"You are dead, Ichigo Kurosaki. You cannot return to the mortal plane".
As Captain-Commander Yamamoto's words echoed throughout the meeting hall, Ichigo found himself at a loss for a reply. A distant part of him realized that the commander kept speaking, but he knew couldn't leave that declaration unchallenged.
(Four hours earlier)
Ichigo's scowl, if anything, deepened.
"Why does that pyromaniac old guy want me at the meeting?"
The hapless messenger suppressed a shudder at the appalling nickname for a man who could literally burn all creation to ashes. "Captain-Commander Yamamoto requested your presence to debrief regarding your fight with the traitorous captains and to discuss your role in the war to come."
"Whaddya you mean, my role? I'll be defending Karakura Town, and protecting my friends and family"
The unseated messenger sweated under Ichigo's visibly flickering Reiatsu, straining to remain upright.
"I do not know what the Commander has planned," he gritted out, "I was only tasked to pass the message along."
"And I should follow that merciless bastard's command why? That asshole was going to murder Rukia without so much as a protest because a bunch of stuck-up nobles decided that she should die."
The messenger winced visibly and nervously glanced from side to side before turning back to Ichio. Ichigo swore he grit his teeth before making his excuses, "You'll have to go to the meeting to find out, Mr. Kurosaki. Now, I should go; goodbye"
As Ichigo watched the twitchy messenger shunpod away, he belatedly realized that he had lost control of his reiatsu, again. And he hadn't noticed Zangetsu warning him about it, again. He sighed as he sent an apology to the sword spirit.
He'd never worried about controlling his energy before. Back in Karakura, everyone who was aware enough to notice didn't care. Even as he moved through his attack on the Seireitei he had not bothered to suppress his energy; he was never interested in stealth and doing so would have distracted him from the roulette wheel of opponents. He snorted, it's not like he had time to train something useless like that anyway. By now the habit was well-formed and he saw little reason to change.
Ichigo shook his head as he forcefully turned his thoughts back to the meeting. It didn't seem like he had much of a choice. Maybe he should talk to his friends about it? He hadn't seen Inoue or Chad in a while, and he should probably check on Uryu anyway.
###
Ichigo leisurely walked towards the fourth division, detouring through the market district and the crowds of surprisingly lively shoppers. It was amazing how different the Seireitei seemed when it wasn't being attacked. As hawkers hawked and shoppers shopped, Shinigami and souls alike enjoyed the pleasant afternoon. Feeling hungry, Ichigo approached a Takoyaki stall for a quick snack. The owner seemed nervous, even when Ichigo made sure he wasn't scowling, but the savory treat more than made up for it.
Finishing the snack, and only needing to get directions once, Ichigo eventually caught up with Orihime and Uryu in the fourth division gardens. It was a peaceful place, full of flowers and herbs. A well-worn path, evidence that he was not alone in his appreciation, led to a small pavilion with two of his friends. As he approached, he noticed that while Uryu wore the same leer he had always reserved for shinigami, Orihime seemed sad. Ichigo wondered how much time Uryu would have to spend in the Seireitei before the expression became permanent. Maybe it already was.
After exchanging greetings, and getting a quick hug from Orihime, Ichigo veered into complaining about the request.
"Isn't it arrogant to just call and expect me to come? I'm not some household pet. Like, weren't we fighting them only a few days ago?"
Shockingly, it was Uryu who insisted he go. He might have expected it from Chad, but Uryu hated shinigami.
"You cannot ignore the captain commander of The 13 Squads when you are a guest in his domain. I know you're mad about what happened to Rukia, but there are better ways to take revenge."
"Ichigo, I think he's right. It's only going to take an hour or two. And then we can go home and get ice cream. I think I want mint chocolate chip and mango!"
Ichigo ignored Orihime's food preferences out of habit and turned to Uryu. "I wasn't going to ignore him!" At this point he paused, as if in realization, and frowned, "and whaddya mean I'm mad about what happened to Rukia?"
"Please, I may have lost my powers, but your aura is filled with anger. You're more bitter about what happened than I am"
"Wait wait wait, hold up, what happened to your powers?"
Uryu took a deep breath. "... It was that captain, Kurotsuchi. You know, the creepy clown." Orihime shivered in agreement, as Uryu's voice took on a raw tone Ichigo was not used to hearing. "He killed my people, Ichigo. The Quincys. We were experiments to him. Subjects of his madness. He boasted of cutting my grandfather apart to sate his curiosity, of collecting him when he ran out of other material." Ichigo felt the bile rising in the back of his throat.
"How could I not use everything I had to stop that monster? Even at the cost of my powers, I cannot regret taking the shot. Even if I failed in the end, now he has more than notes to remember the Quincys by." Uryu's gaze turned vicious. "He has scars."
Orihime wrapped the forlorn Quincy in a hug, while Ichigo clasped Uryu's shoulder. He struggled to find the words for the man who had sacrificed part of who he was, part of his very soul, to bring down a monster. In the end, words were not enough, but perhaps words were not what Uryu needed.
Not all the monsters lived in Hueco Mundo.
###
The somber gathering eventually broke apart, and so Ichigo shunpod to the Captain's meeting hall, lost in his own thoughts. They turned murderous when he saw Kurotsuchi, but Ichigo saw no problem with this. The man deserved death, but Ichigo didn't feel particular about the whats and hows.
Ichigo could not forget Uryu's forlorn expression as the captains filed into the room and the meeting started. Uryu loved being a Quincy. It was an intrinsic part of who he was. Part of his identity. To lose that would be like being an Olympic runner and losing the ability to walk.
Or Ichigo losing his Shinigami powers.
Ichigo shivered at the thought, as Zangetsu sent a feeling of reassurance, of comfort. The thought of being stripped of his spiritual powers, of how helpless he felt as Byakyua took Rukia away and left him to die; that hopelessness made him sick.
When the discomfort passed, bitterness remained. He was not strong enough to protect Uryu. He was only able to protect Rukia through a twist of fate and cruel circumstances. Uryu could have died. They all could have died.
They all should have died. After all, it was the height of madness to attack a superior enemy in a fortified position and not expect casualties.
And it wouldn't have been needed if Rukia hadn't been sentenced to die by Central 46. If Yamamoto hadn't spinelessly upheld the mandates of an illusory body. If Kuchiki hadn't callously been the hand to carry out his sister's sentence. If Ukitake had not intervened, Ganju and Hanataro would have been executed.
If if if. If only he was strong enough.
Yamamoto's words broke through his reverie.
"Captains, you will focus on training your divisions. Once Inoue, Yasutora, and Ishida return to the mundane world, we will begin to build our reserve forces. Kurosaki here will be under my guidance."
Interrupting probably wasn't his best idea, but Ichigo had to make sure Yamamoto knew he would be going home with his friends.
"Excuse me, umm.. commander; I will also return to Karakura."
Yamamoto barely spared him a glance;
"You are dead, Ichigo Kurosaki. You cannot return to the mortal plane".
The commander's words rang in Ichigo's ear, even as Yamamoto continued to address the other captains.
Ichigo felt consumed by his anger, his bitterness, his rage. They took Rukia. They took Uryu's powers. They nearly took the lives of his friends.
And now they wanted to take his family, too? No. There's no way in hell he would let that happen.
"Dead? No, I'm not dead yet. I'm alive."
Ichigo swallowed as the two rows of captains turned from their commander, whom he'd just interrupted, and stared, dumbfounded. Kenpachi's visible glee should have been a sign he was treading dangerous territory, but even the pity on that bastard Kuchiki's face only made him angrier. The hollow laugh in his head spurred him forward.
"I have a perfectly healthy body. I will not stay here and rot."
Ichigo began to sweat as he realized just how hot the meeting room was, but he could not stop now.
"I have a life, ya know. Friends, and family."
Anger bled into his voice as his tone took on a layered aspect. The air became heavy with the acrid smell of ash and sulfur.
"Dammit, school starts in three weeks, and, my friends, they..."
The oppressive force mounted as Ichigo's voice faltered.
"My family, ...Karin and Yuzu…, Goat-Chin..."
Ichigo trailed off and the commander's spiritual pressure locked him in place. Just as his mouth refused to open, his lungs refused to speak.
"Are you done, child?"
The commander's reiatsu felt like he was bathing in lava.
"Now tell me," he asked, in a voice most reserved for lecturing stubborn children, "what happens to a mortal when their Chain of Fate is cut? When a soul is separated from the material to exist only as a spiritual body. You did not honestly believe that a living soul could become a god of death, did you?"
Even Ichigo knew the question was rhetorical.
"In your foolish attempt to subvert justice, you died. And the dead are not of the material world. That world is lost to you, Ichigo Kurosaki. You surrendered your mortal life to save your friend."
As Ichigo's anger fled, he collapsed.
"What will you do now, child?"
"Would you become a petty warlord, ready to bend the law to his own whims and desires? Would you continue to thoughtlessly empower those around you, not knowing what ends they would pursue with a power they should not have?"
"Would you sacrifice more of your friends to see your desires fulfilled? Would you endanger the family you claim to love so that you may see them again?"
"Would you threaten the balance of the material and spiritual so that you can cling to those you love?"
Ichigo felt the full weight of the reiatsu of the Captain Commander of the 13 Court Guard Squads. He felt analyzed, weighed, and found wanting.
He was The Ryoka, he had defeated captains, and yet he was still powerless.
"I shall only warn you once; your mortal life is lost to you. Do not attempt to reclaim it."
Ichigo remained on his knees as the Head Captain issued his last threat and finally retracted his spiritual pressure. Yamamoto scoffed and drew the attention of his captains back to Aizen and the issues at hand. War was coming and they must prepare.
###
As the captains returned to their meeting Ichigo's mind drifted inward. Surely this was not true, he couldn't be dead, he couldn't abandon Karin and Yuzu, his father or his friends, surely the commander must be wrong, he must live, he-
Zangetsu's voice felt morose as he interrupted Ichigo's fervent denial. "The commander is correct, Ichigo. You died in the spiritual sense the moment Tessai severed your Chain of Fate. The rest of the shattered shaft helped you regain your spiritual energy and manifested your shinigami powers, but you could not be a shinigami without first having died."
"But," Ichigo spluttered, "how did I get my powers in the first place? Rukia never cut my chain then"
Ichigo could practically taste Zangetsu's remorse.
"Until you woke up in the shattered shaft, you never had powers of your own. You borrowed Rukia's to awaken me, but that energy would have killed you sooner rather than later. It's why your sword was so brittle. Your Reiryoku fought Rukia's, and your living energy could not coexist with her power of death. You would have died within a year or two, your energy spent and your soul empty, even without Kuchiki's interference."
"..."
As always, Zangetsu moved forwards. "Life and death are opposites, your soul and it's reiryoku the thread that weaves between. Most mortals only have enough reiryoku to support life; so they only gain spiritual awareness after they shed the fleshly bodies and move to the spiritual plane."
"It is not a coincidence that your growth after the shattered shaft was so explosive. Had you attempted to rescue Rukia without first discarding your borrowed power, you would have been cut down by any Shinigami seated or not. You lacked the foundation to be more than an unstable beacon of spiritual energy. You were shacked with a ball and chain of flesh and bone. Kuchiki's strike gave you the chance of life. The chance to turn back."
Here Zangetsu's tone shifted from sadness to pride. "And you chose me. You moved forward. You were reckless, but we... we tore through our enemies. Some were weaker, many stronger, but we did not falter. We did not hesitate. We did not retreat."
Ichigo ignored the sounds of the meeting, his entire being focused on Zangetsu's words.
"Now the bill comes due. Now we are wounded, weary. Now the consequences left in our wake have caught up with us. There is always a price to be paid, Ichigo. Always an opportunity lost, always a wound received that we may strike down our foe."
Ichigo sat on his knees, pondering Zangetsu's insight. It was a side of his sword, of his soul, he had not seen before. That when you advance, you leave something behind. He even considered retreating, abandoning his shinigami powers, reclaiming his body, and attempting to live a mundane life. But to retreat did not mean he could return to what he had left; the commander had made that clear enough. And he was not a soul made to turn back.
He did not register when the meeting ended and the captains left.
He did not realize when the light faded and night fell.
He did not recognize the moment when he began to doubt himself and doubt his resolve.
His thoughts roiled in turmoil. What did they mean, he left his life behind. What was his life without his family, without that purpose? Who was he without those he promised to protect?
He did not realize he spoke aloud until Captain Yamamoto answered his plea
"Just because you are dead does not mean that your life is over, Ichigo. Come, find me when you are ready to walk the path before you."
Ichigo sat in darkness, hoping desperately he would wake to find all he had learned to be a lie.
First, I don't own Bleach, unfortunately. I would like to, but alas, I must find other, more mundane ways to make a living.
That being said, there it is. The first chapter of my first fic. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Please, let me know what you think.
A couple of notes:
- This chapter is hard on Ichigo, but think about it, he just had his world pulled out from under him. Unfortunately, the transition from cannon to living in the Seireitei full time is bound to be traumatic for Ichigo, and I really didn't want to handwave all that character development away, so it will get worse before it gets better.
- I decided not to use the Japanese suffixes (-san, -kun, -chan, etc). I'm not familiar enough with Japanese culture not to misuse them, or indicate something with the use of a suffix I did not mean to imply. Furthermore, if I did it now I'd have to do so for the rest of the fic or have everyone be very casual. If I'm doing my job right you still get all the context you would otherwise.
- While I use the cannon naming for people, zanpakuto, releases, and attacks, I do use English approximations interchangeably with the original for other names to keep from repeating myself and give context to people who can't remember the difference between reiryoku and reiatsu (see: me before writing this fic)
- I've decided to use Ichigo waking up after Aizen's betrayal as the point of divergence from canon. Unless I say otherwise, all events leading up to that are unchanged, but all events after, including explanations of prior events, did not happen. I may still use plot points from later on, but don't assume it's included unless I say so (looking at you, bount arc).
- I'm assuming you are familiar with canon up to the end of Episode 61, or Chapter 179 (the end of Aizen's betrayal monologue, after Byakuya apologizes to Rukia), and won't explain events leading up to this point. If you haven't read/watched up to that point, what are you doing here? Go read the real thing! It's great, I promise.