We were changed on that night long ago.

Well, no duh there. You can't have a hollow grafted onto your soul and not come out of it any different than when you started, but I'm talkin' about on the inside. More than gaining this little voice in your head tellin' you "Hey, that guy's an asshole, rip his head off!" you become aware of some things you didn't really think about before, like the bonds you share with others.

I'm not sure how aware of it the others are (consciously aware, moron, their actions say they acknowledge it) but we've become like wolves, if you ask me. We're dangerous and wild and we've got sharp instincts and while we can tough if on our own, we prefer to be in a pack.

Hard to believe when Hiyori's takin' a sandal to your head all the time or when Rose is gripin' about Love spoilin' the latest manga or Kensei and Mashiro are at it again, but we really are most comfortable when we're all together.

Sometimes one or two of us'll wander off, try settlin' down and makin' ties with humans, but those never feel right. It's easy enough to gather a little pack, get a den, but when you can't be all that you are, well, it's not really home and they're not really family.

Truth is, the longest any of us has struck out on their own is Lisa at ten years. She ran across a little girl that reminded her of her captain's little niece that she was helpin' him look after, so she stuck around to make sure this little one made it to her own two feet. A memento of sorts to the pack we used to belong to.

And somethin' just aches to think about Soul Society, our squads, the pack we once had, some of us once led. And whatever that somethin' is, that's what makes this pack so strongly bound together. We don't quite fit in with the humans and the shinigami have cast us out, so there's just each other to rely on, just the vizards.

Well, maybe we could trust Kisuke, Tessai-san, and Yoruichi, they certainly did a lot to keep us alive, but they're not fully one of us. If anything, I suppose they're honorary members of our pack, people we can trust to not kill us on sight. I think some of those early departures had a couple of us bunkin' down with them, but no matter how many times we take a sabbatical to get away from the pack, we always come back.

So when I ran into Urahara Kisuke after 85 years since our hasty departure from the Soul Society, 83 years since we all left his care to fend for ourselves, having felt that we had enough control over ourselves and a good enough understanding to blend in with humans, shocked was an understatement for how I felt. We were careful. We never made a big name in the human world, certainly didn't do much that could gain any spiritual attention, so how the hell did he find me?!

Of course, the why for him initiating contact after letting me, us, roam for eight decades was nearly as terrifying as the how.

Not that he let me know what that was right away. No sir'ee , instead he starts chattin' like we're long lost friends tryin' to catch up with one another (not that we kind of weren't, it's just I was havin' a minor panic attack on how he found me when he wasn't supposed to be able to find us). And after he was done titterin' away about all these pleasantries, slipppin' in that of course he could track his own custom made gigai, he asked me to come see somethin' with him.

Seein' as Kisuke's one of, if not the smartest person ever and he never does anything without a purpose, I took the bait and followed him out to a little place called Karakurachou. It was a nice enough town, if you discounted the high hollow occurrence rate and less than stellar shinigami staffing in response, and apparently it was also the place he was calling home for now.

It wasn't until we went walkin' in one of the local parks that I saw what he wanted to show me, and I had half a mind to listen to that little voice and rip the genius asshole's head off.

It was a kid.

There was this little bitsy kid, only a year or two old with a shock of brilliant orange hair, runnin' around with more coordination than the others his size and I could see it. He was one of us. His reiatsu was stronger than most grown humans would ever get and even if that hollow trace was near non-existent, you can't spend so long around others like yourself and not learn to recognize it.

"What the hell did you do, Kisuke?" I growl at him. No kid, especially one that little, deserves to live with a monstrous second personality in their head.

"Did you think Aizen-san stopped experimenting just because the easy scapegoat was gone? Because even with captain-class shinigami his experiment was still a failure that I had to fix?" His words are cold, harsh, and so damn true it hurts to think about it. "I managed to save that boy's mother from having to deal with the hollow from what I learned helping you and with the help of his father, but how could I have known it could be hereditary?" I almost snort. He may not have known, but he could have guessed. "I doubt I could have stopped them from having a child anyway. The seal I gave her was passed on to the boy, but I wanted to make sure that you knew about him and would be ready to help him if his hollow side ever got loose."

My eyes flick over Kisuke, then back to the kid who is now being scooped up by a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who is a Quincy.

"Just what kind of monstrous little ankle-biter are you asking me to babysit?" I sigh in defeat. I can't deny it, just laying eyes on the little brat and I can already tell that he belongs in my pack, he just doesn't know it yet.

And here we are, nearly fifteen years later, ready for the formal induction of the kid I saw back then. Except now I'm not so sure that we won't be joining his pack. Kid's got a bunch of human kids that he definitely ain't leavin' any time soon and Kisuke mentioned somethin' 'bout havin' half the Soul Society takin' a liking to him too. Guess it doesn't really matter in the end because we'll still end up tied to him by the pact of the pack.

Welcome to the family, kid.

Author's Note

Hey, back with an update here. So this one is Shinji's point of view, because seriously, how would the vizards have known about Ichigo and that Aizen was making his move if Urahara wasn't pulling some strings? And I was real careful to make sure this didn't contradict canon. Shinji didn't know Isshin's reiatsu, so he didn't appear in this. Also, all of the early "who are the vizard?" info comes from Isshin and sounds suspiciously like a Soul Society version of them and he just speculates that arrancar advancement is what notifies them to Aizen's prep for war. Kisuke on the other hand, barely says a word about them, except for a reference to predicting that they would contact Ichigo, which is easy to do when you ask someone to do something. He's a master of manipulation, so, you know. Also, Shinji's pretty much the only vizard that's never surprised by Ichigo's strength. You'll notice that when Hiyori finally gets Ichigo's hollow out, all the vizard get a surprised face, except Shinji, so maybe he had an inkling of just how much potential Ichigo had. Well, I think that's enough rambling from me.

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