Kisuke throws himself into training with an abandon that almost scares Yoruichi.
She knows that something in him his changed. It isn't the same motivation that drove him to initially start working hard for his place amongst her dark ranks. It wasn't the hunger born of the rukongai, the one that still ached in his chest instead of his belly on some dark nights or when Yoruichi dragged him to parties with more finery than he could stand to be around.
(What a waste of resources. A single kimono and a hairpiece was more than the entire district that he had grown up in. It was sickening to see, and to be around, and to participate in. He had to smile while Yoruichi touted him as a good resource and prodigy, and they looked at him like he was a particularly interesting dog.)
This was a hunger that all but consumed him. A need to become stronger than he was, to be more than he ever thought he could become.
It was only when he nearly fell asleep with his sword still in his hands that Yoruichi kicked him out of the training fields for a day with strict orders to stay away and rest. She locked him out of his own room, too, and their other training grounds.
It made Kisuke's skin crawl, the sudden snatch of control over his life. He knew Yoruichi didn't mean it that way, it wasn't some attempt to flex her influence over his life. She was trying to look after her subordinate.
It didn't stop the bitterness from gathering on his tongue, or the poison from running through his veins. Anger at Yoruichi wasn't new in general, but for Kisuke it wasn't common, or this bad. He was perfectly capable of letting her mischief roll off of his shoulders, or even participating in it.
It was just this time that was-
Well. Kisuke had known when he went to train with the Shihoin that he was selling his literal soul to them.
He shouldn't be that surprised when Yoruichi inadvertently reminded him that she owned him.
With nothing else to do, and nowhere else to do, Kisuke returned to the river where he had first met Ichigo in the first place. It had been so long, it had been centuries, and he…
He didn't miss Rukongai. But sometimes he fantasized, in the darkest nights and the most private moments, of what would have happened if he had followed Ichigo the day they first met.
Would they have stay in the woods awhile, surrounded by the soft scent of dirt and the dappled shadows of leaves on their backs? Would they have wandered through town the way Kisuke had seen Ichigo do, passing vendors and crowds, side by side? Would Ichigo have taught him how to hold a sword instead of Kusanagi, with his vicious switch and his harsh tongue?
Would they have gone to live in the desert of Hueco Mundo, where Ichigo thought he belonged?
It was a silly idea. Ichigo didn't take him with him, and he was right to do so. Kisuke was still on the cusp of childhood when they met. He would have been even more of a hindrance at that time.
That didn't stop the thoughts from creeping through Kisuke's mind, although sometimes they changed.
Sometimes it wasn't just Ichigo training with him, or showing him how to be stronger. It was Ichigo sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, that phantom smile gracing his face. It was Ichigo's warm, calloused hands on his arms, or his shoulders, or feather light touched on his cheeks and shoulders.
Sometimes Ichigo, the real one not the one that Kisuke fantasized about, would look at him like he was something more precious than gold and Kisuke's heart would seize for an instant. The look would be gone a minute and they would be right back sparring, or cleaning up.
But he couldn't forget that look.
He cherished it, a treasure tucked into a chest inside his ribs, and sewn carefully shut with red thread.
He didn't understand it, and that made him antsy and irritable, and nervous. No one looked at Kisuke like that. Not even Yoruichi.
She was his friend, and he was her most loyal weapon, most reliable confidant.
That was all.
The river rushed on, tumbling across water smoothed stones and flashing with silver fish.
When he was young Kisuke had never been very good at fishing. He'd had to rely mostly on stealing to get by, at most people like him did.
Now it was a surreal thought to know that he could catch almost every fish in there. He could be entirely self-sufficient if it came down to it.
He could fish, he could hunt, he could mend his own clothes and defend himself from almost anyone who might come to do him harm, be they human or hollow. He could start his own fires, and build his own shelters. He didn't actually need anyone to help him. He didn't need to live in cities or beg for scraps.
How things had changed from his childhood.
A shadow fell across his shoulder.
He twisted and lashed out, his small knife slicing cleanly into a amr beside him. Blood spurted out and over his fingers, hot and wet. He smelled the iron, and twisted to take another shot when a hand caught his wrist and a familiar gravity settled over his shoulders. A brush of someone else's soul against his, intimate and familiar.
The ocean pressed against his skin. Winter sun danced over his heart.
His breath caught and he snapped his head up to see Ichigo's face peering down at him with a grimace.
"Sorry," Ichigo said, like he wasn't the one with a knife sticking out of his arm. "Did I scare you?"
"Did you- Shit, Ichigo!" Kisuke let go of the blade and scrambled to try to fix the situation. Ichigo, however, reached down and yanked the knife right out like it was nothing.
"Hey!" Kisuke shouted. "You're going to bleed more if you do that!"
Yet, before his very eyes as soon as the blade was gone the wound started to draw itself closed. The blood didn't even keep flowing. Skin knit itself back together piece by piece, and by the end of a minute there wasn't even a scar left to show where Kisuke had cut him.
"I'm fine," Ichigo waved him off, and offered him his blad back hilt first. "I heal fast."
"That… wasn't Kidou. How did you do that?" Kisuke's brain switched from panicked concern, and a deep horror that he had struck Ichigo of all people, to the rampant curiosity that almost gotten him killed more times than he could cound.
Ichigo shrugged.
"I heal fast," he said again. Then, the corner of his mouth cocked into the familiar smile and he tilted his head slightly to the side. "Do you actually want me to give you the answer? Or do you think you can figure it out on your own?"
Kisuke stilled. His hands had been fluttering uselessly towards the wound, but now all the gears inside of him switched.
Ichigo was challenging him to put together some of the puzzle pieces that made up his existence. It was clear as day.
Ichigo's next smile is half cocked and his brown eyes are light with the challenge he's just issued.
"Alright," Ichigo takes a seat next to him. "Tell me when you think you've got him figured out, Kisuke."
"...I don't think that day will ever come."
Ichigo throws back his head and laughs.
Kisuke is a genius.
He knows he is, it's not bragging at this point it's just a fact. It has to do with how to he looks at the world, picking it apart piece by piece, thread by thread, and finds each color and how it was dyed, and why it fits into the tapestry of existence the way it does.
There are some parts that are…
Different, to put it mildly.
The Soul King for one. Kisuke doesn't know much about him in general, but what he does know isn't very pleasant, and it absolute proof that he is not weaving the fates of his subjects tirelessly. There was no fate. The world was chaos, and it was ruled by the wealthy and the powerful. Their 'god' was only a figurehead, whose sole purpose was to keep a careful balance of existence.
One that the quincy had threatened once, and were starting to do again.
The quincy, too, seem out of place.
When shinigami kill someone, or when anyone kills anyone, the soul merely moves on to the next phase of existence. From the living world they go to seireitei or hell (or make a stop in Hueco Mundo first as the case sometimes is), and from there they eventually die a second time and re-enter the cycle of reincarnation back in the World of the Living. The threads of their existence may change color and go on to form a different pattern, but they are still there. Even if the memories are erased, the souls persist's.
(Privately, Kisuke wonder's if the stronger a person is the more times they've been reincarnated, and their strength is hundreds of lifetimes piled onto each other. But that is another theory, for another time.)
Quincy alone can completely sever the threads of existence, and destroy a soul in its entirety. It's an almost god-like power on it's own, although most shinigami prefer to call it abominable, or something of the like.
Then there's Ichigo.
Kisuke tries, tries as hard as he can to figure out where Ichigo fits into the threads of the world. His soul ribbon is red, as any shinigami's would be, but it's dark, and it feels tougher than silk and-
And Ichigo doesn't make sense.
He comes and goes as he pleases, pays homage to no one and claims allegiance to nothing.
He says he belongs in Hueco Mundo, and Kisuke still thinks of dead-eyed soldiers who had walked into senkaimon and never come back, thinks of people turned into weapons, and for once in a very long time, he's sickened by the idea.
Because Ichigo should be more than that.
He should have a purpose beyond killing, and fighting, and appearing when Kisuke was treading into waters too deep for him yet.
He still hasn't told Yoruichi about Ichigo, but she's started tailing him on his off days and she definitely knows something is up. He doesn't know what she suspects, she hasn't confronted him yet.
If she does he has no idea what he'll tell her. The truth, yes, but how much of the truth? How much of his raw insides does he need to open to her when she comes hunting for information on where he goes and who's he with?
Ichigo asks him few questions, and Kisuke is grateful for it. Ichigo never seems surprised when Kisuke makes leaps of logic that would leave others floundering to keep up, and he encourages Kisuke to keep talking even when his rampling is turning hypothetical and border-line treasonous, when his bones feel empty and his blood is settled after hours battling in his hidden training grounds.
Ichigo asks him few questions, yet he seems to know Kisuke so intimately well that it's frightening.
Kisuke isn't afraid of Ichigo.
Ichigo is powerful. One of the strongest people Kisuke has ever met. But Kisuke isn't afraid of what Ichigo can do with his sword.
No.
It's himself that Kisuke is afraid of.
He feels like he's becoming a different person when Ichigo is around, and he doesn't know who that is or who he might become.
Kisuke has never liked feeling out of control.
Yet, he can't even imagine cutting ties with Ichigo.
Who is he? Where does he come from, this shinigami who doesn't exist?
"Three days?"
Ichigo repeats his request. A cup of tea sits in his hands, half cooled by now, and his eyes are startled. Kisuke get's to see that so infrequently, it feels like an accomplishment.
"Three days."
Kisuke gestures to the hollow cut out that rests beside him. They're sitting in the training ground, where they usually meet these days. The false sky above them is a cheerful blue. Kisuke pulls his invention out from behind a group of rocks.
"This is a Tenshintai," he says with no small amount of pride. It's up there with 'most difficult things hes made', and testing it had been a risky thing. He still hadn't plunged his own zanpakutou into it yet, but he's confident that he's done it right.
Ichigo eyes the artificial man, but he relaxes all the same.
"Tell me, Ichigo, do you know about Bankai?"
"Hmmm? Sure. I'll show you mine once you've shown me yours."
A jolt of heat shot through Kisuke, one that he studiously ignored.
"Then you know that to attain your Bankai, you have to defeat your zanpakutou, and force it to tell you it's name. This device will forcibly materialize the spirit of a Zanpakutou when stabbed by it. The materialization can last for about three days, but after that the spirit reverts into the doll."
Ichigo nodded along with him. "And you want me with you for those three days?"
Here, Kisuke can feel heat crawling up his throat.
"Well. You see. While my Zanpakutou is materialized, I won't be able to use it for any type of combat. I'll be… vulnerable."
Ichigo starts to smile. It's impossibly soft, and warm, and Kisuke feels dizzy in its presence.
"I'll be right here. As long as you want me."
Kisuke's mouth goes dry, his chest tightens, his ribs are too small and the false sun is too warm and there are a million things on his tongue.
He turns away, afraid of what he might do if he keeps looking in those warm eyes.
He draws his sword and cuts into the doll, prepared to bare for Ichigo the most raw personification of his soul.