Had a hard time writing this. I finally got it in a place that I was happy with, only to realize I completely forgot Tatsuki existed and was present in the previous scene. Had to rewrite it again. Oof. I'm still writing chapter six, so it may be a while. Thanks for all your patience!
-Deus Ex-
Orihime barely registered the recognition and understanding dawning in all eyes present. She was too entranced by the young man in the doorway: Ichigo himself. Showing up out of literal nowhere like it was just another normal day in Karakura Town. Orihime felt the weeks of concern melt away, half-formed plans of breaking into Soul Soul Society again tossed out the metaphorical window. Ichigo was here. She traced his movements as he slipped past Urahara and settled in the spot between Sado and herself.
She was afraid to move— afraid to breathe— afraid to blink— lest Ichigo disappear again the second she averted her gaze. To her right, Tatsuki tensed, ready to lash out and kick some sense into the new arrival. Uh Oh. There wasn't much Orihime could do when Tatsuki got that look on her face. Before Orihime could even think about stopping her friend from punching Ichigo's nose in, a black blur shot across the room. Rukia's foot was planted solidly in the center of Ichigo's face. She hung in the air for a second before momentum sent both of them crashing to the ground.
Ichigo flipped himself over, rising to a crouch and ready to retaliate. "You—! What the hell was that for!?"
"Idiot! I should be asking you that question!" Rukia took a swing at him. Ichigo dodged. She threw another punch, "You are the most stupidest person in the whole world! You got a lot of nerve just waltzing in here like nothing's wrong!" Rukia shouted, the loudness covering up the waves of emotion.
Ichigo caught Rukia's next hit, his fingers curling gently around her fist. "Alright! I'm sorry! Quit hitting me!" Something flickered behind his eyes. "I'm sorry." He repeated, softer.
Rukia skulked away, squeezing in beside Ishida. He moved a bit to accommodate her.
Orihime took a breath. "Are you okay, Kurosaki-kun?"
He sat back up, rubbing at a spot on his chin. "Yeah. Thanks, Ori— Inoue."
She could have fainted. Had... had he just almost called her by her first name? Heat flared in her face as she realized how casually she had been throwing around the name 'Ichigo' in these past weeks.
"Is something wrong?" Ichigo asked.
Stupid question. Of course something was wrong! Everything was wrong!
Orihime couldn't just jump into all of that right off the bat. She also couldn't keep her eyes off of him. "You look..." She wasn't quite sure where she was going with that sentence.
"Huh? I look just like I did before, right?"
He wasn't wrong. Ichigo looked the same as he did when she last saw him in the ruins of Wahrwelt.
And yet... The longer Orihime looked, the more differences she could see. He was hazy, almost, the edges of his form swirling in the periphery of her vision, coalescing into a solid shape when she tried to look directly at it. Every one of his movements were fluid and exact in a way that brought to mind high-end robotics. His eyes were lighter than before, not the acidic yellow of his hollow form, but a warmer gold glow that seemed to give away nothing. The very air around him seemed to shimmer like clear water.
It took a moment for her to realize the biggest difference: she couldn't feel him. The usual torrent of reiatsu that enveloped everything in his vicinity wasn't there. When Ichigo had been a powerless human, Orihime had at least been aware of his fragile, fractured presence. This was exactly the opposite. The empty feeling emanating from her friend wasn't shallow; it was a deep chasm open wide, a dizzying abyss that pulled things in and didn't let them go.
Ichigo sat with uncharacteristic patience and eerie stillness as the room's occupants raked their eyes over him, pinching themselves to ensure it wasn't a dream. Finally, he spoke. "You all remember everything, right?"
Seven heads nodded in solemn agreement.
"Good. It worked then."
"Ichigo," Isshin was hesitant, "what happened to you?" The question on everyone's mind.
Ichigo sighed, scratching his head and breaking eye contact. "A lot. I beat Yhwach and the Quincy army fell. I was really hoping to be able to just come back and live my life, but apparently the Royal Guard had other plans. They practically kidnapped me and I was completely stuck in the Royal Realm until a few minutes ago."
That explanation was... passable.
Ishida adjusted his glasses, "Well that accounts for your absence, it does nothing to explain all the other strange occurrences.
"He's right." Tatsuki said, "We all forgot about you, along with everything else that had to do with the spiritual world."
"And things are... different." Orihime spoke slowly, unsure, "Sora— my brother— he's alive. He was..." The sentence couldn't be finished.
Isshin took a deep breath and added, "Masaki, too."
The air was thick.
Ichigo did not look the least bit surprised "I tried my best."
"And what do you mean by that, Kurosaki-san?" Urahara's eyes narrowed, "What exactly did the Royal Guard do with you?"
Ichigo did not flinch away from the suspicion aimed at him. "The Soul King died by my hands. Yhwach tried to usurp him but I killed him too. And, well..." he gave a noncommittal shrug, "the world needs a foundation."
The sound of breaking glass echoed through the small room. Attention snapped to the shards of a shattered cup strewn across the table. Isshin's hands, now empty, trembled. The color drained from his face. "No. No, don't tell me... They couldn't have— they—" His voice was far away, eyes unseeing. "Shit... Those bastards! They actually— Ichigo... I—" Isshin came apart, a barrage of expletives falling from his lips. He slammed his hand into the table, slicing his palm on the glass fragments but not seeming to even notice. Orihime called her fairies to tend to it anyway.
"What in the world is happening!?" Ishida demanded, uncharacteristically worried by the sudden outburst. The rest of Orihime's friends' expressions mirrored the sentiment.
Still ominously undisturbed, Ichigo simply said, "They figured I was strong enough to handle it."
Kisuke's eyes widened in grotesque realization. His hoarse whisper sent a chill through the room. "They made you take his place."
There was no reaction from Ichigo, but everyone instinctively knew it was truth.
Something ancient and unknowable stirred behind his eyes.
Ichigo was the Soul King.
Urahara surged through the uncomfortable pause. "You're not actually here, are you, Kurosaki-san? Or I guess we should call you Kurosaki-sama?"
"Ugh. No. Don't even think about it." Ichigo cringed. "Not really, no. This is just kinda a projection thing I can do now. I'm still figuring all of this out. My body is locked up pretty tight in the Royal Palace.
Horror twisted Orihime's heart, squeezing the very life out of her. Defiant anger and denial pushed her to stand. "That's not fair! I saw you! I was there! You didn't mean to kill the Soul King, Yhwach made you do it!"
"I appreciate your concern for me, Inoue, but the specifics don't really matter." Ichigo offered her a rare, kind smile and she felt her chest flutter like a bird, bringing her back to the moment he had been taken away. "All that matters is that someone had to take his place to keep the world functioning."
"And you were the 'someone' they could find." Sado concluded.
Ichigo nodded. "I think they wanted me to just be a placeholder to keep things steady until they could construct a new one; each member of the Royal Guard holds pieces of the old Soul King in their blood or something, but they underestimated my power." He laughed humorlessly, "Everyone always does."
Isshin, finally composing himself again, gave a long, sad look from across the table. "You remade the entire world." There was almost pride in his words.
"Like I said, I did my best."
"You changed my hat." Urahara said, plucking the offensively bright object from his head and looking with mild wonder.
"That was because you're a jerk who's too determined for your own good." Ichigo leaned across the table and tried to grab it to no avail. Kisuke shoved it back on and leaned away. "Do you know how hard it was to make you give up on creating the hogyoku!? I had to make it literally impossible for you to stop trying."
Orihime stifled a laugh as she realized with complete clarity that her friend, now an all-powerful being able to form reality to his will, had expended his energy to basically play a practical joke on his former mentor.
"but... my hat..." Urahara sniffed.
"Oh forget about your hat! You—!" Ishida snapped, turning his livid focus on Ichigo. Orihime had never seen him so enraged, he looked about two seconds from firing as many arrows as he could into his former friend. "You made me forget about Quincies! How dare you! You took away my powers! Did you feel so slighted by me that you felt the need to strip away my heritage!? Or is this my punishment for joining the Sternritter?"
Apparently 'as many arrows as he could' was zero.
Ichigo waved a hand as if shooing away a bothersome fly. "Knock it off, Uryū. I didn't do it to spite you or anything. You of all people know I'm not the kind of guy to hold a grudge. Quincies just don't exist anymore."
"W-what!?" Ishida's ire faltered.
"It's not just you. Your parents are just normal humans— well, normal enough. They should still be able to see spirits and stuff." Ichigo looked to his own father, "Mom as well."
Isshin nodded. Orihime thought she caught a hint of relief in his expression
"It's just what happened when I removed Yhwach from existence." Indigo continued, as if the ability to un-make a person from all of time was no big deal. "He caused too much trouble. Aizen was easy enough to deal with; I just needed to make the hogyoku an impossibility and give him some actual friends. But Yhwach? He was— look, I don't actually know what the Soul King did to him but... there's no redemption for him. Believe me, I tried. I had no choice but to prevent him from being created in the first place. I got rid of him and all of the other pieces of the old Soul King scattered about just to be safe. No Yhwach, no Quincies." ex-Quincy Ishida still looked enraged and more than a little disturbed. Ichigo sighed, "Fine. If it bothers you that much..."
Without so much as a gesture on Ichigo's part, a blue and white bow materialized in Ishida's grip. "Wha— But—"
"There. You can fullbring your Quincy Star bracelet thing. It should be close enough. Happy now?"
Ishida sank back down to the floor. The bow was dismissed and wide blue eyes stared at the bracelet charm around his pale wrist. He glanced up with a frown. "Kurosaki, quit staring!"
"I was staring?"
"Practically boring a hole in my skull." Ishida grumbled without much heat.
Ichigo blinked, pointedly changing his focus to the table in front of him. "Well excuse me! It's been a while since I've actually had eyes."
Well.
That was a deeply disturbing notion thrown out way too casually.
"Ukitake-taichou!" Rukia exclaimed, as if the white-haired captain had suddenly appeared before her.
Ichigo's eyes went dark. "Oh. That. Sorry. Like I said, I, uh... removed all traces of the past Soul King, and unfortunately that was the thing tethering Ukitake to this world. Kaien makes a pretty good captain though, right?"
Rukia frowned, and Orihime could see her the grief heavy in her mind. Another trade off of this strange new world. Was it all worth it?
Silence took the room again.
Orihime couldn't figure out how to feel. All of this left her head spinning. Mere moments ago she was struggling to convince her friends that she wasn't crazy and thinking about ways to save Ichigo. Now her crush was sitting right next to her and also he has the ability to completely change the fabric of reality to his own whims. No big deal.
"What do we do now?" Orihime wasn't sure what she wanted the answer to be. It took all her effort to keep her voice steady.
Ichigo looked at her, and she felt like he could see her innermost thoughts with those unnaturally shimmering eyes. Mind-reading must have not been one of his abilities because he asked, "What do you mean?"
Or maybe he was just trying to hold up a facade of not being an omnipotent semi-deity.
"How do we fix this?"
Ichigo tensed, straightening, "I— I'm not sure there's anything to fix actually. I mean, I don't think there's anything you can do for me to—"
Tatsuki, who up until this point had been a statue by Orihime's side, slammed her palms down on the table and abruptly stood. A few teacups rattled from the abuse. Her fists were tight as she stood, glaring down at the floor. Something sparkled at the edges of her eyes, Orihime was in just the right angle to see the beginnings of tears on Tatsuki's furious expression. Her heart sank. Tatsuki hadn't actually cried since—
Without waiting another second, Tatsuki turned and sprinted out the door.
Orihime hesitated only for a moment, eyes flicking between Ichigo and the open doorway. With a mental apology aimed at abosulutely no one in particular, she chased after her friend.
Tatsuki hadn't gone far. Orihime found her just a block down the road, shaking with overwhelming emotion. Blood dripped from her knuckles, a smear of red across the concrete wall next to her.
"It's not fair." Tatsuki muttered under her breath.
"Tatsuki-chan?" Orihime approached slowly.
Without turning to see her friend's approach, Tatsuki continued, "How could he do that to all of us!? Just make us forget and then show up like everything's peachy." She punched the wall again and Orihime squeaked. "I thought— I thought I was past the point where I'd be surprised by spiritual stuff by now... I don't understand what's going on."
Orihime felt sympathetic tears well up in the corners of her eyes. After Aizen, she had spilled her guts to Tatsuki, told her all about hollows and shinigami and everything that had been going on. It was enough for the girl to understand, but nothing could truly convey Orihime's experiences. Her lip trembled. She had awoken her powers to save her friend, but those ties to the spiritual world had become a rift between them.
"Tatsuki-chan, I—"
"We'll... figure this out together, right?"
"O-of course!" Orihime couldn't stop herself from running over and hugging her friend.
Tatsuki laughed weakly. Orihime counted that hug maneuver a success.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I will be. Don't worry about me, Orihime."
"Do you want to talk or, have me heal your hand or something?"
Tatsuki looked down at her bloodied knuckles and shook her head. "It'll heal. Save your energy for when I beat up Ichigo for making you cry so much."
"But Tatsuki-chan! We're supposed to be helping Kurosaki-kun!"
"Yup. I'll help him right after I punch his face in." Tatsuki made a fist and flexed her arm.
A few minutes of playful banter and the light mood between them was reestablished.
"Thanks, Orihime." Tatsuki said softly, "I want to talk more, but I think I just need some sleep tonight."
"Okay. Want me to walk you home?"
Tatsuki shook her head again. "No, you should go back to the shop probably; see if there's anything you can do for that orange, scowling idiot."
The two said their goodbyes and Orihime watched Tatsuki's retreating form.
A rustle of cloth shifted behind her. Even without looking, she could guess who it was.
"Are you going to make me forget everything again?" She turned to lock eyes with Ichigo. He stood still in the slight breeze, expression hesitant.
He took a moment to think before answering quietly, "Not unless you want me to."
"Alright."
"Inoue... I'm sor—"
"Thank you, Kurosaki-kun" She interrupted.
Ichigo looked taken aback, "I'm sorry?"
"Thank you," Orihime repeated, "for bringing Sora back. I never got to say goodbye to him before."
"Ah... it was nothing really." Ichigo said, scratching the back of his neck and looking quite bashful.
Orihime didn't doubt it. Next to erasing a whole person from all of existence, preventing a little car crash seemed almost trivial. Probably. "Are you going to stay around?"
"I wish I could, but... they'll know if I do this too much, I think."
Oh. Of course. The awkward silence settled on them once again.
"Hey," Ichigo's voice pulled her out of her musings. "Can I ask a favor?"
"Anything." Her mouth worked faster than her brain. Oh gosh, did that make her seem desperate?
"I was wondering if you could hold on to something for me."
"Eh? That all? What is it?"
Ichigo took a moment to mull over his thoughts, "It's... hard to explain. It's something very important. Ehe Royal Guard might destroy it if I try to keep it, and I... I don't want that to happen. I'm not gonna lie, this is a big thing I'm asking of you, and I don't want you to feel pressured. But... I trust you."
Orihime furrowed her brows. That didn't make a lot of sense, but then again, nothing that had happened recently had made sense either. "I understand." She said with serious determination. "I'll take care of it." Whatever it was.
"Thanks." Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll figure out how to get it to you soon. For now, you should probably head home. This has been a crazy day for everyone."
Orihime nodded, nervous anticipation prickling her skin. Without much else in the way of pleasantries, Orihime turned and walked to her apartment. Ichigo's words echoed through her mind at every step.
I trust you.