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Chapter 7

=DA=

Part 5

=DA=

Kurosaki residence

Karakura Town

Japan

Kyoraku gently put down the girl's body at the end of the couch and sat down beside his own friend. He looked around the human house. "A nice place you have here, Shiba." Shunsui smiled at the rogue Captain.

"It is." Isshin agreed glumly.

"Will you answer my questions properly now, father?" Ichigo demanded after nodding politely to the second Captain. "When were you going to tell me the truth? Were you going to tell me anything at all if if you weren't forced to?"

Isshin's grimace told volumes.

"Why do I ever bother?!" Ichigo spat angrily.

"You know, that strikes me as more than little irresponsible, former Captain Shiba. In fact, it doesn't sound like you at all…" Ukitake looked questionably at the elder Kurosaki.

Well, given the circumstances, it wasn't like Isshin could tell them the whole truth anyway. Even implying that Ichigo was a Shinigami/Quincy hybrid would be bad enough and might earn all his children an express trip to the Twelfth Division. That more than anything else held back his tongue now. It didn't help that he lacked a good excuse for failing to say anything to his son. It was more than little irresponsible true, however after he lost Masaki to a damned Hollow and nearly lost Ichigo too then and there, the last thing Isshin wanted was to have anything with the Spirit World. Despite his son seeing ghosts since an early age, he had been doing his best to ignore that fact and pretend that it would all go away. That Ichigo would grow up being more or less normal teenager, with normal teenager trouble – getting into scraps, having trouble and fun with girls, the works.

Instead, this. Ichigo just had to get his stubbornness and Masaki's big heart, didn't he? Isshin knew that in his youth he would have ran away without looking back after being subjected to Urahara's usual antics in no time at all. His son on the other hand? He threw away his chance to be a normal human after Byakuya cut out his Shinigami powers and just had to risk it all in order to go on an ill advised, suicidal even, attempt to rescue a girl he barely knew.

The silence stretched as three pairs of eyes watched Isshin to come clean.

"What do you expect me to say, Ichigo? I don't have a good answers to give you. I can make many excuses, most of them even sounded great in my head at the time…" Isshin looked imploringly at his son. "I trusted that Urahara would dissuade you from regaining your powers, and if not, from doing anything ill advised like going to Soul Society. I have no idea what that man was thinking sending you and your friends, much less without telling you anything about what you were walking into blind!"

"Dissuade me? He got Tessai to cut off my Chain of Fate and threw me into a damned deep hole and left me to either swim or drown alone!" Ichigo snapped.

"He did what?!" Isshin surged to his feet in shock as he stared at his son with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"I was moments from becoming a bloody Hollow when I got lucky and managed to get my powers back! The powers I have because of you, apparently. If it wasn't for that I would be gone for good." Ichigo blanched. Until this night, he had been trying very hard not to think about what Urahara did to him, he had been too busy for such a distractions. However, now that he didn't have to fight for his life or train to rescue Rukia, and when he knew he might be in fact dead, well, it brought certain things into perspective.

"I'm going to kill Kisuke!" Isshin vowed.

"I'm pretty sure Byakuya has as much reason to hate the man as you, if not more, considering what the Exile did to his little sister." Shunsui pointed out.

"She's his sister, its my son we're talking about here!" Isshin shot back.

"The son you've been keeping in the dark and treating like a mushroom?" Ichigo's words struck hard and true.

"The son I've been trying to keep save and as far away from all of this as I could…" Isshin glared at Ichigo without heat, ", and failing miserably."

"I think it's obvious that we won't get a satisfying answer as to why former Captain Shiba here has been silent, especially once he found out his son was a Shinigami." Shunsui noted. "However, that really is between you, Shiba and your son, perhaps daughters too. The more pressing matter is to figure out what we'll do now, both about your status and Ms Inoue." Kyoraku nodded at Orihime's body.

"I really don't feel comfortable with leaving the body of the girl who healed me in Urahara's hands. Can we trust that you'll keep it safe?" Jushiro asked.

"She healed you?!" Isshin exclaimed.

"That she did. I haven't felt this way in ages." Ukitake smiled. "We can put her body into a protective Kido not dissimilar to what kept it safe back at Urahara's. It might be also prudent to put up a few protections around your home as well before we head back."

"That might be for the best." Isshin agreed. "I'm in no shape to face even a low level Hollow. What are you going to tell Yamamoto?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Shunsui frowned. "He already knows you're still alive or were so Ichigo here could be born, and in the world of the living. It might be for the best to play things mostly straight – you've lost your powers and are living here while they recover. As far as Ichigo goes, it's been a long time since you lost you powers, you hooked up with a woman in the living world and we can all guess how Ichigo and the girls came into being." Kyoraku wiggled his eyebrows at Shiba.

"You'll have to eventually come in and face a punishment, that's a given, however if we play it right, doing so could not only deflect some of the blame for the invasion from Ichigo but help shield him and his friends, because you're a Shiba." Ukitake continued. "Besides, I'm looking forward to seeing your reunion with Kukaku."

"That's not nice my friend, that reunion is going to be explosive…" Shunsui smirked. "It's going to be very much deserved too."

Isshin grimaced remembering his niece's love for all things that go boom. With him little more than a regular soul right now, any such reunion was going to be very perilous and painful.

"Where should we settle Ms Orihime?" Jushiro asked. "We do have to go back soon and we'll leave as soon as we set up some barriers around your house. Meanwhile, we all should think for the best way to present your status and what you've been up to the Old Man and the rest of Gotei 13."

"You'll probably get a visit from Matsumoto as soon as she hears you're alive and she could get away from Toshiro's oversight."

"It will be nice to see her again. Is she all right?" Isshin perked up.

"As well as she could be given the circumstances. As far as we know, she wasn't caught up in the recent unpleasantries." Jushiro reassured him.

"Good, that's good." Isshin spoke in relief. "We probably can find a comfortable place for the girl in the basement, my daughters seldom venture over there, and when we're done, Ichigo you're going to tell me everything about what Kisuke has done to you, what he taught you as well!"

"Is that so? Like you told me everything as well?!"

"That would be for the best. Your father will need that information for when we bring him back to face the Old Man." Shunsui interrupted.

"The way things shape up, it might be for the best to hang as much of this mess on Urahara. He did engineer much of it and I still don't know what he was thinking sending children to the slaughter." Ukitake practically growled. "Once we're back, I'll be speaking with Lady Shihoin and when he is awake, I'll be having words with Urahara himself."

"Best case? They were merely a smoke screen." Shunsui suggested. "If you're feeling generous and its been obvious you're feeling anything but tonight, my friend."

"That's certainly true." Jushiro agreed. "Let's get those spells set up."

=DA=

Part 6

=DA=

Aizen's quarters

Las Noches

Hueco Mundo

In the aftermath of the pissing contest that was the Espada meeting, I dragged Granz and politely suggested that he do his utmost to locate the Grand Fisher and drag it unharmed to his labs, where said Hollow was to be kept safe and sound until I could attend to it personally. In exchange, my resident mad genius was going to see a miracle. If he was good boy, Granz might even set up all kinds of instruments to observe the next time I perform one so we could see what he could learn that way. Needless to say, I suddenly became the favorite person of the science obsessed Arrancar and he headed to rouse his minions and begin his hunt.

That taken care of, I went to my quarters, scanned them for unpleasant surprises and raised up the defenses before crashing into my bed. I fell asleep almost immediately and found myself dragged back into my Inner World. There I found Yuriko and Kyoka sitting on top of a ruined temple that was a dead ringer for a Sith tomb I had to raid a long time ago. Hopefully, this time around it was just an empty building without all the fun surprises set up within.

"That went better than it could have, Master." Kyoka said after I walked through the air to join them. "Wrangling Hollows is very similar to dealing with most Sith, isn't it? You have to demonstrate that you're the biggest, scariest monster around or they simply won't listen."

"Even as Arrancars, their instincts have a much stronger hold upon them than any other creatures I've ever met, save for Darksiders in the grip of the Dark Side."

"You make a good point."

"Hello there, Yuriko." I smiled at the girl.

"Hi!" She waved cheerfully. "We're redecorating!"

"I can see that." I nodded. There was no trace of sand in the vicinity of the temple, which was surrounded by a patch of it the last time I came to my Inner World. "Good work."

Yuriko beamed at me and looked down at the temple with an intent expression on her face. The gloomy dark building began to waver and warp in front of my eyes and soon we stood upon the roof of a much smaller house, one that came straight out of my memories.

"Is that Ordo's residence?"

"I think so." Kyoka looked around. "There weren't that many memories of homely places in your head and Yuriko here is fascinated by all the worlds and different wonders we experienced back then."

"I would love to visit one day if at all possible!" The munchkin pipped up.

"If anyone could make that possible its going to be you when you grow up." I bittersweet smile crawled upon my face. A chance to go back, to perhaps change what happened after Bothawui and avoid my death… It would be a priceless opportunity. Yet, right now, I wasn't as eager to go back as I might have been otherwise. It was nice not to constantly struggle with the Dark Side's influence, especially when I now knew it had indeed influenced me much more than I ever admitted to myself as a Sith.

Yuriko looked around with a frown. She had that expression of intense concentration on her face and then reality twisted in the nearby garden, forming a small six legged form. Golden fur, triangular head with a lot of large teeth, this wasn't something I saw in the home of Ordo during the Clone Wars. It was nevertheless a familiar sight, one I haven't seen since my Imperial days. The Strill pup stumbled on unsteady legs and looked around in confusion, sniffing the air. It saw Yuriko who was beaming at it with huge smile plastered all over her face and ran awkwardly in our direction.

"Well, that's certainly new." Kyoka looked at the newest addition to my Inner World.

"Yuriko is a small miracle worker, isn't she?" I stared at the girl and her brand new pet with mixed feelings. Perhaps we should set up some ground rules before my Inner World became a veritable menagerie?

The Strill huffed in glee, got up on its hind four paws and began licking Yuriko like the little pup it was.

"That might be for the best." Kyoka agreed. "However, you didn't come here just to check on us, did you, Master?"

"Time in here passes slower than in the outside world and I need to figure out how to persuade my Shinigami and Hollows both to not kill or eat each other and even work together." I paused at that thought. "Or at least stay out of each other's way until they could get more familiar with each other."

"Familiarity often breeds contempt." Kyoka snorted. "You know that better than most."

"There's that too. As long as they don't kill each other, I can work on them." I redirected my attention to the giggling girl. "Yuriko, just to be clear, I'm drawing the line at Rancors and other mega-faunta."

"Of course not! Sunshine here will get jealous!" Yuriko wisely pointed out between lick-induced giggles.

"You know, Master, it might be nice to have a pet. I never had a pet before…" Kyoka whispered as she fondly watched the unfolding scene.

"I've had pets before. They could be tons of fun and tons of headaches too. At any rate, Sunshine is now your responsibility."

"How comes?"

"For all intents and purposes you're her mother." I nodded sagely. "They're both your responsibility."

Kyoka opened her mouth, then snapped it shut with an audible click and looked back at Yuriko with an odd pleased expression on her face.

"Now, before you get all motherly on me, its brainstorming time."

=DA=

Fourth Division Barracks

Soul Society

As soon as Captains Ukitake and Kyoraku returned to Soul Society, they separated with each one heading his own way. Shunsui went to brief their mentor about the state of Isshin Shiba and confirm that once the immediate crisis passed, he would be personally bringing the man himself to face judgment for going AWOL. For the time being, the official party line was going to be that the human children were deceived by the experienced manipulator Urahara and most likely used as a distraction, which was the only explanation that made even a shred of sense, unless the Exile actually wanted to get them all killed while maintaining even a shred of plausible deniability.

That particular shred of information didn't make Jushiro feel much better about the Exile's actions and what he was directly responsible for causing, because if the children were in fact nothing more than a distraction, then the odds of Urahara being behind the destruction of Central 46 and the Central Archives increased significantly.

Jushiro walked into the Fourth Division, nodded politely at the various Shinigami he passed through the halls and after couple of pointed questions he found Yoruichi's room, which was surrounded by three full units of the Stealth Force. They came to attention as he approached and didn't even try to bar his way. Obviously, their orders weren't to prevent the prisoner having visitors but to merely ensure she didn't let herself out – a hard proposition with all the Bakudo spells binding her.

Ukitake was glad to see that his target was very much awake and bound even more securely than she had back during disastrous meeting at the First Division.

"Lady Shihoin," This time, there was no mirth, no trace of kindness in the thin smile Jushiro offered. "It's a high time we discussed your actions as of late. What in the name of the Soul King did you think you were doing? Urahara has always danced too close to insanity for my taste, but you? The former Commander of the Stealth Force and Captain of the Second Division? I though you actually knew better! Do tell me, what was the plan? Why did you throw a group of children to the slaughter without even the courtesy of telling them what hell they walked into? Were they merely a distraction? Or did Urahara considered them loose ends for some reason and wanted them gone without dirtying his own hands?!"

"It wasn't like that!" Yoruichi croaked. "Nothing was supposed to happen like this!"

"Really? From where I'm standing you two made a right mess of things. So please explain to me, what did you actually hoped to achieve? What was the grand plan?" Ukitake stared coldly at the bound woman.