Kurosaki Isshin needed to call Urahara: there was a shinigami in his son's bedroom.

Everything went wrong from there.

tags: Kurosaki Isshin & Urahara Kisuke, Kurosaki Isshin, Urahara Kisuke, Kuroski Ichigo (mentioned), Kuchiki Rukia (mentioned), Tsukabishi Tessai, secrets

Adults in all teenage-centered fiction suffer from a bad case of "let the children do most of the work or appear as a bad guy for getting in the way", that's the way it goes. Then older readers will complain about abuse without realizing that it's inherent to the narrative and necessary for the target audience.

Some stories, however, manage to sell it better than others.

Honestly, aside from a couple of points, Bleach does a good enough job at that, if you actually stop to think about it (most of the support cast are, in fact, adults who do their job, not only other children, and there is often at least a practical reason why the teenagers get involved, such as "Kisuke and Tessai can't actually enter Soul Society because of the Exile and that's why only Yoruichi comes" or "everyone else saw Aizen's release so suck it").

Some of this OS speaks about that, on Isshin's part.

~ Night of Renewals ~

Isshin took a deep breath before reaching for the clinic's phone – and stopped, one more time. It was perhaps the fourth time he did not pick it up, despite the need to.

There was no use pretending to the contrary, no goddamn point, but calling Urahara...

Well.

Isshin didn't feel less like a Kurosaki than he felt like a Shiba, he was a Shiba for Soul Society and a Kurosaki for the Living World – but calling meant that the Shiba side of the family was coming back on the scene when he had no hollow-damned access to his powers.

All the problems and none of the solutions.

There was a shinigami upstairs, talking with his eldest child. Isshin had no idea of who it was, he didn't have enough spiritual awareness, as it was, to actually see ghosts and souls – he'd never lied about that – though he could still feel and recognize their presence somewhat. His vague grasp on the shinigami's reiatsu told him nothing, so it wasn't someone he knew well, and that, at least, was a relief.

Thanks to living inside a life-binding gigai, Isshin had actually aged every single minute of the twenty-two years since he'd lost his shinigami powers, so random shinigamis probably wouldn't recognize him – but Toshiro or Rangiku would have doubts and eventually figure it out, some others amongst the tenth division would too, and in the other divisions... Kyoraku and Ukitake would definitely know. Unohana-taicho. The Kuchiki brat. Soifon.

Soul King forbid, Yamamoto-sotaicho.

Isshin found himself shivering at the very thought, but of course there was no way or reason for the captain-commander to be hunting hollows in the Living World, much less in Ichigo's bedroom. That was a typical assignment for unranked shinigamis, someone from Ukitake's division since Karakura fell under the thirteenth's jurisdiction.

Isshin hadn't been found out, he had to believe this.

However, it didn't change the fact that he needed to call Urahara, because the exile was much better suited to take care of the situation – both because it was something he exceeded in, and because Isshin had, once again, no goddamn powers. Interfering now would only cause more problems, such as getting the attention of Soul Society, because Ichigo would have questions, of course he would.

And while desertion was, in and by itself enough of a pickle – yes, he had made that choice, even if he'd had a very good reason to – there was another, bigger issue.

Namely, the person who'd injured him during that rainy night, twenty-two years ago.

Isshin hadn't been expecting an attack on his back while fighting that dark hollow, so it wasn't like he'd been raising his spiritual pressure in anticipation of a blow – but a random shinigami wouldn't have been able to do more than nick him, even with a strong attack. Isshin was no Kenpachi, but still – the laws of spiritual fighting were clear: reiatsu protected you from any attack that couldn't pierce through it.

To get through a captain's – any captain's – passive reiatsu, it had to be someone close to captain-level. A few upper seats outside of the captains might manage it, with an appropriately focused attack – and of course, the captains themselves.

Urahara and Shihoin had never quite told him the truth about... anything, really. Isshin had been unranked – mostly by choice, but still, that meant he hadn't been in their work circle – when the two former captains had disappeared from Soul Society, one accused of horrible crimes and the other believed to have either helped him or been taken out as collateral. He'd known Shihoin as a member of a Great House, and had crossed paths with her best friend once or twice, but that was it.

Even now that he was in self-imposed exile with them...

Isshin still didn't know what had happened that night, a century ago. Where the missing – hollowfied – officers had disappeared to. If Urahara had really been at the center of it or simple collateral damage. Who else had had a hand in that debacle, who hadn't been caught.

Or what had happened after, in the eighty years between then and his own disappearance from Soul Society.

The hollowfied officers had been seen a handful of times since then – always disappearing and escaping the investigators from the second and the first – across the world, and Urahara hadn't moved from Karakura for decades, from what he'd gathered, so something had split them up. There was no telling if the eight Visoreds, as they'd called themselves during the skirmish in 1947, were at all on Urahara's side.

Since he'd had his own – human – life to handle, and a whole new kind of knowledge to construct, Isshin hadn't prodded more than a few open questions here and there. Needless to say, he'd gotten absolutely nothing to those queries, too.

For all that, he wasn't stupid. The list of suspects was short, and shorter even when you considered that he could cross out a good number of those based on the sheer ridiculousness of them stealthily trying to assassinate him while on a stroll in the Living World. The captain-commander, for example, just didn't take strolls in the Living World, and wouldn't bother with stealth when he could obliterate Isshin without even releasing his shikai.

None of the remaining possibilities seemed realistic, and yet – someone had wounded him, that night.

He'd entertained the possibility that Urahara himself had done it – the exile had a reputation, after all – for a time, but nothing had come out of it except help, so that made no sense. The Visoreds were another option, and the idea brought a whole unexpected scenario about Urahara's parting with the missing officers – but that, too, seemed a bit too contrived.

It was much more likely that his aggressor was a high-ranked officer who still held their station in the Gotei. Especially considering the accusations that had fallen upon his absent figure after his disappearance, murmurs of treason and conveniently-discovered evidence. It had taken less than three years for the family to be ousted of Seireitei, stricken out as a Great House, the Shiba estate emptied and closed off.

One more reason not to make too much of a fuss himself – Isshin had to think about Ichigo and the girls, not just his own safety.

Speaking of which. Ichigo. Shinigami in the boy's bedroom. Possibly a hollow roaming around.

Isshin sighed, and finally took hold of the phone.

There. He was typing Urahara Shoten's number, and he was doing what he had to do, and he wasn't pushing it off anymore.

A couple of rings, and...

"Urahara Shoten, it is much too late for business, but what may I do for you until the shop opens once again?"

Ah. The former commander of the Kido Corps. Isshin had never met him before coming to the Living World... permanently... but it was rather odd, the relationship between the older kido master and Urahara. Tsukabishi and Shihoin made sense, even if the man was older, because the woman had been the head of a Great House – but Urahara? They weren't just friends, the two of them, or colleagues. There was a level of familiarity and respect that was unusual, as if Tsukabishi knew something about his younger friend, something that Urahara himself wasn't at ease acknowledging...

"Tsukabishi-san? It's Kurosa... Shiba. Could I talk to Urahara?"

"Shiba-dono, of course! A moment, please, the boss is putting the children to bed, he should be a minu... Oh. Boss, it's Shiba-dono on the phone!"

...That man grew up surrounded by nobles, but not one himself. It was painfully obvious – and to a Shiba, almost insulting. The Shibas had always been the less stuck-up of the Great Houses, though not necessarily the easiest to handle, Isshin would admit that: they'd made an art of annoying the other families by mostly not using honorifics no matter who they talked to.

Hmm... The residents of Seireitei were either nobles, or shinigamis and their families. The few who retired alive, too. Children with enough spiritual power and talent almost always went to Shin'o, and those who couldn't worked in the commercial district or for a noble family. Tsukabishi's family had to...

"Kurosaki-san! What a surprise, at this hour!"

...And Isshin was getting distracted. He had a very grave problem upstairs and needed it dealt with. No doubt Urahara had the equivalent of a kikanshinki specifically for altering a soul's memory instead of a human's.

There had to be an explanation why everyone back home thought Urahara Shoten belonged to a spiritually-aware human by the name of Urahara Kaito, great-grandson of the "first" owner, "Urahara Kotaro", and was definitely not the house of the former captain of the twelfth division – a handful of such shops did exist through the world, all owned by mediums who'd made contact with shinigamis at some point, so it was believable, but still.

Isshin took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing on the fact that, while the shinigami remained upstair – their presence absolutely dwarfed by Ichigo's growing reiryoku, this was getting ridiculous, he was fifteen and untrained! – nothing was exploding yet.

Which meant no hollow, and that his son was managing a somewhat-civil conversation with the shinigami instead of getting on their bad side.

"I need you to come and deal with a situation."

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line, before Urahara spoke again – without a hint of his usual facade:

"Tell me."

oOo

It took only a moment.

Isshin had gone back into the house and sat down with Karin, keeping a watchful eye on Yuzu's cooking – even if there was really no need to, his girl was the better cook of them all – when he'd felt it, too.

Karin was looking, horrified, somewhere behind him.

Yuzu looked up from her cooking, confused.

Isshin didn't know where to look – and even if he had, he wouldn't have seen anything – but he knew. Instinctively, he stood up – but there was nothing he could do.

He should have asked Urahara to pass by earlier in the week, to put new barriers around the house. Something that would shield Ichigo's growing presence, that would make him more discreet, at least at home – something that would make it easier to feel foreign reiatsu through the boy's ridiculous presence.

He should have...

The agonizing pain of claws ripping into his back brought him to the ground.

oOo

Urahara gave his patient a contrite smile, and Isshin only rolled his eyes. Just because he couldn't defend himself anymore didn't mean he'd forgotten what being patched up after a fight felt like.

Besides, he'd done a short stint at the fourth and had since then become a doctor – he knew wounds, and with the healing kido the dubious genius was using on him, he'd be as good as new by tomorrow.

"Take care of the girls, not me."

He'd passed out suddenly, so he hadn't seen anything of what had happened, but the amount of blood when he'd woken up – and the fact that not all of it was around him – told him enough. Karin and Yuzu had been wounded, badly. Ichigo too, perhaps.

The first thing Urahara had told him when he'd woken up was that all the children were alive.

He hadn't said in what state.

The shopkeeper's – because, while he was much more than that, he wasn't play-acting either – face fell into his usual facade of polite curiosity, mouth hidden behind his fan.

"Kurosaki-san, come on, I took care of your daughters' health long before I even looked at you! Between a grumpy Shiba and two young girls, the choice was obvious!"

"...Thanks."

Isshin saw no reason to indulge Urahara and pretend to be insulted at the insinuation – besides, Karin and Yuzu were more important than him.

The shopkeeper snapped his fan shut and stood up.

"I meant to come by anyway. I'd already figured that the house would need a stronger barrier, from the way you told me Ichigo-kun's reiryoku keeps growing..."

They both glanced in the direction of the boy's power, who'd fallen asleep right after whatever he'd done to end up awakening his shinigami powers. The nature of his reiryoku had drastically changed – it was impossible to ignore.

Isshin sighed.

"It's permanent, isn't it?"

A shinigami sharing their power with a mortal – a psychic – was possible, and had happened a few dozen times in history, even if it wasn't technically legal. However, none of those psychics had ever kept the powers longer than a few days, since they were alive and their souls weren't yet able to retain powers from a further step of life.

Ichigo, of course, was a special case. He might be alive and in the first step of the cycle, like his mother, but his father was from the third step of life. His soul, while "human" – a full soul – held traces normally found in pure souls.

The girls were most likely the same, too.

Urahara grimaced.

"It does appear so."

Great. Isshin had never told Ichigo about all this, mostly because finding a line between what his children deserved to know and what was safe to divulge was something he'd expected to discuss with Masaki – and now he had no idea how to deal with it.

"He needs training. A crash course, at least. I... I can't do it. He'd never believe anything I could say, and I can't even see him when he's a shinigami, or prove that I know what I'd be talking about. I don't..."

"About that!"

Urahara had his jokester face on, and behind it Isshin could distinguish building pressure. Something almost similar to anguish.

...Guilt?

No, not quite. Some of it was guilt, sure, but not only.

"...What did you do?"

The fan reappeared.

"Well, you see, Kurosaki-san... I arrived just in time to see Miss Shinigami doing something absolutely reckless to save your son's life, and I thought: Uh. That one has a death wish. Not good for a soldier of the court, not at all."

Isshin squinted at the shopkeeper and remembered that time, more than two decades ago, when he'd been offered a frankly shocking choice – and, being a Shiba, Isshin had jumped on the opportunity without a second thought. He didn't regret it, either.

Most people would be unnerved in a similar situation, though, and he doubted the shinigami – a woman, apparently – who'd been caught up in this mess had the same standards as him.

"Did you... offer her a solution?"

Urahara remained silent for a moment, his eyes hidden under his bucket hat.

"I... Well. I offered her a gigai to recover in. Miss Kuchiki can't return to report the incident as she is now, and it would be problematic should she mention Ichigo and... someone... takes note of it."

Isshin made a face at the "someone" that was evidently meant to be a very specific individual.

"One of these days you will need to tell me more about whatever is going on back home, Urahara."

And everything else, too. The past, the rumors, the accusations. The Visoreds. Tsukabishi. Shihoin, who only dropped by occasionally and seemed to have barely cooled off from... something... that had sent her traveling instead of staying with her best-friend-who-by-all-rights-should-have-been-more. The two kids who had basically been adopted and for whom the jokester attitude had become the norm in place of the barely-not-repressed mess Urahara had been hinging towards twenty years ago.

That mess, too.

"Wait a minute, did you say Kuchiki?"

"Hm? Yes, yes, Kuchiki Rukia. If I remember what Yoruichi-san told me, she was adopted into the family a few decades ago. A right scandal, that, unprecedented amongst the Great Houses. Do you perhaps... know her?"

"Oh God no, we never met. But I know of her, of course, and not only because she was adopted into a Great House. She... Well. She had to finish off my nephew, when he ran after an unusual hollow and got himself... possessed, I guess. I, the Shibas do owe her for that, but we never saw each other except from afar. I... didn't know what to say to make it better, back then. It's a good thing, too. We'd have to detain her if she could recognize me, at least long enough to convince her to keep her mouth shut about it, but..."

Isshin trailed off, not liking the look on Urahara's face – the little of it that was visible, at least.

He had no choice but to ask again:

"What did you do, Urahara?"

The former captain of the twelfth division didn't look him in the eyes.

"...I gave her one of my gigais, Kurosaki-san."

"One of your..."

Isshin sucked in a breath – Urahara's gigais were all... particular. False material bodies that hid away reiatsu, some that sealed off powers, others that made a pure soul into the equivalent of a human...

Urahara had invented gigais, that was true – before him, before his captaincy and the creation of the SRDI, shinigamis couldn't go to the Living World and be seen by everyone there, only by those who had spiritual power of their own. When the second division had stormed the SRDI after the betrayal – after whatever had truly happened back then – they'd found the prototypes, the research project, and from then on it had become an available item for shinigamis dispatched in the Living World. Using one was rare, but it wasn't unheard of.

None of the gigais the SRDI manufactured were like their old president's. They offered the base product and had seen no point in adding features the way Urahara had needed to over time.

The shopkeeper sighed and stood up.

"I've seen her fight, you understand, and that girl... She isn't in the right state of mind to be a soldier. And we can't let her leave like that, even if it's to report to Ukitake-san. This way, at least... She'll be a normal girl of the Living World in no time, unless she finds her resolve once again, but in that case..."

The man didn't finish his thought, and Isshin knew better than to ask.

Urahara might be keeping things to himself, but at least – at least he was sharing some of it, too. It was more than usual.

"Anyway, it's better than killing her or keeping her prisoner in my basement! And that way, she can teach the basics to Kurosaki-kun! Everything is falling into place perfectly, you'd think someone had orchestrated it."

"You... You do realize you shouldn't be making that kind of decision for someone else, right?"

For Isshin, it hadn't been the same – he'd been aware, if not of all the particulars behind Urahara's exile, at least of the price he himself would be paying. This girl wasn't given a choice at all.

The fan disappeared, and a grimace revealed itself on Urahara's face.

"All the other options are... at the very least just as bad, Kurosaki-san. Some are objectively worse. I have no way to know if this is the right course, and maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but... In all cases, someone other than just me will suffer unfairness."

There was something in the man's tone, something Isshin didn't like at all. Something that implied Urahara would rather there was another solution, the kind where he'd be the only loss if need be – because then the answer would be obvious, and not in a way a Shiba would agree with.

Shibas offered to step in – forced themselves in if necessary – because they were convinced they could save everyone, themselves included.

That didn't sound like Urahara, right now.

It had the doctor wondering – was that the reason Shihoin had left, so long ago? She'd never been the kind to encourage choices of despair, from the little he knew about her.

Isshin gritted his teeth and forced himself up, to follow the man as he made his way out of the house. He still had things to say before the shopkeeper left, and apparently this was now.

"You will tell me the truth, Urahara. About back then, and about what you suspect today."

The man stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around.

"...Stop by the shop one of these days, Kurosaki-san. In the meantime, Tessai-san is taking a look at the house's barriers. No more impromptu hollows lured in by the sweet, sweet scent of high-powered souls ripe for the taking!"

Right. That. Until now, the barriers had kept the house and clinic hidden from reiatsu-aware beings, be it hollows or shinigamis – but it seemed they weren't strong enough for Ichigo's current level of power.

"Obviously we should have come earlier."

"Don't act like you should have predicted... this."

And by that, Isshin meant the very specific situation they were now in, with a depowered shinigami and a human teenager with pure-souls abilities.

Sure, Ichigo would have ended up a high-level psychic – or perhaps, a quincy, though Masaki had seemed to think the children's pure-souls traits would inhibit their quincy ascendance – anyway, but he shouldn't have been able to pull out an actual zanpakuto out of nowhere as long as he remained in the first stage of the cycle.

Isshin had seen it, during the last two years – both how his son's power kept growing and how Ichigo wasn't getting out of the funk even years after... after. He'd done what he could, had been there as well as possible, and others would probably say there were better ways – but he only knew those.

The tough love, the assaults – that was Shiba-talk for dragging someone out of a pit of misery. Not right away, of course – people were allowed to grieve – but when it took too long, when nothing seemed to work? Ichigo had stopped doing karate with Tatsuki-chan, had stopped doing a lot of things once he reached a certain level at it. Nothing seemed to motivate him beyond "it needs to be done".

At least with the Shiba way, Ichigo kept moving. It would be better if he could find goals of his own – but for now, Isshin would take it. It was easier to latch onto a goal when you kept moving.

...The Kuchiki girl might help with that, too. Ichigo had always wanted to help others – he'd just lost his belief that he could, after. Maybe...

Maybe the shinigami powers could do the trick. Isshin couldn't be the one to show his son, not as he was now, but Kuchiki Rukia... She might manage it.