Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach in any way. Period.
Summary: A drabble of… Kurosaki Isshin.
Warning: Mostly my imagination, with manga spoilers.
Author notes: This father, when I knew of his other identity, shocked me to no end and came to me that his personality as one crazy, funny man cold be pretentious and just for his children's sake. Enjoy reading and review D.
Kurosaki Isshin: He changed. For his children
He changed. For his children.
He came to this living world on a mission. He met her. She saw him. She could saw him when others couldn't. Hence he believed her to be his most important woman in life.
Kurosaki Isshin married Aigawa Masaki, after he was exiled from the soul society. A shinigami exiled could never set foot on soul society ever again, even as he or she has the power of a captain or beyond.
Then stuck in between two emergencies, one that he could not reveal the real him and one regarding his beloved wife Masaki, he chose the former to stay where he was.
And she died. Killed by a hollow. A hollow of a higher level than most hollows. She died protecting her son. Their son.
And it was his responsibility that she could not be saved from that hollow because he could not abandon his post as a doctor to become a shinigami to save her and risk his own life and identity to others at the same time.
He was selfish and left the pain to his son. His son whom blamed himself for his mother's death. The father could feel the feelings of his son easily and this pained him. But he knew he had to act strong for his children. Because they have lost their mother - their mother who had taken care of their lives while he worked diligently to earn money but not spent too much time for the family.
He changed. For his children. He wanted to make them happy. And he made himself a humorous person, a father who would crack jokes at his children, a crazy man in love with his wife who stuck a portrait of his beloved woman on the wall to tell her all of his children's problems in a funny expression…
He changed. For his children.
Because he loves them like he loved his wife. Even with pain and sadness at every year of his wife's death anniversary, he would try his hardest to keep his guilt and pain hidden in him. Because he knew his son would blame himself every year at that time, not going to school, visiting her cemetery… and Kurosaki Isshin also always blamed himself for her death… so he could not possibly let Kurosaki Ichigo keep on doing that as well. One blaming himself for her death is enough, not two…
But he could never do anything to stop more pain from coming. With the danger of Aizen's evil plan coming forth in truth, the chances of his son discovering his spiritual powers would be higher. He knew it would happen sometime but not when.
Hence when it came, it caught him slightly off-guard even with his knowing of such a possible thing of happening in future. He had pretended for over 20 years that he cannot see ghosts and other spirits. He had hid his powers for such a long time yet it was inevitable that Ichigo would know about the soul society and everything about it – his spiritual powers, his Zanpakutou, hollows… shinigamis… someone that he had not wanted his son to experience as one or meet with.
After all, he also was a shinigami 20 more years ago. A captain. And he knew the responsibilities and possible sacrifices that came with the identity.
But the inevitable happened. He met her. Ichigo met Kuchiki Rukia. Met the father's friend Urahara Kisuki. The sandal-hat man training Ichigo to be a well-versed shinigami. And Ichigo wanted to go to Soul Society. To save Rukia.
Before Ichigo went, Isshin gave him a safety charm, presumably belonging to the son's mother when in actual fact; it's a device that allows for the former captain of Gotei 13 to keep track of a shinigami's life or death.
And as Ichigo went away to his friend's shop, Isshin could only have hoped for Ichigo's safe return to the living world. Also, as an exiled member of the Soul Society. He could never return to that world, even in his shinigami form.
Owari