to venture back to town.
At least he didn't smell. The nearby stream, after he had successfully cracked the ice, made for a decent bath, a steady source of water, and some fish. He was even getting better at creating campfires with judicious applications of fire kidō on hapless twigs.
However, that begged the question – what could he use to trade for a new set of clothes? He owned literally nothing but the clothes on his back, and they weren't in the best condition after so many repeated washes.
Perhaps he would have more luck scouting out the town beforehand. Surely he could find something that he could do.
Yukimaru hopped off the log, pulled his clothes back on, and started the long trek back to civilisation.
He was a genius, he decided, peering out at the town from the relative safety atop a tree.
Firewood.
Each of the hamlets had a small bundle of firewood stacked neatly against one of the walls, visible through the window. He crept closer, peeking into each of the windows, trying to see if he could find which one his mother lived in.
He didn't meet with much luck, unfortunately, and it was already getting dark. He could probably spend the night gathering as much fallen branches as possible, and head back during daylight hours. Thus decided, he turned and was about to head back to the treeline, when a quiet scuffle caught his attention. Making a split-second decision, Yukimaru crouched and easily leapt onto the roof of the nearest hamlet, using the roofs as a shortcut to reach where the sound was coming from faster.
"Don't make me hurt you, woman."
His ears pricked and he scrambled sideways, slinking closer to the edge of the roof for a better view.
"You can't," a familiar voice replied coolly, and his heart did some sort of jittery flutter. His mother had a bag tucked under her arm, a burly man blocking her path. From the symbol sewn onto his clothes, he was probably a member of a gang. He didn't look too happy at the implied insult to his abilities. His mother frowned, ducking the clumsy punches thrown her way, but did not retaliate. Frustrated at his inability to hit her, the gang member charged. Without pausing, she shifted her position and stuck out a leg. He flailed as he tripped, hitting his head on the ground and letting out a yell of pain.
That seemed to be the signal the rest of the gang was waiting for, as several more menacing figures sauntered out into the deserted street. The biggest one, obviously the gang leader from his demeanour, sneered and stepped forward while the rest fanned out to surround his mother.
He had seen enough.
Yukimaru hopped off the roof into a side alley and came barrelling out before the gang leader could even open his mouth. "Hey!" he yelled. "What kind of cowards are you to gang up on a lady?"
For a moment the gang members stood, stunned at the direct challenge. From the corner of his eye, he could see his mother pursing her lips worriedly, but did not warn him to stay away, trusting the newcomer to know what he was doing. Yukimaru appreciated it. A district so high up, a person did not stay alive by interfering in fights they could not win, and she clearly knew that she was outnumbered.
Slowly, the gang leader turned to face him. At a slight gesture, the nearest two attacked. Yukimaru jumped over the first punch, using his momentum to kick the first one in the face and immediately ducking to avoid the second one from sneaking up on him. He effortlessly dispatched his other opponent, returning the gang leader's shrewd look with his own emotionless stare.
"Get her."
White-hot fury seared through him.
He was their opponent. Not her. Never her.
He blurred in front of the nearest gang member, sending the man flying several metres away. The remaining hesitated, but at a rallying cry from their leader, charged en masse at his mother.
Unacceptable.
Eliminate.
"Stop!"
For a moment, he could only stare blankly at the woman blocking his way, his palm quivering scant centimetres away from her throat. He had barely pulled the blow in time, his reflexes screaming at him.
Not a threat.
Yukimaru blinked dazedly, withdrawing his hand slowly. Only then did he register the bodies littering the street, hear the occasional pained groan. Finish the job, his instincts were telling him. Eliminate the threats before they hurt someone you care about. "Why did you stop me?"
His mother was watching him, wariness warring with worry in her eyes. Up close, he could see that King had indeed inherited his mother's eyes. "You were going to kill them."
"They were going to kill you," countered Yukimaru, confused. If someone punched you, you punch them back, and make sure they can't get back up to punch your friends when you weren't around. Wasn't that how things worked?
She shook her head, brown curls bouncing in the moonlight. "They were only after the food. My life was never in danger." Before you intervened went unsaid.
"But they wanted to hurt you!" He couldn't understand it. "Why did you protect them?"
"Because if somebody died because I did nothing, I don't think I'd be able to forgive myself for that." Her voice was soft, but resolute.
Yukimaru scratched at his head, casting a dubious look in her direction. Well, if she insisted. He gave the gangsters one last glance, dismissing them almost immediately. None of them would be getting up any time soon. Now, what had he been about to do?
Oh, yes, firewood.
He had barely taken five steps towards the treeline in the far distance when her voice stopped him again.
"Where are you going?"
Half-turning, Yukimaru jerked a thumb in the vague direction where he had spent the last fortnight. "I need to get back before it gets too dark to find my way." He could probably find a new place to sleep, since he hadn't left anything behind, but he liked where he'd stayed. It would be annoying to find another stream.
Even in the gloom, he could see her begin to frown. "I didn't know people lived in the forest."
He turned his attention to the trees in surprise. There were others living in the forest besides him? "I didn't know there were others," his reply was phrased in a questioning tone. "At least, I haven't seen anyone else in the last two weeks."
There was a pregnant pause, and then – "Are you telling me that you spent two weeks of winter alone in the forest?"
"Yes," he replied slowly. "I'm only in town today because I needed a new set of clothes –" he gestured to the worn and faded garments he was wearing "– and I came to see what other people needed, something that I could use to trade with."
His mother looked as if she was trying to stop herself from saying something, although Yukimaru couldn't fully understand the expression on her face. He'd have to ask Tsuzuki to parse it later. "Is something wrong?"
"I have a spare room," she declared apropos of nothing. "And I can make you a new set of clothes. In return, I need you to do some manual labour around the house."
Yukimaru opened his mouth, and then closed it again. This could all be an elaborate trap – but then, given what he knew of his mother, this generosity seemed to be par for the course for her. "I could gather firewood," he offered cautiously. "And I'm pretty good with heavy lifting."
Her eyes cut to the gangsters, some of whom had regained consciousness, and who were trying to slink away unobtrusively. "I've noticed." Turning her back on them, she started down a different path leading to a cluster of hamlets near the rice fields. "I live this way."
Humans, Yukimaru decided as he trotted obediently behind her, were weird.
Kurosaki Kiyoko, or Kiyoko-san as she had insisted he call her, was a weaver. She owned a modest plot of land in the fields, where she grew the fibres that she needed. It being winter, the fields didn't need tilling, though she had made it clear that come spring this would no longer be the case.
Yukimaru didn't mind. In addition to chopping firewood, he helped out with the general repairs of the hamlet. It helped that he didn't have trouble keeping his footing on the snow-covered roofs – what were slippery roofs compared to fighting for your life, knee-deep in rubble? – although he did have to use a ladder to keep up appearances after the first time he scaled up the wall and nearly gave Kiyoko a heart attack.
Seeing this, she began sending him to the other villagers when their homes needed repairs, and before he knew it, he had somehow turned into the village handyman. Tsuzuki had been very amused.
'I wish there was more to eat, though,' Yukimaru griped, laying out his futon beside the open window. 'Did you know that souls in Rukongai only need to eat once every few days?'
There was a thoughtful pause on the other end – or it could be that Tsuzuki had accidentally slipped out of Jinzen again, they were still ironing out the kinks of trying to communicate without actually entering their mindscape – 'Now I do,' his brother finally replied. 'How are you coping?'
'Kiyoko-san looked weird when she realised that I was still regularly going into the forest.'
It had been an interesting conversation, to say the least. He had lost track of time one day, and night had crept up on him before he realised how late it was. He flitted into as fast a shunpo as he dared with such limited visibility – Tsuzuki would no doubt laugh himself sick if he ran into a tree – and made it to town in record time.
"Where were you?" Kiyoko-san had asked the moment he set foot through the door.
Yukimaru glanced up sharply, momentarily stunned by her vehemence. He hesitated a moment, but the compulsion to be honest with his mother was too strong – damn Ichigo's morals – and he finally told her an abbreviated version of the truth. "I was looking for alternative sources of food in the forest." Mother or not, he wasn't about to tell her that he needed at least one meal a day to survive. Everyone in Rukongai knew what it meant when someone was hungry.
'It's not that I don't trust her,' he found himself explaining, needing someone to understand. 'If I'd told her, I know she'll insist on feeding me.' In a town this small, the additional groceries she would need to buy wouldn't go unnoticed for long.
'And neither of you need the kind of attention this would bring,' finished Tsuzuki quietly. 'The Konoe will only respond in two ways – either they'll demand you join their guard retinue, or they'll kill you.'
His mother had eyed him contemplatively. "Come back before dark," was all she said in the end. "It's not safe out there at night."
Yukimaru silently resolved to remember to bring his axe every time he entered the forest in the future, to make it look as if he was gathering firewood instead.
He could almost hear Tsuzuki nod thoughtfully. 'She's worried about you,' his brother explained.
'Worried?' Yukimaru couldn't understand why. Wasn't it clear that he could handle himself already?
'It's an irrational emotion humans feel when someone whom they care about does something that they consider dangerous.'
Yukimaru snorted. 'You totally repeated that verbatim from Kisuke-san.'
Instead of protesting as he'd expected, Tsuzuki sent back the mental equivalent of a shrug. 'He's far more eloquent than I am. I would have said something like, it's what people do when they like you. His version is a lot more helpful, and explains why none of us is worried about you spending weeks in the forest. What's the worst thing you can stumble into, a nest of Hollows?'
'I wonder if Hollows taste good barbequed?' mused Yukimaru. In response to Tsuzuki's slightly horrified silence, he retorted, 'What? I'm really sick of fish!'
'I – I'll think of something,' promised his brother. 'Let's leave that to a last resort, shall we?'
Winter melted slowly into spring, and gradually the days began to grow longer. When all the snow was finally gone, Kiyoko began showing him how to work the fields.
Yukimaru didn't mind the manual labour, because at least it was something to do. Not that he begrudged Tsuzuki his job; rather, had it been him he would probably have tried to murder half the clan within the week. King had far more patience and empathy than he did – seriously, he didn't even maim those idiotic brats that had burst into his room the other day, interrupting their conversation. People who waited until their target was asleep – or so they thought – to act couldn't have been up to any good. If it were up to him, he'd have given them a lot worse than a mere slap on the wrist, like maybe a little bit of maiming. If Suì-Fēng could fight with one arm, he was sure they could learn to do the same.
Well, King had been so startled by the intrusion that he had accidentally flared his reiatsu, and that had woken up Yoruichi. Those brats had probably gotten what they deserved, he supposed. That cat was vicious if her naptime was interrupted. Though, it was equally probable that she ended up punishing Tsuzuki, since it was his fault that she had awoken at all.
He snickered to himself, ignoring all the odd looks shot his way. Man, he was so glad he wasn't entangled in that mess.
A roar shook the forest.
Yukimaru nearly dropped the bundle in his arms, turning to gape at the treeline. Nearby, other farmers straightened up slowly from their own crops, and he could see a few pick up whatever blunt instrument they had at hand. The fields were located on the outskirts of town, and judging by the increasing sounds of crashing they could all hear, there wasn't enough time to escape.
Not that some of them didn't try, tearing down the dirt road back to town. Yukimaru shook his head. Stupid – it wasn't like there was a magical barrier protecting the town; whatever that the hunting party had enraged wouldn't be stopped by flimsy wooden constructs. All they would be doing was effectively inciting a panic.
He'd seen the hunting party go in earlier that day, a pack of dogs snapping at their heels, and had been looking forwards to what they could bring back. Vegetables were good and all, but he was seriously craving some meat here, one of the disadvantages of growing up with an abundance of food in the late twentieth century. Meat had always been in plentiful supply back in the future.
"Looks like we won't be getting deer tonight," he sighed woefully.
A nearby farmer snorted, hefting his pitchfork. "We should probably worry about not becoming bear food first."
"A bear."
The farmer squinted at him. "Yeah, big brown furry animal with claws?"
"I know what a bear is," Yukimaru snapped back.
To his surprise, the farmer gave him a nod of apology. "My apologies."
"For what?" he had to ask. Usually when he snapped at people, they yelled back at him, not apologised to him. And especially not one so senior to him, as this man clearly was.
"Well, someone as young as you usually only knows what a bear looks like because you died from being attacked by one."
Yukimaru paused. How did he know what a bear looked like?
The answer came easily, of course – Ichigo had once seen one in a zoo.
Ah, that explained a lot. Did they even have zoos in this time period?
Even saying that he had seen a picture from a book would be suspect. Apparently, most of the inhabitants – most of Rukongai in fact – were illiterate. Yukimaru was really thankful that Tsuzuki had imparted that piece of vital information before he accidentally outed himself with the fact that he could both read and write. Picture books were rare and expensive, only found in noble households. To say that he had read one would been tantamount to admitting he was a noble-born child. And wouldn't the Konoe have a field day with that titbit?
Man, he really missed the future.
Another roar thundered through the forest, and this time he could pick up the howling of dogs and the snapping of tree branches, even without channelling reiatsu to his ears to enhance his hearing. They must be close then. Yukimaru hefted his own hoe, testing the weight of it in his hand. It was such a pity he no longer had a zanpakutō strapped to his back – not that he needed one, necessarily, but displaying advanced hakuda skills was just begging for a trip to the Konoe's prisoner cells.
He really, really didn't want to live as a criminal on the run for the next century. Or worse, have to call upon the Shihōin to bail him out, and ruin all their careful planning.
So that meant… no advanced hakuda, no hōhō, no kidō, and no obvious zanjutsu – at least he didn't have to worry about this last one, Ichigo had never been taught zanjutsu to start with. There just hadn't been enough time during the War to instruct him in the proper stances that would normally take years to perfect. Yukimaru twirled the hoe in one hand, feeling the familiar maniacal grin tug at his lips. He did so love a challenge.
A flash of brown, barely visible through the thicket of trees, was all the warning he got before a blur burst out from the treeline, a wasteland of snapped branches trailing in its wake. Almost immediately, his hands shifted their grip on the handle before he consciously unclenched one hand. This wasn't a katana. He didn't need two hands to wield it. His left foot slid back a fraction, bracing the majority of his weight against the ground.
'Ne, Tsuki, any idea where the weaknesses are on a bear?'
Probably the eyes, if he could reach those. Few things – be they animals, humans, shinigami or Hollows – could handle the loss of an eye. He wondered if he could manage to take a paw off – no, too risky, he had to make it look like he'd gotten lucky.
Someone broke under the stress, screaming and charging at the bear. Small beady eyes zeroed in on the approaching threat, the bear changing directions to meet it head-on. Even he had to wince at the resultant wet squelch of shredded flesh and the screech of claws along bone. Civilians were so fragile.
'Do I want to know?' His brother's reply was part-exasperated, part-apprehensive.
'I'm going to kill one.' Yukimaru cocked his head, narrowing his eyes at the rampaging bear. It was pissed. He supposed that he couldn't really blame it – if some idiot intruded on his territory, he'd probably have reacted the same way.
Scratch that, this bear was intruding on his territory.
Tsuzuki had yet to reply, so it was going to have to be the eyes then. He doubted that this hoe, with its flimsy quality, could reach the less exposed parts anyway.
'Congratulations. You just managed to render Kisuke-san speechless for a record ten seconds.'
The snicker that Yukimaru involuntarily let escape was probably terrifying the other civilians, but what did he care about that? 'And what did he say?'
There was a slight pause, and then Kisuke's voice came smoothly over their mental connection. 'Setting aside the question of why you are facing a bear as of this moment, the eyes and the mouth when open are vulnerable parts.'
Yukimaru cocked his head. There was no way even Urahara Kisuke could find his reiatsu ribbon almost seventy districts into the Rukongai, which meant he had been piggybacking on King's connection to him. Huh. He didn't even know that was possible. Wasn't reiatsu unique to each person or something like that?
He shook his head, grip tightening on his makeshift weapon, eyes tracking the movements of the bear. Eyes and mouth. He could reach that. 'Ittekimasu.'
'Itterasshai,' Tsuzuki replied automatically, before squawking at him. 'What? Where're you going?'
Yukimaru ignored him in favour of bending his knees slightly. The bear was currently on a trajectory that would take it within lunging distance to him. He breathed in and out, slowly, focus narrowing down to the threat.
Incoming!
He dropped automatically and rolled out of the way, just as a pair of panicked oxen trampled through where he had been standing a moment ago. Yukimaru came up, cursing, foot slipping on the freshly tilled soil. Too late, he realised that his instinctive manoeuvre had brought him almost directly into the path of the bear, and he gritted his teeth, bracing himself for the impact.
Small beady locked on his figure, the bear giving a low enraged growl as it spotted him.
"Come and get me," Yukimaru whispered, twirling the hoe absently in both hands until they found a grip that they liked.
His brain stuttered out an alert, forcing him to side-step again just as a body crashed heavily into the ground next to him. The farmer from earlier, he vaguely recognised. Not a threat, analysed the small part of his brain not devoted to tracking the weak points on the bear. Protect.
Yukimaru crouched slightly, and then sprang.
His aim was true, and the hoe smashed into the bear's face, carving a bloody slash from brow to cheek. The bear howled in agony and fury, giant paws coming up to claw at the air, half-blinded by the blood streaming freely from one ruined eye. Yukimaru cursed again, abandoning the hoe and leaping backwards before they could make contact. With a final scream, the bear tore the hoe from its face, flinging it away. Keeping the enraged bear in his peripheral vision, he glanced wildly around for a substitute makeshift weapon. Barehanded combat was far too dangerous in this situation – slipping up and accidentally revealing his skills was not an option here.
There!
It took two long strides to reach the abandoned trowel, snatch it up, and swivel back around to face the bear. Yukimaru hefted it in one hand, considering. Not very sharp; he'd either have to use more force, or aim for blunt trauma. He spun it in one hand while the bear narrowed its beady little eyes on him again, dropping to all fours, absently tossing it up and catching it on the way down.
Wait a minute…
Yukimaru frowned considering. Yes, this could work. The trowel thudded back into his palm, and he curled his fingers over the handle, waiting. One foot pulled back, taking the majority of his weight, while his free arm came up, hand pointed straight at the bear.
The next time the bear opened its mouth to roar, Yukimaru stepped forwards, transferred all his weight to the foot in front and flung the trowel into its mouth like a javelin. At point-blank range with the jaws open wide, it was nearly impossible to miss, even with the trowel not being perfectly balanced for throwing. It slammed into the back of the bear's throat, causing the beast to rear back onto its hind legs for a moment, growl gurgling in its throat. With any luck, it would have caused some internal damage. He might have added a touch of reiatsu to that throw. Possibly. He actually had no idea whether or not his instincts had overridden his conscious mind in this case.
Circling cautiously around the screaming and flailing animal, he made a beeline for his abandoned hoe, spinning around with it in hand to meet the bear face-on. Yukimaru growled, nearly sub-sonic, and although it was much softer than the bear's own outraged yowls it was clear that his opponent had heard him by the way it reared back again, choking out a snarl in response to his challenge.
You won't hurt anyone again.
He sprinted forwards, ducking around a paw, using his momentum to bury the hoe into the bear's skull. The metal bit deep, the shocks running up his arms, and he had to fight the urge to channel reiatsu through the shaft. There was a dull 'crack', barely audible over the dying snarls of the beast, and he could feel something – likely the skull – give way. Yukimaru gritted his teeth, forcing the metal blade of the hoe even deeper into the bear's brain.
Come on, he screamed mentally. Just die already!
The bear didn't seem inclined to obey, and he finally had to dive out of the way when the wild flailing became too much to bear. He shook out his numb arms, eyes fixed on the animal thrashing a safe distance away. It was dying, he was sure of it, just very slowly. His hands twitched with the effort of keeping them still, of not putting it out of its misery, but any more and he would run the very real risk of blowing his entire cover. In fact, he wasn't sure if what he had done had already blown his cover.
He'd worry about that later.
The bear seemed to take an age to die, though realistically speaking it was probably only a few minutes. Yukimaru stood guard solemnly, watching the light fade out of the bear's remaining eye, as its thrashing and struggling slowed, and finally stopped.
The ground was splattered with bloodstains as though it was a scene right out of the Menos Forest. It wasn't his first kill, not by a long shot, but it was the first time in a long while that he had killed something that wasn't deliberately attacking him. Not since he had become embedded in Masaki and later on Ichigo, in fact. And as an Arrancar, his kills were quick. Clean. They were never this messy.
I am no longer a Hollow.
His hand balled into a fist, knuckles whitening.
Then the cheers started.
Yukimaru startled, for the first time noticing the gathered crowd. He scratched the back of his head slowly.
'Er, oops?'