Reset then Restart
So squad zero now knows Ichigo! I wonder how this will affect things?
I received a comment on Ao3 pointing out some things I could improve on so I have tried to implement them in this chapter. I have added extra scenes and tried to add more movement to the characters to show how they feel. I have also tried some descriptions on what is going on so you are not just reading speech and brain speech.
I think I near on doubled the chapter with this so!
Please inform me if this is any better than before!
"Shiro-Zangetsu" / "hollowfied vizards"
"Zangetsu-Ossan"
"Other peoples zanpakuto talking"
"People mind talking to their zanpakuto"
"The average hollow speaking"
Chapter 9, Would you believe me?,
Kurosaki Ichigo, Back in his room,
After staying at the soul king's palace for twelve hours he felt that it would probably be best if he went home. Even if it was the weekend and he didn't have to go to school.
He had to go see Kisuke today for whatever the man wanted him to practice.
If he had stayed any longer he would not have had time to get changed. Ichigo was surprised that they didn't want him to go, Kirio had given Shiro more chocolate, Ichigo gained an armful cookies from Tsuki and Nimaiya was very interested in his zanpakuto. As in very interested. Ichigo had first let him look at them considering the man had made it even if it was him from a different timeline. But still.
For it to have taken him half an hour and Tsuki to get him to let me go was a little ridiculous.
He also had to convince Shutara not go and replace all of his clothes as no one knew he was able to come here.
I didn't believe that I had heard the end of it. He knew that he would probably wake up one day wearing different clothes, a new wardrobe, a polished zanpakuto and a large box that contained cake, chocolate, sweets and many cookies.
They were nice cookies. Who didn't like cookies with chocolate chips and marshmallows. He had to keep the ones he did have away from Shiro who kept trying to steal them.
But time to go to a boring lesson of kido with geta-boshi.
Urahara, The shoten,
Ichigo had arrived and looked a lot better that he had the last time he had seen him which was three days ago. He had been both interested in why the boy had looked like that and concerned for his health. For once his long hair was tied up even though part of it was still hanging down to both frame and cover his face and the large bags under his eyes were less than they were before.
Today he decided that he was going to just have Ichigo sit there for a bit before they went to practice Kido. The excuse of being interested on what he was working on should do. Kisuke actually did this often and Ichigo would sit and ask questions when he wasn't doing something too tricky.
"Hello Ichigo."
"Hi geta-boshi. You really should stop hiding away in here." The reason for this was that near on every time Ichigo visited he was hidden in here with every light except for his computer screens and lamp off and he hadn't showered for two weeks.
If Ichigo taking his hat of and flattening his hair said anything his hair had probably been sticking up more than usual as well.
"I'm currently working on something, your going to be here for a few hours so how about you sit with me for a bit."
"Ok. Can I sit next to you and watch?" I had noticed that Ichigo often had interest in his projects but always asked first. Just incase he was working on something that was a little explosive.
He found it odd that the boy never argued or continued pestering him if he did say no. Ichigo acted as if he was much older than he was and unlike other kids his age he knew how to be calm and think about situations.
It was one of the reasons he let him sit with him in the first place.
"Yes im not working on anything dangerous." Ichigo sat next to him so he could see the gadget that was in his hands.
He had two long pure black poles that were stuffed with electronics and hollow reiatsu which had been gained from the nearby hollows. they were about the length of a sword and were easy to carry.
"What are you working on." The common question so the boy could share his own knowledge on how to get some of these things to work.
Sometimes it felt as if the strange hybrid had already seen his current and future projects as he could almost always help him.
"A way for people who are not part hollow to open a gargantua easily. I am trying to use two small poles and use them to open a pathway. They are to act as the two sides of a gargantua." The boy looked down to quickly think about the gargantua project then he looked back up showing that he had finished thinking.
"Cut not open."
"What?"
"When I open a gargantua I don't think of opening something like a senkaimon but I slice or rip open a hole in the world." A senkaimon? How did he know how they worked? He spoke as if he had opened one before.
But first test the kids idea on gargantua's.
The idea made sense as two open a senkaimon you would put your sword in the air to turn it as if it was a key but with a gargantua the person or hollow opening it would make a gesture with their hand as if tearing it open or they would slice threw the air as if cutting a piece of large fabric.
After working on it for a bit, getting some little pointers from Ichigo and taking some of Shiro's reiatsu he placed the two poles upright one meter apart and activated it. A gargantua opened. Kisuke had been working and theorising on how to get this to work all morning and Ichigo had just come along and told him in about three minutes.
As per usual.
"Well it seems you were right! It works. Do you know how long I have been trying to get that to work and you just figured it out that quickly. Well let's go down and practice kido. Tessai is not here today and neither is Ururu and Jinta so we might encounter some problems. Don't even ask me where Yoruichi is she just vanishes and no one will be able to find her for months sometimes."
"Is that why you didn't want to start the kido practice?"
"It's not me that's bad at kido!" He just wasn't good at explaining to someone with such monstrous amounts of reiatsu how little of it they actually need to use.
In the basement, Ichigo,
Ichigo had been abruptly shoved out of his body and down the long ladder shaft that lead to the basement.
"Ta idiot manages te get ya every single time!" Shiro then began his mental cackling inside of his head.
I cushioned my landing with reiatsu and waited for the four seconds it took for geta-boshi to get down. It was four seconds every single time. He had counted.
"Right then time for kido practice, how about we start with getting your Rikujokoro to actually bind a person and not cause them to die in a violent explosion!"
Why did we have to start with Bakudo! He was shit at Bakudo and he hated it. It required control even after it had be cast. "FINE!"
"You do need to learn these things Ichigo. Think about how many Kido spells Aizen cast and how much trouble it caused on the battlefield. Mastering kido will help you greatly in the future. Do not forget that Aizen is not the only enemy."
"I am aware! It doesn't mean I have to enjoy doing it though."
"I never said you had to enjoy learning it."
"Stop being an arse." It was only half meant and they both knew it. This was such a common argument over kido that it was no longer an argument and just a common discussion.
The reason Ichigo was already on the higher level spells wasn't that he had already mastered the lower ones. It was because he was starting from the near middle or upper level spells so he could learn the correct amounts of reiatsu he should place into a kido spell.
He pointed his index finger at one of the many targets that had been set up for him to practice with. "Carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel. With light, divide this into six! Bakudo number 61 Rikujokoro!"
As per usual Kisuke hid behind his Danku barrier that would be there for the rest of the lesson and his binding spell exploded and caused another crater.
This was going to be a incredibly long lesson.
Urahara, at the end of the kido lesson,
They had managed to get Ichigo to be able to perform Rikujokoro three out of ten times with it not exploding. It was an improvement as even when they did explode it no longer created craters, just small holes.
He was about to head back up when he was stopped by a slight tug on his dark green haori.
"Urahara?" He spoke quietly, a near on whisper and there was no no nickname or first name either. Ichigo must have a serious topic to talk about.
"Yes Ichigo."
The boy toed the dirt floor of the training basement and seemed to be more focused on creating a small hole with his foot."Do you think time travel is possible?" Well where did this topic come from. Not random at all.
But he didn't see why it wouldn't be. It was a known fact that in the dangai if the cleaner was not there you could stay there for months with hardly any difference in time outside of the dangai. Perhaps only a matter of minutes or seconds.
"Yes after all the dangai has time displacement so why would it not be?"
Ichigo then gained a look of deep thought.
"Ichigo have you been ok? You looked very tired not to long ago and I have noticed that you do not sleep well sometimes. I would also like to know how you found out a senkaimon works. You spoke as if you had used one multiple times before."
Silence. Ichigo looked at him and his frown had returned with extra force. "I don't think you would believe me."
Wouldn't believe him? OH IS HE STUPID! HE WAS MEANT TO BE A GENIUS! It was why he had changed squad twelve in the first place. Not to say that he hadn't made very poor choices. But what had the boy just asked him about. He had thought it was weird from the way he acted and spoke to his skill in fighting. God damn time travel.
It was a bit of an interesting concept though and it wasn't the first thing he guessed or ever would have guessed if it weren't for the many blaring obvious clues the boy kept putting right in front of his face.
Now to get an answer from Ichigo.
"You would be surprised. Does this have anything to do with what you just asked me?"
A small nod. Then Ichigo looked slightly down so his fringe that was just a tad too long but was apparently the perfect length according to him hung down to cover his eyes.
"Have you used a senkaimon before then?"
Another nod. It was barely noticeable but you could see the way Ichigo was seemingly trying to shrink into a smaller space to try and become unnoticeable.
"How about you tell me how we met?"
At this Ichigo smiled slightly and even if only for a small amount of time he looked back up right into his eyes. He then continued digging a hole in his floor."Rukia wanted me to come and meet you. She was having problems with her gigai and she wanted me to get soul candy so I could get out of my own body."
RUKIA! Was he on about Kuchiki? But at last he was getting answers for the questions that had gathered over the years. "Kuchiki Rukia?"
"Yes. Before I was aware of shinigami and hollows I had always been able to see pluses or ghosts as I would call them. She showed up in my room one day and after I kicked her in the butt she explained pluses, hollows and shinigami to me with some very bad chappy drawings. Then a hollow had attacked my family as it had been looking for me and Rukia got injured fighting it. She told me that if I was to become a shinigami I could save them. You can guess what I would do."
This was a lot of information but now he had Ichigo talking. "I'm guessing something happened considering that giving your powers away to a living person is illegal. Central 46 would have had her executed."
"Central 40 fucking 6." Well someone didn't like the group of old idiots. "They sent an execution order out and captain Kuchiki Byakuya her brother and lieutenant Abarai Renji came after her. I was easily beaten obviously but I owed Rukia my life I would be dead otherwise. So you came along, gave me my powers back, told me the fact that my friends had gained powers and you had Yoruichi train them and we went of to soul society to go stop an execution. Four humans and a cat against the entire gotei."
God they had some luck if they were still alive.
"But we was not aware of what was being planned within the gotei and neither was most of the gotei themselves."
Planned? It sounded like they had just walked in on a whole load of problems that had been brewing within the gotei. "What was being planned?"
Ichigo then gained a look of complete seriousness that looked and of place on the child and his voice gained the sound of absolute hate, "Sosuke Aizen."
AIZEN! Shit, what the hell had happened!
"DID YOU JUST SAY AIZEN!"
Ichigo flinched. Badly. Then tried to shrink even more as if being invisible would protect them from the world.
"Yea. You had hidden the hogyoku in Rukia's soul when you gave the gigai in hopes of destroying the fucking wish granting marble. But Aizen knew and had set up the execution to get it. I saved Rukia but he still managed to get it. The gotei then no longer saw me and my friends as enemies and we then became allies. Aizen, Gin and Tousen had defected. But Gin is not on Aizen's side he just wants to kill the man. I am aware of the abilities of Kyoka Suigetsu but I am also aware of its one weakness."
A weakness to Kyoka Suigetsu's illusions. He had to know this! "Weakness?"
"If you can touch the blade all of the illusions will be dispelled."
So to be free of the illusions you had to get to the sword first? At least it had a weakness he had believe that there was no way to get past hs illusions at all.
"People don't time travel for nothing you had friends there and people you knew so why."
"I didn't. Aizen had killed everyone."
Well shit this boy (boy how old was he?) had been through some things. Poor health is probably the least of Ichigo's problems.
"Everyone?"
"Yes. Both myself and the soul king were the only people that had survived the entire thing. Team effort and we both came back."
The soul king? If the soul king was back couldn't he just kick Aizen out of the gotei?
"I just noticed a problem with what you just said. If the soul king is back couldn't he.."
"No. Let me stop you right there. I had asked him about this myself but even though he is the soul king for some reason he is not actually able to do that. Central 46 does not follow his orders but no one is aware of this. Apparently he can't even send messages down to soul society in the first place."
The soul king couldn't give orders. But why would that be?
"There is also someone else who joined right in the middle. Yhwach the quincy king. He showed up and worked with Aizen. Changed from a war to a massacre. It started when I was fifteen and I managed to kill Aizen when I was 29."
He would probably not believe the one that looked like a boy but was a man but he knew things he most definitely shouldn't. But first he should probably chek the boys health.
Ichigo stopped digging a hole with his foot. "Ura.. Kisuke."
"Yes."
"I accidently killed Hiyori when I lost control of my hollow instincts. I... At the time I saw .. the vizards... I was one of them.. they were like family to me and I.. There was so much blood. Shinji was covered in it. God he was screaming and kept saying her name as if it would bring her back." He had started crying and shaking violently. Kisuke couldn't be surprised though. Even when Shinji had first spoken to the boy he had noticed how happy he would become. How happy he was around the vizards.
He had also noticed that look of guilt every time he was in the vizards presence.
He walked over to him and hugged him. Urahara wasn't one for contact but he truly felt like Ichigo needed some. "I have seen how hard it is to control hollow instincts even if you are on good terms with your hollows. It wasn't as if you had done this deliberately. You are not are bad person Ichigo."
"Really?" God he sounded so hurt it was painful to hear. Almost as if a person's pain could be transferred by tone of voice alone.
"Yeah."
"Another thing Ichigo."
"Ye geta-boshi." Ichigo sounded just as tired as he looked.
"Take the top of your shihakusho of."
I should probably be concerned as there was no arguing. It seemed as I had every right to be concerned as I could see his ribs under his skin as he was under weight and when I brushed back his hair from his face he could truly see his lack of sleep and the bones in his face were easily visible.
"Doesn't your mother sit with you when you eat how are you skipping meals."
"I'm not. It's just that eating often makes me sick."
"How much are you sleeping."
"No more than three hours a night and I sometimes don't sleep at all."
Maybe he could make something that would allow a dreamless sleep? He wasn't sure what to with the the sickness though.
"Well I will see if I can help you with anything and I will not tell anyone about this if you answer something for me."
"Ok what do you want to know."
"That key around your neck. What is it?"
"You can't tell anyone if I do tell you."
"Ok, I won't share with anyone at all!"
"Kisuke."
"Right. I won't."
"It's an oken."
WHAT! WHERE DID HE GET AN OKEN FROM? But it made sense. He could sense the power in the object. It was a lot. BUT STILL! "AN OKEN?"
"Chill. Yes it is an oken."
"Well then I now understand why I can't tell anyone." It showed how much he was trusted if he had been told at all. This entire situation did.
"Oh and Kisuke."
"Yes?"
"Thank you for finding a way to save both mine and Uryu's mother."
"Ah thats fine. Im glad I was able to. Did that not happen last time?"
"No."
"Well you have left me many things to think about but you can always come here whenever to talk. No matter the time of day." He then added a bit more realising that most of his problems were not during the day."Or night."
"Thanks. I hope you realise I will probably be waking you up a lot."
"I'm well aware." He really was but it was better than letting the boy sit up every night.
Ichigo, His room at night,
He felt a lot better. Ichigo really hadn't been expecting that to go so well but he felt lighter as if everyone's lives were not on his own shoulders and that he had shared the weight with him.
"Bout time ya told someone aibou. You have been getting worse." Shiro had materialised again. During the night he often came out to sit with me so I don't go completely mad. He knew he was a little mad though. Then again Shiro ran on insane all the time so he wasn't doing so bad. Shiro sat with his head on my leg as I had taken all of the pillows.
"Well I didn't think he would take the idea of time travel to well."
"Ya know it was'n exactly time travel an' more like destroyin' the worl' an' putting 't bak together."
"It was pretty much time travel."
"Still. An' I 'as Pretty sure that geta-boshi thinks tha' we used te dangai."
"Eh it's good enough."
"Guess ye right."
"Also why are you now seeing how much of you fits on my lap."
"Cause i'm cold! Fukin' end of da year, it is always too fuckin' cold."
"There are things known as blankets." Ossan proved this by throwing it over our heads.
"Ay wha' ya doin! An' 'ere I thought ya were nicer than Tensa!"
He heard the door open. Guess he forgot to lock it.
"Ichi-ii? Who's this man?"
Shiro found his way out of the blanket first by a shove from me.
"Ow! What' tha for ya asshole."
"Shiro language." I made my way out. Yuzu and Karin hadn't been told about anything yet so they didn't know Zangetsu. "Hey Yuzu, Karin this is Zangetsu-Ossan and the one who looks like me is Shiro-Zangetsu."
"So basically old-zan and Ichi-zan."
"Pretty much."
"Whats going on in here." Masaki had shown up. She was wielding a wooden spoon.
"Old-zan attacked Ichi-nii and Ichi-Zan with a blanket then Ichi-nii told Ichi-Zan off because he said bad words."
"An' 'e soved fuckin' me!" Shiro didn't have to act like a stroppy child. He did that anyways.
"Don't say words like that in front of the girls ok!" One wack to the head with the mighty wooden spoon.
"You deserve to be shoved on the floor."
"Fuckin asshole." That earned him another strong "tap" to the head.
"WHAT DID I JUST SAY!"
"Sorry."
I sat there giggling this was great. Shiro had received that damned wooden spoon at last. Twice as well.
His sisters obviously also found it funny if the outright laughter was anything to go by. They loved the fact they had gained another brother.
Today had been a good day.
Woah that took a while! I went over this three times! Feels! Both good and bad.
I also think I have damaged my keyboard as the letter c no longer works properly.
Oh well I will survive!
See ya in the next chapter!