Requiem for the Lost Ones

by CraftAsher28

The Kurosakis mourn their son, who for some reason failed to retain his memories after his death. Urahara Kisuke owes much to Ichigo, and tries to help. If only he had asked if Ichigo wanted his help, first. Sent back to the past, Ichigo can finally save everyone like he always wanted. At the cost of the one he loved most.

1. Chapter 1

Bleach: Requiem for the Lost Ones

The sun rested delicately on the tips of the trees. Despite the wispy clouds dotting the darkening sky, rain was not on the menu for Karakura Town this day. Ichigo sighed and ran his hand through his rapidly greying hair. He left his palm on his head as he looked towards the sky instead of letting it rest at his side. He studied the clouds before his gaze was drawn towards the moon, visible at the late hour even though the sun was still present.

He remembers all the movies and cartoons he watched with his younger sisters years ago. The moon was always made bigger and more beautiful in them. He didn't understand why they bothered. It was much smaller with the naked eye in reality, but no less beautiful, if much more radiant in the night sky than dusk. Either way, observing it soothed something inside him, and helped keep his tears from falling when he tried not to cry.

Like now, as his wife was sobbing enough for both of them, and needed him to be strong. Avoiding looking at the framed picture of a smiling young man, he let her cling to him and bury her face in his chest – one of his arms wrapped around her waist, and the other tangled in her orange locks. There had been plenty of tears from the both of them already, but this was the final send-off.

Kurosaki Kazui only lived to be 20 years old. Both he and his wife had known that the worlds were a dangerous place, and had accepted long ago that an old enemy, or a new one, or even a lucky hooligan could snatch the life from their loved ones. Knowing this, and accepting that their son's human life could be cut short with his fragile body, they took solace in his shinigami half being much sturdier.

Only, Kazui hadn't wanted to be a shinigami. While surprised, Ichigo had been tentatively pleased, happy that his son felt safe enough with his father around and able to remain solidly in the living world, instead of living with one foot in each, as his father had. Even without seeking training or searching for strength, he was half shinigami by birth, after-all. His wife was only too happy that her child would only have to deal with his studies and finding love. They both were.

However, after an average day after work, Ichigo had gotten a call from Orihime while grocery shopping. In his second year of university, Kazui had left early from a party. On his way to his dorm, he had come across two drunk lovers in the middle of a very heated argument. While he denied training from his father or even Tatsuki, Kazui was a Kurosaki, and stepped in after a knife was pulled. Neither his son, nor the other man were trained fighters, so instead of a clean kill, Kazui was stabbed several times in the arms and torso and lost his left eye, but made it to the hospital alive.

Orihime was visited by police, informing her of what had happened. Desperate to save her son, she let Ichigo know which hospital Kazui was taken to, and left immediately. By the time he arrived at the hospital and found his family, it was too late.

Kazui was smiling apologetically and rubbing his mom's back as she hunched over with her head in her hands in the waiting room. Catching his father's gaze, he tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. Ichigo stopped and stared at the chain attached to his chest, and the diagram of the human cardiovascular system that his son was standing in front of. Silently, he pulled both of them to into his arms and kissed the tops of both their heads. He hadn't cared how weird he must've appeared when interacting with dead souls in years, and he definitely wasn't going to start now.

Strangely, his son wasn't in his wispy shihakusho, and his zanpakuto wasn't around either. He just stood there in his bloody school clothes. Ichigo didn't care to question him now, not when his wife needed him, and his son would definitely need help now that his life was going to be irrevocably changed. That was a mistake.

They took the next few days slowly, savoring every second left with their son, and their bonds had never been stronger. Orihime couldn't prevent the shrinking of his chain of fate, but could slow it down, and even numb the pain. Eventually, though, the chain of fate got dangerously small, and Ichigo told his son he had to preform konso. Kazui wasn't worried, and made it a party, all of their spiritually aware friends and family still in the living world showed up; they spent one last night as a group. When people started leaving, he asked his dad to konso him to Soul Society, and the worry that Ichigo felt in the absence of his son's shinigami attire resurfaced.

Ichigo had "died" multiple times in his youth. When Urahara cut his chain of fate before the shattered shaft was the first. Ulquiorra blowing a hole in his chest was the second. He had died many times in Hell at Hokuto's hands. Ichigo counted the Final Getsuga Tenshou as well, but knew that no one else would. But he had never been konsoed. He always just carried on like nothing had happened.

Not wanting to worry his son, he simply smiled and gently placed Zangetsu's hilt on his forehead, and in a flash of blue light, a black swallowtail butterfly floated gently up into the sky.

He would never see his son again.

He waited, in Seretei itself. Orihime was the manager of her bakery, but Ichigo wanted to escort his son to the Shibas personally. So, he quit his job, and travelled to Soul Society to wait for Kazui to arrive. The first week, he stayed with the Abarais, and they caught up while Ichigo spent every day at the entrance of Seretei with Jidanbo, eagerly awaiting the familiar orange mop of his son. The second and third week soon passed, with Ichigo growing worried, placated only by Rukia's theory that he must've arrived in the lower districts, further away from the heart of Soul Society. Before long, a month had passed, and he left waiting at the gate to Jidanbo, and went out himself into Rugonkai.

Orihime joined him around that time, and they both went out deep into the districts to search for their missing son. They tried to ignore the pity in the eyes of their friends, as the months went on. A year to the day that Ichigo arrived in Soul Society, Urahara showed up with his hat in his hands, and his head bowed.

Ichigo remembered how his blood had frozen at seeing the man so uncharacteristically solemn. For good reason, apparently, as the older man had quietly informed them both that Kazui must have lost his memories in his passing from the living world to Soul Society. His shinigami powers had gone unused, and as he lived as a human, he died as one, too.

Fast forwarding through the denials, the imbittered arguments, and the damaged friendships while Ichigo and Orihime struggled to accept the loss of their only child, they finally returned to the human world for Kazui's belated memorial service. They had already buried the body, but at the time they had been happy, Kazui with them and amused at the morbidity of attending his own funeral. Ichigo's eyes were wet, but he was pretty much out of tears. Snot was gathering on his shirt but he ignored it since the warmth of his wife in his arms was comforting.

Before long, his wife pulled away, rubbed her face clean, and hugged herself. With voice weak and cracking, she told her husband she was going home, and going to bed. He stayed for a while, acknowledging the plea for solitude in her actions. He didn't want to return home yet anyway. Kazui had left for college two years ago, but he had visited frequently, and always for holidays. Ichigo huffed a wet laugh, glad that somebody appreciated Orihime's cooking, even if he still didn't. He couldn't go home to a house filled with memories of his son right now.

He said goodbye to his sisters, who were teary-eyed themselves after only recently learning what truly happened to their favorite nephew. He pulled on his jacket from the back of the lawn chair, and started walking.

After an hour of walking in the vague direction of his home, he realized he was near Urahara Shoten. He mindlessly walked on, before seeing it down the street, as shady as ever. He stepped back to walk away, before remembering the harsh words and vitriol aimed at his mentor. He had been hurting, knowing the truth but not wanting to accept it, since the second week, really. That didn't excuse his actions. Urahara had done a lot of bad things in his long life, some of those things might have deserved the words spat at him all those weeks ago. But delivering a harsh truth did not.

With a shuddering sigh, Ichigo walked into the candy shop. Jinta and Ururu had moved out years ago, but Ichigo half-thought he'd catch them visiting. The man behind the counter was not Urahara, or Jinta.

"Ah. Tessai-san." Was the only greeting he could manage at the moment.

"Kurosaki-kun. Welcome." Tessai returned, softly. He grimaced, before asking Ichigo, "Are you here for the Boss?"

With that, Ichigo knew Urahara told him of the… inelegant way he and his wife had taken the news. The answer was yes, but even though Ichigo could never get a read on Urahara, he had no intention of forcing the man to take his apologies if he didn't want to see Ichigo. He had caught Tessai's face when he considered that possibility.

"Only if it isn't too much trouble."

"Ah! Kurosaki-kun~" Hearing his name sung from behind him, he turned to see Kisuke in full Hat 'n' Clogs attire, fan and hat brim covering most of his face. "How can I help you today?"

Watching the shopkeeper flutter his fan after his sentence, Ichigo made sure to keep his arms at his sides, in a non-threatening posture. After a moment's hesitation, he put a momentary pause on his apology.

"My body's older than yours, Kisuke." He smirked.

"Ah, but Kurosaki-kun will always be Kurosaki-kun to me~" He gripped the handle of his fan with both hands, held it to his chest, and started squirming in place. "And I never knew you had such an interest in my body." Shit-eating grin in place.

Scrunching his nose in disgust at that thought, Ichigo decided to cut to the chase before Kisuke's… Kisuke-ness made him regret coming to say sorry. "I came to apologize."

"Oh?" Kisuke froze, and his fan snapped back open to cover his face. Ichigo could really only see his eyes now, but they were both laser-focused, and bit confused. Years ago, Ichigo would have thought Urahara was making fun of him, baiting him for the apology, but years of knowing him and fighting by his side gave him the insight to the true Kisuke Urahara.

Which pissed him off even worse, because he saw that he didn't even expect an apology.

"You came to tell us we would never see our son again." He didn't dance around the issue. He could tell how Kisuke retreated into himself he was remembering that conversation and dreading continuing it. Ichigo looked at the floor of the Shoten, ashamed. "After a year of lying to ourselves, you gave us the cold truth." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Kisuke stopped trying to hunch into himself, and tilted his head and furrowed his brow at Ichigo. "But comfortable lies are hard to get rid of, and both my wife and I took that out on you. I didn't mean anything I said, but I shouldn't have said it anyway. We just wanted to make you hurt like we were hurting, and that was wrong of us." Ichigo was never formal enough to bow during apologies like Urahara once had, but was starting to wish he did so he didn't have to see the wonder in the man's eyes.

Ichigo didn't think someone should look so awed by an apology they more than deserved, but according to Yoruichi, Kisuke had always been too hard on himself. He was starting to see that now. "I'm sorry, Kisuke. Please forgive me."

Urahara held the fan in front of his mouth for a few more seconds, but his wide eyes betrayed his surprise. Blinking out of it and straightening up, his fan snapped shut and was slipped into his pocket. The smile reached his eyes for once, and he rested a hand on Ichigo's shoulder.

"Mah~, Kurosaki-kun. You're forgiven." His smile dropped and his hand gripping his shoulder gave it a comforting squeeze. "Considering the circumstances, I didn't blame you."

With that both men separated, although Kisuke wasn't so tense, and Ichigo leaned against the wall. "Was there anything else?"

"Not really, no. Why?"

"Well if you would follow me to my Lab, I might have something that interests you."

Ichigo looked at the man, again. Thought he tried to hide it; he could see that Kisuke was excited about something. That explains Tessai manning the fort, at least.

"Um, I dunno. It doesn't really feel like the right time, ya know?"

If Ichigo thought the reminder of the ceremony he just left would deter him, he clearly forgot some of the more irritating aspects of his mentor's personality. Namely, his lack of tact.

"Nonsense, Kurosaki-kun, come-come-come." He hustled behind the counter to the back rooms.

Ichigo heaved a heavy sigh, trying to expel his annoyance before shouting at Urahara and souring the newly repaired relationship. He glanced at Tessai, whose glasses sparkled while he gave a thumbs-up. Realizing he'd get no assistance there, he reluctantly followed after the excited blond.

Coming to a room he could hear Kisuke rummaging inside of, he opened the door and walked inside, trying to avoid the bits of metal and technology littered on the floor.

"Good. Kurosaki-kun. Please stand here." Pointing to a purple and white circle in the center of the room. Kisuke smiled at him. Ichigo looked at the older man and saw the only thing that could still scare him. The manic gleam in Kisuke's eyes that meant he was probably going to do something awful or terrifying or stupid. Or amazing. Ichigo remembered laying on the ground with hardly any strength left after the Final Getsuga Tenshou, as Kisuke calmly explained to an incredulous Aizen how he had been defeated without even knowing it.

Remembering the awful words said to his friend, Ichigo walked to the center of the circle without complaint. "Okay, so." Kisuke began, before stopping and taking a moment to explain himself. Ichigo's uneasiness doubled. "After the visoreds and I escaped Soul Society, I was more than a little mad. Angry, too." The uneasiness tripled. "I didn't get very far, until a few years before we met." Quintupled. "But throughout our own acquaintance I was inspired and made many breakthroughs."

He paused and sent a grateful smile to Ichigo, ignoring his growing horror. "I considered using this during your unfortunate stint powerless, but before I finished it, you met Ginjo, and shortly thereafter regained your powers." He paused again, and looked contemplative as he drummed his fingers on his chest. "Then the War happened, and there wasn't enough time to finish it." He looked back at the four-foot-tall contraption that must be a control panel, walked over to it and rested his hands on either side of it. "I completed it only a few years ago. The quincies' various abilities spawned many ideas. Some even worked." Ichigo was slowly walking backwards off the circle in the floor, but Kisuke noticed and pressed a button on the control panel.

Feeling his back bump against something, he turned to see a transparent, flowing barrier keeping him in the circle.

"Urahara."

"I've just never had a reason to use it until you came by, reminding me of your situation." Kisuke looked back at Ichigo, and his excitement was very much on his face, wild eyes and very nearly panting.

"Kisuke"

"You see, Ichigo-kun, this is my Eighth-Dimensional Direct Interaction machine." Kisuke held his arms up for applause.

"What?" Ichigo shouldn't ask, but couldn't help it.

"I'm glad you asked!" Kisuke dropped his fan, and replaced it with a ruler from… somewhere. "It is impossible to send someone back in time." Kisuke said, pointing the ruler at Ichigo. "But not impossible to send them sideways in time." He gestured to the circle on the floor Ichigo was trapped in. "So, this beauty pulls two timelines together, and lines them up so different points in time are parallel, and pushes them together until the barrier between them becomes permeable at one point." At this, the man points to the circle Ichigo was still trapped in. "Although a body could never survive the passing, so it will only transport your soul."

"That's crazy, Hat 'n' Clogs! Why would I want to go back in time!" Ichigo shouted, now officially worried. Kisuke dropped his hands to look at Ichigo in surprise.

"Don't you want to save your son?" Kisuke asked, genuinely curious where this reluctance came from. Ichigo leaned back from the barrier in between them, his metaphorical hackles lowering now that he had the crazy scientist's attention.

"Kazui chose to be a human. We don't know when his powers disappeared, or exactly why. If I get there after it happened, I'm not gonna just drop him into the shattered shaft for my selfishness." Ichigo remembered the agony of hollowfying. He didn't hold it against Urahara, and would do it again in a heartbeat to save Rukia, but he was NEVER going to force that on his son. "And then this will be for nothing, and Orihime will be all alone." Ichigo reminded him.

Kisuke gaped, as he had actually managed to forget the grieving mother. He recovered himself quickly though, a plan in mind already.

"I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun. I can't stop it after the start, but I managed to make it remember the frequency of this upcoming timeline. Unless the EDDI machine destroys this timeline, I'll send your wife to the same timeline, at the same point, so you should never notice she didn't come with you today." Ichigo calmed down, able to accept this outcome. Until he registered what the shopkeeper said other than what pertained to his wife.

"Unless what?" He usually had better control over his hollow side, but he was emotional, and the vibrations had started getting violent, although it looked like Urahara couldn't tell.

"Ah, forget what I said, the chances are there, but astronomically slim." At that, Ichigo could only stare in bewilderment at him, before angrily gesturing to himself. Urahara coughed, embarrassed. "Well, um, everything will probably be fine."

"Where are you sending me!" At that Kisuke smiled his Hat 'n' Clogs smile, which only meant bad things for Ichigo.

"Sometime between 1995 and 2005." He smiled winningly. Ichigo was silent as he tried to parse the words in his head and see if they sounded as stupid there as they did from Urahara's lips.

"You don't have something a bit narrower than that?!" Ichigo asks, incredulous.

"Kurosaki-kuuuunn~" Urahara whines, still apparently unable to detect the wildly vibrating floor below Ichigo. "Timelines are LONG, ten years is the best I could do when dealing with billions of years." He paused, looking at Ichigo with a raised eyebrow. "I doubt you want to be conscious while in your mother's womb, or especially… conception." He gave Ichigo time to be properly disgusted. "And after that would be in danger of your son already having lost his powers." Ichigo looked up like that, and Urahara paused at the look on his face.

"Kisuke." Urahara grew concerned at the horror and sorrow in pupil's voice. "That… I could still arrive before Kazui is conceived." Urahara nodded. Thinking rapidly to figure out why his favorite pupil looked so terrified.

"Yes? Surely you don't have any problem conceiving him again" He tried to joke, to tease, anything to wipe the look of loss from his pupil.

"Kisuke. That's not how biology works." At that, Kisuke's gaze sharpened.

"What? What are you talking about Ichigo?"

"Kisuke. I trust you know how insemination works?" Ichigo could tell when Urahara realized his point. He dropped his head, but he could see the blond trying to think of a way fix the problem. "It doesn't matter if I pull the impossible and do every. Single. Thing. Exactly the same until the night of conception." Urahara looked back up at him, and Ichigo started losing feeling in his legs. "It's a one in a million chance that a single sperm impregnates an egg cell." Ichigo remembered rattling off the same information to his students in his biology class. The feeling, it wasn't numbness, as he remained standing, crawled further up to his waist.

Urahara swallowed heavily. Still fiddling with the console of the "time machine".

"Ichigo, I ca- I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Kisuke threw his hat off his head and to the ground while glaring at the console. "Please, remember this number, it's long, but maybe I can send you back from the other timeline with the another EDDI machine if you arrive too early." The feeling spread to his chest, and was rapidly climbing now.

"Ok, hurry." Ichigo croaked, desperate for a chance.

"45552-…" Kisuke's mouth kept moving, but his ears started to tingle and he couldn't hear anymore. He wanted to let him know, but the feeling had already been to his mouth and he couldn't move it, couldn't move anything but his eyes.

Then they were gone too. The feeling reached them and he could even see blackness rise up in time with the feeling, even though he knew eyes didn't work exactly like that. Soon he was blind, deaf, and mute. He couldn't feel, and he couldn't tell at the moment but he was pretty sure his sense of smell was gone too. He tried to panic, but he couldn't move, so he just waited, panicking internally.

Finally, it reached the tip of his hair, and his sense of reikyou dissipated like the wind. He was never good at it, but the familiar presence of Kisuke, and the stoic solidness of Tessai were gone, and he was alone. He didn't know how long he was stuck like that, until all of his senses popped back to him, almost painfully. Similar to when an ear finally un-popped after a decrease in pressure.

He was sitting on a wooden floor, young voices that should be background noise deafening after only just regaining his senses. His body had some damage. Not anything near what he was used to, but to go from no injuries to many bruises instantly triggered some flashbacks of enemies too fast to touch, and too arrogant to finish him off. It smelled like dried and fresh sweat, and he was taken back to the days at his childhood dojo, learning karate with Tatsuki.

"You're okay. You big baby." Nevermind, he was literally taken back to the dojo with Tatsuki.

Even knowing what he would see when he raised his head, he was still dumbfounded when Tatsuki's young face looked at him with badly disguised concern. He forgot how cute she was as a kid. Still somewhat in shock, he made a note to himself not to pinch the adorable cheeks of all his new baby-fied friends.

"Ichigo? Are you okay sweetheart?" The voice of his dreams, nightmares, and past spoke from behind him. He had time to watch his friend roll her eyes and back off, obviously expecting him to end the fight with a charge to his mother.

Finally making himself turn around, he saw her. Slightly confused by his silence, but her expression as sweet and gentle as he remembered. He had years to grieve, and had even reached a somewhat healthy place in regards to her death. None of that meant anything when he had her in front of him, in terrible danger of being hugged by a strawberry.

She didn't seem to mind, and he tried not to cry as her perfume filled his nose. He failed.

"4555284538328002" Kisuke finished. But Ichigo wasn't looking at him; didn't seem to be paying attention. "Ichigo?" Even as the words left him, he could see Ichigo's soul form leave him, being dragged from below. There was nothing he could do, but watch as the silent soul, staring into nothing, vanished into the circle.

For a moment he waited. And nothing happened. No Ichigo jumping from the circle to punch him in the face. No miraculous appearance of Orihime to console him, and let him know it wasn't his fault.

Because it was. He wanted to offer Ichigo a chance to see his son again, but most likely ripped that very possibility away from him immediately after giving him hope. He also probably killed or destroyed Ichigo, judging on the comatose state of the soul as it was transported away. He also will have widowed a recently childless woman who was quite dear to him if he doesn't get her to the same point as her husband. With that motivation, he picked up his hat and made to leave the room, before a sound stopped him.

He froze, hoping he had heard wrong. But no, crackling sounded from behind him. He finally looked to the machine, but saw only what he feared.

From the circle placed on the ground of his lab, a dark energy was creeping from the circle and eating everything it touched. "Ah." He didn't run. Tired of running from his mistakes. "Looks like I should have gone with the Ninth-Dimensional Direct Interaction machine." He sighed as the energy reached his shoes, and huffed as his legs disappeared without pain or any feeling, really. "Looks like I've made my last miscalculation." He allowed the blackness to eat him to his neck calmly. "Sorry Everyone." And he ceased to be.

He would be followed by everyone else in this timeline, shortly.