Now, what is this? A chapter after FIVE days? It's a whopping three days early! It really is – and the reason is because I am trying to make sure that I finish this fic before uni starts. So I have to write fast. This five day update is to give me a good excuse if I am slightly late next chapter :)
Thanks to reviewers: EverMindTheRuleOfThree, Dashita Tichou, Tango Dancer, Debido, MerryKitten, Chirpy Hitomi chan, Lovely Loree, KJC2025, MugetsuIchigo, Titiaredhead, Phantom Claire, Ru-tama, DLC2904, Taichichaser2000, Moon's last stand, uzuki-chan, brialees, BleachFreak16, Miyo86, mypupps1, Qwerty321, Tsuki no Yukihime, Darkest Kurogetsu, ilovebks, Mathlete123, NobodyEpic, Athena SFM, ZeroRose90, Kireina-Ame, MrsAuroraBriefs, GhibliGirl91.
I don't own Bleach, only the story :) Love you guys, hope you like it!
Renji tenses. The style of Ichigo's speech has abruptly changed, and the faraway look in his gaze almost suggests that he is concentrating hard on something else while trying to maintain a semblance of conversation. Something's up…
Ichigo turns in that stiff, awkward way, and bows. "Ichimaru-fukutaichou. I wish to speak with you. May I have a moment of your time?"
Now that was unexpected. Gin actually flicks his head to the side, the only indication of his surprise. But then he answers silkily. "Naturally, Kurosaki-taichou. By your leave, Hagane-san?"
Ichigo and Gin sweep away from the training grounds as the seven bow their farewells, Ichigo still walking with less grace than he usually does.
(BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK)
That particular training ground is actually more like a garden, a broad lawn of carefully clipped grass framed by delicately manicured flowerbeds of every bright colour imaginable. Along the northern edge of the yard, a line of elegant plum trees forms a shimmering wall of silver-pink blossoms – not nearly as exquisitely beautiful as Kuchiki Byakuya's, but a sight nonetheless.
But all this picturesque glory is immaterial to Ichigo as he strides towards the very center of the courtyard, beads of sweat running down his temples as a silent war rages in his inner world, his hollow roaring dominance over the relentless pulse of sickening, vile crimson reiatsu that pours into his soul from the blinking crystals that are embedded into the cuffs on his wrists. The clamour in his mind is never-ending and monstrous, shrieks of claw against claw, teeth against bone, as his inner hollow defends his mind from intrusion.
Ichigo has unconsciously picked this training ground not because of its quiet beauty, but rather because it is possible to speak without being overheard – the row of plum trees is as good a sound barrier as anything. The conversion of Gin to his plan of escape is crucial beyond reason. Gin is the only person in this time that has a sufficient grasp of Aizen's true nature to affect his actions in any way. If he can be convinced, Rukia and I might have a chance…
Easier said than done. Manipulating Gin of all people is not unlike trying to charm a deadly snake out of a basket with a broken reedpipe. Not to mention the incessant sounds of war inside his head is distracting enough.
MY HUMAN, MY MIND, MY WORLD! his inner hollow screams.
"–feeling well, Kurosaki-taichou?" Gin's mocking tones break into his thoughts.
Ichigo swallows the rising bile in his throat, and grimaces. "I'm fine." He stops suddenly in the middle of the yard, taking a quick scan of their surroundings to check for the presence of other shinigami.
Gin stops also, hands folded neatly in his sleeves, sunlight glancing off his hair. "Why are we taking this little walk, Kurosaki-taichou?" he asks teasingly, his smile taunting.
Ichigo takes a deep breath. Calm. There is no use playing with words, nor trying to tiptoe around the situation. He has one chance to hit the mark – if his first words do not cut deep into Gin's center, the game is lost.
"We are taking this walk, Gin, because Matsumoto Rangiku comes close to tasting death." Ichigo delivers this with all the force of a sword-strike, holding Gin's gaze bluntly.
That strikes home. Gin flinches back in an uncharacteristic show of shock, as if someone has stabbed him in the heart. The snake-grin disappears, the jaunty tilt of his head straightens, his thin shoulders tense abruptly, and, most telling of all, the slitted eyes are hidden no longer as his eyelids snap open, and the ice-blue irises are visible like windows to his soul.
"What…" The word is whispered, almost accidental.
This is delicate. Ichigo has mere seconds to make use of this moment of weakness. A single slip, and fangs will sink into his neck. He cannot hope to match Gin in a fight with the reiatsu cuffs on, and his inner hollow screaming in his ear.
"Your plan against Aizen is, was, and will ever be stupid. There is no other word for it. Your idiocy will eventually place Matsumoto-san in severe danger – more than once – and she will first suffer near-mortal injury at the hands of an arrancar, then try to defy Aizen himself while chasing after you in an attempt to redeem you."
Gin's wiry fingers are suddenly around Ichigo's wrist, gripping strong enough to break bone. "How do you know this?" he hisses, face twisting horribly, "How do you know me?"
Ichigo looks at him levelly, quelling the rapid thudding of his heart. "I know this because you die."
Gin's grip does not falter, but his fingers freeze.
Ichigo ploughs onwards. "You die at the hands of Aizen, in the human world, cradled in your last moments in the arms of a sobbing Matsumoto Rangiku, which Aizen allows to live at that moment only because to him she is a worm beneath his notice, and he is a sadist beyond measure who enjoys seeing her cry over your lifeless body."
The debilitating hold on his arm looses, as Gin totters backwards. "I will never let that happen," Gin hisses. "I am next to that serpent now so I can kill him myself."
A snort. "And what do you end up achieving?" Ichigo asks derisively. "You predict nothing. You are a pawn to him, until the last moment that you draw breath. All you end up predicting is his invulnerability." He is being deliberately provocative – he must push Gin to the very edge. Of course, that can be compared to trying to defuse a Class A explosive by activating it – fraught with danger.
"You lie," Gin snarls, all pretense of joking calm gone.
"I do not lie. What I told you, I will see – have seen – with my own eyes in the Winter War."
"Does she live?" Gin's voice is almost a choke.
The question surprises Ichigo. Gin had almost sounded human, there. He hesitates.
"DOES SHE LIVE?" Gin nearly shouts, hand gripping his sword's hilt like a lifeline.
"Yes," Ichigo says. Then he looks Gin right in the eyes. "Because I defeat Aizen before he has a chance to kill her."
With that, Gin snaps back into his persona, although the trademark grin is absent. There is silence for a moment. "What do you want, Kurosaki Ichigo?" he finally says, voice devoid of any lilt.
A sudden wind whirls through the clearing, picking up the hems of their shihakushuo and whipping Ichigo's haori into a streaming pennant behind him. At that moment, Ichigo's inner hollow roars in a defiant cry of bloodstained victory, and Zangetsu's walls crumble in exhaustion as the final remnants of Hogyoku-fed reiatsu disappear into nothingness.
Ichigo stumbles, nearly falling to his knees even as a pale glint of crimson dust drifts from the hinges of his cuffs, the Hogyoku shards crumbled into powder.
All done, Boss. I'm going to sleep now, if you don't mind, neh?
Thank you, Ichigo thinks blearily to the hollow that curled up in his consciousness. A grumbling reply is all the hollow returns.
Ichigo looks up to find Gin regarding him with one hand tight on his zanpakutuo's hilt, standing in a vaguely defensive stance. The man looks actually alert for a threat, forgoing that usual laconical stance. It does make sense, considering that Ichigo has just demonstrated that he is powerful enough to flat-out destroy a half-complete Hogyoku, with reiatsu cuffs on.
"What are you, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Gin says quietly.
Ichigo does not answer immediately, tapping his wrists to tips the last of the shards onto the grass. "To tell the truth, I don't really know," he says equally softly. But when he looks up, his eyes are steel. "But what I do know is that I was the fulcrum of the war. I was an…unexpected…quantity. Without me, Seireitei would have fallen, all the captains slaughtered, and Aizen the eternal ruler of the three dimensions. Matsumoto-san would have died, along with Tousen and you. Aizen does not share power."
Gin tilts his head, and says nothing. Ichigo waits. The passing mention of Hueco Mundo must have helped convince the silver-haired man further – at present, no other shinigami would have known its existence except for Aizen and his two subordinates.
One last curving smile. "Surely you jest, Kurosaki-taichou. You cannot be the sole reason that Seireitei did not fall."
Ichigo senses that they are very close to the tipping point now. "That is not what I said, Gin," he says calmly. "I was essential to Aizen's defeat. Others helped, but without me, all would have been lost. I do not boast – I am simply telling the truth."
Gin stares, wordless.
Ichigo reaches the crux of the matter. "I am not born yet, Gin. I am born nearly thirty years in the future, as a human with never-before-seen levels of spiritual concentration. I went from human to a captain-level shinigami in the space of weeks, due to a delicate coincidence, that, if prevented, will spell the death of the Gotei, including Matsumoto-san."
"Why?" The question hangs between them.
"Why what?"
"Why would you, a human, delve into a war that is none of your business?" Gin is actually curious, now. The inquisitive question of one morally shaded.
Ichigo sighs. "Why would you want to kill Aizen with your own hand? The same reason – I have someone I need to protect."
There is a shift between them now, a beginning of an understanding. Gin looks at Ichigo differently, and a gleam of his blue eyes can be seen through the cracks between his eyelids. There is no use for the mocking politeness that is Gin's persona anymore – both know what lies at each other's core.
"What do you want, Kurosaki Ichigo?" The same question as before, except this time an acquiescence.
It surprises Ichigo how tired Gin sounds. Perhaps he, too, is tired of living a lie. "I need to escape, along with Kuchiki Rukia," he answers simply. "Aizen cannot discover what I am. If he does, his plans will be accelerated astronomically. Seireitei is not ready to fight him. All will fall."
One of Gin's hands gestures with an elegant flick of white fingers. "And how do you propose I can help, Kurosaki Ichigo? You know Aizen's true nature better than I."
Ichigo shakes his head, brushing his hair back and out of his eyes. "Aizen is not infallible. His one, greatest, flaw, is easy for anyone to see."
"And it is?" Gin's fingers curl in midair.
"Hubris. Arrogance. A sheer ability to overestimate himself and underestimate others." A plum blossom lands gently on Zangetsu's hilt. "He has made a mistake already – sending you to supervise me instead of coming himself."
Gin dips his head. "Granted. You are more perceptive than you look, Kurosaki Ichigo." His tone is mildly laughing again.
Ichigo shifts, facing Gin directly. Now or never. "The portal to my time will open soon." Gin moves imperceptibly at this piece of information. "I suppose that these cuffs are rigged to set off a perimeter alarm if I were to leave the Fifth Division's grounds?"
Gin's smile stretches wide. "Yes," he answers, bowing slightly.
Ichigo shoves his hands towards Gin. "Get rid of that aspect. Now. I cannot hope to open the portal if Aizen is on my tail immediately upon my flight."
"And what if I decline?" Gin says, hands folded into sleeves again.
"Then Matsumoto will die," Ichigo says levelly, proffering the cuffs.
A moment passes, as clear blue irises meet dark brown ones. Then something unspoken passes between them, a breaking of something in Gin.
And then, somewhat paradoxically, Gin's smile is back full force. "I cannot remove the cuffs entirely, but if the cuffs' signature is masked by my own reiatsu, it will not trip the boundary alarms." A twin tap of slender fingers later, Ichigo's cuffs are floating in Gin's reiatsu.
Ichigo gives the cuffs a poke of his own reiatsu, nodding his thanks. He turns to go – and then, by a strange whim, knowing that their paths will never cross again, at least not for him – he looks back, and speaks quickly. "Matsumoto-san misses you. But she is happy, I suppose. She has good friends. And she is safe."
The snake-smile grows, but somehow it is less disturbing than before. "I will endeavour to deter Aizen if he discovers your disappearance."
A spark of something from Ichigo's wrists. Frowning, he pokes them with a finger. Perhaps something to do with Gin's reiatsu… Then, with a small pop, Ichigo feels his reiatsu start trickling into empty nothingness, the fabric between worlds.
It's time.
Ichigo does not spare a second to give Gin a backwards look, launching himself into the sky.
A falling plum blossom lands at Gin's feet as the fukutaichou straightens, affixing his smile and slitting his eyes again. Turning, he strides back towards the large training fields, his head of silver hair shining, back to a life of darkness, and a heart of grey.
(BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK)
The silence in the Kuchiki household is oppressive. The master is away, calling on the Shiba clan about some indeclinable invitation to something social or the other, although most of the servants are quite sure that it is something horrifically bad. The Kuchiki head had all but stormed, in all his noble elegance, out of the house in his best robes instead of his shihakushuo and haori – therefore not work-related – complete with a petrifying scowl on his strong features, one of such magnitude unseen since the days after Hisana-sama passed away. When the master wears such an expression, even the scullery maids have long learned to be as quiet and soundless as possible. The master is not cruel. But his moods…well, they are unpleasant.
And so Rukia finds herself wrapped on all sides with a blanket of absolute, impenetrable silence. Her imprisonment in her own home is exacerbated by the complete and utter disappearance of any white-robed servants since early morning, when Nii-sama had given her a very hard look – commanding stay, an order worthy of a pet – and left the house. The halls are ghostlike, the birds have flown south for the winter, and although the plum blossoms are as gloriously beautiful as any other year, there is a ghostlike stillness about the house, a loneliness beyond words. Kaien had left when the sun was barely a fingerswidth above the horizon.
"Neh, Kuchiki," he had said as he turned to leave, "Just in case I don't get to see you again, I want you to know that I'm proud of you."
She had nodded, and then he was gone the next moment.
Solitude is made worse by silence.
The cuffs on Rukia's wrists flare hot with pain, but she has learned to accept it and block it somewhat throughout the dozen times she has fallen on the hard dirt after a misplaced shunpo. Standing gingerly, she wipes her bleeding palms on her shihakushuo, and readies herself again. Nearly there. Nearly. Six hours in the garden has given her enough control over the measly pool of reiatsu at her disposal to manage a good level of shunpo, and, even better, access to Sode no Shirayuki.
Sode no Shirayuki shifts in her consciousness. Are you well, Rukia?
I'm fine, she thinks, determined to try just once more.
There's no point wearing yourself out, Rukia. Rest. You can try again later.
Rukia wants to deny this, but her feet tremble, and she sits heavily next to one of the wooden columns that supports the overhang above the walkway, reaching out to finger her sword with one bloody finger. Okay.
Resting her head on the grained wood, her zanpakutuo in one elbow, she gazes up at the sky. The heavens are growing reddish mauve in hue, now. Three hours from sunset. A full day without Ichigo. So far, she has avoided thinking too much about Ichigo, for her mind flew quickly to what horrors Aizen might have in store for him, and all of a sudden she had found it difficult to breathe. But now, looking at the sky, unbidden thoughts of him flutter across her thoughts.
How is he? Is he okay? Is he afraid?
It is hard to think of Ichigo as ever capable of being afraid. Always, those brown eyes, if not soft, then hard with anger. Never frightened.
Rukia wishes she can, too, be without fear. But no, here she is, terrified for him.
"Ichigo…" the word escapes from her lips without her wanting it to. The sudden sound actually surprises her, the first human speech she has heard all day.
No answer, from the stillness. Alone. The sky is changing colour slowly, framed in her eyes as a reflection of emptiness in violet.
Then, a shadow leaps across that space, a flash of black and white. Kaien again?
Black and white and orange…
With a gasp, Rukia sits up, electrified, and her limbs almost betray her as she scrambles ungracefully forward, reiatsu cuffs impacting the floor dully, feet sinking into grass as she throws herself across the yard –
– and a pair of strong arms catches her, and gathers her up against a warm haori, and she laughs a broken laugh as someone strokes her hair, and her knees don't really seem able to hold her weight but it's okay because she's being held and holding on too tightly anyway for her to fall.
"You're late, bakamono," she chokes, breathing in the smell of grass and lightning.
"I tried my best, Rukia." Ichigo's voice is so inexpressibly him that she laughs again, the sound bubbling up from within her, and her eyes are sort of wet, for some reason. She scrubs them off on the haori, rubbing her face into the cloth in the process.
"Oi. I'm not a Chappy plushie for you to burrow into, you know." His hand is still stroking her hair. "Are you alright, Rukia?"
"Mm-hmm." Muffled into his front.
A sigh of relief. Then a change in Ichigo's voice, as he snaps into survival mode. "We've got to go, Rukia. There's not much time, the portal is about to open. We need to get to an open space."
"Right," Rukia says, pushing herself away and looking up at him, scrubbing at her nose and eyes with one pristine white glove. The shadows beneath Ichigo's eyes are pronounced, and he looks tired beyond measure. But the gleam of determination in those brown irises are unchanged.
Suddenly, his voice is sharp. "Your hands, Rukia! What happened to them –"
"I'm fine, Ichigo. I fell a bit. They don't hurt." She tries to hide them behind her, but he moves too fast and snatches her small hands out of the air, cradling them in his own.
"Rukia…"
"They're only cuts. They'll be fine." She holds his gaze evenly, until she senses his surrender.
Ichigo shunpos to one side and fetches Sode no Shirayuki, handing the sword to Rukia. "Here, I'll have to carry you –"
Rukia shakes her head quickly. "No, I can shunpo. You shouldn't waste your strength, you need it to force open the portal."
Ichigo gives her a searching look for a moment, then nods once, looking to the west with a frown. "Sokyoku Hill is the closest place we can open the portal." Rukia shudders, but Ichigo's calming hand cups her cheek immediately. "We'll be fine. Here, take my hand."
Rukia slips her hand in his warm one gratefully, and with a single look between them, a look that mirrors the ones they share before every battle, the two pitch themselves upwards into the crimson sky.
(BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK BerryBREAK)
The sky is a streaked arc of scarlet and gold, the bright blue of day leaching slowly into the colours of sunset. It is really a spectacular piece of artwork, tongues of gilded yellow flame fanning over the backcloth of burning crimson, an unending conflagration streaming from the fiery sun itself, barely touching the western horizon.
In the ruby sunlight in the west, and the first hint of stars appearing on a thick cloak of night in the east, the great soul-blade of Sokyoku Hill gleams with the colour of blood on one side, and the echo of shadowed darkness on the other.
Ichigo tears through the air at a breakneck speed, his hand gripping Rukia's tightly, half pulling, half dragging her across the sky. He can hear Rukia's winded panting through gaps in the wind as she struggles to keep up with his pace. But he cannot afford to slow down even the slightest increment, for he can feel the portal begin to awaken through the depths of his reiatsu. On his wrists, the reiatsu cuffs begin to tingle with a foreshadow of oncoming pain, biting into his skin. Gin's layer of reiatsu is long gone, burned away by whatever wards that framed the boundaries of the Fifth Division grounds.
Looking back quickly, Ichigo finds no pursuers behind them, the sky empty of any shinigami. He whispers a quick thank you to Isshin and Kaien for whatever distraction they offered Byakuya, and a grudging internal nod to Gin for delaying Aizen.
The mere thought of Aizen chills his soul. What if I can't open the portal in time?
His worry must have shown on his face, for Rukia shoots him a quick reassuring smile, warming his heart. He smiles weakly back, and concentrates on shunpo again.
Then, all too soon, the forbidding mass of Sokyoku Hill looms like a dark giant in front of them, a cut-out against the setting sun, and Ichigo lands with a long skid of dust by the foot of the immense gallows. Rukia also touches down a moment after him, but instead of letting go of their joined hands and bending over to catch her breath, she races forward to hide herself in the shadow of Ichigo's tall form, blocking the sight of the gallows from her perspective.
Clothed all in white, and the roaring morass of flame scything like a bird of prey –
Ichigo immediately reaches forward to steady her, turning her gently away from the sight of her own execution, so long ago and yet somehow fresh like an open wound. "It's okay, Rukia. I hacked the crappy thing to bits, remember? It's just a shadow of a memory. Hey, hey –"
Rukia is trembling.
Although his reiatsu is spiking from the growing pressure of the opening portal, Ichigo sinks to his knees, pulling her into the circle of his arms, his back to the the gallows as if shielding her physically from their presence. If she is small when standing, she is even smaller curled into a shaking ball, head buried in his haori.
"Shh, shh," Ichigo whispers, "we're nearly there. Here. Take my hands, and don't let go, okay? I'll need you to hold them tight, because I've got to open the portal now, and the next bit might hurt a little."
Rukia stops shivering and looks up sharply, alarm washing over her face as fear for him crushes her fear of the Sokyoku blade.
"Yep," Ichigo says, and before Rukia has a chance to protest, rips open the floodgates to his reiatsu reserves and inundates his reiatsu cuffs with an unbreakable flow of power. In the back of his mind, he feels Zangetsu pour out every ounce of reiatsu at his disposal.
A bright singularity, whirring luminescent cerulean, pops into existence beside their crouched forms.
Rukia makes a small sound of hopeful wonder at the beginnings of their gate to home, but then just as abruptly, Ichigo's fingers grow viselike interlaced in hers, and he bends forward with a muffled cry of pain.
"Ichigo?" Rukia ventures, alarmed.
He just shakes his head, brown eyes hidden behind scrunched eyelids, wordlessly shuddering as he visibly shakes from waves of pain. Rukia can only hold his hands tightly, offering what comfort she can through that touch.
For Ichigo, the air, the world, the crimson sky all fades into an endless rush of terrifying agony, so intense and horrific it takes his breath away, and is everything and nothing at the same time. For he sees nothing but pulsing flashes of red and white, bleeding over his vision; he tastes nothing but the salty-sweet tang of blood on his tongue and his lips; he hears nothing but the thundering sound of his lifeblood roaring like a tide in his ears; he smells nothing but the crackle and pop of ozone as the portal burns the very air, and the odour of burning flesh as the reiatsu cuffs sear themselves into permanent memory on the raw skin of his wrists.
But still he empties his reiatsu into the abyss that is the portal, clenching his teeth against the throbbing pain, because if they – no, if Rukia is trapped in this cold world of callous brothers and sickening danger, he cannot live with himself.
The portal wavers in midair, and begins to grow steadily, electric flashes of lightning crisscrossing it's mouth and the dark depths of nothingness within.
But the pain crescendos on an arc of pure agony, and Ichigo can barely bring himself to breathe anymore, and Zangetsu is groaning in his mind. Ichigo calls out to the hollow within the skyscrapers in his consciousness, the buildings shaking under an earthquake. Help us!
Er, no, Boss, you'll be needin' me for later, so do I swear, Boss.
SHUT UP AND HELP US!
No, really, Boss, you'll see what I mean in a sec. Sorry. For now, I mean. I'm not sorry for later.
With that single cryptic remark, his inner hollow falls silent. Ichigo has no time to worry about why the usually complaint partnership between him and his hollow is completely null and void at this moment of all times.
So Ichigo has to struggle on with only Zangetsu aiding him, and his vision is growing blacker now, and he begins to forget where he is and what he is doing, just wishing for the pain to stop…
His hands are warm.
Someone is gripping his hands very, very tight, and somehow this roots him to earth and reminds him who he is.
He can't leave. Not yet, anyway, until he remembers who is it that holds his hands.
Ooh, the black is creeping deeper now. He isn't really sure why, but he doesn't like it.
Warm hands. Warm hands are nice. Small fingers grasping his wrists. Hmm.
"– eyes, Ichigo! Please –"
Okay, Ichigo is probably his name. Yeah. Who's speaking, then?
"Please breathe, please –"
Hmm. Yup, definitely familiar. The dark is really getting a bit oppressive now. The pain is a bit farther away though. Is that a good thing?
"OPEN YOUR EYES, ICHIGO!"
Oh. Rukia.
And his eyes fly open as he takes a new, choked breath, and the darkness recedes away, and he looks into beautiful violet irises brimming with unshed tears, and he thinks, of course it's Rukia. Then the pain comes crashing down again, nearly knocking him over, but the portal is almost as tall as he is now, and the winds are whipping violently across their kneeling forms.
And he smiles through the pain, gripping Rukia's hands in return, determined to endure this agony and see this through –
Then, anticlimactically, Urahara's lightly singing voice sounds out from the shadowed portal. "Okaaaay, that's quite enough, Kurosaki-taichou~! We've got enough of your reiatsu to run the machine. Please hold, we're going to stabilise the portal before you can come through."
Ichigo cuts off the reiatsu flow with a strangled gasp, and Zangetsu reels back in his mind. Rukia darts forward and supports him as he nearly tips over, his vision blacking out for a second.
With a deadened finality, the reiatsu cuffs crumble to ash, steel-grey metal floating away in the wind of the portal and leaving red rings of burned flesh on Ichigo's wrists.
Ichigo breathes. Rukia's tears tip over her eyelids at last and drip onto their joined hands, even as she smiles tremulously. They are going home. They are going home.
"Bakamono," Rukia chides softly.
Ichigo can only laugh through a spasm of coughs.
"This will take a couple of minutes, please wait," Urahara says. "We can't hear you, but I'm sure you can hear us. We've got a welcoming committee all ready."
And then Isshin's voice, his dad's voice, not the other one who doesn't know him, sounds out obscenely loudly from the portal. "Yo, sonny! I'm sure that although I can't hear your complaining over my lecture, I'm going to give you one anyway! Yay! Ahem. Kurosaki Shiba Ichigo, through this bit of tomfoolerywith a time machine, you nearly missed your sisters' graduation from the Academy! You nearly missed the graduation of my twin darlings – you're going to get it when you come back, thou hast been warned! Muahahaha!" His voice is ridiculously cheerful, even when threatening his son.
Ichigo grins tiredly, but Rukia is the one to chuckle, leaning into his chest.
"Yeah, Dad," Ichigo murmurs, although his father cannot hear him yet.
Ichigo and Rukia are both facing the portal, completely ignorant of the rest of Seireitei laid out behind them.
So when a different voice, this one a mocking, twisting taunt, falls upon their ears, they are caught entirely unawares.
"Greetings, Ichigo-kun, Rukia-chan. Beautiful weather tonight, isn't it? A little bird – wonderfully innocent, that little girl – told me you would be here. I'm afraid I can't really let you go at the moment, there are many more things we have to do together."
There are no words to describe the feeling of icy terror that floods Ichigo's heart at that moment. Rukia stiffens in his arms. Ichigo turns his head, too slowly, too slowly, to look behind him.
"What you did with the Hogyoku was really quite impressive, Ichigo-kun. Care to tell me how you did it? Gin-fukutaichou isn't really sure exactly how, isn't that right, Gin-kun?"
Ichigo's inner hollow shrugs awake. Told ya, Boss. I'm wide awake now. Told ya you would be needing me later, neh?
Ichimaru Gin stands in midair, his grin and eyes as inscrutable as always, his fake persona drawn tight around him. And behind him, Aizen Sousuke smiles mildly behind his glasses, standing twenty feet above the edge of Sokyoku hill.
Now, please don't kill me. I would very much like to be alive, so I can write the next chapter, no? (Grins evilly) I have mistreated Ichigo and Rukia very much indeed, and I will mistreat them further, with my wondrous power as a writer – MUAHAHAHAHA!
And that, my friends, is the sound of a writer drunk on her own power.
Review please, if only to shout at me :)
Replies to Guest reviews:
ZeroRose90: Thank you so much! And as regards to Rukia…I won't reveal anything yet. Look out for it :)
Dashita Tichou: Thanks for reviewing! Considering you've now read the chapter…you have your answer. Poor Ichi! I hope you liked the chapter :)
By the way people if I missed anyone please do tell me!