I didn't have much of anything planned when I started this, so you'll have to forgive me if there's a few inconsistencies in future chapters. I'll try not to leave too many, but there's bound to be some as I work through what's actually going to happen. And, while I'm here I might as well get a few things out of the way.

1) You guys can point out as many spelling or grammar mistakes as you want, but I probably won't go back and change anything if I'm being honest. I would rather focus my effort on continuing to create the story, ya know? I don't get paid for this, I just do it for fun.

2) This one is specifically aimed at the anon who asked me not to 'make this yaoi', and at the dude over on AO3 who asked two separate times what the pairing was going to be a begged me not to make it 'yaoi'. There is no official pairing, but in any case you, anon, can fuck right off. Those comments are rude, and border-line homophobic, and I will not tolerate them. If you're not having fun, you can go home.

The answers might lie within.

Great. Now the problem is, how does he find those answers at all? How does he go 'within' when most of the time he's going 'outside' of his body. Projecting his soul was one thing. He'd done it a dozen times, if not more. Going inside of it? Or his mind? Or whatever within the cryptic asshole of a mage had suggested, was a totally different matter.

"Fucking everyone's so damn cryptic all the time," Ichigo scowled, pacing around the house. The cat was still there, watching him with her tail twitching back and forth.

Ichigo still doesn't know who she's working for.

There's about three mage families in the country that are prominent. Tohsaka's work with gems, the Matou are mostly fallen, and he doesn't know anything about the other one. Ichigo should probably be more concerned, but he's got bigger things to worry about right now.

Mainly, figuring out how to find his answers on the inside.

Inside.

Ichigo kept walking in circles, trying to figure it out. Over and over, he walked around and around. In a spiral.

Finally he sat hard on the floor and leaned back.

Jeanne would pray. But she was guided by a god, and an Agent of Counterforce (or some approximation of it). Sanzang followed the voice of buddha/her future self. And Ichigo…

Ichigo has an ever cryptic sage telling him to look inside himself for answers, like something out of a bad movie. Hell, his life at this point might as well be just that. Who else gets into these kinds of situations constantly?

Just him, that's who.

Ichigo tilts his head back. He's spent time outside his body. How will he get inside it?

"A backwards… Rayshift?"

Is that even possible? It's the best idea he has. Ichigo closes his eyes and thinks of Rashifting. The first time it had happened, he had been on the verge of death. Mash had been all but a corpse at his side. Fire had licked across them and CHALDEAS had glowed bloody above their heads. It had vanished, the red turned blue and bright and the fire clearing for a few brief seconds between Chaldea and Fuyuki.

Ichigo breathes, focusing on that.

On the blue, the soft light and the feeling of being weightless. On the knowledge that someone, even if it wasn't Roman anymore, was out there looking after the integrity of his soul. He breathed in, tasting the air, tasting no ash.

Ichigo breathed out.

He thought of the feeling of Rukia's gloved hand pushing him out with a rough pop. He thought of the feeling of Kon, sliding into his limbs and chest and head until he was squeezed with no room and no place to go but out.

Ichigo felt the swirl of the shift, the gravity, the whirlpool of energy.

The swirl to the halo of the past. Out, out, out.

Ichigo breathed in and pulled the whirlpool with him. He inverted the spiral of blue and white and light and gravity and twisted it not out of himself but in .

It was the feeling of falling. It was the feeling of flying. It was a pull that he didn't quite understand, the tug of his instinct dragging him out of danger.

It was the feeling of cement under his feet. It was the feeling of glass against his cheek.

It was a pale blue sky, with smokey puffs of rain clouds floating high above him.

"The fact that you are not more afraid of this man really only leads credibility to my idea that you are insane . He's at least ten times stronger than all of your companions."

Ichigo glances sideways, and Kyo. He leans against the wall, watching Karna with something like respect, or maybe admiration in his gaze. Ichigo can understand. Even from as far away as they are, he can feel the heat radiating off of the son of the sun god. It blooms against his skin, but doesn't scorch him. Not yet, in any case.

It feels strange. This Karna is not the Karna that Ichigo had met and fought against and within his dream of Trifas. They were the same, at their core, but this one didn't know him. This one wasn't his friend. This one hadn't fought a vampire and a near endless supply of false Servants with him.

Instead, this one was here to stop him from going to Edison. To stop him from forcibly beating sense into the insane american presi-king.

It would have been intimidating, but even now Ichigo can tell that Karna doesn't actually want to kill them.

Like all of those heroes born in the Age of Gods, Karna is insanely powerful. Before him Ichigo is little more than an ant to be stepped on. This Hero of Charity is a legend in every sense, and his reputation is earned. The spikes on his collar speak of danger and death. The spear in his hands pulses with the power and radiates heat like pavement on a summer day.

Karna is the child of a god, and they are, in the end, little more than human.

Kyo isn't. He's strong, Ichigo knows that too. He's at least as strong as some Servants, and Ichigo is certain he's stronger than he's letting them think he is. Not only is he strong, he's smart, and good as playing at being harmless. Even if Ichigo is the only one who can see him regularly, he won't drop the fake smile on his lips.

How annoying.

"You should withdraw at once!" Nightingale calls to their foe. Ichigo has no intention of letting him stay an enemy, but for now he can't do anything. They have to beat him first, and then beat Edison over the head.

"Perhaps you're right. I am infected by an illness called 'loyalty'. Figuring that out so fast, is it because you're a nurse?" his head cocks just so.

Nightingale huffs. "No. You're just easy to understand."

Ichigo watches Karna deflate, looking upset. "Oh no, we ruined his mystery," Ichgo couldn't help teasing.

Mash looked equally put off. "He seems somewhat depressed…"

"Thank you for pointing that out. But no matter. He asked for my help first, and that is all I need to know. The king of inventions knelt before a worthless man like me and asked my help. Besides," A smile, as warm as his magic, spread across Karna's face. "He reminds me of a friend. And I am only human, don't forget."

"'Only human' says the demigod," Ichigo mutters to Kyo, who snorts elegantly. "We should get this over with."

"You can't hope to win," Kyo argues, but he's clearly getting used to ichigo's stubborn nature.

"Fucking watch us."

Ichigo draws up, prepared to fight-

And Karna turns and walks back down the hallway, called away by Edison.

"Huh. So it's going to be a trap?" Ichigo muses.

" 'ow can is be a trap, if ya know i's gonna happen?" Cu asks, propping his elbow on Ichigo's shoulder and leaning on his master. Ichigo scowls at him and shoves him off, but it's more playful than anything else.

"If it is a trap, it's wiser for you not to spring it," Kyo ads.

"Okay, fine. You're invisible. Go in there and see what we're up against." Ichigo points towards the high door to the throne room, at the end of the hall. Kyo just gives him a look.

"Do I look like a servant?" Kyo arches a brow at him regally, and Ichigo shoots him a baleful glare. "Fine. But I expect you to do something for me, in return."

"Oh joy," Ichigo rolls his eyes as Kyo walks through the walls, towards the presi-kings throne room. Now he owed a dead man a debt. Just once in his life couldn't one of these people be cooperative? He'd kill to have Chad here with him, even if it was just as emotional support in all this madness.

"Poor master," Mash mourns. "You look rather mad when you stand there talking at thin air."

"Hmm?" Medusa cocks her head. "I don't know, the longer I'm attached to him, the more I think I see faint shadows about where he's talking at. But that could be my imagination…:

"It could make sense," Ichigo admitted, "I have poison resistance thanks to Mash. Maybe you guys get to see dead people."

"Master," she says slowly, " We are dead people."

Ichigo scowls. "Don't be a smart ass."

"It's better than a dumb ass."

He jumps when Kyo's voice comes from behind him, smooth and full of amusement. Ichigo turns to scowl at him, but the man is unphased.

"It does seem like it will be a straightforward confrontation. My, you must all be terrible at assassinations."

Ichigo smacks his arm when Robin winces, missing the fact that Robin must have been able to hear the jibe at his failure. With a frown at Kyo, he leads the way to battle.

He's laying on a building. Sideways on a building, if he wants to be picky about it.

Ichigo sits up, slowly, looking down at the streets. It's not the weirdest thing to ever happen. But still weird. Below him looks like a small Karakura town, and outwards are other skyscrapers, and towers of stone and glass. He can recognize turrets of castles that crash haphazardly into pillars of a familiar roman theatre. A flag with a fleur de lis floats in the distance, small atop a dusty building of the Old West. Between some wind long mountain roads that hitch into the metal and stone unnaturally. He can't see the street, it's flooded with water and dark shapes move beneath the surface.

Ichigo stands, slowly, trying to focus on staying attached to the building he's on. He doesn't dare jump. He might die.

He might actually be dead for all he knows. Did he just accidentally kill himself? This doesn't look like any afterlife he's ever heard of…

It was certainly not Kur. Ichigo hopes he hasn't died. He has promises he needs to keep, and dying would be a conflict of interests right now.

All around him are remnants of places he's known, of his home and the lands he's seen. The sky scrapers reach high into the sky, like the fingers of some great giant trying to grasp the clouds themselves.

Ichigo turns his face to the sky. There's no sun, and far off in the horizon storm clouds brew in dark, angry shades of grey.

"Okay. This is not great," he says at last. "Where am I?"

Something ruffles the back of his neck, like wind only the air is still and he spins around on his heel, until he sees something dark and flicking behind him. A person. A man, in a black coak that billows around his ankles. It's edged in red.

"Hey, old man!" Ichigo spins to face him fully. "Who are you?"

"Who am I? I am _"

Ichigo stares. He couldn't hear him. He heard every word but his name. Why? What cut it off? There's no wind, no sound, nothing that would do that.

Even though the strangers face is largely impassive, Ichigo can still see the slightest slanting of his eyes. His disappointment.

"I see. How sad, even now you can't hear my voice. You, who knows me better than anyone else."

"What are you talking about?" Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest as the man walks down the pole he'd been standing on and onto the side of the building in front of Ichigo. The distance between them feels like a chasm. "I've never met you before."

Snow flutters around them, small flakes that stick to nothing. It's just a playful flurry, flickering cold across his skin before it disappears again.

"You've known me all your life, even if you don't know it. And I have known you. I know why you're here. You're looking to become another Shinigami, aren't you?"

Ichigo pauses, but nods in the end. Who is this man? How does he know this? He does feel familiar. More familiar than Chad. More familiar than Mash, even. Why…?

"The old man in the hat said it's possible, but I have to die. And I can't do that. I have a promise to keep, so I have to stay alive and save Rukia before I fulfill it. And to do that, I need power I don't have. Rukia lent me hers, but that's gone now. There's no one else anymore."

No Rukia. No Mash. No Medusa, or Cu. No Romani.

Just him.

"I have no one else to rely on. I have to stand on my own two feet. I have to fight with my own two hands."

"That's not true."

The man walks towards him slow, his heels clicking on the glass of the building.

"Rukia's power may be gone, but Urahara Kisuke was not wrong when he declared that you have your own Shinigami powers. And you do not fight alone, Ichigo. I fight with you. I always have."

There's a vicious vow somewhere in his level voice. A yearning that Ichigo almost misses.

"I don't understand. Who are you?" Ichigo shakes his head, trying to make sense of everything that's happening.

The man looks at him, and opens his mouth to repeat his name.

"I am _"

They're the only ones awake.

Ichigo is used to late nights. Sleep is hard to come by these days, and he usually only gets it when he's too tired to even think, or when Mash's solid shield lays beside him. The others are doing better than he is. They're heroes and legends and myths. They have stronger hearts than he does.

Ichigo walks quietly, not so far from the camp that he'll get himself killed, but far enough that his movements won't disturb his friends. Medusa is on watch at the perimeter, and she tosses him a somewhat concerned look, but doesn't try to interrupt him when he sits beside Kyo.

He's got questions. About a million of them about the afterlife, but he doesn't really have time for all of them at one time.

And one top of questions about the afterlife, he has just as many about Kyo himself. He's a mystery. He's not a heroic spirit. And really, he has no reason to be following Ichigo around besides the fact that Ichigo has forcefully dragged him along.

Not that Kyo couldn't get away if he wanted to. Ichigo is no fool. Everyone here could kill him with a napkin.

Kyo doesn't acknowledge him when he sits beside him. Instead he keeps his eyes on the sky. On the stars haloed by the light in the sky. Even with it, there's a thousand stars in the sky that Ichigo would never be able to see in Karakura. There's too much light, even in a small city to be able to see this many stars.

The whole milky way stretched across the sky, a painted band of blue and white and pink towards the edge of the horizon.

"Is it the same?" he finds himself asking. Kyo makes a sound of question in the back of his throat, so he elaborates. "The sky. Is it the same where you've come from?"

"Seireitei," Kyo says the words slowly. "The stars are the same, but that's about it."

"How do you mean? Isn't it supposed to be a paradise? Like, Heaven? Elysium? Tian? Valhallah?"

"Are you going to keep listing off afterlifes until I give you a real answer?" Kyo cocks his head, looking somewhat amused.

Ichigo shoots him a crooked grin. "I absolutely will."

"My, you're a pest."

"And you're rude. Fields of Yula, asphodel, f olkvangr- "

Kyo claps his hand over ichigo's mouth to finally shut him up, and Ichigo scowls at him without heat and with smugness.

"Soul Society isn't exactly like those stories," Kyo's smile is somehow soft and bitter and sad at once. Ichigo doesn't know what to make of it.

"So it's no paradise," Ichigo surmises.

Kyo's brow pinches and his mouth twists. "No. Not quite."

"Is there some rule saying that you're not allowed to tell me?"

"No," Kyo says slowly," But it is, ill advised. We are taught to tell the souls to pass on that they will find a good place in the next world. A paradise. So they don't fight us going into a world not so unlike their own. "

"Wow you make death sound inviting," Ichigo says dryly. He manages to startle a laugh out of Kyo before he sobers again, looking to the stars.

"The closer to the seireitei you get, the better the quality of life. In the first few districts people generally want for nothing, and are elbow to elbow with nobility and their retainers, if they aren't one of those things already. Most nobles live in Seireitei itself, safe in their walls. But further away…"

"Further away you find the poor, the downtrodden. Poverty is prevalent. Rukongai is separated into districts. Past the fifty ninth districts, most people can't even afford 's violent and bloody out there, and the people who have the most power are the ones least likely to help."

Kyo's hands curl and his mouth twists.

Ichigo leans back on his hands. "You should get tips from Robin for overthrowing governments."

"I couldn't do that," Kyo shakes his head, but there's a light in his eyes that makes Ichigo think that the idea has already crossed his mind at least once. "This is actually my first trip to the human world. I was supposed to arrive in Kyoto, but something went wrong, and now I'm here."

"It's probably because Kyoto no longer exists," Ichigo figures, solemnly, "The only land that exists at this time is here. The United States. Everywhere else has been completely obliterated."

They had to reverse that. They had to stop this war.

They're caught between a rock and a hard place. Literally.

Ichigo and his Servants, minus Scathach who's gone ahead of them, are cornered by monsters only Ichigo and Kyo can see and touch.

Kyo is strong. Incredibly strong. He's already cut down more of the swarm that Ichigo would have ever imagined, and blasted even more with fierce spells of blue and red energy. Yellow chains, and dark crescents. But they just keep coming, and now there's even stronger ones ripping their way through the sky. They're smaller and more distinct than the first wave, and as powerful as fifty of them combined.

Even Kyo is struggling against the dozens of them that rip through the sky.

Then it happens.

One of them targets Ichigo and Kyo appears in front of him, striking it down. A second comes screaming in from the side and tears into Kyo's sword arm.

Blood splatters against Ichigo's cheek.

"Kyo!" Ichigo lunges for him, but Kyo puts up his good hand, stopping him.

"Stay where you are! You'll only get in the way if you can't fight. Damn, why are they all here at once?" Kyo grits his teeth and lifts his left arm, shooting off more spells, but without his sword, he's struggling more to keep up.

Ichigo burns with the feeling of being helpless. He can't stay there and do nothing.

So he does the only thing he can do.

He shoots forwards, to Kyo's back, and claps his hand on Kyo's shoulder. He pours all the spirit energy he possible can into Kyo's body, until he's glow with it, blue and white. Kyo looks back at him, stunned.

"Don't just stand there!" Ichigo barks. "Hit them!"

Kyo nods, once, looking dazed, and lifts his arm at the monsters closing in on them.

" Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens."

Blue swirls in front of him, a ball of raw power that flashes and lashes out at the edges, dragging burn scars into the ground and drawing blood off of Kyo's arms.

" Hado seventy three! Soren Sokatsui!"

It tears away from Kyo and Ichigo in a devastating force, ripping through the ground and shredding all the monsters in front of them into nothing more than burnt husks.

Ichigo has time enough to register Kyo looking at him with a new light in his eyes before he falls to the ground, the world going black.

"I see."

The disappointment is back in the man's face, and it makes Ichigo's skin crawl. He doesn't know why. This is a perfect stranger, he shouldn't care so much what he thinks about him. But he does. It feels gross, a bur under his skin that he just can't shake.

"You still cannot hear me. Very well then. Perhaps you will hear my voice once you have unlocked your Shinigami powers."

"Uh huh. I don't suppose you have a key for that, do you old man?" Ichigo asks, crossing his arms over his chest. The man cocks his head ever so slightly. His hair waves in time with his coat and he taps the window beneath him with the toe of his shoe.

"This world exists inside of you. Inside of your mind. Inside of your very soul. Somewhere in here, somewhere in all these windows and bricks and everything else you've ever made a home for in here, you will find what you seak. You will find your shinigami powers somewhere here. Somewhere within."

"Just like that man said…"

Ichigo is glad for the opportunity, but he doesn't want to be the one to tell Merlin he was right. The Mage of Flowers will be even more smug than he already is, and Ichigo does not need that at all.

"Fine. I just have to find it then."

He had no idea how he would do that. If this was inside of him, what would happen if he broke something? What would a shattered window do to he himself? He could only speculate, and he didn't like any of the things he thought of. So he'd have to go by it delicately.

Was that possible? The only way into the buildings would be through doors that are now thoroughly covered in water.

Needle in a haystack much?

Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair and tilts his head, closing his eyes in thought.

If he was shinigami powers, where would he hide?

Nowhere in the brackets of mountains. Nor in the theater, or the tall castle towers. Nowhere that he was a Mage.

That ruled out a lot.

This guy said he'd always been with him. Did that mean he was a shinigami this whole time? Why hadn't they come to him earlier? During the wars? In Kur?

On the banks of the Karakura river.

Ichigo shook his head and opened his eyes again. The old man was staring at him. Waiting. Watching. It was a little creepy. Ichigo's hair brushed his shoulders when he turned his head to the side, looking down at the water.

Somehow, he had to find his Shinigami powers.

It had to be somewhere in these blue buildings. Maybe…

Ichigo knelt down, knocking at the window under his feet curiously. It was totally solid. There didn't seem to be so much as a hinge to open it. But inside, there, something white fluttered around.

"...fuck it."

Ichigo punched his hand through the glass, ignoring the way the shards bit into his arm, and grabbed it. When he pulled his hand back he found a ribbon in his grasp.

White ribbons. Like the ones Uryu had shown him before.

That's it!

Ichigo jumped back, as high up as he could. He landed on the air, the way he had as a shinigami. This was it. This was how he could find it. He scoured the building, the windows, looking for anything that wasn't blue and white. Anything. It had to be somewhere.

C'mon. Red, red, red-

Ichigo drops back onto the building, understanding dawning. He makes his way over to the strange man and reaches out, grasping the straight sword he'd been standing on before. He pulls, and in his hand comes away a red ribbon that wraps around his wrist. As he pulls the sword from its sheath it flashes with pale blue light, until he's holding a massive sword almost as long as his body.

Ichigo grins sharply at the old man, a name blossoming on his lips. They speak as one, voices merging.

"Zangetsu."

Ichigo swings the sword to the side. It feels effortlessly light despite how large it is. It isn't the foreign feeling of Rukia's power. This is his, and his alone.

When he looks down, he's wearing Shinigami clothes again. If Kyo could see him now.

"Congratulations, Ichigo. You are, again, a Shinigami." His voice is low and even. Ichigo glances at his eyes, half hidden by sunglasses.

"Thanks. Although to be honest…. I was kind of hoping I'd be a Quincy, like my mother."

He doesn't miss the startled jerk of Zangetsu's head.