Chapter 28
Ichigo stepped out of the gate and watched the hell butterfly flutter away. Calculating the time by the location of the sun, he decided his father would still be with patients so he would head to the shop first.
As he slid the door open he could catch the high-pitched voice of the children and the low murmur of Tessai berating them for one thing or another in the backyard. Urahara was lounging on the counter, striped hat hiding his face.
"Yo, buckethead. Wake up."
Urahara stretched and slipped his hat back to peer sleepily at him. Ichigo wasn't fooled; the man knew he was in the shop the moment he stepped in the door. He just liked theatrics.
"Aw, Kurosaki. What do I owe the pleasure?"
Ichigo crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "I need your help; one of your idiotic, brilliant plans."
Urahara swung around to sit up straight. Pulling his fan from nowhere, he hid the grin spreading across his face. "Sounds entertaining."
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Matsumoto was struggling through the paperwork that was left on her desk when Toshiro stormed back into the office. She nearly scattered all the papers on the floor when she caught sight of his expression.
"Uh, Captain?"
"Call muster. I want every one out on the courtyard in five minutes." He didn't even look in her direction; instead seemed intent on ripping every file down from the wall and stacking them on the floor.
"But we called muster-"
"I said call muster!" He half turned from the wall to glare in her direction. "So get out there and CALL MUSTER!"
Matsumoto's eyes got wide and her mouth dropped open in shock. "I- Yes, sir."
Toshiro sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. "I'm sorry. Look, just go out and call muster for my sanity's sake. Afterwards I'll explain." She nodded mutely, gave him a worried look and left the office.
After she left, he stared at the pile of files at his feet for several seconds. Taking a deep breath, he took as many as he could carry and transferred them to his desk. They were all the old patrol reports from the last eight months, and he was going to go through every one of them to make sure no other kidnapping had been mistaken as a KIA.
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The soul pager Toshiro had given Ichigo at the beginning of his Academy days lay in scattered pieces on Urahara's table. Ichigo's brow was creased as he tried to figure out what Urahara was doing to it.
"Are you sure you know what you are doing?"
He was given a short glare in response before the hat dipped back down. "Go away."
"What?"
"Go bug someone else. I'm working here. For you, I might add. So shoo." The last was reinforced with a swift swat with his fan to Ichigo's face causing him to fall backwards.
Ichigo's scowl deepened as he righted himself. "Fine. I got to go break the news to my crazy father anyway. If I don't come back, please come rescue me."
He could hear Urahara snort as he slipped out the door. Deciding to not risk bumping into anyone while he was invisible to them, he took to the electrical poles. In the short distance between the shop and his house he tried to figure out just how he was going to explain recent circumstances to his father.
Landing silently by the front door, he phased through and headed toward the office he knew his father would be in if he wasn't with a patient. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
Ichigo only had two seconds to react to the tornado of affection that called himself his father before he was tackled. Wriggling free he put the desk between the two of them, hoping his father wouldn't just vault the obstruction.
"My son! It's been forever! I'm so glad you came to see your loving father!"
"Why can't you be normal?" Ichigo asked in exasperation as he shook his head at the grown man jumping up and down.
"Aw, who wants to be normal?"
"Maybe me?" he asked, brows furrowed and venom lacing his words. Isshin stopped his dancing and stared at his son with approaching sobriety. "I would absolutely love to be normal. But I'm not am I? No. I'm a human and Shinigami, dead and alive, protector and destroyer. I have a monster that lives in my head, haunts my dreams and the worst part? He reflects the darkness that's really in me. He's not some demon that possesses me; he's a reflection of my own soul. And you want to know the really fucked up part? I very possibly passed that darkness on to my unborn child!"
Ichigo breathed heavily trying to regain some semblance of control over his emotions. That wasn't exactly how he had wanted to let Isshin know he was going to be a grandfather.
Isshin was shocked into silence for several seconds as the words tried to make sense. Finally he blinked, becoming serious Isshin for once, and asked, "So, you're going to be a father? I take it that is what has got you all worked up?'
Slumping against the wall in sudden exhaustion, Ichigo replied, "That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg."
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Nanao watched the Hell butterfly flutter in through the open window and hover over her snoozing captain. She sighed and held out a hand expecting the butterfly to deliver its message to her as second in command but was surprised when it continued its futile fluttering above the unresponsive Shunsui.
"Captain, wake up."
All she got in response was a snore. She knew she shouldn't have counted on him continuing his responsible streak from this morning. Especially if you combined his lazy nature with the warm day and full meal he just ate.
Sighing she stood from her desk and decided on her method of rousing Shunsui. It wasn't the smoothest method but most definitely the most effective.
As the cold water jerked Shunsui awake, he tried to get up from the couch but somehow tangled and ended up in a heap on the floor. Nanao fought back the giggles as she watched him blink in confusion at his new position.
"There is a Hell Butterfly for you and it wouldn't allow me to take the message," she informed him as she walked back to her desk.
Shunsui looked up from his position on the floor to see the tiny creature hovering over his head. "And you couldn't just say, 'Hey, Captain, there's a message for you'? You had to dump water on my head?" he reached a hand up to receive the butterfly.
Nanao shrugged as she moved a stack of paper to the 'done' pile at the end of her desk. "I tried that, you weren't listening so I had to try other methods." She looked up when she didn't get a sarcastic remark to that.
Shunsui had just released the butterfly and looked deep in thought. "There's an emergency captain's meeting."
Nanao's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "There hasn't been one since the end of the war."
Shunsui's lips pursed as he stared out the window the butterfly flew out of. "I know."
