Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/alerted the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Warnings: General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.
HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM
After another healing session the next day, Ichigo escaped from his room and tracked down Hanataro, who had been reinstated to his position with all charges dropped. The mousy young man seemed a bit intimidated by him, which saddened Ichigo a bit. He wasn't sure what rumors were going around, but they probably at least mentioned the whole bit about knocking out four captains in five minutes. He got a health update and a room number for Orihime and came in to find that Ishida was already there.
Ichigo stopped short in the doorway. The last time the three had been together…
He knew that eventually he would remember. One day his nightmares would go to the end, past ripping apart Ulquiorra, and he would watch himself stab one of his best friends.
It hadn't happened yet. It never would. He would learn to control the transformation. His instincts would never rule him again. Go forward.
"Kurosaki." Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose. "I'm glad to see you've pulled yourself together."
"I'm going to be hearing that joke a lot, aren't I?" he asked as he took the seat next to Ishida.
"Your… sword said that you had come back from the future."
"Yeah. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you got your powers back." Ishida's head jerked up and impossible hope flashed across his face. It almost made Ichigo feel bad about what he was going to say. Almost.
"The bad news is, you never told me how," he finished, smirking. Ishida looked at him in shock, then down at his clenched fist, eye twitching.
"Kurosaki…"
"Hey, it's not my fault! You decided to do your mysterious 'I'm a Quincy' thing, avoided us at school for a while, then suddenly show up at Urahara's better than ever."
"You're enjoying this!"
"Yeah, you were a jerk and it's come forward to bite you in the ass." He softened. "At least you know it's possible, right?"
"…yes." Ishida bowed his head.
"Inoue might be able to reject the damage if you can't figure out what you did the first time. She doesn't really heal like the shinigami do, and she could do some pretty weird stuff. It's worth a try."
"When she has her own powers again, you mean."
"…yeah." They sat in silence for a minute.
"Do they know how long it will be until she wakes up?"
"Hanataro thought a couple of more days, but said that there isn't any way to be sure. The old man said she would recover faster if she was around my reiatsu. I'll be here a lot."
"How long after that until we can go home?"
Ichigo didn't answer.
"Kurosaki?"
"… did you hear Aizen? He was threatening you."
Ishida snorted. "I'm not going to hide here just because the Shinigami kicked a couple of their captains out, Kurosaki. I think he'll have bigger problems."
"This isn't a little argument, Ishida! It's a war! He has people you won't stand a chance against even when you get your powers back, and he'll send them after all of you!" The Quincy just looked at him stubbornly. Ichigo sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
"Zangetsu-no-ossan said Orihime will heal better in Soul Society, and I know you won't leave her. Can you wait until school starts? This will be over by then."
"Why do you think that?"
Ichigo bowed his head, letting his new hair growth shadow his eyes. "I'm going to make sure of it." Zangetsu, both of them, was right. There was no point in hiding his intentions. His human friends couldn't accompany him, and the shinigami couldn't see past Aizen's illusions and probably wouldn't want to join him anyway.
"WHAT?"
Ichigo met his eyes, letting his resolve show. "He doesn't threaten my people. Not now that I can stop him. He dies. I'm going after him as soon as I've healed and learned to fight blind."
Ishida stared at him in shock. This was not the boy he knew, the boy he (reluctantly, and only in his own mind) called friend. That boy would never cold-bloodedly plan to hunt a man down. What had happened to him?
"Why, Kurosaki? If the shinigami have a civil war starting, let them fight it! Three days ago we were fighting everyone here! Why are you the one defending Soul Society! How did this become a grudge match between the two of you?"
Unohana and Ukitake, who had come looking for Ichigo, stopped suddenly in the doorway, with Mayuri nearly colliding with their backs. Out of the mouths of babes… They had questioned his loyalties, they had questioned his powers, they had questioned his information, but they had not wondered why he was fighting their enemy. In the fresh shock of the betrayal, it seemed natural that everyone would hate Aizen- but a human teenager whose only strong tie to Soul Society had been a shinigami they were trying to execute? Both teens were sitting faced away from the door and didn't notice their reiatsu signatures in the heat of their discussion as Ukitake motioned for the other two to back away from the entrance.
"He's not going after Soul Society," Ichigo answered quietly. "He's going after Karakura."
Ishida looked at him, eyes wide. "W- why?"
"There's a guy called the Spirit King. I don't know much about him other than that Aizen wants to overthrow him and that he lives in a separate dimension. The only way to get to the dimension is by using something called the King's Key, and only Gramps… Yamamoto-soutaicho… knows where it is. But Aizen knows how to make a replacement. It needs living souls. A lot of them, and a piece of land with a lot of spirit energy." He had been staring at the floor between his chair and Orihime's bed, but now he looked up and returned Ishida's gaze. "Before the rock brought us back, we were fighting on an open area near the west side of town, and a lot of people had gone down trying to stop him from getting that far."
"Oh."
Ichigo nodded.
"Gin has informed us of Aizen's intentions, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake said, entering the room at last, "but thank you for confirming his story. He said that the Aizen had not given him the intended target."
"Ukitake-san!"
"You know him, Kurosaki?"
"I am Ukitake Jushiro, captain of the thirteenth division. Kuchiki Rukia is one of my subordinates. Thank you for your efforts on her behalf, Ishida-san." Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose again and looked away, uncomfortable with gratitude from a shinigami captain. Especially one with a reiatsu as mature as that of the man standing before him; despite his deceptively young-looking face, Ishida knew there was an excellent chance that he had been a leader in the near-complete eradication of the Quincy race two hundred years ago. Ukitake then looked at Ichigo. "And, though we have not met formally, you appear to know me already, Kurosaki Ichigo. Thank you for guarding us against the dragon."
Ichigo shrugged, saying "No problem. Sorry about knocking you out and all. Is Kyoraku all right?"
Ukitake blinked at the casual dismissal of the full-on attack of Soul Society's most powerful zanpakuto, but answered in the affirmative, and then asked "Have you seen Yamamoto-soutaicho's bankai before, Kurosaki-san?" Ichigo shook his head.
"Ah. Good. He has not brought it out on the battlefield for centuries; he cannot, unless he is willing to sacrifice anyone on his side who cannot withstand his spirit pressure. It is comforting to know that things had not gotten that far."
"Um… it had."
Ukitake frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Now that I've seen the dragon, I think I know why he didn't use it. He'd had a long time to plan for the battle. I think he knew that if he used his bankai, Aizen would have done what he did a couple of days ago, and he'd just have been attacking the rest of you. You should've seen what he did instead." Ichigo shook his head, remembering the astounding courage and determination the old man had shown; planning to be stabbed through the stomach and immolate himself and his enemy and everyone around him… he'd have to let them know about the little retarded Arrancar and what his ability had been.
"Actually, that is a perfect lead-in to a request we have to make of you, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake began, gesturing Mayuri and Unohana into the room. Ichigo looked from Ishida, who was glaring at the clown-faced captain in hatred, to Mayuri, who was returning the glare with interest, and carefully moved to break their lines of sight, facing Mayuri. The warning was clear.
"Have you ever used a memory projector?" Ichigo shook his head. "Are you familiar with the kikanshinki, the memory modifiers that are standard issue for shinigami in the real world? Well, one of the Research and Development Institute's modifications of the technique allows the memory that is called up to be projected, rather than altered. The clarity of the projection depends on the user's reiatsu, however. Most shinigami would only be able to produce a faint mist. You should be able to project considerably more, if you are willing to use it. It would greatly help our understanding of the war you have lived through if we were able to see the events with our own eyes."
"Sure, that sounds…"
"Would it modify his memories in any way?" Ishida interrupted, standing up and coming around Ichigo.
"It is perfectly safe! Only the first test subjects went insane!" Mayuri snapped, glaring at the Quincy.
Ichigo blinked. "Um…"
Ukitake coughed lightly. "The technology was developed decades ago, and only the components that allow the retrieval of a memory are the same as the ones in the memory modifiers. The user keeps the full memory of the events. Ichimaru Gin has already taken possession of a projector in order to provide information on Aizen's activities in Soul Society, and has used it without any ill effects. If you agree, in fact, one of the first memories we will ask you to show us are the actions you described to him on Sokyoku Hill. Aside from his deception of everyone with regards to his sword and his abrupt desertion of Aizen, it is the only evidence that we have that shows he entered Aizen's service with intent to betray him."
Although Ichigo wasn't sure that Gin's mental stability was the best indicator that the device was safe, he trusted Ukitake. "OK."
"Thank you, Kurosaki-san. If your spirit pressure is recovered, we can begin immediately."
Ichigo took stock of his reiatsu levels and compared them with what he remembered from his trip through the Garganta with Unohana, three months ago in his own personal reckoning. "I'm at about half, I think. Will that be enough?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Kurosaki-san. Kotetsu-fukataicho informed me that she restored your reiatsu before continuing the healing on your stomach, and we can all feel you," Unohana chided, her gentle smile fading a bit. Ichigo avoided her gaze, slightly embarrassed.
"That's… a common mistake, yeah. She'd helped me up from almost zero, and she was still going to work on my stomach. She seemed tired. When she stopped I didn't want to ask her to keep going." And, like Hanataro, she'd seemed kind of intimidated by him. He didn't know if it was because of the battle with Aizen, which Isane would only have heard about, or because of him knocking her out right after rescuing Rukia.
Smile now completely gone, Unohana stepped forward and placed her middle three fingers on Ichigo's temple. She began the kido to restore reiatsu, which was normally the first step in a healing but which had of necessity been left until almost last in Ichigo's case. Her eyes widened as she felt it take hold, indicating that her patient's reiatsu was significantly lower than his norm. He had been at a captain's level already…
"I can feel traces of my reiatsu within yours, Kurosaki-san, and they match to the same kido I am performing now. Have I restored your reiatsu before?"
"Yeah, three months ago. My reserves were at about this level then, too. I can let you know when to stop."
A few minutes later, Ichigo sighed as he felt his power get up to where it had been the last time Unohana restored it. "Thank you, Unohana-san." When he tried to move away, however, she did not let him, keeping her fingers connected to his temple.
"The kido is not finished, Kurosaki-san."
"I'm at full strength- it's fine."
"Indulge me." There was a hint of that voice in the two short words, and Ichigo shut up. His eyes widened as he felt his power continue to grow. Finally, she took her fingers off his temple, her face as serene and placid as ever.
"Thanks," he said, still slightly shaken. Ukitake raised his eyebrows at Unohana. She held up three fingers, and Ukitake almost went into a coughing fit.
They had thought the young man's strength three days ago had come from his fusion with his sword and hollow. It was becoming apparent that he was an extraordinarily powerful shinigami in his own right. If he had three times the spirit pressure of the average captain, perhaps it wasn't so surprising that he had become their trump card in the war that hadn't happened yet.
Unohana's thoughts went down a different path. She could trust that her future self would not have made the mistake that her vice-captain had. She would never stop a healing kido in the middle merely because the patient's reiatsu was at the level she expected. Which meant that, the last time she had healed him, Kurosaki truly only (only!) had twice a captain's spirit pressure.
His power had increased by fifty percent in three months.
She was suddenly very, very glad that the Seireitei had decided to allow the young man's assumption of friendship.
"Yes, well, if he's recovered from your vice-captain's incompetence, let's get this over with," Mayuri said. He had not seen the brief exchange between the old friends, and was impatient to get back to his laboratory. He pulled a box from his inner robe and uncovered the contents, a small crystal hovering within a glowing sphere. "This is a projection stone. It is one of my greatest discoveries! It is a crystalline form of sekkiseki, grown under high temperature and pressure in a solution that is completely free of spirit particles. Instead of nullifying spirit particles, they will absorb them and expel them in a form we can see. Each crystal takes months to grow, and if they encounter any spirit particles before they are used they will be useless as projectors. Feeble minds such as yours have no conception of the amount of care and effort it takes to produce these stones!"
"So what do I have to do?" Maybe he should start comparing Mayuri to Urahara to his face again, just to annoy him. Bastard.
"Just place your hand on the containment field and insert as much reiatsu as you can. When the stone has absorbed it, it will be attuned to your spirit pressure and only you will be able to use it."
"It looks delicate," Ishida said with a smirk, "and Kurosaki is clumsy. Are you sure your stone can survive him?"
"Hey!"
"Cannonball."
"That was months ago!"
"It was days ago, Kurosaki."
"The crystal is as resilient as any other form of sekkiseki," Mayuri sneered at Ishida, giving the box to Ichigo. "There is no way he can harm it."
Ichigo gathered his power as though he were going to cast a Getsuga Tensho, letting it flow into his hand as though he was holding his sword. He put his hand on the containment field around the stone and released his reiatsu into the field.
The stone exploded.
They all stared at his hands, with the containment field now holding only a cloud of dust and shards of rock, in complete shock. Finally Mayuri sputtered, "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COST?"
"I told you so."
"But you said…"
"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD THE REIATSU CONTROL OF A DRUNKEN MONKEY!"
"I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU TOLD ME TO!"
"Sorry, did you think I was worried about him dropping it?"
"YOU INCOMPETENT-" Mayuri looked as though he was about to release his sword and poison both human boys before Unohana intervened.
"Please, Mayuri-taicho, do you have any failed crystals? Ones that he can use to practice on before trying again?"
Mayuri let himself be calmed, though he was still breathing heavily and glaring at Ichigo and Ishida. "Yes. If a leak occurs in the containment field and reishi enters, the crystals can still be used to focus spiritual power. We keep them as replacements for parts on the Kido Cannon. We have plenty, because of how rare it is to get a perfect crystal."
"Well, if there was a chance I could destroy it, why didn't you just do that in the first place-" Ichigo snapped back, before Ukitake stepped in.
"Thank you both for your cooperation. Mayuri, why don't I go back to the RDI with you to pick up a few practice crystals for Kurosaki-san so you don't have to come back here?" Ukitake herded the clown-faced captain out of the door, stopping to look back over his shoulder. "Kurosaki-san, will you be here?"
"It's just Ichigo, Ukitake-san. And, yeah, I'll be here." The white-haired man nodded and the two left, leaving only Unohana, the two boys, and the unconscious Orihime in the room.
"Actually, Kurosaki-san, your stomach is not fully healed. You should not be sitting for much longer; you will need to go back to bed soon."
"Zangetsu-no-ossan said Orihime would heal faster if she were around my reiatsu. I'll stay here."
Unohana considered pushing the issue, but saw how guilty he looked when staring at the girl, and decided to compromise. "Perhaps if we moved a second bed in here?"
"Can it be a bunk bed?" Ishida was staying in the fourth division barracks, and was more than a little uncomfortable even with the generally pleasant men and women of the Fourth.
"If you would like, as long as Kurosaki-san is not in the top bunk." She moved to the door to find an unseated officer to make the arrangements, only to be stopped by Ichigo.
"Unohana-san. You woke me up and fixed my reiatsu. Why can't you do that for Inoue?"
Her heart faltered at the pleading expression on the young man's face. "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-san. When there is no physical cause for an extended period of unconsciousness, it is almost always better to allow the patient to recover naturally. If your companions had not insisted that you had to be conscious for you to merge together again, I would not have woken you." She hesitated, hating what she was going to say next.
"And the difficulty with restoring her power is that the connections within her body and her soul are injured. When you split your soul, she was not directing the power. It was forced from her. The pathways her power travels through are… bruised, I suppose you could say. That is something that has to heal on its own. By the time they are healed, her reiatsu will have long since recovered without our help."
Ichigo nodded and bowed his head, letting his hair cover his eyes again. The two boys sat together for a few minutes after Unohana left, both thinking similar thoughts. Finally, Ishida broke the silence.
"She'll be glad you did what you did. Even if she'd lost her powers forever, she would have been glad if it saved your life."
"I know. She's too self-sacrificing. It doesn't mean it should have happened."
Ishida stared at him. "Moron."
"Huh?"
"Never mind." Maybe she got over him? At least Ishida had a chance…
Ichigo blinked at him, confused, and then shrugged it off. "I need to talk to Zangetsu. Let me go grab my sword." He left and went back to his old room, then returned with his zanpakuto. His mask had decided to dematerialize sometime in the night- probably a good thing, really, since carrying a hollow mask around the healing division would have freaked quite a few people out. Ishida watched with interest as he sat in the meditative pose for Jinzen and dropped into his inner world.
Ichigo looked around him, noting with relief that the city was back and it was bright and sunny rather than flooded. He wasn't despairing anymore. He had stopped standing still.
"Ichigo."
He turned around, seeing Zangetsu-no-ossan, complete with sunglasses, on top of a flagpole.
"Hey, ossan. My power is weird- I wanted to see if you knew why. There's more of it. Is it because the hollow's back?"
"I was always here, King," Ichigo raised his head to see his pale doppelganger grinning at him from the skyscraper above him. With a jump and a flip, he was behind Ichigo, forcing him to turn and back up slightly to keep both spirits in sight.
"You just couldn't hear me," he continued. "I was, and always will be, in the depths of your soul. Accept that."
Ichigo tightened his lips. "I have."
"Then why ask stupid questions?"
"So what's up with our power, then?"
"That was another one. It's gotten bigger, idiot."
Ichigo wondered if his sword could still hurt the hollow. Probably not. "How?"
"You spent three months fighting with us in the Precipice World, and then fighting Aizen. What did you expect?"
"That makes no sense. Spirit pressure doesn't grow like that."
"A shinigami's will not, Ichigo. Weren't you listening when I told you why Aizen will attack your body?" his sword asked.
"Um, no. Sorry."
"Do you remember the hollow that was chasing Chad's parakeet, Ichigo? What happened to it?"
"It went to hell. What does that have to do with our power?"
"Why did it go to hell, and not Ulquiorra or any of the other hollows you have killed?"
"It was a serial killer, right? When it was alive?"
"Indeed." The zanpakuto spirit clearly thought he had made his point. Ichigo just stared at him, still confused.
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Living souls can change," the hollow snapped. "Nothing a soul does after death will alter its power or eventual destination. A hollow can devour a thousand souls and will still go to Soul Society if it's killed by a zanpakuto. Most plus souls will never become shinigami. Less than one shinigami in a thousand has the potential to become a captain. No amount of training will change that. Once a shinigami reaches the limits of how far their power can take them in Zanjutsu, Kido, Hakudo, and Hoho, they're finished unless they undergo hollowification to add to their power. Or use the Hogyoku, like Aizen. Him beating those limits is what this entire war is about, moron."
"So our power got bigger because… I'm still alive?"
"Took you long enough."
"Human souls have limitless potential, Ichigo. Most will never be able to take advantage of it simply because they do not have enough power to survive the sorts of trials that will make them stronger. Because of your parentage, you had enough of a head start that you were able to live through your initial challenges. Every victory you won, every time you lost and choose to fight again, every time you were beaten down and demanded more of yourself so that you could rise up and continue, your soul responded and your power increased. You will not stop growing unless you stand still. Despair, and this city will drown."
"When will it stop?"
"When you die."
Ichigo thought about that. That was kind of scary, really… he already affected the reiatsu of the humans around him. Who were also changeable, obviously. How much higher could he go?
And, wait- what counted as death? "My soul chain is completely eroded. It's how he was born," he pointed out, gesturing at the hollow.
"But your body did not die. Urahara made sure that you returned to it each night after you recovered from the Encroachment, and that you stayed in it for a week before coming to Soul Society to rescue Rukia. It is your body, not a gigai. Your soul reattached to it and has been regrowing your chain. It is very short right now, but it would be there if you died. Your near-death experience was simply longer and more traumatic than most."
"Huh."
That was kind of comforting, actually. It was nice to know he wasn't technically dead. Not that he hadn't been willing to die to save Rukia, but still.
"OK. What now? I can stay until Ukitake comes, but Unohana's ordered me into bed, so I'm not going to be able to come back soon."
"The pose for Jinzen is merely to get into the correct state of mind, Ichigo. It is not necessary. Come as often as you can so that we can train."
"Oh… your blindfold was gone when I woke up."
"You know how to call it back, Ichigo." He did? He looked at the hollow, the spirit of his mask, who rolled his eyes. Right. He did.
Moving his hand across his eyes in the usual gesture did nothing, though.
"The other hand, Ichigo." Naturally. His sword was always in his right hand. He pulled, and his vision went dark. He lifted the visor off his face, and it dissolved like his mask usually did when he removed it. He saw Zangetsu-no-ossan's bare face for a brief second before the sunglasses were back in their normal place and form.
"Cool."
"Take it back, and focus." Ichigo did, and listened to the slight sound of footsteps in the darkness around him. "Feel the spirit pressure. Find where we are, and find our movements. Our power is more concentrated in our bodies than outside of it. Your must be aware enough to sense the difference."
Ichigo extended his senses. He had been able to find his friends for a long time, but had never tried sensing his own power. Zangetsu-no-ossan was a calm, heavy presence standing off to his left, still close to the flagpole. The hollow's chaotic reiatsu was now behind him and to his right, and Ichigo turned to focus on him, not really trusting the strange détente they seemed to have going. Suddenly, he felt a sharp tingling through his back as a white-ribboned cleaver pierced through his kidneys and out his stomach.
"Do not take your senses off your enemy!"
Ichigo shuddered as he placed a hand on Zangetsu-no-ossan's sword sticking out of his body. That was a weird feeling. With the other, he pulled his own, identical cleaver off of his back, while his grip on the zanpakuto's blade prevented the older man from simply taking it out of his body. Rather than struggle with him for it, Zangetsu-no ossan moved to a new location to make Ichigo continue to search for him.
"That's pretty hilarious to watch, you know. How long are you going to leave it there, King?" the hollow said. Ichigo couldn't see him, and didn't have anywhere near the level of senses it would take to feel a facial expression through his reiatsu, but he could hear the smirk in the hollow's voice and vowed to wipe it off his face before the training was over.
"Like the old guy said…" and suddenly, in a movement too fast for the older man behind him to react to, Ichigo turned, flash-stepped forward, and pierced the spirit of his sword through the stomach in return, "…there is no way I can mistake the reiatsu of the sword through my stomach!"
He jumped away, leaving his original blade in Zangetsu-no-ossan and pulling the other out through his body. He held it raised in a guarding position with his head bowed, feeling the other two men. He could tell where they were, but they were just blobs of more concentrated power in the general swirling of spirit pressure. He couldn't tell what bits of the blobs were hands and which were swords.
"Cute, but you're not gonna be able to do that with Aizen," the hollow grinned, walking around him. Ichigo moved to keep both of them in front of him. He focused harder, trying to find the skin, the barrier where the power shifted from the ordered energy needed for the functioning of the spiritual body to the chaotic spirit pressure that leaked in waves from all three of them. He could feel something strange, something connecting him to them…
"What are these?" He touched what felt like a rope stretching from him to Zangetsu-no-ossan, and felt the bizarre sensation of diving into an electric current that flowed in both directions. He instantly lost his reiatsu sense as his entire consciousness was buffeted by sheer power, some flowing from his sword to him, some flowing from him to his sword. He dropped it with a hiss.
"The spirit ribbons that represent your shinigami and hollow powers. Do not focus on them. They can help you find our location, but they will not help you sense our movements in a fight."
Ichigo shook his head, trying to recover from the shock and return to the fight. He concentrated again, just in time, as the hollow-blob moved forward, and-
'There!'
He felt the blob extend a pseudopod that had to be his sword, and barely got his own sword up in time to block. He met the first strike, and could feel the trajectory of the second before he lost his focus and put his sword into position blind to meet the blow. He leapt backwards to try to buy time to get his senses back…
And fell off the side of the skyscraper.
The hollow started laughing as Ichigo dropped several body lengths before managing to solidify the air underneath him. He pulled the visor off and glared at the pale boy, who was leaning over the side and grinning down at him.
"Do it like that. Just like that. Every time." Ichigo extended a single finger at the boy who had herded him off of a building, and jumped back up to stand a few feet away from him.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked in frustration. The hollow had been annoying the entire time, but not hostile. The last time they'd fought, they'd been trying to kill each other, and now he was playing pranks?
"Can't live with you, can't stab you anymore. I've gotta do something to keep myself entertained."
"That's not…" Ichigo looked for words to explain his exasperation, and finally just turned to Zangetsu-no-ossan. "He's a jerk, but he's helping. Why?"
"He wishes for us to return to our final form. We will not do so until you are ready to leave. Helping you train facilitates that."
"Oh." Ichigo turned his gaze back to the hollow. "I'm going to separate us again, you know."
"D'you think you'll be able to?" his double asked, his grin faded and his voice serious. "The princess couldn't affect us on her own. Us using the Shun Shun Rikka again might kill her. You gonna risk it?"
"I'll stand in front of the Sokyoku itself if I have to." If it needed the power of a million zanpakutos…
"I'll take that chance, partner. We won't want to, in the end." Ichigo was worried that he might be right. He remembered the feeling of complete, utter confidence he had had when fighting Aizen, before they had come back in time to a body with a fatal wound. There had been nothing and no one, not even Aizen with the Hogyoku, who had been able to compare with him. It had been fantastic. It might be worth living an existence alone, just to be whole. The hollow continued, "The buildings, you can sense because they've got no reiatsu of their own. It'll get harder when we're on dirt, 'cause of plant roots and worms and stuff."
Ichigo managed to extend his reiatsu senses again, and felt under his feet where the spirit pressure stopped. He felt off to his side, and sensed the edge of the skyscraper. He nodded, and tried to call the visor again, but it didn't come.
"Enough," Zangetsu-no-ossan said. "Ukitake has come back, and the sooner you have given them the information you have decided on, the sooner we are free to leave." Ichigo nodded again, and began to reach his consciousness outwards.
"And, Ichigo- a Getsuga Tensho was not the best method for attempting to infuse the stone with your reiatsu. Use the kido shortcut your cousin taught you."
Ichigo's eyes opened wide in the outer world.
"Cousin?"
HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM
Really long authors note (feel free to skip to the question and teaser at the end):
Feel the Force, Ichigo.
You have no idea how tempted I am to have Urahara make a tiny levitating ball that shoots kido bolts.
This chapter had a lot of exposition and explanations, so I shoved in a tiny fight scene so it wasn't too boring. I hope it worked. The memory projectors are, obviously, a convenient plot device (and hopefully the only thing I will put in that can qualify as such), but I tried to make it so that they could have existed in the canonverse and we just didn't see them. They are a modification of the existing memory technology, and are A) expensive, B) hard to make, C) hard to use, and D) only usable by one person, ever. I have them envisioned as Mayuri's pet project; many longstanding research labs have a project that just won't die because the research advisor thinks it would be so damn cool if you could get it to work on a practical scale, and it keeps getting funded because of that. Mayuri is the only one that thinks the stones are one of his greatest discoveries. However, they will only project true memories, and so they have a very limited utility where a captain-class shinigami who cannot be trusted to give a completely accurate report has critical information. The user of the projector can lie by omission, but cannot falsify the memories he does show.
This chapter presented a possible explanation for the whole Determinator thing Ichigo has going on; in all of the fights where he is beaten up, gets up again, and wins, he isn't getting up because he's got more power, he's got more power because he's getting up. I will be elaborating on the possible effects of his humanity in future chapters, but hopefully never as much at one time as I did in this one; I'm going for less exposition and more action. I'm hand-waving away the whole soul-chain-being-cut thing, which is never addressed in the series. Everyone including the all-knowing enemy treats Ichigo as though he's still human, so I'm doing the same.
I clearly think way too much about the inconsistencies in the Bleachverse, because I have an explanation about Ukitake's illness (i.e., why a dead guy is afflicted by a curable disease) that I am considering putting into this story somewhere in chapter 6 or 7. However, I don't want to make the human kids seem too smart. All three are good students, and Ichigo and Ishida come from medical families, but I don't want to assume that they would have more than common medical knowledge and I'm not sure what that would be for a teenager. So,to determine whether that scene should be written or not, I am requesting that some of the high school students reading this either answer the following yes/no questions in a review to the chapter, or fill out the poll on my profile.
Questions:
Did you know without looking at Wikipedia that there is a cure for tuberculosis?
Did you know it is a bacterial infection?
Did you know that antibiotics kill bacteria?
Do you want a scene focusing on Ukitake's illness in this story? (Anyone can answer that one.)
Thank you in advance to anyone who responds.
Happy Thanksgiving to any American readers who made it this far. (I hope the rest of you have a good week too, of course.) I will try to update next Saturday morning, but I will be visiting family over the holiday and cannot guarantee that I will have time to get on the internet. If you don't see the next chapter on Saturday, expect it on Sunday evening when I get home.
The teaser:
Ishida stared at the image in front of him, wide-eyed, before it blinked out.
"Kurosaki, what was that?"
Ichigo was breathing hard, trying not to be sick. "I- I don't remember what happened there. When I woke up, my sword was in your stomach." He raised the projector. "Will you guys watch it with me?"