Ichigo wonders, more often than not, why it is that even though he can see ghosts, he never sees the ones he wants to. His mother, and now his friends from Chaldea. He can't see them anymore. The singularities are gone, and humanity has returned to the way it always was. But it's missing so many people, from his own point of view. Olga Marie isn't bound to him anymore. She's moved on. And the rest…
Ichigo sits in front of his mother's grave with his dad at his side. Karin and Yuzu have gone for drinks, leaving them alone for the time being. Rukia, and Kon too, sit on a hill, watching over them and waiting for trouble. He doesn't want to admit it. He's carried the guilt in his heart for so long, but now… it's possible that Rukia is right. That the reason his mother is dead is because…
"Hey, old man," Ichigo looks towards his dad, who's been acting weird since he's come back. More than once he's caught him just staring. Like he's trying to figure out what changed his kid so much. As if they were ever that close in the first place. Ichigo let's him. There's no way for him to understand what's changed Ichigo into the person he is now. It's not something that can be easily explained, and in any case the Mage's Association was pretty clear. No one is supposed to know that magic exists. Including his own family. Anyone who finds out must be killed.
"Yeah?" Isshin looks his way, away from the grave that reads his mother's name.
"About mom. Could she ever see ghosts, do you know?" he looked right at him. Testing Isshin, watching his eyes. He'd never noticed before…
That his dad was hiding behind a dozen walls. And they all started to come up when Ichigo asked his question. Ichigo has spent years with master assassins and traitorous knights. He can see clearly now, for the first time ever. His dad isn't such a colossal goof off after all.
"Why are you asking this all of a sudden?" he asks and it hurts . It hurts more than Ichigo thought, to know that he was keeping this secret for so long. To know that he could have told him, that both of them could have told him when he was young and he couldn't tell who was alive and who was dead, that he wasn't alone in it. Karin had always had him, and they'd learned together after their mom had died, who was real and who was not.
Why? Why had they hid these things from him? And could he trust their dad to tell them the truth now?
"... No reason. I was just thinking about her."
No, he decides, looking back at the headstone. He can't trust his old man to tell him the truth. So, he'll have to learn it some other way.
Sometimes, Isshin looks as his son and he sees a complete stranger.
He's still brash and angry, and he would die for Yuzu and Karin, might have while Isshin wasn't looking, but he's not himself. He isn't the same son that had climbed onto a plane for what should have been a simple job months ago. He'd only been gone for a week. How could he have changed so much?
He was taller, for one thing, and yeah teenagers have growth spurts but they don't grow three inches in seven days. Their hair doesn't grow out in a week either, and they don't get so strong or so self assured that fast.
More than that, his son has this look in his eyes…
A terrible age, even though he's only fifteen. He looks at them like he's afraid they'll disappear. He looks like he's always waiting for something. For something to go wrong, for the other shoe to drop.
Even before Rukia had shown up and given her powers over to him, and then started living in his son's closet of all places, he'd been the same. On edge. And the way he'd greeted them…
Ichigo did a lot of things when Isshin attacked him. Hugging him wasn't one of them.
On top of all that, he'd gone to see Kisuke, to ask what was going on in the spirit world, where he could no longer see, and it turns out that Kisuke agrees. There's something strange about Ichigo. He's stronger than he should be, and stronger than he ever was, even without Rukia. And he doesn't know what exactly happened between Kisuke and Ichigo, but it's enough that now the old captain is interested in him.
It's not nearly as comforting as Isshin wishes it was. When Kisuke got involved, things rarely went well. No matter how good his intentions were.
Then he asked about Masaki, and Isshin had faltered.
It was time, it was the perfect time for him to tell him the truth. To sit him down and explain what had happened all those years ago, and tell him about the kind of heritage he had, and what it might mean. He's wondered, whose power did he get? Isshin, or Masaki. Shinigami, or Quincy? Or both? Or hollow? It's hard to tell.
But he chickened out. The words got stuck and the world closed off and Ichigo turned away from him. The moment was lost, and now Isshin doesn't know what to do. It's so much easier raising daughters than sons.
By the time his ridiculous duel with Uryu is over, Ichigo is willing to bet money that his mother was a Quincy.
Ichigo ends up sitting on a bench, breathing fast but he's not so exhausted nor so beat up as Ishida, who sits patiently while Ichigo carefully stitches up his arm. It's easy enough to pass this particular skill off as one he learned from his father and not knee deep in a war, trying to help Roman with the dozens of injured Chaldea staff.
"Isn't your dad a doctor? Wouldn't it be better to have him do than let me?" Ichigo finds himself asking They're lucky Uryu had a needle and thread on his person, even if they did have to bend the needle in an awkward, sloppy approximation of the ones used for real stitches.
It'll do for now.
"It's best if my father doesn't know about this," he says simply.
"Oh yeah?" Ichigo grins at him. "I take it that means he doesn't want you doing this kind of stuff then."
"I don't see how that's any of your business," Uryu sniffed at him stubbornly. Ichigo glowers at him, and pulls the next stitch harder until Uryu yelps. "Hey! Watch it!"
"Of course it's my business. This whole stunt that you pulled was insanely dangerous."
"Are you admitting that you're weaker than I am," Uryu lifts his chin, his nose in the air, and Ichigo has to stop himself from karate chopping him in his throat.
"It doesn't matter if I'm weaker or not! What matters is that we're not the only people in town that you could have gotten killed with this stunt! Didn't you notice? There's hollows that disappeared that neither one of us took out."
He snaps the thread and grabs Uryu by the front of his shirt, watching his blue eyes go wide and realization dawn for what is apparently the first time. "That means other people are fighting. Other people might be dying. My sister has high spirit levels too you know?! When you pull shit like this you're putting the lives of everyone around you into the same danger, without even telling them about it! How can someone with top grades be so damn stupid?!"
Ichigo forces himself to lean back, anger still bubbling under his skin. All this trouble because Uryu hates shinigami, and Ichigo isn't even a real one.
" Listen ," he leans in , forcing Uryu to bend backwards over the back of the bench, "I'll fight you one on one any time you want. But this hollow fighting isn't a game. And if you ever put other people in danger unnecessarily again, I'll beat your goddamn face in."
"Y-you!" Uryu pushes against his chest but Ichigo is immobile, stone and still.
"Do you understand, Uryu Ishida?"
"I. Yes," he says at last, looking down and away. Only then does Ichigo let him go, leaning back and letting out a grunt when it pulls at his shoulders. He'd over strained himself, just a little bit.
"Hey, Kon!" Ichigo waves his body snatcher over to the pair. "Gimme my body back already, huh?"
"Ah, you're no fun," Kon whines, but he sits on the bench and lets Ichigo slide back in without a fuss. Ichigo pulls Uryu up off of the bench and gives him a shove.
"C'mon. I'll walk you home."
"I don't need you to do that!"
"Well I'm doing it anyways. You're injured, what if there's still a few more hollows lingering around, huh? Just shut up and start walking."
Uryu scowls, but starts walking forwards anyhow, with Ichigo in his shadow. During his whole trauma speech and background story Ichigo's mind had been turning over and over. His dad was a quincy too, even if he didn't want to admit it, and if Uryu was to be believed, they were the last of them.
Goat-face isn't going to answer his questions, so Ichigo follows Uryu home, to a house that far too big for just two men alone. He feels old, walking into it. It's fanciful, but he's seen the theatres of Rome and the courts of King Arthur.
Ichigo will never be a sensor, but he's gotten used to trusting the sense inside him that says when someone else is around, and even though it took him a while he's good enough to be able to follow it if he has to. He didn't know about the spirit ribbons. Ichigo is used to being clueless, but he's not stupid. He files the information away for later, and quietly memorizes that feeling of Uryu. It's more like a taste, clean and sharp, and vaguely like citrus.
His father is much the same. And he is utterly unimpressed by Ichigo arriving on his doorstep with his son in tow.
His eyes are colder than ice, not exactly something Ichigo would want in any doctor he has.
"Hey, old man," Ichigo raised a hand and, with his usual level of tact, asked ever-so-discreetly, "Did you know my mom?"
"Do you know where you are?"
The scent of roses and daffodils and the feeling of soft worn wool brushing against his cheek. A ribbon made of magic brushing his nose.
Ichigo opens his eyes and looks into a pale blue sky, wisps of cotton candy clouds stretching across from one horizon to the next.
"I am in a dream," he says dutifully.
"Very good Dolores."
Ichigo punches him in the stomach, sending the mage doubled over in a fit of coughing and laughing together. A smile that's far too mischevious to be soft is aimed at him.
"You have an amazon prime subscription out here?" Ichigo asked, sitting up slowly. The tower still floats, through the sky at the end of the world.
"Well yes. I do run a blog, you know?" though it's said with a straight face he can see a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, where even eternal youth hasn't been able to curb laugh lines. He's good humor, and a good company.
"Seriously?!"
That gets a laugh out of the mage of all mages. He lays back in the flowers that climb and bloom, thriving in his very presence. He is life and light and mischief, a watcher and a strange sort of guardian.
"Well yes. I can't spend all of my time merely watching people. The internet made things much more fun! Humans are such innovative creatures, even without magic to help them along."
Ichigo nodded along with him. "Does that mean that you can email me instead of hijacking my beauty sleep?"
"Oh, you mean you don't enjoy my company, oh great Master of Humanity?"
Ichigo scowls at him, but there's a smile trying to pull at his mouth. He struggles to squash it, and he can tell from the glint in his companions eyes that he fails.
"Stop calling me that," he says for a millionth time.
A firm hand pushes him back into the flowers, under the warmth of the sun in the soft crush of fragrant petals. There's no perfume that could ever compare. This is a strange place, a beautiful cage, and Ichigo doesn't fully understand how he can be here and home at the same time. Not that that's new. He's been in two places at once more times than he cares to count, and he still only vaguely understands how it's possible.
"I understand that your life is interesting once more." The mage stretches out beside him, taller than he and cloaked elegantly in his same old robes. He's showy and modest at once and it hurts Ichigo's eyes to look at him for long.
Ichigo groans. "If you mean my entire existence is one giant clusterfuck then yeah. It's real 'interesting' again. But I'm not time travelling again yet so…"
"Poor little master. Your life is so very hard…"
"I'll hit you," Ichigo threatened. "Master mage, but a shit fighter. I can take you."
The laugh that he is granted is bells on the wind.
"True, true. But I believe that things will get worse before they get better. Perhaps you should begin your mage craft training once more."
"You know I always sucked at that. I could only use real magic if I had a mystic code. Every other time, it exploded in my face. I'm a secondrate mage, that's how it's always been," he says it all simply.
"That is true… Isn't it funny how that works out? A boy who cannot cast a single spell without assistance ends up defeating the most powerful mage in history. You really are a remarkable human, Ichigo."
"And you're trying to get me to do something for you, aren't you?"
"Aha! You do know me! Yes, I need you to mail something very important to me…"
"You get mail here?!"
It's the tenth time he's been thrown into the dirt today.
A normal person would have given up and packed it in. A normal person would have humbly accepted that the strength of these titans was beyond their abilities to keep up with.
Instead, Ichigo stands again.
He picks up his borrowed practice sword, dulled so no one can get hurt, and faces his opponent once more.
Mash, Cu, and Medusa, his constant companions, watch him narrow his eyes and plant his feet again.
"One more time, Nero!"
"He's stubborn, if nothing else," Medusa mused, not quite out of his earshot. Cu nods his agreement, his eyes never wavering.
"Tha'll help him," he said simply. Ichigo didn't know why but his accent seemed to change just a little each time he opened his mouth. Sometimes he was barely understandable. Sometimes it is perfect english. Or whatever language the magic was auto-translating it to. Japanese for Ichigo, english for Mash, and probably latin for Nero and the surrounding soldiers.
" 'He' can still hear you!" He glared halfheartedly at the pair of Servants, who looked perfectly innocent. The longer he was around them, the more familiar he was with the small changes in disposition and expression, their likes and dislikes. And, to his eternal surprise, the feeling of them.
Cu Cullain felt like trees. Like thick moss on a stone, and early morning mist rolling through thick, ageless trees. His presence was as familiar as an old, trusted hound. They'd only been together for a few months, but his spellwork and the steady draw of his mana felt as natural as breathing to him.
Medusa was the deep ocean, power beneath every surface but beautiful to behold. A crash of waves against the stony shore, her every touch fleeting and feather light while her chains lashed with horror and the chthonic strength born in the age of gods. She was the smooth brush of scales against his wrist, the flash of teeth behind a sweet smile, and gold eyes in the darkness that Ichigo alone did not flinch from.
Theirs was a tenuous relationship. She kept looking for him to stab her back, to cut her head and use it as his weapon. Ichigo was still half expecting to wake up as a statue one day. They only had the barest trust between them but…
She hasn't let him down yet, and Ichigo endeavours to repay that much if he can.
He raises his sword and barely blocks a vicious strike from Nero. She was shorter than him by far, but he had no chance matching her for raw strength. Or speed. Or her damn near perfect swordplay.
"Focus on the performance at hand," she orders, her mouth curved in a strange smile. Ichigo didn't totally understand her. They'd been travelling with her for over a month now, on the way to reach what would one day be london.
"Right," Ichigo lunges for her, his strikes quick and hard. He's not worried about hurting her since he can't even hit her.
It's graceful, elegant, and nearly effortless for her to knock him flat on his ass again, smacking the flat of her blade against his chest so hard he sees spots. He's left sucking desperately. His nails bite into the dirt and his grip on his sword tightens until the leather wrapped around the hilt creaks.
"That's enough for today, I think," Nero decides. Ichigo wants to argue, but he doesn't have any breath for it. So he groans like a dying whale and lays in the dirt, his hands shaking, his body refusing to move at all.
Nero lowers herself to the ground, on her knees beside him and how strange is that? A goddamn emperor kneeling with him in the dirt. A demi-goddess, and a druid, and a demi-servant. And Ichigo, just human. But Nero is human too. She's as alive as he is and she is wiping the fucking floor with him.
"You're a - fuck," he wheezes and finally gets his elbows under him so he can sit up.
"Now that's very rude to say, considering that I've been training you out of the goodness of my own heart," Nero sniffs at him, tilting her chin to the sky.
Why did Ichigo always get stuck with these kinds of bewildering people? Everyone he knew was so weird…
"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Nero." A perfectionist and slave driver, but Ichigo was getting better every day. By the time they reached their destination, maybe he'd even be able to land a single blow per bout. Ichigo had never expected to get along with a roman emperor of all people, but even outside of fighting Ichigo has always been, if only mildly, interested in the arts, and Nero only stokes those embers.
Nero smiles beatifically at him. "You have the makings of a fine performer. Even without an Imperial Privilege. I enjoy teaching you."
Her smile is interrupted by a pinch of her brows and purse of her lips.
Ah, another headache.
It's very strange, trying to reconcile the young woman in front of Ichigo with the tyrant from history. She's put her people ahead of her at every turn, and helped Ichigo and his friends. She's under no obligation to teach Ichigo swordplay but she does, even after long days on the march.
At the same time, there's a reason Boudica is only her reluctant ally. Nero cared for her people but she was, in another word, a merciless bitch when she put her mind to it. But she was on their side, for now, and Ichigo is learning not to look gift horses in the mouth. So he gets up and goes to her side, and shows her how to press her fingers into pressure points on the back of her neck, and hold it for a few seconds until the headache goes away.
He's made an archduke for that one.
A rift forms in the Kurosaki household.
It's always been there, a cut stitches tenuously together by blood and loyalty, and reinforced by love, but now it's split.
A gaping chasm, and Ichigo doesn't know what to do with it.
It feels like it's not something he can bridge. Like this is one obstacle that even he cannot conquer. Master of Chaldea, Final Beacon for Humanity. Commander of Heroes, Beloved, the First Guardian.
He is a hundred things but at the end of the day he is still.
A teenager.
Fifteen and eighteen and four thousand at once.
His dad had lied to him. If not directly, then by omission. For years, for so very long he'd let Ichigo hold the responsibility of Masaki's life in his hands, had kept quiet when he grew frightened and dark and closed off from the living, so preoccupied was he with the dead.
Never once did he offer reason. Never once did he show his care or cradle his son, or tell him that the monsters were real and it wasn't his fault .
Not once, in six, seven, eight, nine years did he tell Ichigo that he was not alone. That he and Karin were merely Masaki's children. That they were born of quincy blood, even if that never put a bow in their hands.
"Half the blood means half the power," That was what Ryuuken had said. And how sad is it that Ichigo had had to hunt down a veritable stranger, once who's son had spent the entire day bickering and competing and hating his guts, to get answers from?
"Does my old man know all of this?" Ichigo had asked.
Ryuuken was honest, even if he didn't want to get into the tangled web of family drama. "Yes," He'd said, " But it's more complicated than that. Isshin has the entire story."
And he wouldn't tell Ichigo.
He didn't tell him on the bloody banks of the river, when a child wandered in desperate hope of finding a phantom of his mother.
He did not tell a ten year old at the foot of a grave marker. He kept silent at eleven, at twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
Fifteen. Under the watching grave of his mother Ichigo had asked. And Isshin had not told.
The house is tense like it hasn't been since Ichigo got back. It's tense like a storm, cracking along the edges of the walls and windows. Tense like there's no coming back from this and Ichigo cannot take the building static in his veins or the hissing of betrayal in his ears, like snakes.
He misses Medusa, suddenly. She would take his pound of flesh for him and then some.
Ichigo go knows, for certain, that if he stays in this house he'll go mad. Yuzu and Karin, they know something is up. Ichigo's pretty sure Karin saw the hollow, Grand Fisher, at the grave site. Dead now by his blade, but the vengeance tastes like ash on his tongue. His mother is still dead. His father is still a liar.
His sisters still love them both.
Ichigo loves them, too. More than anything in the world, he fought gods and demons for their sake. For them to be born for them to have a future.
But he can't spend all of his time at home, and Chad is starting to ask questions that Ichigo has a difficult time answering.
Not 'was that a demon ghost you just punched in the face' hard. That answer is ease. 'Yes'.
But 'is everything alright at home' hard. Chad had asked the first time he saw Isshin launch himself at his son in a surprise attack and he's about to ask it again, Ichigo can feel it in his bones.
So he makes a phone call.
The rest of the world will never know what they did.
The world will not know about him or Mash or Roman or Olga Marie, or the countless others that built Chealdea and kept her running. They'll never know how much they fought, how much they bled, how much they sacrificed for the sake of the future.
It's fine with him.
But there are some who know. The Mage's Association, and the United Nations. And a select few people from the Clock Tower in London, where Ichigo has already been offered schooling and job. They know that he stopped the incineration of humanity.
And they owe him.
Three years of pay for working in Chaldeas, and even more for everything else he'd done.
He finds a backpack while he waits for a familiar voice to answer.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" There's a shuffle of sheets and a groan in the background and Ichigo barely pays it any mind as he stuffs a hoodie into his bag and goes looking for his running shoes.
"Not a clue," he said blandly. "But listen, Waver. I need a favor."