I can't resist. I need to post this now before I hibernate because of a cold! Special thanks to EternalDream for always fleshing the chapters out and makes the whole fic better, and to everyone that has read and reviewed. Thank you all!

Standard Disclaimers Apply

The Ties that Binds
Chapter 10

Ichigo looked at the training landscape from the balcony, and he tried to assess the situation. He was quite content to leave dinner earlier than the others. Neither he nor Sora had spoken to one another. Only Orihime's appearance had settled the tension. Yuzu had assured everybody that she was fine, and admonished Isshin for his unfair punishment of her brother and nephew, for which he had been grateful.

Now that everyone was in their respective quarters for the night, his mind drifted back to the man his son called Mamoru. When he followed Sora to the abandoned building and heard the conversation between the two, the last thing he expected to hear was the same man that had saved his sister, would be the same man that would end her life.

"Ichigo-kun?"

Ichigo turned around and held out his hands for Orihime. She reached out, and he pulled her closer. His eyes drifted to their son asleep on the bed.

"Are you alright?"

"He hates me."

Orihime pulled slightly away as she looked at Ichigo.

"He doesn't hate you," Orihime murmured softly. "Whatever happened between here and the future that he came from, we can change that. The more that he stays here with us, he'll see that there's no reason for him not to like you."

Rather than respond, Ichigo chose to turn his sights on the barren landscape, enjoying their hands still intertwined. She let go, stepped behind him, and wrapped her arms around him. Even though she couldn't see it, she knew that scowl on his face had slipped away.

"It's like what your father said. Whatever you did that made him angry, you haven't committed those things yet. So he can't really be angry with you for something you haven't done, right?"

Ichigo snorted before he spoke. "That's like not being angry with that asshole Mamoru for not killing Yuzu just yet..."

Orihime understood the logic his argument, but something didn't quite seem to be adding up with Mamoru's and Yuzu's situation. "You said that he saved her life, yes? That he fixed her ankle?"

"Yeah," Ichigo replied. "He also said that he killed her to save her life, that there's some kidou attached to his Zanpakuto which allowed him to save her soul or something. Yeah right."

His voice was full of disbelief, and even if he didn't say anything about it, she knew him well enough to know that he hated himself for not being able to protect her sister—even if the event he was thinking about had yet to happen.

Orihime remained silent for a few seconds before she spoke again. "He also saved her on the day that you came back."

"Orihime..." Ichigo finally turned to look at her. "I don't like your way of thinking."

"All I'm saying is that he had plenty of opportunity to hurt Yuzu-chan. Seishiro and his brothers went back through time to hurt us, but he's been protecting her. That counts for something, right?"

Ichigo turned around and wrapped his arms around Orihime. "You really have too much of a big heart," he said softly before giving her a kiss.

Orihime smiled as she returned the kiss. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Ichigo." Her smile calmed him, and Ichigo knew he could never be thankful enough to whatever God existed that she had chosen him, and that she stayed with him. "Don't worry about Sora, Ichigo-kun. He'll see you for the man you really are, the man that fought more than a million Shinigami to save his friend."

"I wouldn't say millions..."

"The man who was prepared to sacrifice his humanity just to save an ordinary girl."

"You...you are not 'just a girl.' You never were."

"He'll see all of that, Ichigo," she repeated with certainty. Her words warmed his heart, and just before he could pull her in for another kiss, Orihime's eyes twinkled. "Yuzu-chan seemed to be quite taken with Mamoru."

In that instant, Ichigo froze as he looked down at Orihime. "Did she say that?"

"No, but they way she talked about him..."

"She talked about him?" Ichigo asked, the scowl back in full force as he remembered how shyly his sister had looked at their enemy, and how his hands had lingered on her ankle a little bit longer than necessary.

Orihime placed her hands on Ichigo's chest. "Besides, if Mamoru really was the enemy, he wouldn't have told you how to counter the soul poison, ne?"

"You really don't expect us to believe that sh—that stuff he said, do you?"

"Didn't Renji-kun find pieces of a broken disc? And didn't Hinamori-san say that it was inscribed with a kidou? Ichigo-kun...if there's even a slight possibility that what Mamoru said is true, isn't that something we should look into?"

Ichigo looked at Orihime, and his mind replayed what he heard Mamoru said.

"The kidou we have attached to our Zanpakuto can either destroy the soul, or save it. Not to save the life, but the soul."

"Shimatta," Ichigo cursed as he realized what Mamoru revealed. "I need…I need to talk to Sora."

Orihime just smiled as she gave Ichigo a chaste kiss on the lips. "Go..."

Ichigo gave Orihime a deeper kiss before leaving to find his grown up son.

-0-0-0-0-

Outside the Urahara store, Ayame Namkamura took a deep breath as she pasted a smile on her face. Since arriving in Tokyo, she'd tried to call Uryuu several times, but his phone must have been switched off. When her phone beeped a few hours ago, she was more than excited to see where her fiancé finally was. Who knew installing Foursquare in Uryuu's phone would actually work? She took out her compact mirror to make sure her makeup was still in place before knocking on the door. "Hello?" she called out. Why Uuryu would stay in a place like this when the Ishida family had numerous apartments in Tokyo was beyond her. She knocked again.

"We're closed," a woman said behind the closed doors, and Ayame huffed.

"Well, duh!" she thought, refraining from rolling her eyes. Out loud she said, "I wasn't buying anything. I'm just looking for my fiancé, Uuryu Ishida."

The door immediately opened, and Ayame found herself face to face with a dark-skinned woman who would've been extremely attractive if it wasn't for the frown on her face. "Ishida disclosed our location to you?"

"Oh, no... I tracked him down through Foursquare." At the blank look she received, Ayame continued, "It's an app for smartphones that allows people to track other people."

Yourichi just stared at the woman in front of her before looking behind her. "ISHIDA!"

Soon enough, her fiancé showed up, and Uryuu looked in bewilderment to see Ayame standing outside the Urahara Store.

"Ayame! What are you doing here?"

"It's a surprise, silly! You sounded so upset about your friend, I thought I'd join you. You know, to lift your spirits up!"

The dark-skinned woman grabbed Ishida's arm. "How is that possible?"

"It's a saying, Yourichi-san," he replied patiently. "It's to make someone feel better."

"I see…" Yourichi said suspiciously before she turned her attention back to Ayame.

"How did you find me?" Uryuu asked, confused.

"Foursquare," she shrugged. "Remember when I asked you if I can put all these cool apps on your Blackberry so we can always keep in touch besides boring old texting?"

Uryuu racked his brain for that particular memory and could only nod his head in false agreement when he realized he had no idea when this conversation had taken place.

"So. Is this where your friend lives? The one who was in trouble?"

Kisuke walked out and looked at the newcomer. "A friend of yours, Ishida-san?"

"I'm his fiancé!" Ayame proudly announced. She held out her hand to flash her ring.

"A lovely ring," Kisuke nodded. "Perhaps we can continue this inside?"

Ayame smiled as she walked inside. "How come you're staying here?" she said, tugging on her fiancé's sleeve. "I would've thought that you'd stay at your family apartment in the city." She slipped her arm around his own and leaned against him.

"I've decided to stay here for a few nights," Uryuu responded absently, racking his brain to try and think of what he could say or do to send Ayame back to the United States as quickly as possible without risking offending her.

"Ishida!" Tatsuki yelled with a grin. "What's taking you so long? Renji and Rukia are starting to pretend nothing is going on between..." She trailed off when she saw a blond woman, arms hooked with her friend.

"Hi, I'm Ayame Nakamura. Uryuu's fiancé."

"Is that right," Tatuski said, and looked at Uryuu, a fake smile automatically slipping across her face. Why she felt the need to pretend she wasn't at all disturbed that Uryuu had a fiancé was beyond her, but now that she was in this situation, she might as well milk it for what it was worth. "That's wonderful, Ishida."

Behind Tatsuki, Mizuiro and Keigo shared a look.

"I thought it was Ishida and Arisawa that were pretending there was nothing going on," Keigo whispered, and Mizuiro's nodded in agreement.

After an awkward pause in which Uryuu remained uncomfortably silent, Tatsuki remembered her manners. "Well, perhaps you can show Nakamura-san where the living room is. I'm sure you would both be more at ease in there."

"Actually, we won't be staying long," Ayame said briskly, her smile now becoming impatient. She stroked Uryuu's arm, and Tatsuki couldn't help but feel it was a show of possession. "I told my mom that we would be visiting her tonight."

Knowing that the quicker he got Ayame away from the store, the better, Uryuu just nodded. Hopefully he'd be able to use this to give himself more time to find a way to send her back to the States.

"Arisawa, would you be able to tell Orihime-san and Ichigo that I've left? I'll see them tomorrow morning."

"Sure," Tatsuki said, somewhat pitying him. She tried not to judge his fiancé as a possessive bimbo when she gave everybody what was clearly a falsely happy grin and an impudent wave goodbye as she pulled Ishida away from them.

"Strange," Kisuke murmured.

He was watching the departing couple, and Tatsuki turned her attention to him. "What do you mean?"

"Oh nothing!" he responded as he fanned himself. "Just a thought that I had."

Tatsuki narrowed her eyes at him. "Just make sure it's not something any of us will regret if you keep it to yourself."

"Ouch, Tatsuki-chan! Don't project your anger at me!" he teased. She blushed, and tried to sputter a protest, but he waved his fan in front of her face before she could get a word in edgewise. "Perhaps we need to give you a little push the way we did Ichigo and Orihime at the beach!"

"Baka! Orihime nearly got eaten by some octopus looking hollow then!"

Mizuiro snorted at the memory and nudged Keigo. "Didn't you faint?"

"I did not!" Keigo responded indignantly. "I fell down when Tatsuki shrieked in my ear!"

As Tatsuki turned her attention to her two friends, Kisuke remained silently pensive and wondered about the Quincy's fiancé.

-0-0-0-0-

When Kakei opened the door, he wasn't surprised to see his father. He could feel the older man's presence making way towards his room. He'd been hoping Ichigo was going somewhere else.

"We need to talk," Ichigo said curtly as he walked inside. "Forget that you can't seem to stand me for one minute and talk to me. Tell me exactly what Mamoru told you."

"What are you talking about? Didn't you hear him admitting to killing Aunt Yuzu?"

"I was more focused on making sure you hadn't taken a bite off of more than you could
chew," he responded, unable to help himself. Somehow, this kid just got under his skin.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sora demanded.

Ichigo softened his voice, knowing that arguing counterproductively would get them nowhere. "It means that whoever that Mamoru was, he was stronger than you. You know that too."

Unwilling to admit that his father was correct, Sora just scowled before turning away from him and sitting on the bed.

"What exactly do you want to talk about?"

"That guy said that he…that he killed Yuzu, to save her soul. Do you remember?"

"I was there! Of course I remember!"

"He said there was a kidou attached to his zanpakuto that allowed the wielder to save the soul."

"I'm not exactly inclined to believe whatever he had to say. He could have just been bullshitting his way out of a fight for all we know."

"I agree. I'm also not too thrilled that some jerk is making a move on my sister, especially one that's going to end up…" Ichigo couldn't bring himself to say the words. "Remember how Renji found some broken pieces, which Hinamori-fukotaichou just confirmed to be some kind of kidou?"

"You're really going to believe what he said?" the young man asked incredulously. "I can't believe you're willing to buy into this so easily."

Ichigo tried to keep his impatience and temper in check, and reminded himself that he was the supposed to be the grown up between the two of them. "Pretend Mamoru never said anything for a second. We already know that the pieces Renji found contain a kidou. And you said so yourself that there is a disc attached to their Zanpakuto. If both information is correct, then there's a possibility that what that bastard said is true."

Understanding dawned on Sora as he stared at his father. He decided to set aside his anger for the moment and work together with him. For Aunt Yuzu. "We need to discover how to use that kidou. If we can find out how we can stop the soul poison or become immune to it…"

Ichigo nodded, pleased that Sora had picked up on it too. "Then we'll be one step closer in defeating Seishiro."

-0-0-0

End chapter.

Another chapter done! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! Comments and reviews are much appreciated!

Lord Jaric: hehehe! It was too good not to add the grounding in! Nypsy: Thank you! Father and son will work things out... eventually :) FoG: I hope you enjoyed the IchiHime scene in this chapter, I am putting more of them in! Ichihime Supporter: Hope you are finished with your exams! Hope you liked this chapter. Xtremefairy: Correct, Sora's still not going to be a Yuzu/Mamoru supporter anytime soon! Miwa03: I hope you enjoyed their interaction here as well. The Dessa: lol! Wait till you read the companion to the Mamoru/Yuzu interlude! hannehbuns: All good! School work takes top priority!