Chapter 3: Waxing crescent: 1 (二日月)

Ichigo began to regain consciousness slowly. The first thing he was aware of was a ball of cold in his chest even though the rest of him was on the line between comfortably warm and a little hot. The second thing the teenager became aware of was a lethargy that pulled at him; somewhere between tired and the ache of illness though the fatigue did not feel as though it was in his muscles and blood. The third was that one of his hands was not under the warm blankets with him. So he tried to tug his hand to his chest and let out a small, pathetic whine that he would latter deny when the limb refused to move.

"Ichigo?" came a startled mumbled grunt that made the teen cringe when he recognized it the second before he was pulled into a hug. "ICHIGO! MY DARLING FIRST SON HAS AWAKENED!"

Shivering at being suddenly exposed to cooler air, Ichigo groaned as he mentally frowned, not being able to do so in reality. Years of being told to 'pay attention' to what people may try and bustle under loud exclamations and showy movements made the teen note his father's increase of heart rate, the difference between this hug and his father's usual overzealous expressions of love, and the fact that there was underlining sound of relief in his father's voice rather than mischief like there usually was when he launched himself into his bedroom every morning to wake the teenager up. Remembering his achy tiredness, Ichigo's slow brain settled on 'recovering from serious illness' and tried to remember when he started feeling symptoms.

"How long have I been sick?" Ichigo mumbled, trying to struggle out of his father's death grip. "Let go, I'm cold."

"You have a fever," Isshin said into orange hair, his refusing to let go of his grip. Instead, he secured it by half pulling the teen into his lap.

Unable to bring himself to fight his father's unspoken need to reassure himself, Ichigo sighed and struggled to pull the blanket over his shoulders. "It doesn't mean that I'm adjusted to the air temperature," Ichigo argued weakly. "Are Karin and Yuzu still here?"

"Nope," the middle aged man declared. "Daddy was good and made sure his little girls made it to school on time despite how worried for their idiot and delinquent brother they were. My darling Masaki would never forgive me for letting our precious daughters fall to such delinquency."

"Who were you yelling at, then?"

"That would be me, Ichigo-dono," came a voice he normally did not expect to hear in the morning.

"Kimura-san," Ichigo wondered. "What are you doing here?"

"The more important question is, what do you remember of last night?" the Kitsune woman asked.

Ichigo frowned, leaning back against his headboard after his father finally released him from 'Death Grip of Doom' and tried to think back to the last thing he remembered clearly. There was the thugs he curb-stomped for disturbing the little girl. Then dinner with the cubical drone ghost. After that… Shinigami… wards down… Hollow… cold….

Ichigo jerked, his eyes widening as the memories crashed into the forefront of his mind. "Oh, kami!" Ichigo exclaimed. "Is everyone alright?"

"The only one significantly damaged from the encounter was you," Kimura-san answered, her tone somewhat dryly as she put her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "And you only suffered minor injuries from the encounter itself."

"What about Rukia?" Ichigo asked, noticing for the first time the bandage on his arm from where the Hollow had scratched him.

"Who?" Kimura-san asked plainly. Ichigo looked up, checking her expression to make sure she was serious.

"The Shinigami," Ichigo said. Looking between his parent and his lawyer, the teen continued when he noticed the continued looks of confusion. "It looked like her shoulder was broken and she was bleeding rather strongly. Admittedly, I don't know how that really translates from mater being to spirit being in terms of severity. I only know that it is one part subconsciously remembering how a living body is supposed to respond and one part viewer's mind attempting to put into perspective the nature of the injury, but it looked rather bad."

"She was not here when I arrived," Kimura-san said.

"It was probably a good thing she left, though," Isshin confessed. "Between Karin and Uryū-kun after he first got here and we explained what happened, they might have done something rash before we could stop them."

"Why would they?" Ichigo asked in confusion. "We'd probably be dead if it wasn't for her."

"Emotions and reason do not often go together," Kimura answered. "All they were seeing was the fact that you were injured with an injury they could not see. Though I wish she had swung back sometime later so I could talk to her about the continued effects of her reiatsu on you."

"Continued effects?" Ichigo echoed. "But I used all of her lingering reiatsu when I made the ward."

"Something I forbid you to ever do again," Isshin said firmly. "The only reason you aren't dead is because the Shinigami powers did not completely cancel out your Shiranui-sama's."

"Whatever the reason," Kimura-san explained, "the Shinigami's power seems to be both lingering and attempting to grow with in you. However, that is less apparent now that Shiranui-no-kimi's power has been replenished within you. And I concur; however effective your current ward is in making darker entities run the for other districts, using your power in such an ineffective manner will only lead to your death and the death of those you are trying to protect."

"Was I really that close to dying?" Ichigo asked.

"If it was just one thing, it would have most likely have been less dire," Kimura-san answered. "However, not only were you physically going into shock, you were spiritually going into shock from the conflict in resonances between Shiranui-no-kimi's and the Shinigami's power. Stacked on top of this was your using all of your neutral human power which increased the effects of this resonance dissonance occurring within you while exasperating the shock your body was going through."

"Oh," Ichigo finally said, unable to look at his father in his guilt. "I did not realize that I had over exerted myself that much."

"Or thought it did not actually apply to you?" Kimura-san asked rhetorically. The Kitsune crossed the room to pat the Celestial Envoy on the head. "Don't worry, you're a teenager. This sort of thing was bound to happen at some point."

"It already happened before this," Isshin whined dramatically. "He has made such a delinquent of himself."

"Hey, that Nogitsune was not my fault," Ichigo complained.

"He did get that particular delinquent before he could cause much trouble," Kimura-san agreed.

Isshin huffed with exaggerated disdain. "Fine, encourage him. See if I care. Some preserver of the law you are."

"Speaking of that," Ichigo began, giving the Kitsune a suspicious look, "what are you doing here, Kimura-san?"

"Aside from deterring one of my elder children from causing mischief on the street while he pretends to be your wall?" Kimura-san dodged. "I do have some medical talent despite being some years out of date on human medical advances. I also have an insight into spirit wounds that your father probably does not. I thought that would be appreciated, all things considered."

"He's gotten pretty good at diagnosing what manner of creature leaves that sort of mark even if my sisters and I are really the only ones who can give proper treatment," Ichigo defended, feeling the slight aimed at his father. He knew that his father walked on eggshells when it came to spirits that were not human based, but Ichigo also knew the two normally got along well together as she had spent the better part of two centuries apart of the human society and could he not figure out what why her tone had gotten so sharp at the end.

"Of course he has," Kimura-san agreed. "Tell me, how you are feeling? Any pain?"

"Not pain," Ichigo answered as the Kitsune began to poke at him, small flares of exploratory yōki seeping into his shoulders along his pressure points. "But I am feeling the sort of lethargic ache that I normally associate with the flu. But it does not feel like an ache in my bones or muscles like when I am home with the flu." Not that he has really suffered through the full brunt of a flu virus since becoming Shiranui-sama's Celestial Envoy.

"That is most likely the dissonance between Shiranui-no-kimi's power and the Shinigami's," the Kitsune stated absently as she checked his reactions to his injured arm (slight twinges of pain). "While I have not suffered through a human flu virus, those symptoms do sound like what a Kitsune will suffer through if caught in a dissonance. My apologies for doubting your tutelage, Ichigo-dono, but has Shiranui-no-kimi covered how to view one's soul internally?"

"She has," Ichigo answered, not feeling the least bit insulted as the Kitsune backed away. "It is part of how to keep the brush techniques organized when a number of them are contrary to each other."

"Good," Kimura-san sighed with relief. "If I may say so, Ichigo-dono, but attempting to venture into your soul is not something I would dare to try under normal circumstances. Doing so when you are still recovering from trauma is more than slightly fur raising in terms of apprehension level."

"You think the problem can be solved with, whatever that is?" Isshin asked, the part of him that was a medical profession asked with curiosity.

"Best chance, at least," the Kitsune confirmed. "I'll get some food started for the two of you. Unless you wanted to get some proper sleep, Isshin-san?"

"Proper sleep?" Isshin repeated with mock insult. "I feel completely energized knowing that my first born is well once more! Why would I need to get any more sleep?"

"Of course, Isshin-san," Kimura-san said agreeably as she exited Ichigo's room. Alone, the two Kurosaki men stayed in an awkward silence.

"Well," Isshin finally said. "I'll just go take a shower. While Kiko-san is not hard on the eyes, my patients probably want someone who has had their doctorate renewed with in the last couple decades."

"Dad?" Isshin stopped in the doorway and look back at his eldest, questions in his eyes. Ichigo shuffled in place with embarrassment. "Thanks for being here when I woke up."

Isshin smiled one of his rare true smiles. "Of course," he said in what Ichigo thought of as his Dad voice. It was gone the next second though. "Not that I was here for any other reason than to make sure how much you worried your sisters, you delinquent."

"'Course not," Ichigo sighed contemptuously, puffing himself up and giving his father beady look. His father, being the pinnacle of maturity in the Kurosaki family that he was, blew a raspberry before cackling himself down the hallway with heavy steps.

Shaking his head in incredulity, Ichigo crossed his legs and began to meditate.

Clinching his fingers around his pencil, Ishida Uryū made sure that his reiatsu did not spike as the girl, Shinigami, was introduced as a late transfer. Her power was weakened, but she seemed uninjured otherwise. This was his target. This was the one who tried to take his acquaintance, his comrade, his first friend away from him. Who might have yet succeeded despite the adults' confidence when he and the twins were awaken that morning so they could make it to school on time. After all, it was not as though Kurosaki-san was focused anywhere else other than his son's room as his plate remained untouched and tea had gone cold.

The tears of the Kurosaki twins made the Last Quincy wish that any spiritually aware human could learn form a spirit weapon to wield.

Uryū should not have let his guard down like that, making a friend. He should have known better; he was the last Quincy, it was the Shinigamis' mission to make the Quincy line despair themselves out of existence. He would have to act quickly, during lunch, to keep the Shinigami from going after Sado-kun or the Kurosaki twins as well. After all, it was not as though it had much power right now. Sado-kun would understand why the innocent looking murderer had to die. It's not like anyone else would think that she had gotten hit by anything other than lightning, anyways.

Ichigo fell weightlessly into his inner world, landing on top of the skyscrapers that made up the section dedicated to the Catwalk and part of Thunderstorm's power in the half of his inner world in the dark of Moonrise. Above him was both the moon and his Center Tree, where he felt he needed to head to. Planting his foot on the glass of lit the skyscraper; Ichigo began to walk vertically towards the ground as though he was walking on a normal sidewalk.

Gravity in Ichigo's inner world was odd starting off, curving inversely like in those science fiction stories involving space colonies with the sky in the middle and the ground on the edges. This was made worse in his skyscraper city by the fact that Catwalk made the user travel vertically. Ichigo had decided some time ago that the only reason he was not thoroughly confused by it was because it belonged to him. His Center Tree was the tree that seemed to reflect his wellbeing and, if Ichigo was right, the sign of his link to Shiranui-sama from some of the things he had found hanging off the branches. It was also one of the only places that you could not tell how off gravity actually was in this world. The other places were in areas considered 'indoors' and the sky was not visible.

Reaching the end of the skyscraper, Ichigo grabbed the convenient metal sheet and dropped it on the metal rail that connected through most of his inner world. Charging the railing with electricity, Ichigo surfed, for lack of a better term, out of the skyscraper city with Magnetism, passed the workshop that held Rejuvenation, using Guidance to reach the railway on the other side of the river that divided night and day; the source of which held Waterspout. Continuing on pass the windmill that held Galestorm and the path to the mountains with lightning rods that caught Thunderbolts to power the electricity in his inner world, Ichigo relished the feeling of sunlight on his skin even if it was only a product of his mind.

Maybe once he would have never thought much of the outdoors and sunshine; but with Ichigo's duties of being a Celestial Envoy often causing him to head into areas and do tasks that many but the best and most dedicated yamibushi would likely balk at, the teen had gained an appreciation for both the outdoors of the wild and the sprawling cityscapes of man's civilization. It probably also affected his appreciation of such things in that he associated sunlight to Shiranui-sama and plant life in general to Sakuya-hime, both of whom had eased the void of loneliness left by his mother's death. They could never replace her, and never did they ever try, but the presence of female, mothering figures that Ichigo did not have to worry over the safety of and could turn to had lifted a heavy burden from his shoulders.

Entering the grove of flowers and trees that held the Greensprout, Ichigo slowed down and pulled to a stop in front of the path that led to the tree. The metal sheet vanished as he stood away from it and began to walk; Ichigo never bothered to connect the Tree directly to the rest of the network. He always found the walk meditative and relaxing despite the fact that it was ironic as Ichigo could only be in here if he was meditating. However, the walk lost its relaxing quality as he got closer to the Tree. Visible from a distance, Ichigo could make out frost cover flowers and grass, icicles hanging from the lower limbs of the Tree, generally looking like bomb had gone off except instead of burning it froze. The ice was already melting under the intensity of the summer sun, but the fact that there was ice here in the Summer at all was worrisome. At least Ichigo now knew what lead his father and the others to be so worried about.

Ichigo paused before cresting the hill as he heard sounds that should not have been. In his inner world, there was rarely anything other than the sound of the wind through the trees or the babbling of the flowing water. Only on a few occasions had Ichigo heard the sounds of what would constitute of normal wildlife (birdsong, squirrel chatter, yips from foxes and other creatures) while meditating and that had only been when he had started extremely content and more than happy. Now he heard the sound of something struggling. Unconsciously calling a sword from Powerslash, Ichigo stalked up the rest of the hill. The sword vanished before Ichigo could notice it as he saw what was making the noises.

Seeming trapped within the roots of Ichigo's Center Tree, a young woman in a white formal kimono with an extremely pale purple and yellow obi was pushing futilely against the roots of the tree. From the hiccupping sounds, Ichigo guessed that the spirit (Yuki-ona?) was crying or very close to it as she wriggled from side to side, exceedingly pale lavender, almost white, hair falling from two hair clips that Ichigo had a sinking feeling matched Rukia's eyes. By the time Ichigo arrived at the base of the tree, the woman screamed in frustration.

"Damn you!" the woman wailed, slamming her fists against the tree, adding another layer of frost to the roots around her. "I don't want to be here! Let me go!"

"Hey!"

The woman shrieked, pale blue eyes wide with surprise and wet with tears. She shrank back as far away from Ichigo as she could, terror easily apparent in her eyes. Her shoulders quaked as her mouth worked soundlessly before she began to hiccup in earnest.

"Hey," Ichigo repeated, softer this time, hands open in front of him in a not threatening manner. "It's alright, you're alright, I'm not going to hurt you." Right thing or wrong thing to say, the woman began to weep. Throwing caution (and the fact he could be frozen) to the wind, Ichigo quickly knelt in front of the woman and pulled her to his shoulder and began to rub soothing circles on her back the same way that Kimura-san and Tomiko-hime did to their children when they were upset. "Shush, shush. You'll be okay."

"I want to go home!" the young woman wailed. "It's too warm here! I don't want to die!"

"I don't want you to die, either," Ichigo assured. "What's your name?"

"I will not tell you!" the woman snapped as she jerked herself away from the teen, suddenly angry. "Only my Rukia may use me and call my name!"

"Easy, there, easy," Ichigo said soothingly, eying the hardening frost. "Forgot you weren't human for a second. I have no interest in taking your name and gaining your powers, I already have some powers over ice. Though, you must admit, that it might be useful to know as I am trying to remove you from my mind."

"I do not know why I should," the Yuki-ona denied. "You are not even Nejibana-sama's new wielder! Your soul holds a different spirit all together!"

Ichigo blinked in confusion. "Nejibana?" the Celestial Envoy queried. "Is that a spirit you knew?"

"She belonged to Kaien-dono," the Yuki-ona sniffled. "We had to kill him because he got infected by a hollow. Ukitake-taichō said it was not our fault; that it was his own as a captain because he did not act in time to save Kaien-dono. It does not mean much though; after all I was the one to fell the blow. You look so much like him, I thought that at least I would be able to speak to Nejibana-sama again if I was trapped here. But that Zanpakutō down there isn't anything like Nejibana-sama, all cool and dark without any seas or tides and it's too warm up here, and I want to go home!"

"Maybe that just means that my sisters or I will have a child with the seas and tides to hold your Nejibana-sama," Ichigo soothed, intrigued at how much the Yuki-ona was willing to say instead of her name. He wondered if that meant Rukia would respond the same way, giving away a lot of information that was probably classified to anyone in the living world before divulging her own name, which would be rather inconsequential in the long run. "What is the name that I would need to give the sword of the brave Shinigami Kuchiki Rukia, who continues to weep for the lost seas and tides when I pass this story on to my descendants?"

"Sode no Shirayuki," the Zanpakutō said proudly, "the most beautiful Zanpakutō in all of Seireitei."

"See, Shirayuki-san," Ichigo said teasingly, "that wasn't so bad."

The yuki-ona of a Zanpakutō stared at the Celestial Envoy with horror. Unfortunately for Ichigo, it quickly turned into rage. "You tricked me!" she shrieked, waves of frost rolling off her, Ichigo having to pull on his skill of Blizzard to not be harmed or other wised embarrassed.

"Sorry, sorry," Ichigo shouted. "But if you are stuck in my soul, it is probably prudent that I know your name so I can command you to return to your wielder."

The Zanpakutō spirit stopped. "Oh," Sode no Shirayuki said. "Why did you not just say so?"

Ichigo sighed in despair. "I thought that I had made that clear."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Not a problem."

"Right then," the yuki-ona said decisively, straightening her kimono as much as she could being in such an awkward position. "Let us start this then."

"Right," Ichigo agreed, treading along the roots carefully. Was this really a common facet of women? "First things first." The teen cleared his throat in what he thought was an officious manner and gently laid his hand on top of Sode no Shirayuki's head. "I, Kurosaki Ichigo, student and envoy of Shiranui, the wolf of the returning dawns, and Celestial Envoy of Takamagahara bid the Zanpakutō, Sode no Shirayuki, return to her Shinigami partner, Kuchiki Rukia." There was a small flare of power but otherwise nothing else happened. "Right track at least."

"Is it relevant that she is an adoptive member of the Kuchiki clan and is a member of the Thirteenth division of the thirteen court guards of the Seireitei?" the Zanpakutō asked, glaring at the roots as if they were horrendously insulting. Shrugging his shoulders, Ichigo tried again.

"I, Kurosaki Ichigo, student and envoy of Shiranui, the wolf of the returning dawns, and Celestial Envoy of Takamagahara bid the Zanpakutō, Sode no Shirayuki, return to her Shinigami master, Kuchiki Rukia, adoptive member of the Kuchiki clan and member of the Thirteenth division of the Thirteen court guards of the Court of Pure Souls," Ichigo pronounced again, trying to consciously guide the tug on the foreign spirit, though it ultimately failed again. "Right, how many more variations do you want to try?"

They tried it a few more time, adding in from district 78 and 'Savior of the Tama Hills Tanuki' among other ridiculous things ('Fleer of the hordes of kits?' 'Hey, you try and deal with Kitsune and Tanuki babies that may or may not be Hanyō on sugar highs and not wish to claim the same!'), but ultimately ended in failure. Ichigo frowned at the roots while Shirayuki glared at nothing in particular, a flush bright on her cheeks. The flush actually worried the Celestial Envoy as he could not tell if it was from emotion or a sign of Shiranui-sama's power over powering the much weaker Zanpakutō spirit. Kneeling against the roots, Ichigo tried to feel the damage in the tree.

"How exactly are you stuck down there?" the teenager asked. "I cannot feel any of the sharp edges I would normally expect from someone crashing through an older portion of a tree under your ice."

"That's because you are viewing me as a spirit and not a Zanpakutō," the yuki-ona sighed. Waving her arms, she continued, "Try looking at me like this." Shirayuki's form wavered before revealing an ice cold blade leaning out from a hole punctured into the roots of the tree.

The hole itself was truly not large enough for a person of the yuki-ona's size to fit all the way, explaining why he was unable to see the tearing before. At the end of the hilt, a long, white ribbon hung tied up around the deeper roots of the tree. Beyond these roots, there looked to be something resembling at tunnel, though Ichigo could not tell where it led. Leaning into the hole slightly, making sure not to stab himself on the Zanpakutō as he did so, he pulled at the blur between him and the end of the ribbon. Ichigo blinked at the knotted red ribbons that this produced. One seemed to extend from him and down through the dark passages beneath the tree, the other from the end of the ribbon and what must have been out of his soul.

"That doesn't look great," Ichigo said dryly, leaning back away from the hole. The form of the sword blurred back into a yuki-ona.

"Oh no," the woman gasped. "Is it my ribbon? It got torn, didn't it? I did not feel any damage to it, but I cannot really tell with all of the roots it is wrapped around. I'm ugly now, aren't I?" The woman began to sniffle again.

"No, no, no; nothing like that," Ichigo corrected quickly, not really liking to deal with crying women even though he has been forced into enough situations over the years to keep the situation from getting worse, in most cases. "It just looks like the thread that binds you to Rukia-san got wrapped around the one that binds me to my Zanpakutō. Though I'm not sure how that happened, I should not have access to a Zanpakutō until I die."

"You are right, that isn't very good," the Zanpakutō spirit agreed, calming down with the knowledge of the actual situation. "The fact that you can access some of your Shinigami powers is not so much a problem as the reiraku being tied together. In order for you to use my power, I had to break through the boundary between your being alive and your being dead; thus, the hole in the tree. But I don't know how to fix tied together when I'm stuck like this."

"I guess I can ask the spirits in the area," Ichigo said with a frown, scratching the back of his neck as he stood. "If nothing else, they can pass word up to Shiranui-sama and Sakuya-hime for advice. It won't be a quick fix, though we can probably get word back to your commanding officer relatively quickly if you and Rukia cannot as you are now."

"I guess I cannot ask for more," the winter spirit said morosely.

"Don't worry," Ichigo repeated, patting the yuki-ona on the head. "I'll make sure you and Rukia get home safely. All I ask is that you be a bit patient as we are likely to have to go through the dreaded powers of bureaucracy to get everything sorted."

"Ugh," the spirit gasped with a shudder. "I hate politics."

"It was Shiranui-sama's dislike of politics that led to her being available to teach me so I cannot hate it in its entirety," Ichigo said with a shrug. Turning with a wave, the teen continued, "Let me rearrange in here so you don't melt and I can leave and work on how to make sure your Rukia can get home safe."

The actual process of rearranging his inner world in a way that would allow for the Zanpakutō to survive in the precarious position of being trapped by Shiranui-sama's power was actually easier than one would expect. As Shiranui-sama was the guardian and embodiment of the Tenraifude-ryū, she had power over Blizzard and had the capacity to let a winter spirit stay in her presence without problem. Therefore, as her student, Ichigo had the ability to allow a winter spirit stay in his inner world. Usually, Ichigo had the area around his center tree reflect the current season (presently, late spring/early summer) through the close arrangement of the brush token for Sunrise, Greensprout, and Mist which allowed for the Inner world to show the passage of the seasons (and time if he thinks about it as he is coming in). To make his inner world to reflect winter, all he had to do was place the ox statue for Blizzard near the tree and the season would change.

Having never left the change longer than a session of practice, Ichigo left the quickly retrieved statue in the care of Sode no Shirayuki. The Zanpakutō clutched the statue tightly as she watched with small wonder as the bright and warm summer day became a crisp and frosty winter one, the bright and green leafed tree rippling into a dormant leafless one. Quickly ascending to full consciousness, Ichigo took stock of his health as he did a full set of stretches, sighing in relief as he noticed that the flu like ache vanished. Changing quickly into his school uniform, Ichigo was silently grateful that he had a tendency to do most of his homework before coming home as he grabbed his supplies and headed down stairs to where he could hear a friendly by play going on between his father and what sounded like one of the clinic's regulars and Kimura-san. Now if only he could convince his father to accept taking in the injured Shinigami (where ever she was now) without making a fuss over it.

yoki- I believe that is the proper term from the yokai equivalent for reiki and maybe reiryoko in general

Yuki-ona- snow woman, believed to be the spirit of a woman who died in a snow storm or some other form of female winter spirit. generally considered a neutral entity.

Sorry this is late, Camp Nanowrimo has started and I have been focusing on writing, rather than any editing, and forgot to go back and post on the weekend. thank you to everyone who reviewed!

* Spoilers*

I am not gong to be following all of the new stuff being put into cannon exactly. While Ichigo might go dual wield at some part in the future, if I haven't already said it, Zangetsu is Zangetsu to me and I already had come up with an explanation for Hollow Ichigo and Zangetsu before I started writing. In any case, the Thousand Year Blood War arch is still a long ways away and wont be covered in this story but in a possible sequel if I feel up to it by the time I get to that point. See you all next time!