Mizuho
Summary:
A very brief look at Ichigo's twin sister through his eyes -in a sense- and the influence she had over his life.
Original Female Character
Kurosaki Ichigo
Harry Potter
Women putting down other women
Machism – implied
Emotional discourse of sorts
Disregards everything after Aizen's defeat and consequent imprisonment after chs 421 and up from the manga.
Plot:
"See you soon, Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-chan!" exclaims Inoue before running to her house. Barely a few minutes pass before his sister starts talking.
"She's quite stupid, don't you think?" she comments with a disdaining turn to her lips, the habitual expression on her face whenever she deals with the other orange-haired girl or mentions of her.
"So innocent, so willing to believe everything will be alright and in doing so, refusing to see the reality, to do something to better it". Her expression turns closed off even as she crosses her arms. "I loathe her kind, secure in their lifes, crybabies without a spine, always too willing to depend on others".
Ichigo doesn't share her opinion, not really. After all he's okay protecting everyone else. But Mizuho is the one who has always been besides him, the one who took on a more mature, maternal role in their family after their mother was killed. And she has always been headstrong and an advocate for assuming one's responsabilites. He can understand why she would dislike Inoue. He can also appreciate how she keeps her mouth shut around the other girl, instead of forcing her to change to conform to her vission of how a girl shoul be.
Not only that, he can understand why she dislikes the other girl regarding him. Because both of them had to grow up taking care of their younger sisters and even their father, and Mizuho knows that that isn't right. And Ichigo does so too, after his twin explained why to him. Inoue is, in Mizuho's eyes, another person latching onto him to depend on him instead of fighting her own battles.
It could be considered quite ironical, especially since she likes Chad, who won't raise an arm to protect himself. A double standard which also appears more than a bit machist in its nature. Because he is allowed to keep his honour but Inoue can't keep her innocence.
At the same time, Mizuho thinks that Chad pulls his weight regarding Ichigo, backing him up -them up- whenever they get in fights and lending him another ear for when he needs to vent to someone else besides her. Chad doesn't depend on him to protect his world and the way he looks at it.
Over everything else, he has always understood what she thinks he deserves in a partner, no matter their gender: someone who will back him up, able to carry themselves besides him, to stand at his side without dragging him down. Trusting him, yes, of course, but it's indispensable that Ichigo himself can trust them in return, able to lean on them.
And he knows he could never with Inoue, and therefore understands Mizuho's dislike of her. Because her crush on him incomodates him and Mizuho knows it, and that becomes just another point more against the naïve girl who isn't able to see how her attitude can be overbearing to him.
It can't really be said that Mizuho is overly egotistical or self-serving, though she certainly lacks Ichigo's disposition to be a hero for everyone else. She cares not for those not in her sphere of friends and beloved ones, unless they are attached to the values and moral conduct she follows, and while she does what she can to help, she won't go above and beyong just for anyone.
If anything, she's his hero. She has, time and time again, moved earth and sky for him. For their sisters too, but especially for him. As she told him little after their mother died, he's busy taking care of everyone else, but since he doesn't do it for himself is her honour and duty to do so, before he loses too many pieces of himself to the rest of the world. After all, others always take and take and take until there's nothing left and then just jump to the next person.
Mizuho has always been much too cynical. However she has yet to be proved wrong.
Mizuho fought besides him againts Aizen, for him and not for anyone else. It could have been considered cruel, the way she outlayed it to him. The way she recriminated him his bleeding heart, how she accused the whole of Soul Society of todling their thumbs and let a teenager, not even a grown adult, doing what was supposed to be their job.
"But I'm the only one who can!" had argued Ichigo. "No one else is as strong to match Aizen besides you!". "That doesn't mean that it is right!" had roared Mizuho, completely enraged in a way he had never seen before. "You are a child soldier according to their standards! And you know what? They're all perfectly fine with sending you to the frontline!" her fist had resounded against the writing desk on his bedroom, something cracked. "Would you send our sisters to that war, if they were the ones with the power to stop Aizen?!"
That had been a low blow to all effects, even if it hadn't shut him up inmediatly. He had yet to proccess the real weight behind such question. Once he did he felt, maybe for the first time, real, utter hatred towards his twin. He wouldn't send them, no, but he couldn't really say that he wouldn't send any other to fight at his side for the chance to beat Aizen. Not when he understood what was at stake if the other won.
To know that was a hard punch to his trust in himself; how worse could he be if he could accept stopping to be that low?
In that tense silence Mizuho opened her fist and stood her height without shame while saying the following words: "I'll go and I'll fight besides you against that man, and it won't be for them but to make sure that you'll come back home. However, don't ask me to be happy when I see you entering the fight without any consideration towards yourself and those who love you, in favour of those who only find you convenient. I'll be happy to see how many of them remain besides you once this ends".
She did so, and while he used the Final Getsuga to defeat Aizen she used hers to obliterate his physical vessel beyond existence, her wish to see him dead stronger than his resolution to live, the Hogyouku itself fusing to her after rejecting Aizen. He said nothing about it to the Shinigami and she had never trusted them.
And after that she proceeded to be right once again. And also, to be the only one who still treated him the same -not even an "I told you so" fell from her lips-, with powers and without them, and he loved and hated her for it, just a bit, because she had been saying the truth all along. They took and took, and he gave and gave, and once he couldn't anymore he stopped being a part of them. Not even their sisters could accept what he -they- had become, even if Mizuho, differently to him, hadn't walloped in depression and demanded that they -their family, his friends in the Living World- treated them both as always.
Not even half a year after losing his powers Mizuho had put together an interchange studies program for the both of them, to go complete their education to Great Britain of all countries, and to live together at a flat, far from the little town that had been the only place they knew before Shinigamis and Hollows and shit powers entered their life.
Ichigo took it.
Mizuho despises their father. Ichigo hadn't realized the extent of her disdain for him until they're who-knows-how-many-thousands of kilometers away from him and their town.
He sees it in the way she takes care of him, far better than Isshin ever did, and her mumbles recriminating each and every action he ever took -or not- through the years, especially when she thinks that Ichigo won't hear her.
It's enlightening, in a way.
He was hurt by her words just before they went to fight Aizen, thinking them excesively cruel and selfish and disregarding of others' lives.
Now he completely understands that her priority was never any of them, only him and to try and derail the slow descent into depression he would be heading to once the war ended.
Never before had he seen, so unabashely truthfully, why she had always been his hero, the one he ran to once Mom was killed. Mizuho has always been the only one to treat him like a child without being condescendient towards him, despite her many flaws.
Great Britain is a wave of fresh air for them both. Here he can just be himself, and not even his hair attracts more than a few admiring glances. People leave him alone, and the only times he had fought in any way were in spars against his twin. There are no gangs in plain sight wanting to beat him.
Mizuho has refused to keep any kind of communication with their family and friends point blank, and most of the time Ichigo himself only talks to Karin and Yuzu. She still sends their siblings enough money from her job so they get by without problems, never trusting of Goat-face.
They never see Shinigamis around there, or Hollows -expected- but maybe the administration here is better than in Japan. He likes taking walks around London, not only running for the sake of keeping fit, but simply to enjoy sightseeing. He enjoys having a solitary drink from time to time, being left to his devices while reading Shakespeare and philosophical seminars.
One day he meets someone while doing his thing. The unknown person has an air around him that reminds him of himself, and they don't talk even though they observe each other carefully -it's too soon still, to want to get to meet any new person-. Nothing comes from that brief interaction, there's no end of the world in sight. People at the pub keep drinking at their own pace while the youngest boys break eye contact before going back to their own pursuits.
They see each other every other week, drinking calmly on their tables while reading whichever book of the evening, and soon enough is even usual for them to cross looks and nod to each other whenever they coincide at that particular pub.
Once they both reach for the door at the same time, and it's not surprising that Ichigo is taller than him, but something about the self-assured air around the unnamed boy makes it so it's impossible to dismiss him as inconsequential or weak.
Almost two months have passed since the first time they repaired on the presence of the other one when Ichigo gets to hear him be called by a young couple. Harry, they call him, excitedly speaking about plans to 'get all of them together for a pint at the leaky' or something, though the black-haired one was starting to make excuses not to go.
The next time they coincide at the pub 'Harry' goes out of his way to make his acquaintance.
"Evening" he says, with his soft, British accent. His green eyes are intently focused on his brown ones. "My name is Harry Potter. I've been seeing you frequenting this pub and I wanted to introduce myself and get to know you, if you let me".
Ichigo smiles, open and confident, in a way he hadn't done since before the war. "Actually, I wanted to discuss with you about some of the texts I've seen you reading" he admitted. "I'm Ichigo Kurosaki". It's weird still, to change the order of his name to fit the English Grammar, but he wants to lose the least possible time explaining about it and more getting to know the other boy.
Harry is a quiet teen, a few years older than him, and far more impulsive than he appears to be at first glance. His skin is a map composed of old scars and soft, untouched patchs which are less frequent than they should, all of them worn comfortably. He enjoy high places and adrenaline and while his body isn't as heavily muscled as Chad's it is well-defined. He also is more than able to keep up with him running at his highest speed.
Harry can cook like a dream, though he dislikes it, and didn't have a phone until Ichigo convinced him to buy one, despite not having any monetary problems.
Mizuho likes him, in a I-think-this-lad-is-trustable way. He has a spine, in her words, and seems like he experienced a shit-life and still came up stronger for it, without having to lord it over other people.
In turn, Harry also likes his sister, especially her no-nonsense attitude, and once they get down to partially explain how they came to live there, he takes their -hers, more like- side on the conflict. He's particularly incensed at the wattered-down circumstances that put Ichigo as the one responsible for their family, the one who always had to help their friends -a nice euphemism for the Soul Society; he may like Harry, but that part of his life is over and it doesn't make sense for him to reopen it when it shouldn't affect him anymore-.
Just for that Mizuho likes him more; that same night she smiles down at him with such affection and pride, as if her chest was about to explode if she contains it, before voicing how glad she is that he made a friend like Harry.
At some point he coincides with that couple of friends, on one of those rare days that he and Harry share lunch. The girl is serious though caring, and her boyfriend meets his eye while evaluating him. Hermione and Ron then seemingly decide that he's good enough, for they welcome him into the fold before proceeding to laugh their asses off about the problems that followed Harry when they were younger at school. Ichigo likes them too.
The three of them give off an aura that reminds him of his past comrades. Is comforting, in a sense.
Ichigo is the first to kiss Harry one night after the older boy takes him back to the flat he shares with Mizuho. Harry kisses him back, curling his fingers around his biceps and opening his mouth.
They don't really talk about what they are to put a label on it; they still meet for meals and drinks and long conversations about phylosophy and to run together in the mornings, and kiss each other hungrily whenever they feel like, each time going a bit further until there's a time where Harry is curling both his legs around his hips and Ichigo has both his hands over the taut, crisscrossed skin of his back.
They had spoken about their pasts, in a light way, not really giving names or ages or detailed situations about what they had lived through. Ichigo doesn't really care about the scars Harry has, but for the fact that he overcame it all and is now there with him.
He feels the hardness within Harry's pants, pressed against his estomach while one of Harry's thights rubs slightly against his own, and doesn't really stop to think things through, even after he experiences a brief bout of vertigo before falling down on a bed, Harry on top of him.
He kiss, and moans, and caresses Harry as he undress the other boy, Harry doing exactly that to him too. The skin-to-skin contact is warm, and strong, and he feels amazing just because of it. At some point both their members touch without clothes between them, and everything becomes frantic, hungrier, as he tries to be everywhere at once. Harry's hands and arms are pressed strongly against him, bringing them together as if he never wanted to let him go, his legs surrounding him the same way.
They haven't stopped, turning on the bed in a primal dance where every other moment each of them are on top. They're not even kissing most of the time, marking instead the other's body and tasting skin and muscles and cuddling each other through their building orgasms, desperate and loving and possesive in many ways.
They get to come several more times that night, and in between they cuddle, tracing abstract designs on the other's skin and kissing hands, arms, shoulders, necks, just because they can, and want to, and fall asleep in each other's arms and wake up that way and sigh happily without feeling any worry at all.
Mizuho looks at him knowingly, happily, when he comes back home the next afternoon, and proceeds to congratulate him, engulfing Harry in a strong hug before threatening him to treat Ichigo right lest he wants an ass-kicking.
Soon after that Harry comes out to him with the truth of his past; who he is, what he lived through, the war. Ichigo tells him about Shinigamis and swords that are part of your soul and a megalomaniac called Aizen and what he wanted to achieve, and about final attacks that cut a part of his soul.
Harry comes clear about having hosted the soul of a monster and having chose to die just so it could be killed. Ichigo admits to fearing himself and what he could have done to protect his family, and recounts his sister's words and her actions not to lose him. Harry speaks about the Weasleys, the Dursleys, Sirius. Ron and Hermione and the ways they've been with him through it all.
After they've confessed everything to each other the silence reigns over Ichigo and Mizuho's flat, remarking the last one's absence, before Harry and Ichigo cross looks, smiling softly at each other. They take the other one's hand, strongly, before Ichigo embraces Harry, wanting to make sure that he's still there.
No one says anything anymore, Mizuho finds them that way when she gets back home, and instead of asking she smiles at them both before asking what do they want for dinner.
That same week, Ichigo and Mizuho are invited to a Weasley meal.