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Dark Matter
A Bleach Fanfic
Chaos Theory AU
Chapter Two: Bending Spoons
Oh, dry the glistening tear.
That dews that martial cheek;
Thy loving children hear,
In them thy comfort seek.
With sympathetic care,
Their arms around thee creep.
For oh, they cannot bear
To see their father weep!
-Gilbert and Sullivan
Isshin sighed heavily, rolling his gloves off and stepping carefully on the lever that opened his small trash can. The bundled latex rustled when it fell in; the lid closed after it with a soft thud. Scrubbing down at the sink, Isshin patted his hands dry and exited the exam room, clipboard and paperwork tucked under his elbow.
"Kurosaki-san."
He turned towards the voice, finding that Ikeda was poking her head in from the front room of the clinic. She was one of the patients that volunteered their hours handling the administrative parts of the job so that Isshin could see more people.
"There's a woman here to see you—Matsumoto-san?"
Isshin blinked. "Yeah, I know her; send her in, please."
He had no more than a few seconds to figure out what to do with himself before Rangiku showed up. Isshin waffled for a couple of them, and ended up putting his clipboard down on one of the counters at the small nurse's station and untying his sleeves. He was still winding the ties around his hands when the door opened again and she stepped into the office section of the clinic.
She'd been here before, obviously, but he hadn't been warned in advance that time. Isshin only kind of understood why he was nervous, but he tried not to let it get to him too much, pasting on a grin and setting his sleeve ties on top of the clipboard.
"Hey Rangiku. What's—"
He lost track of the sentence when he got a better look at her. She was out of uniform, dressed in a spring yukata instead, a casual one with a bright flower print. It was exactly the kind of thing she'd always worn off-duty, but she didn't look at home in it right now. Not with those dark circles under her eyes.
"The Sōtaichō put me on leave," she said.
Isshin could only gawk for a moment; her tone was delicate. He'd never heard Rangiku sound fragile once. Not once, as long as they'd known each other. If she felt it—and she must have, sometimes—she'd faked her way past it with breeziness and humor. Now she sounded like she'd crack down the middle if he so much as brushed her by accident.
It didn't take a genius to know why she sounded that way, obviously, but he hadn't thought she'd come to him feeling like this.
Come on, you idiot. Get it together; she needs your help. The voice in his head was more Masaki than Engetsu, but he took it for gospel just the same. Maybe because of the fact.
His frame of reference moved a bit to the left: Rangiku in this much pain wasn't something he was sure he knew how to handle, but he was a doctor. Other people in pain were kind of normal. Isshin grabbed one of the desk chairs without thinking too hard about it, rolling it out and around the station and to her side.
"Here," he said, using his best 'understanding physician' voice, since all the other ones he had weren't operational just now. "Take a seat, Rangiku."
She nodded, crossing her arms under her chest and sinking onto the office chair. "Thanks." The word was distant, and still too soft. Like all the life had been sucked out of it.
It had been easier the first time she was here. When she was just scolding him for all the things he deserved to be scolded about. Even if there'd been pain under that, too, there'd also been something he could do about it, or at least try to do. Isshin wasn't sure there was anything he could do about this pain.
But… she'd come here for a reason. She must've, because Rangiku wasn't the type to show anyone her weak side.
Grabbing a second chair, Isshin sat in it, rolling so he was right in front of her, his knees a few inches from hers. Leaning forward, he braced his forearms on his legs, tilting his head to the side so he could see her better. She'd bowed her head forward, and all that bright blonde hair was suddenly a very effective curtain between her and the outside world.
Isshin decided to start with what she'd already given him. "Leave, huh? Karin and Yuzu have some, too. I think they're gonna come back here for a while." His daughters didn't have property of their own in the Seireitei yet, and frankly he didn't mind that a bit. "Any idea how you're going to spend yours?" He kept his words slow, gentle, deliberate.
Rangiku shook her head; the curtain rippled with the motion. "I don't know. I thought—I thought maybe I could go back. But I tried, and I—can't. I can't."
Back. Back where? Isshin knew she'd grown up in one of the bad areas of the Rukongai, with Ichimaru. She probably meant there.
What was the living world phrase for this? He had the feeling he was entering a minefield here. Maybe he'd get lucky and not step on any. But he had to try regardless.
"Maybe it's just not the right time yet. It's only been a few weeks, Rangiku. Give yourself a little time and patience." He of all people knew she had plenty of those things for others. Isshin finally caught her eyes; he tried to smile again, but wasn't sure he managed to make it look convincing.
She huffed, a short exhalation, and finally loosened her arms from their tight hold around her body. Parting the curtain with one hand, Rangiku tucked some of the hair behind an ear. "You're probably right. I just—I saw this coming. I knew what was going to happen, deep down. As soon as he—as soon as he left." Her lips compressed, discomfort settling heavier over her shoulders and pulling them down.
Isshin ran a hand back through his hair, then forward again, rubbing over his scalp and grimacing. "So you think you shoulda been more… ready for it. This. Prepared."
Rangiku tipped her chin down, almost too slightly to see.
His arm dropped heavily back to his knee. "You can't do that to yourself, Rangiku. Seeing it coming doesn't make it any better when it gets here. Take it from me."
Isshin had always known he'd face down that Hollow. For just about ten years, he'd known he would—and that either he or everything that was left of his wife and son would be dead by the end of it. It didn't make a damn thing easier.
Letting out a slow, deep breath, he tried to bring the conversation back around to her. That was the important thing right now. "So for now, you can't go back. That's okay. Do you know what you want to do with your leave?"
"I think I want—" Rangiku paused, clearly uncertain. Hesitation pulled her mouth to one side; she met his eyes again with the air of someone gearing up to something. "If I can't face it yet, I've got to do something with myself. If I'm not doing something, I'm just going to think about it."
He gave that some thought. An obvious answer popped into his head; Isshin went with it. "You could stay here for a while," he offered. "If you need something to do… you could give me a hand around here. Until the distraction isn't necessary anymore."
Rangiku's eyebrows furrowed. "Are you sure? I mean, Karin-chan and Yuzu-chan probably need the space, too, right? And you—I don't want to get in the way of anything."
Isshin shook his head immediately. "You won't be," he said. "There's plenty of room, and… it might not be bad for us, either, you know?" To have people to lean on. He knew his daughters had people like that, and Isshin figured he did too, at least to some extent. But he couldn't pretend like his division hadn't been a huge part of that for him, when he'd been with them. Rangiku had been a huge part of that. If he could help her this time—well, it wasn't so much paying a debt as just wanting to help, but he'd be glad to do it.
She thought on that for a while, and he didn't rush her, reaching forward just enough to gently squeeze her knee before he stood and resumed his work. She stayed there, in the chair in front of the nurse's station, for a good half-hour. He could see her starting to consider it, glancing around at the room like she was trying to decide how it'd fit into her life for a little while. Or maybe how she'd fit into it.
She stopped him with a hand to his forearm on one of his passes by.
"Okay," she said, tilting her head to look up at him. "I'll stay a while. But you've got to give me things to do, Isshin. I don't want to freeload here."
His smile carved a fissure into his face. "Well, that's gonna take some getting used to. Rangiku asking for work to do."
When her eyes narrowed, though, he dropped the joke.
"Sure thing," he said. "There's plenty to go around."
Having three people around who all liked to keep busy as a method of coping was… different.
Obviously he wouldn't wish for the situation, but it did free Isshin's time up to make more house calls, and to check on patients much farther out in the Rukongai, ones he usually couldn't see more than once every year or so. He made a point to carry a bunch of supplies out to the more remote areas and set up a free on-site clinic for a day, but more than a few times a year was pushing it, and he tried to spread himself out area-wise.
It wasn't nearly enough to help all the people out there that needed helping, and he knew it. But that kind of problem wasn't something one doctor would ever be able to fix. He did what he could anyway, and tried not to spend too much time thinking about how things looked a little worse every time he went. Whether that was because they were actually getting worse or just because he'd gotten better at seeing was not clear to him.
The Rukongai was a massive place; traversing it on foot without shunpō, even just a straight line of the radius, would probably take a fortnight. Thankfully, that wasn't a problem for Isshin, who could flash-step, and pretty fast at that.
He drew to a stop once he reached Sakahone; a glance around put him in the seventy-second ward. The area was familiar to Isshin—though he'd stopped mostly by instinct, he knew exactly what instinct it was. The village here was bigger than the last time he'd been. He supposed that was probably Chiaki-san's doing. The dirt road he stood on was worn smooth and packed hard by thousands of bare feet; there were a few children out and about alongside the farmers. Rickety stalls sold pale, small produce; the kimono of their proprietors were worn down to colorless, threadbare fabric.
They didn't starve, for the most part. Souls without reiryoku needed very little food, but that wasn't the same as needing none, and it did undercut one of the few types of business anyone had the ability to run out here. The whole thing had the feel of a trap, and Isshin knew that pretty well by this point.
A shadow detached itself from the shade under a dusty awning. Isshin recognized him as soon as he stepped into the harsh sunlight.
"Shiba-sama."
"Hello, Hotaru-kun. Visiting Chiaki-san today?" Isshin hefted his supplies a little higher on his shoulders.
The younger man nodded, reaching up to run a callused hand over the dark fuzz atop his head. The tattoos on his arms were bright against his dark skin—white, blue, and golden ink with pieces of red and orange and green. "She's not well. Shinjirō was going to come ask for you, but you know how she is."
Isshin nodded. "Yeah, I do. But I'm here now. Think she'll let me see her?"
Hotaru snorted, letting his hand fall to rest on the tsuka of his zanpakutō. He didn't wear any sort of uniform otherwise, though. "She's not gonna say no if you're insisting." Tilting his head down the street, he led the way.
Isshin fell in step beside him. "You and Shinjirō-kun have to be pretty close to graduating now, right?"
"We'll be finishing third year fairly soon," Hotaru replied. "I'm taking the exit exams this year; I think he's close to shikai, but not there yet."
"Oh yeah? You've got yours, then. Congratulations—what's his name?"
A very small smile turned the corner of Hotaru's mouth. "Thank you, Shiba-sama. His name is Shizuen." He left it at that; either he hadn't yet been able to figure out more or else he was being modest or private about it.
That was respectable, even if it wasn't really necessary here. "I'm sure Chiaki's proud of you," Isshin said, halting while Hotaru opened the door into her house. "Even if she was expecting it."
Hotaru didn't have a reply to that, merely bowing at the entrance and waiting for Isshin to precede him through.
The house itself was just about as ramshackle as the others, though it didn't seem to be in immediate danger of falling over. Hotaru's living stipend was clearly going to good use, if the new support beams grafted onto the weaker parts of the house were anything to go by. Shinjirō's probably were, too—even if he wasn't a member of the family, Chiaki had all but raised him. The tatami were old, worn down and almost nonexistent in places; Isshin removed his shoes anyway.
The whole place was about as clean as anything could get out here, with the dust. Kept with a kind of pride that didn't go away because the situation got worse than it used to be. Someone had brought fresh flowers in from the garden in the back. They weren't all that pretty, being washed-out and misshapen like a lot of what grew here—but they smelled nice like they were supposed to, and even a pale purple was more color than he'd have seen another district down.
Their scent was overpowered by smoke as Isshin headed for the back, Hotaru trailing behind him. Sure enough, when he reached the living room, it was to find Chiaki with a pipe gripped between her teeth. Apparently she was in the middle of dictating something to Shinjirō, who bore her clipped pace with amused indulgence edged with concern.
Both looked up when Isshin entered, setting down his supplies beside the doorway. "Hello, Chiaki-san. Shinjirō-kun."
She looked… well, not the way he was used to seeing her. Chiaki had been a retainer of the main house back when it was a house, and in his childhood, Isshin had known her as a lady with an iron spine and enough vigor to keep up with three generations of Shiba. He'd managed to forget how small she was—somehow he did that every time. But more than that, her condition had clearly worsened. Her grey hair was lank, thin, and dry. The wrinkles had pressed more deeply into her face, skin papery and fragile, stretched over what looked like little but her bones. It was something that her meticulous way of dressing could only do so much to hide.
And there was only so much he'd be able to do for her, either.
"Isshin-kun, is that you?" She squinted in his general direction; the cataracts had gotten thick and rheumy over her eyes. Smoke curled from the end of the thin pipe, drifting towards the open window shutters.
"You got me," he replied, putting on a smile so she'd hear it in his voice. "I came to check on you, Chiaki-san."
She harrumphed at that, shaking her head. "If you want to be checking on someone, the Ando girl down the road has a cough. I'm just fine."
He made a mental note to check with the family in question; for now he wasn't going anywhere. "Of course you are," he said, bobbing his head agreeably. "But you know me, Chiaki-san; I'm always sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. Best to let me so I'm out of your hair faster." Crouching next to the bag, Isshin withdrew a few of his instruments: stethoscope, otoscope, and the like. Diagnostic kaidō were all well and good, but sometimes the more basic way of doing things was just as effective. Let him save the reiryoku, too.
He'd probably need it by the end of the day.
By the time he made it to Kūkaku's place that night, Isshin was covered in the same dust as everyone in Sakahone seemed to end up wearing. He stopped outside the house to wash himself down a bit from the barrel of rainwater standing outside, then headed in without bothering to knock. She'd know he was here.
Kūkaku was alone this time, though that wasn't exactly unusual. It seemed like Ganju spent a lot of his time out, especially at night. She nodded once at Isshin when he entered, then went back to what she was doing—inventory forms for the fireworks business, it looked like.
"You smell like the outer districts," she informed him bluntly when he sat down next to her.
"Look like 'em, too," he agreed, picking up the open bottle of sake on the edge of her low desk. She'd left a spare cup for him. His cousin knew his routines pretty well, there was no doubt about it.
She grunted, adding a few strokes to a line then setting the brush down. She moved the paper to the far stack with the same hand. Kūkaku had way too much pride to let anyone do any of the work she thought of as hers just because of the missing arm. Isshin had always admired her for that.
What he was missing didn't impede him physically, but he found it difficult to work around nevertheless. Kūkaku, though—even after Kaien, she'd kept her head up. Even after the fall of the house.
"You see the Sugitani, then?" She was looking at him, now. But she would be—this was important.
Isshin sighed. It came out heavier than he meant it to, but there was nothing for that. "Hotaru's doing well, but Chiaki-san's… she's not gonna last another year, Kūkaku. And she's the heart of that whole ward now." He set the bottle back down after a liberal pour and took up the dish instead.
Kūkaku wrapped her fingers around the neck and lifted it back to her cup. "Yeah. That's what I figured. She wouldn't take any money when I went to see her, either. Asked me to get it to her boys instead."
Isshin grimaced. "You think things would have been like this if we'd never—"
"Don't." Kūkaku shook her head. "Don't think like that. They chose their path. Stickin' with us even through all that… they knew it was going to have consequences. And you were a kid, Isshin. None of that shit was your fault."
Isshin didn't understand fault anymore, anyway. Sometimes he found himself wanting to be blamed for things. Or punished for them in some way that wasn't… this endless suspension of everything. His life. The nice thing about punishment was that it had a definite length. And once it was over, it was over.
He could have dealt with punishment.
"You're not thinking about Chiaki anymore," Kūkaku observed, eyeing him over the rim of her cup.
"No," he admitted. "I'm not." He didn't really want to talk about his thoughts, though, so he changed the topic instead. "Where's Ganju at?" He dusted off the knee of his hakama, leaving a darker streak against the light layer of dirt. Lucky for him, Kūkaku wasn't the type to give a damn; she was covered in charcoal and grease half the time when they met like this.
She rolled her eyes. "'Patrol.'" Skepticism oozed from the word.
Isshin furrowed his brows. "He's still running with that gang?"
"Yep." She polished off the sake, then set the cup down, leaning back on her hand instead. "I guess I can't blame him. No one trusts the shinigami to do anything useful even this far out. And if you wanna keep the really ugly shit from creeping into your district, what do you do?"
He could see the logic, kind of. "Fend off the gangs with your own gang, I guess."
"They're a bunch of idiots and they've acted like it, but a few busted up windows and scuffles is a lot better than being under the thumb of the Kurote or something." Kūkaku shrugged. "Not much the likes of us can do anymore, huh?"
Isshin dropped his eyes to the tatami. She wasn't wrong, really. He'd used to think it was pretty inevitable; even in the living world, things could get pretty bad in the same way. But still—it wasn't this.
Even so, he couldn't help but balk at the idea of just agreeing there. He'd never been that kind of person. Not until recently, maybe. It wasn't the kind of captain he'd been, that was for sure. Not the kind of husband he'd been. He'd tried not to let his daughters get crushed under the feeling of inevitability, either; but maybe he'd forgotten to protect himself from it.
Forgotten how to fight it.
He didn't sleep well anymore.
Day by day, the intervals between the thoughts of Masaki and Ichigo, and thoughts of the fight with Grand Fisher, got longer. Day by day, the thoughts themselves got a little more manageable. But there was something about the quiet at night that made them harder to cope with, and at the same time harder to escape. Sleeping was basically impossible, unless he wanted to watch himself kill them over and over again. Not the Hollow and the illusion—his wife and son.
Sometimes the images changed. So he was killing his daughters instead. Or Rangiku and Tōshirō. Or his cousins, or his friends.
Isshin knew he was processing the trauma. That nothing like this was infinite. That any wound healed with time, or at least scabbed over and scarred enough that it didn't bleed anymore. Even the wounds that were psychological. That someday, maybe, eventually, he'd be able to sleep again.
It was pretty cold comfort, really.
He padded quietly through his house, heading downstairs to the dark kitchen and opening up the fridge. Several containers with meals ready to eat were stacked on the left side; Ishida brought them by every week or so in case Yuzu didn't want to cook. It was good of him, but Isshin knew the type: he wouldn't exactly want to hear that stated directly. Bypassing those, he considered the fruit for a second before shaking his head and closing the door back over. A glass of water would do for now.
Once he had it, he settled on one of the cushions in the living room, putting his back to the wall and not bothering with the lights. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, instinctively reaching for the reiatsu signatures in the house. Karin and Yuzu were in their room, Rangiku in the guest room. No overnight patients this time, which gave him no one he could justify checking on. Still, as long as he stayed awake, he'd know they were all still really here. Not dead like he'd dream them.
The water tasted stale even though he knew better; he set the glass down on the table in front of his knees and sighed. The cabinet on the opposite wall had glass doors—even in the dark, he could glimpse what was inside. He'd known the contents by heart for a long time. Medical textbooks from Ryūken's collection, because Ryūken sometimes liked to pretend that their profession was the only thing they'd shared, and Isshin let him. Family photos by the dozen from his years in the living world, with all of them. Drawings Ichigo had done in elementary school, Karin's soccer trophies, Yuzu's album of pressed flowers. The placard that used to be in front of their house—the one that just said 'Kurosaki.'
Karin and Yuzu's offer letters, and Ishida's, too, because there wasn't anyone else to keep them for him right now. To be proud of him in that way. So Isshin did it, putting the letter right next to the ones for his daughters. There were things in there from others, too: the bottle his celebratory sake had come in the day he made captain. A small ice sculpture Rangiku had kept from melting with a kidō trick and given to him on the sly. Tōshirō had really liked making dragons when he was a kid.
It was a lot of life, but he'd put it all in a cabinet and kept it there. Like it was complete already, or at least done. For a long time, until the letters, he hadn't even added anything. He wondered if he'd be ready to add things again, eventually, or if he was really as stuck as he felt.
A pain that must end, he'd thought that day.
All pain ends, he'd think in anyone else's case.
But his?
Isshin wasn't so sure about that, anymore.
"Dad?"
Yuzu's voice drew his attention. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Hey, kiddo," he answered, not much above a whisper.
She took a couple steps towards him. "What are you doing?"
He tried for a smile. "Nothing much. I couldn't sleep, is all. Is everything okay?"
Yuzu pursed her lips. She was studying his face, and from the look on hers, he knew his smile had failed to appear. "I couldn't sleep, either," she admitted.
Isshin patted the ground next to him. Yuzu did smile, just barely, and crossed the rest of the distance, taking a seat and tucking herself against his left side. Isshin let his arm fall over her shoulders and rubbed her bicep with his hand, calluses sliding over her cotton sleeve. "Bad dream?" he asked.
She shook her head, something he felt just as much as he saw it. "No. I just… can't get to sleep. My thoughts won't slow down."
Isshin hummed, offering Yuzu the glass of water. She accepted, sipping a few times before setting it back down.
"It gets kind of hot in there, most nights," she informed him quietly. "When Karin has nightmares, it's… I feel like I don't want to sleep in case I miss one. Miss being there if she needs someone."
With a sigh, he pulled her in a little closer, feeling her arms wind around him and hold tightly. Sometimes he missed when all their problems had been the ones their dad could easily solve for them. When their nightmares hadn't been any worse than being chased by formless monsters. When they still believed he could keep all those things away just because he was their dad, and that was close enough to being invincible.
But he also knew that the women they were now would be able to chase away their own monsters, eventually—even though the monsters were worse. Even though they had faces and names and a terrifying, solid reality. They were strong enough for it, and had plenty of people to support them. That was better, even if sometimes it didn't feel that way.
Yuzu's hair was soft under his fingers; Isshin carded them through the strands. "That's good of you, Zuzu," he said, tucking a piece behind her ear. "But don't forget to look after yourself, too, okay?"
"Okay."
Silence followed, and at some point, Isshin drifted off after all. He woke only once more, when a second body curled into his right side. He made room for Karin, too, back still to the living room wall, and then sank again into sleep.
Kyōraku leaned back on his hands, legs draping over the side of the engawa, and tilted his head back a bit to make eye contact with Isshin.
"I know you've got a life here, but we could really use your help."
He had a still life.
Going back would definitely return it to motion.
Isshin wasn't honestly sure he was ready for that, but it might be that he never felt ready at all. Karin, Yuzu, and Rangiku were all returning to the Gotei. Even after all they'd been through.
In a way, he knew it was where he belonged. It was where he'd always belonged. Where his fallen house didn't condemn him. Where he could feel like he was really doing something again. Maybe if he went back, he'd reach a day when the thoughts and dreams he had didn't hurt anymore. He could… grow new things, in himself. And they'd be pale and warped for a while like Rukongai radishes, but they might not have to be forever.
"Ninth, you said?"
"That was the plan."
Isshin nodded. "I guess I'll be closing up the clinic, then."
Kyōraku made a humming noise that was hard to read exactly. "No need to rush. Take your time and get your things in order. We'll worry about the rest then."
One day at a time.
Term Dictionary:
Sakahone – 逆骨 – "Reverse Bone." The seventy-sixth district of the Rukongai. In canon, Rukongai is further divided into north, south, etc. Each of those four cardinal directions has 80 districts. I'm doing it a little differently: the districts are concentric circles, with the outer ones being much larger as a result, though there are only 80 in total. Each district is further divided into wards, which are roughly equal areas, meaning that inner districts have fewer wards. So Sakahone is huge, has a lot of wards, and is extremely poor, being only four districts back from the very outskirts of Rukongai. Worth noting is that even the small districts have both settled and unsettled areas, just like the Seireitei itself. Given how many people this area has to contain, it's gotta be pretty massive.
Shizuen – 静淵 – "Quiet Abyss." Abyss here is taken in the sense of 'very deep water.' The name of Hotaru Sugitani's shikai.
Kurote – 黒手 – "Black Hand." In this AU, an organized crime syndicate that flourishes in the middle districts of the Rukongai. Given that there seems to be no active centralized government aside from C46 and the noble families, and that there's just no way 6,000 shinigami (plus people working for said families) could regularly patrol even a small fraction of Rukongai when they also have the rest of their jobs to do (konsō, fighting Hollows, etc.), it made sense to me that something extralegal would fill the power vacuum. In this case, gangs/organized crime. Ganju runs his own gang in an attempt to keep the particularly nasty ones out of his ward. Other wards are occasionally under the protection of someone with enough clout to make it safer in their areas, like Chiaki, but for the most part, local leadership is pretty easily overwhelmed without support.
