A/N: Huzzah for my longest chapter ever! In any fanfic! This is how you guys know I love you! (Repay the favor in reviews, yeah? Yeah! --hint, hint--) It's actually also my first action scene (for reals), so please don't be shy to criticize anything I didn't do well (…or anything I did…).
Without any further delay, please enjoy:
Cruel to be Kind: Chapter 4: With All the Best Intentions
XXXXXXXXXXXX
The man hummed as he ran a slender finger along the leather-bound spines of the shelved books. He had to make sure of something, and he knew the volume he was searching for was in this section somewhere…
With a quiet sound of satisfaction, he plucked the desired tome from its spot and flipped through until he found the section that interested him. He marked the page with a finger before seating himself in a plush white chair and skimming through the pages.
After quite a few minutes of studying the text, his finger paused over one particular section, widened eyes the only indication his shock. Careful calculations and rapid reevaluations of past data ran through his mind. Could he have been so badly misled as to the very nature of what he sought? Yes. Yes, it might—
He paused then; he could be jumping to false conclusions. A change in plans now would be disastrous if he were wrong. Best to be cautious. Rereading the passage again and again until he was sure, he let a smirk curve his lips. This was… interesting.
And it changed everything.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"…—nd you're positive it's—…"
"…—n't insult me! I wouldn't—…"
"It's imperative-…-or else—…"
"…—do about the family?"
"Ther-…-hollo—"
"…— en when will the transfe—…"
"Soon."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Ichigo sat at his family's kitchen table, Karin and Yuzu at his sides, and stared blankly at the wood grain of the tabletop. Isshin pulled up a chair directly across from his son and pushed a warm mug of tea into his hands.
"Ichigo…it's okay. Tell Daddy what happened." Isshin spoke quietly, a poor rendition of his usual enthusiasm forced into his voice as he tried to encourage the withdrawn teen to speak.
Ichigo's hands tightened around the cup until his knuckles whitened and the porcelain groaned beneath his fingers. Everyone was acting so damn odd, treating him as if he were a particularly small and stupid child. Normally if his father had found him passed out on the floor of his room, he just would have made fun of him. Karin was too quiet; Yuzu had that hopeful puppy dog look in her eyes, and they were all being so damn considerate. This wasn't the way his family was supposed to work!
"Ichi-nii?" Yuzu begged, placing a small, warm hand at his elbow. "What happened?"
"Nothing," he insisted stubbornly, as he had been since they dragged him down here nearly an hour ago. Karin pulled at his sleeve and stared silently into his eyes once he turned to face her.
Faced with her solemn gaze, he sighed and dropped his eyes to the surface of the untouched tea he still held. "I…" He sighed. "I really don't know what happened. I was just walking around my room and then…" He hunched further over the cup, as though seeking warmth. "Maybe… I think I remembered something. That or I had a psychotic break."
A long uncomfortable silence followed his quiet declaration. It was only broken when Karin cleared her throat and asked, "What did you remember?"
He opened his mouth to respond but closed it when he realized he didn't know what to say. His jaw clenched as he thought back to those chaotic moments before the darkness overtook him. Red. Stark white. Clean, tightly bound bandages. Faces without eyes or identifying features. Voices that should have been familiar but weren't.
"…People," he finally settled on. "I remembered people I met. But there was something… wrong with all of them. They weren't normal, didn't fit. And… I remember blood."
As he spoke the others shared an uneasy glance. After a few moments, Isshin cleared his throat. "Why don't you girls go watch some TV? Daddy and Ichigo will finish up this talk by ourselves, man-to-man!"
The twins exchanged a second glance. Though it was obvious their father was trying to retain his normal gaiety for their benefit, the strain Isshin showed in doing so only made his children even more uncomfortable. The two girls got slowly to their feet and made their way out of the room, delaying only to press a kiss to either of their brother's cheeks.
Ichigo couldn't even muster up the strength to smile for them.
Isshin listened intently to his daughters' footsteps as they exited the room before he steeled himself and turned back to face his son. "Ichigo…" He trailed off. How could he possibly start this conversation? How did you even begin to tell a teenager…
More than anything, Isshin wished Ichigo had never been put in this situation. Or, barring that, that Urahara hadn't insisted on restoring the partial memories and what that entailed he tell the boy.
Or better yet, Isshin thought grimly, that Masaki was here… She would have been able to make this whole nightmare bearable. But then, Masaki would never have let it get this bad to start with.
His legs wooden, Isshin stood and walked around the table to seat himself at Ichigo's side and clamp a supportive hand on his shoulder. Despite all the mistakes Isshin had made, he was still Ichigo's father. He'd do whatever it took to protect him, no matter how unpalatable. He only hoped that this time he was making the right choice.
Last time it was obvious that he hadn't, hindsight being what it was. He had decided to step back and let Ichigo stand up for himself and fight his own battles. He had thought that it would help Ichigo grow into the kind of man he wanted to become.
And watching Ichigo during that chaotic time had only made him more confident in his decision. Ichigo was such a brave kid, unrelenting in his ideals. Isshin had been so proud. He was still proud. After all, he was the one that had screwed up.
Seeing his son fighting so hard and coming home victorious time after time, it had been all too easy to forget that he was still just a boy. Soul Society and the others may have forgotten as well, or maybe they had disregarded it from the beginning, but Ichigo was his son. He was the one that should have remembered the smiling little boy that cried every time he lost a fight.
But even despite it, Ichigo had continued on remarkably well while battles raged on around every corner. Others, hardened warriors with centuries of experience to their names, had broken down. But not Ichigo. No, it was only when they had thought it was finally over that Ichigo had fallen apart.
Isshin had initially worried that his son wouldn't be able to cope with regular life after the war, but only because a human existence would seem too boring or monotonous, and that the newly minted warrior would hunger for the adrenaline rush of battle.
Instead, once the makeshift ceasefire of the Winter War had been established, Ichigo had been terrified of every shadow, even the ones he cast himself. He was constantly on his guard, convinced that something, somewhere, was lurking in wait, ready to snatch up any one of his loved ones that made it outside the circle of his protection, even for a second.
It had started out slowly. A nightmare here. Clinging just a bit to closely to the girls, or his friends, or even to Isshin himself, there. And Isshin had worried: he was a father and a doctor, he knew the signs. But soon after, Ichigo had seemed to come back to himself. He slept well, studied diligently, and in all respects seemed content. Isshin's worries had eased at seeing his son slowly adjusting back into his human life.
But then, seemingly at random, Ichigo would jerk, or gasp, or stumble before running off to fight some hollow that might or might not have been there. He took to wondering the streets for hours at a time, performing konso on souls between the end of classes and when he finally forced himself to go home. And then had come the long nights when Ichigo hadn't so much gone to sleep as dropped his body off before leaving to make rounds of Karakura, Zangetsu always at the ready.
Isshin had watched his son fall apart in front of his eyes, and he hadn't been able to do a damn thing. And there was nothing for him to do now either, nothing but clean up the mess that he had made of his son's life. With a soul-deep sigh, he began, "…While you were in the hospital, you made friends with a few of the other patients that shared your condition. The first girl you met was named Kuchiki Rukia…"
He supposed he was the worst kind of father.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Ichigo had already learned the hard way that no matter how desperately he wanted out of the house, climbing out the window was not the way to go about it.
With that in mind, he cracked his door open as quietly as he could and peered out into the hallway.
Clear.
Creeping through the hall and down the stairs was a new experience for the teenager, but he decided that he seemed to be doing an okay job of it.
"Ah-ha!"
Ichigo jerked. Damn it, Goat Chin had caught him! He turned around to explain why he was tiptoeing his way out the front door when his father's voice continued, "My adorable girls really do love Daddy!" An angry crash, that long experience told Ichigo was the sound of his father's face meeting the wall, followed shortly after.
The orange-haired boy sighed in relief. The noise was coming from the kitchen; he was in the clear. Goat Chin, Yuzu, and Karin were all together and out of the way.
Time to make a break for it.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Ichigo had felt almost guilty as he closed the front door behind him, but all he wanted was to go on a ten-minute walk to clear his head. He silently promised that he'd be back before his family even noticed he was gone.
He needed time to think, and he couldn't do that with everyone hovering and coming in to check on him every other minute.
He let his feet pick their own path. His head was more concerned with other things.
So. He had made friends. And they were dead. That damn, stupid drug again.
Okay. He could handle it. Sure he could. But even as he tried to accept it, something in him kept ringing that it was wrong, wrong, wrong. But even deeper down and far more disconcerting was the little voice that whispered right. Just not in any way that made sense to him; a little niggling feeling in the corner of his mind, or maybe the pit of his stomach, that said nothing was as it seemed.
"Itsygo!" an energetic little voice cried out, breaking him from his thoughts.
He started and whipped around, trying to determine where the voice had come from, but saw nothing. As he took in his surroundings for the first time, he realized that he didn't recognize anything, not even the street names. In other words…
He was lost.
Damn it. Weren't your feet supposed to take you down paths you walked frequently if you weren't paying attention? And he had definitely never been here before: this had to be the weirdest, most run down part of town he'd ever seen. The best looking building in sight was some crummy little third-rate candy shop down the road.
He sighed, voice already forgotten. With his luck, his feet probably had amnesia too.
The aforementioned voice apparently wasn't content to stay out of mind for long. The second cry of, "Itsygo!" was accompanied by a cannonball striking him in the gut with enough force to topple him over. At least, that's what Ichigo thought it was until he dazedly looked up at the bouncing ball of hyperactive smiles that was making herself comfortable on his stomach.
"Hi-ya, Itsygo!"
"Wha—?"
"Nel!" a nasally male voice called from somewhere above his prone form, "What has everyone told you about tackling strangers? That really hurts, you know? You're gonna get us sued one of these days! And then Urahara-san will kick us out and then where will we liv-", the newcomer cut off suddenly, just as the dark splotch of his sneakers came into view in Ichigo's peripheral vision.
Ichigo shifted the girl from his stomach to his lap and levered himself up with his arms. That done, he stared down at the child bouncing happily on his knees. She met his stare with an enormous grin that showed off the gap between her teeth, then latched onto the fabric of his collar with tiny fists.
Ichigo raked an agitated hand through his hair. Why did this stuff always happen to him?
Letting out a sigh, he turned to face the other male. Nasally-Voice Boy, as Ichigo had internally dubbed him, turned out to be a lanky blond teen with dark brown eyes and tan skin. Ichigo furrowed his brow as he studied the other's face more closely. He wasn't at the best angle, and maybe it was just the brain damage talking again, but this kid could easily pass himself off as Ichigo's long lost identical twin brother… with a dye job.
"Hey…" Ichigo finally found his voice, "I suppose this is yours?" He gestured to the girl that had begun clinging to his neck.
"Oh, um… yeah, Ich-" The blond floundered for a minute, "I'll… I'll just take her." He knelt to help detach the child from the redhead, but the girl wouldn't cooperate.
She frowned and then snapped her teeth at the blond's reaching fingers. "No. Bad Kon! Nel wan'th Itsygo!" She turned back to smile up at him, "He finally came for a vithit!"
"Nel! Shut up!" The newly named Kon hurriedly ripped the girl from her perch and hugged her to his chest, slapping a hand over her mouth.
He glanced up at Ichigo and laughed nervously. "Ha… Kids, right? I swear-" He cut off into a wail as Nel's teeth sunk into the tender flesh of his palm. He dropped her to the ground and flailed, waving his hand wildly as if that might somehow help with the pain.
Ichigo was dimly aware that there was something very strange going on, but that innocent, evil little grin on the girl's face distracted him from figuring out exactly what it was. She looked so familiar…
"Let'th get ice cream!"
The exclamation was so out-of-the-blue that all Ichigo could do at first was blink. At his blank expression, Nel sighed a sigh belonging only to the very young when dealing with yet another stupid grown-up, grabbed his hand, and began dragging him down the street.
Ichigo, bent double and being forcibly hauled away by someone a fourth his size, decided that life was very strange indeed.
Kon continued to flail and swear creatively for several long moments before finally realizing that he was being left behind.
"Hey! Wait for meeeeee!"
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Several minutes later found Ichigo standing at a street corner clutching a strawberry ice cream cone and unsure as to how exactly he had found himself there.
He gave it a moment of thought before quietly accrediting it to the brain damage and moving on. Shrugging it off (he'd seen far stranger things), he took a lick of his sweet before it could drip on his fingers and turned his attention back to the pair arguing in front of him.
"Nel," Kon whispered from the corner of his mouth, apparently convinced Ichigo either couldn't hear him or wasn't listening, "We're not supposed to let him know we know him, you dumb kid!"
"Nah-huh!" She stuck out her tongue and pulled at her eyelid.
Watching the two interact, Ichigo decided that being in their company was at the very least more exciting than staying locked up in his bedroom come jail cell. But… What the hell were they talking about? Could he hav—
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when the storefront just behind them imploded in a shower of shattering glass and groaning metal.
Ichigo threw himself at the others, shielding them with his body and taking the brunt of the impact of the falling ruble for his trouble.
After a time that might have been seconds but lasted for a small eternity as he waited for the dust to settle, Ichigo cautiously picked himself up and turned to look back at the scene of the accident.
He really wished he hadn't.
"W-what the fuck is that?"
A masked-faced, two-story tall monster, his mind dutifully informed him.
But how could a fucking monster just be wondering the streets of Karakura in the middle of the afternoon? He pushed down the wild thought that it should have at least had the decency to wait for sundown. Ichigo swallowed heavily and slowly started backing away, pulling the other two along with him by whatever scrap of clothing his fingers could find.
And then the beast turned to face them.
"Shit," Kon hissed, glancing at Ichigo and then moving to place himself between the redhead and the threat.
Nel growled low in her throat, much like a tiny, territorial dog, before launching her small form at the thing. She barely left the ground before Kon's grip on her collar dragged her back.
"Nel can get him!" the child complained, straining at the bit.
"No you can't, you idiot!" Kon, moving as slowly as he could, grabbed Ichigo's wrist in a vise grip and steered the teen further behind himself. "You're in a gigai!"
That seemed to be all the time the hollow was willing to give them because it choose that moment to start forward, eyes trained on Ichigo.
"Shit! Run!" Kon yelped, not wasting another second in throwing Ichigo over one shoulder, Nel under the other arm, and taking off faster than any human alive had any right to.
Ichigo watched dizzily as the scene flew by, sky turning to street turning to sky, as Kon used everything from buildings to telephone polls as launching points in his mad dash to safety.
After running for what must have been nearly a mile, he finally began to slow. "I think we're okay now," Kon called reassuringly over his shoulder.
Ichigo really didn't give a damn. He just wanted down before he threw up. Or at least he thought he did until a giant white hand obliged his request by batting them out of the air and sending them flying into the pavement.
Ichigo bounced once, then twice as he landed, and rolled until his back collided heavily with a support wall on the side of the road. He groaned and raised his head—only to meet the glowing eyes of the beast bearing down on him.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Get the fuck off me, you bastard!" Ichigo choked out, thrashing as violently as he was able to while pinned under the crushing weight of the hollow's giant forepaw. The salivating beast didn't seem inclined to listen, instead only pressing down harder on it's struggling prey, excited at the prospect of its coming meal.
Nearby, Kon finally managed to gather his feet under him and run at the hollow. He could kick it in the head, but the brute's claws were so close to Ichigo… One wrong move the teen would be decapitated. This is why a freakin' sword would be useful! Damn it! But it wouldn't matter in a minute anyway if he just stood there gawking and let Ichigo get crushed.
The blond used the hollow's distraction to duck under its arm and try to pry Ichigo free of its squeezing fingers. Just as Ichigo was able to suck in a stuttered breath and draw air into his abused lungs, Kon was casually flicked aside and the bruising force returned tenfold.
Ichigo heard Kon collide heavily with the nearby wall and spared a second to pray that his head hadn't been smashed open, but there wasn't exactly much he could do to help.
As if to confirm his thoughts, the beast let out a triumphant howl, then lifted Ichigo into the air and slammed him back down. His head cracked against the hard ground and the world flashed white. In desperation, Ichigo resorted to clawing at the hand restraining him, but his blunt fingernails could do nothing against the hollow's rocklike skin.
"Wha' the fuck, King! Yer gonna le' a pipsqueak like this end ya? Fight the hell back!"
He tried kicking, clawing, anything, but his head was spinning and he was sure his heart was about to burst in his chest and his ribs were creaking and groaning under the force of the beast's grip and, oh god, he was going to pass out and then he was going to die—
"Fuck this 'being good' crap! King, le' me fight; I'll rip his head righ' off!"
Light burst behind Ichigo's eyes: something was climbing, building, soaring within him—that Voice, that Other, was pushing its way up, up, up—
And then there was a horrible moment of weightlessness as he was lifted into the air to hang limply in front of the thing's hunger bright eyes. Ichigo tried to scream, to cry out, but even that slight comfort was beyond him. He was staring his death straight in the face, its putrid breath wet and warm against his skin, and then suddenly… he was free.
The wind whistling past his ears, Ichigo only had time to be grateful to the universe at large for a moment before he numbly realized that he was hurtling twenty feet to the ground—head first—and was probably about to die.
But instead of becoming a smear on the sidewalk, he was snatched out of his free-fall by his yellow-haired lookalike and landed with nary a bump. He was held for a moment against the other teen's heaving chest before Kon gently stood him on his shaky feet and chuckled, "Well that wasn't so bad, was it?"
Ichigo stared at him for a moment before doing the only thing he could do. He punched the bastard in the face.
That accomplished, Ichigo let himself collapse to his knees, his head spinning too fast for him to remain upright under his own power. He panted for air, but the deep breaths only sent pain knifing through an already aching chest. Some innate knowledge he didn't know he had informed him that he had at least one busted rib.
"Well now, what do we have here?" A new voice called. Ichigo wearily turned his head to see yet another blond weirdo, this one unshaven and wearing the stupidest hat Ichigo had ever seen, with a cane in one hand and Nel in the other. The beast was nowhere to be seen.
The man seemed to size Ichigo up for a minute before he smiled broadly and moved his lips in what Ichigo belatedly recognized to be speech. That was funny, he didn't hear anything…
Ichigo didn't have to worry about it for long because in the next instant the man disappeared in a swirl of black and the earth reached up to meet him.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Urahara Kisuke was many things: a man of science, a genius beyond compare, and, as some had claimed, not all there in the head. He reveled in them all.
But Kisuke had never before had to question whether or not he was a good man. Oh, he was far from perfect; he'd admit that freely enough. But this… this was different.
Looking down on Kurosaki-kun's upturned, dirt-streaked face, Urahara Kisuke didn't know if he would ever be able to trust himself again after this.
But damn it all, some things were more important. More important even than the bonds of friendship, or family, or trust.
Or at least, that was the mantra he had been repeating to himself religiously for the past two months—because he was about to break them all.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Coming next chapter: Nothing is ever as it seems. Just how deep does betrayal run?