Benihime is lovely, and terrible.
Her dark hair falls like ink across her shoulders, what isn't held up elegantly atop her head. Her lashes are long, and her expression is soft, but there is nothing soft in the sharp, glowing redness of her eyes. It matches the fine kimono, crimson edged in black and embroidered in gold. One of her hands is hidden by the long sleeve, and the other is bared, small and pale, where it holds a sword tightly.
Ichigo has never seen her before, but he doesn't look overly surprised to find that part of Kisuke's soul takes this form.
He eyes her, his brown eyes bright and curious. Warmth curls in Kisuke's chest. It's not often he gets to surprise Ichigo.
Kisuke only has that one minute to observe the way Ichigo reclines on a rock, like he isn't face to face with a devil and the one she belongs to, before a sword swings hard at his face and he's forced to block it with one of his own that he pulls from the ground.
A million other blades materialize around them, each hit wrapped in a different color, each blade a slightly different shape, each guard gold or silver or steel.
Kisuke jumps backwards, away from Benihime and her sweet smile and vicious teeth, and lashes out at her with a blast of Kido. He isn't worried about Ichigo getting caught up in the blast. Why would he? Ichigo's presence is still heavy, still an ocean waiting inside of human skin.
Kisuke can't focus on Ichigo, when Benihime tears through the sword in his hand and cuts him down his chest.
He lunges and rolls, picks up a blade with a curved edge and twists to block her next attack. Blood-red energy roars around his ears and his hair flies wildly out of control.
Blade after blade shatters in his hands, and the first day goes by fruitlessly. He even tries the small knives that clutter one mountainside, but they still don't hold up against the force behind Benihime's attacks.
Kisuke has always known that his zanpakuto is powerful. He's seen her rend through the flesh of hollows and humans alike.
She is destruction in the form of a single edge, she is blood red energy that sings through his body and burns the world around them.
She is the shield that guards him from damage.
And now all of that power is direct towards him instead of his enemies.
Kisuke isn't afraid, not quite.
There's some fear there, it's true, but more than anything else he's exhilarated.
There's only a handful of people who can keep up with Kisuke in every single way. Yoruichi of course, and Tessai is powerful in his own way. His Kidou makes up for what he lacks physically.
And Ichigo, of course.
Ichigo could break him like a toothpick, if he really wanted to.
It should have been terrifying. But he'd never been afraid of Ichigo.
Benihime, however.
Benihime is his match in every single way.
Any plan he comes up with she counters. Any attack he makes she blocks. She is every terrifying thing about him, his every strength and his every weakness.
His only real way to combat her is with kido, and he can only get so far with that.
Still.
Ichigo is watching. And it is Ichigo that he does this for. For the sake of standing at his side as an equal, he's pushed himself beyond what he would have done for even Yoruichi. All for a man who has never asked a single thing of him.
Kisuke bounces away from another sword strike and slaps the ground. An array of laid out kido lights up, glowing bright and vindictive, and pillars of red swirl around Benihime and converge to crush her.
They're blasted away entirely. Benihime, a few strands of hair have fallen out of place, steps out of the swirling energy. She's completely unharmed, and she looks mildly irritated.
Oh dear.
There's been something strange happening in Hueco Mundo.
It's not a normal type of strange. The realm of the hollows is a mysterious place and no one really understands how it works. Oh, shinigami think they do. It's a desert full of demons, where their greatest enemies roam. It should be simple.
But Shusuke has spent enough time in it to know that it's more complicated than that.
There are sections of it that aren't pure desert. There is the forest made of menos, where his men avoid treading at all costs. There is a lake made entirely of black glass the spreads out further than three districts in the seireitei combined. There are even ruins of what used to be a real civilization there.
He's seen all of it.
It's part of his job, as a member of the patrol corps in the onmitsukido. Officially it is their responsibility to find insurgents or dissenters in the seireitei itself. And he does that. He's good at it. But they keep tabs on hollow activity as well. Especially when that activity is uncommon.
And this.
This is.
It's been years since any high-level hollow has exited Hueco Mundo. Which wouldn't be enough to draw their attention all on it's own, but coupled with the fact that they've been getting reports of hollows talking? Genuinely talking? Not just yelling and making death threats?
It's got him on edge. It's got all of them on edge, to the point that the princess is starting to come up a plan.
Shusuke doesn't know the details. He's not quite high ranking enough. But he knows that she's been weighing the options of sending an expedition made up of onmitsukido and regular shinigami paired together.
It won't end well.
They all know it's going to be a suicide mission to gather this intel. And Shusuke can't afford to die yet, he has too much to do. The Kasumioji are just starting to trust him a little bit more, and his heart still burns for justice.
But.
What else can they really do?
Hollow's need to be kept track of and exterminated.
He just needs to make absolute certain that he comes back alive. No matter what it takes.
Benihime calls a halt to their training, and tosses the sword she had chosen aside haphazardly.
Then, before Kisuke's very eyes, she waltz's over to Ichigo an plants herself beside him on a rock, her posture perfect, everything about her elegant, everything about her dangerous.
Ichigo blinks at her a few times.
"Hello?" he sounds confused. His eyes dart to Kisuke, who can only shrug while his heart slowly sinks. Oh hell, what is she planning? Benihime is his very soul. She isn't nice, she isn't kind, or soft, or anything like that. She is vicious, vindictive, and she does nothing without a mind on what she can gain by doing it.
So why is she picking up Ichigo's hand and turning it over between hers?
"So, you're the cause of so much turbulence," her voice is low and melodic. Kisuke stiffens and started towards them, his whole body aching. It's the only reason he can't get there sooner.
"Ah. Yeah, I guess I am," Ichigo looks sheepish, and apologetic. "Sorry. Would you guys rather I-"
"No!" Kisuke snapped, stumbling into Benihime's side. She shoved him to sit down forcefully.
"I know you have more grace about you than that. Now sit, you sorry sap. I cannot believe I let you wield me," she sniffed at them, and looked at Ichigo with critical, crimson eyes.
Ichigo meets her gaze unflinching.
"No," Benihime said at last, to the unfinished question. "You, Ichigo Kurosaki, are chaos incarnate."
Ichigo watched her disappear into the doll that she had come from with wide, puzzled eyes.
"I… think I'm gonna take that as a compliment?"
"I'm sorry," Kisuke ran his fingers through his hair, "I didn't think she would approach you."
Ichigo, of course, waved him off. "Don't worry about it. Really, Kisuke. She's not going to tell me anything that will send me running."
Kisuke looks dubious. He can't help it. Ichigo knows him, and he knows who he works for but-
Ichigo has never seen Kisuke at his worst.
He's never seen him at his cruelest, taking people apart piece by piece, drawing secrets out of them as easy as he draws the nails from their flesh. He's never seen Kisuke with his thin knives dragging blood and truth. He'd never watched Kisuke rip into the soft flesh of other's for a chance at dinner.
He'd seen him injured. He'd seen him in the after math of destruction. But devastation and carefully planned and executed carnage are utterly different and-
Ichigo thumps him solidly on his head.
"Stop looking like that. I'm not an idiot. I don't like everything that you do, or everything that you've done, and I'm sure I'm not going to like everything that you do in the future. But in that same vein, I'm no innocent lamb. There's blood on my hands as well."
"After all, the only thing I've ever been good for is fighting."