Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, or any of its characters. This story, however, is mine all mine.

Torn

Chapter 25: Dig Two Graves

Ichigo knew from the moment that Stark, Halibel and Barragan were encased in the golden light of negacion that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Because the only reason why three enemies that powerful would stop their assault and leave before finishing off their enemies would be if they hadn't been ordered to kill in the first place.

Which meant they'd all been part of a diversion. And if Aizen was willing to make sure no one interrupted what he was doing to the point of using his three strongest soldiers as a simple diversion, then what he was doing was most likely horrendous. Not even waiting to see what Soi Fon's squadron was going to do, he shot off into the night like a bolt of lightning headed right for his house.

Ichigo was certain that whatever Aizen had done had involved his family, but for the life of him couldn't explain why he felt the way he did. All he knew was that dread pressed him on like hellhounds nipping at his heels. His flash-steps were so fast that Grimmjow struggled to keep up with him, a large gash on the Arrancar's chest slowing him down considerably. Neliel lagged even further behind, carrying a wounded Ulquiorra slung over her shoulder. The ominous feeling persisted all the way to the Kurosaki house, until Ichigo ripped the door from its hinges and became the first to witness the gruesome scene that Aizen had left in his wake.

Grimmjow's anxious voice fell on deaf ears as Ichigo's wide brown eyes took in the sight of his father's corpse with horror. His mind jumping immediately to the worst-case scenario, the Soul Reaper shot up the stairs as Jaegerjaques finally reached the scene of the murder. The Arrancar's sharp eyes narrowed as he sniffed the air pointedly, hovering around where Aizen had torn open the garganta.

"Aizen's reiatsu's all over this room, and it stinks," he said. "That bastard's the one who did this, no question—"

Grimmjow's words were cut off abruptly by an anguished shout from the floor above, the tone unmistakably Ichigo's. The room was dead silent for several moments, a quiet that was broken as the only surviving Kurosaki walked back down the stairs. The bodies of his younger sisters were cradled in his arms, arms that were now streaked with dark, lifeless blood. Wordlessly, Ichigo knelt down, placed the pair of corpses by his father's body and wept. The three former Espada gave him space and left the room, Ulquiorra now walking under his own power as the various gashes Halibel had given him finally began healing in earnest. As they exchanged worried glances beneath the cloud-obscured stars, the trio of Arrancar was soon joined by Soi Fon and her group of Soul Reapers.

"What're you all doing here?" Soi Fon asked, her voice edged with a commander's authority, but Grimmjow silenced her with a look.

"If any of you go in there now," he said seriously, "I wouldn't be surprised if Kurosaki snapped your necks before you could blink. Kid's about as stable as a starving Hollow."

"Why?" This from Rukia, who pushed past her leader to be face-to-face with Jaegerjaques. "What happened?"

"Aizen butchered his entire family, that's what happened."

Grimmjow's heavy words hung in the air, oppressively enforcing silence over the gathered warriors until it was shattered by a peal of thunder in the distance. Neliel raised her head to look up at the crescent moon, her pale-golden eyes unreadable.

"It's going to rain soon."

Seeing no reason to linger, the majority of the Soul Reapers present dispersed at once with faint whispers as they flash-stepped away. Rukia lingered behind, and Soi Fon stayed just long enough to give Grimmjow a look that said 'be careful' in no uncertain terms before vanishing. The four who remained, the three Arrancar and one Soul Reaper, waited tensely for Ichigo to emerge from within the house. When he did, it was clear that the young warrior was as unstable as Grimmjow had predicted he would be.

One eye was its normal brown, while the other was the black-and-yellow that signaled the dominion of his Hollow instincts. Small droplets of blood dripped slowly from his fingertips down onto the grass as Ichigo walked forward, his mismatched eyes open but unseeing.

"Ichigo…?" Rukia breathed out, but the Soul Reaper made no gesture to show he'd heard Kuchiki say anything. A heartbeat later he was gone, disappearing with a sound that was halfway between the harsh buzz of sonido and the graceful whisper of shunpo. Where he was going was anybody's guess, but one thing was for certain:

The person he was paying a visit to was beyond screwed.

It was only because Ichigo was trying to get information out of Kisuke Urahara that the initial chokeslam into the far wall of the Shop only knocked the breath out of him, and didn't rip the former Captain's head from his shoulders instead.

"Why didn't you help him!?"

The question was given voice in a strangled, mangled hiss that made it sound like glass was being raked across Kurosaki's vocal chords, and the words were loaded with enough killing intent to worry even the normally-unflappable Urahara. He'd been in some binds in his time, but nothing quite like having to reason with a monstrously powerful, unstable and not-entirely human teenage boy.

"I don't… know… what you're… talking about!" Kisuke hacked out, hoping that gut honestly would come to his aid.

Unfortunately, gut honesty chose to cackle madly, turn around and walk whistling out the door, abandoning Urahara to a rather bleak-looking immediate future.

"Don't fuck with me!" the monster-that-was Ichigo snarled, tightening his grip on the former Captain's neck and forcing Kisuke to start taking this seriously if he didn't want to walk away from this with any scars. Focusing his reiatsu, the grey-eyed shopkeeper gave Ichigo's hand a jolt. Seizing the resulting opening, Urahara delivered a hard knee to Ichigo's sternum. He wordlessly called out Benihime's shikai as Kurosaki stumbled backwards, snarling in rage. Lunging forward and placing the tip of his zanpakuto against Kurosaki's jugular, Kisuke made sure that the kid was aware of who was in control before he began to speak.

"Kurosaki-san," he said as evenly as he could, some of the adrenaline coursing through his veins making itself audible in his tone, "I can see that you are in a state of considerable distress. I can do nothing to assist you, however, if you do not tell me what the hell is wrong with you. And for the record, barging in here like that and strangling me half to unconsciousness is not the best way to get information from me."

"They're dead!" Ichigo replied in his strained tone, both of his differently-colored eyes wide with rage. "My whole family is dead, you piece of shit, and you did nothing to help them!"

Urahara's eyes widened almost imperceptibly at this news, before his expression relaxed into a mask of resigned melancholy as the former Captain sighed and the tip of his zanpakuto dropped from Kurosaki's neck.

"I see," Kisuke said after a few moments of tense silence, looking hundreds of years older in an instant. "You probably want to kill me right now, Kurosaki-san, and to be honest, I can't blame you. In fact, part of me would welcome it if I didn't have anything left to live for. But the fact is that I do have things left to live for, and also that there are… certain things about your father of which you remain ignorant. Things that, I imagine, would change your view of this situation considerably."

"Stop talking in riddles and explain, before I rip your throat out."

Sighing at the brash nature of his former student that had seemingly been dyed into his bones, Urahara replied.

"Your father was a Soul Reaper, Kurosaki-san."

This fact alone was enough to shock Ichigo clean out of his half-Hollowized state and back to some semblance of normalcy, with both of his eyes once again shining brown in the faint light.

"What?" he breathed out, and Kisuke re-sealed his zanpakuto with a thought before continuing.

"Isshin Kurosaki, your father, was a Soul Reaper. Not only that, but he was once a member of the Royal Guard, the foremost group of soldiers in all of the Spirit World. He only came here by request, to escape the pain he felt over something he had been compelled to do. He never told me what it was, but I suppose he had his reasons for keeping his secrets."

"And you waited until now to tell me all of this because…?" Ichigo shot back, his head reeling from what he'd just been told. Urahara flashed a grim smile.

"Because, Kurosaki-san, if I had broken my promise to your father and told you the truth before now, he very likely would have killed me."

Normally the former Captain's tone would hold a teasing lilt when he said things like that, but the steely seriousness of his voice captured Ichigo's attention and held it.

"So why didn't you help him?" Ichigo repeated, but the venom from earlier was absent from the question this time, replaced with a hollow acceptance mingled with lingering disbelief that his father was actually gone.

"Because he told me something like this might happen a few days ago," Urahara replied as he wearily surveyed the damage caused by the younger Soul Reaper's rampage, "and explicitly instructed me not to interfere. You can come out now, Ururu," he called out into the shadows, and the diminutive assistant quickly darted out of the shadows. She promptly latched onto Kisuke's abdomen in a terrified embrace, making Ichigo feel like a total asshole.

"It's all right," Urahara reassured his young helper softly. "I'm all right, trust me." A few moments later, once the girl had calmed down, the shopkeeper spoke again.

"Ururu, could you do me a huge favor and bring out the box that I have sealed up in the back?"

"You mean the box, Kisuke-san?" she asked, and he nodded. "But you told Jinta and me to never…"

"I know what I told you two then," the Soul Reaper said gently, "but this is what I'm telling you now. Go get the box, please, Ururu."

She vanished at once, the rapid pitter-patter of her feet fading down the hallway only to return just as quickly when she stepped back into the light a few moments later, a small box in her arms.

"Thank you very much, Ururu," Urahara said smoothly as he took the box from his helper, and the girl blushed mightily before stuttering something and skittering back off into the recesses of the Shop. Kisuke gave a short chuckle and shook his head before turning to face Ichigo, extending the box out towards him wordlessly.

"What's this?" Kurosaki asked skeptically as he took the box from Urahara, noticing the intricate seal that had been carved into the top of the lid using reiatsu, holding it fast.

"What you are holding in your hands now, Kurosaki-san," Kisuke explained, "is your father's Last Will and Testament, which he entrusted to me some time ago. The seal on top of the box can only be opened by your reiatsu, and no one else's."

Ichigo glanced back down and was surprised to see that the black engraving was now pulsing a bright red, disappearing after a few moments. Lifting the lid, he was surprised to find not one, but two scrolls in the box. Setting it down gingerly on a nearby table, Ichigo reached in, grabbed one of the scrolls and unrolled it, holding it up to the light.

"What the…?"

It was a portrait, drawn in meticulous detail and featuring seven people. One was clearly a younger-looking version of his father, smiling jovially. One of his arms was draped over the woman standing next to him, who looked like a much younger and quite embarrassed version of Captain Unohana. The figure that caught Ichigo's attention the most, however, was the one standing in the row above his father, right over Isshin's left shoulder.

It might as well have been Ichigo's twin, the resemblance between him and this mystery man was so strong. Almost everything about their faces was the same, from structure to eye-color to the unruly orange hair that rested on top of his head and almost came down over his eyes. The only differences were a long scar that ran down the right side of his face and the cold, calculating look in his eyes that froze any warmth from his gaze.

Getting over his shock long enough to reach in and grab the other scroll, Ichigo hastily unrolled it and began to read.

"Ichigo," it began, clearly in his father's cramped handwriting, "if you're reading this, then I'm a dead man. Hopefully your eyes won't pass over these words for many years yet, but the Kurosaki name is a cursed one, so I wouldn't be surprised if this falls into your hands sooner than either of us would have wanted. But the fact that I'm dead isn't what's important. What matters is who killed me, Ichigo.

"That man was the one you see over my shoulder in that portrait; my brother. His name is Kago Kurosaki, but you probably know him as Sosuke Aizen."

Ichigo wasn't sure how long he went without drawing a breath as the words he had just read sunk into his head, but when air rushed into his lungs again it seared like flames.

"My brother, your uncle," the words continued, "was not born as the man you now know, the murderer hiding behind a different face. He was a killer, true, but not without principles. As a member of the Royal Guard, he was one of the greatest Soul Reapers to ever live. But then the day came that he discovered an Arrancar on an expedition into Hueco Mundo, and everything changed.

"Kago became convinced that, were Hollows able to regain some of their lost humanity through transformation into Arrancar, there would be no more need for an endless war. A treaty could be drawn up between Hollow and Soul Reaper, and the bloodshed would be able to cease.

"There were none, however, who shared in my brother's decidedly optimistic vision. The Spirit King called upon Kago to recant his words, but he was far too stubborn to let his solution to the problem of conflict be put down. He even went as far as to begin conducting research into warping and weakening the barrier between Hollow and Soul Reaper, and that was the final straw.

"A few days later, the order came down from the King to exterminate my brother, on a charge of high treason. I insisted that I be allowed to confront him, as I thought it was my fault he had strayed so far from the path; I had failed him both as a fellow Soul Reaper, and as a brother.

"I approached Kago and tried to get him to listen to reason, but he was adamant. The lives of the Soul Reapers that his actions would save, he claimed, were too precious to put at risk because of nothing more than baseless ignorance. These new Arrancar, he said, would be rational beings, devoid of the primal drive to consume souls that plagued all Hollows. We would be able to reason with them, and find a compromise to the endless strife.

"I will admit that I was tempted by the proposal, and strongly so. Despite our existence as a group of elite soldiers, none of us in the Royal Guard enjoyed war. It was a gruesome, costly thing, something that left nothing but the corpses of the dead and the scarred living in its wake. But at the same time, I could not abide the thought of giving Hollows, our sworn enemies, access to such immense power. It was a perversion of nature, not to mention incredibly risky.

"And so we fought, my brother Kago and I. The duel was long and brutal, but in the end I was the one who triumphed. Kyoka Suigetsu lay on the ground in two pieces, and my brother had fallen.

"Or so I had thought at the time, anyway. My killing blow had been off by mere centimeters; perhaps I had genuinely missed, or perhaps compassion skewed my sword, but either way I would remain ignorant of my brother's survival for a long time. I resigned from the Guard, something no one else had ever done before, in an attempt to escape the guilt of my fratricide. The Captain of the Guard, Yamamoto, decreed that a seal would be placed on my powers, rendering me human, only to be lifted when I proved myself worthy of wielding those powers once more.

"I had always entertained the possibility that my brother had survived our duel; whether this was out of fear or hope, even I wasn't sure. But it wasn't until several years later that I found out for certain. I was living in a remote village, as far away from Hollows as I could be, when a young man happened upon my house and asked for a place to stay. I let him in, and we began to talk; he said his name was Sosuke Aizen.

"It became clear to me after a few minutes of conversation who I was really talking to, though, and I told my brother to drop the charade. He told me that he had gone into deep cover after his 'assassination', changing his appearance and totally masking his true powers with the help of his infernal zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu. I was powerless, and could do nothing to stop him, so I let him go.

"We both knew that the Royal Guard would never believe me if I told them the truth, not to mention that I was too proud at the time to let them know I had failed in my sworn duty. So the name of Koga Kurosaki became forbidden, and I was forced to live with the burden of the knowledge that my ultimate failure would come back to haunt countless people. I could see in Koga's eyes that the idealism he had held in the past was gone, replaced by bitter hatred; the only way he knew now to bring his vision of a unified future to fulfillment was through bloody conquest and war. He would force Soul Society to accept his will, or die trying.

"Which brings us back to the present, and these pathetic words scrawled out on fading parchment by a dead man who did nothing in life except be a horrible brother and an equally lousy father. I have but one thing left to say to you, Ichigo, and that is this: I know you better than you give me credit for, and I know how you must feel right now. But whatever you do, do not go after Aizen. We both know that he is counting on you to do just that, and that man has been playing the puppeteer for long enough already.

"Ichigo, know that I love you and that I'm proud of you, and that I am sorry I wasn't strong enough to save your mother on the day that she left us. I can only hope that you will succeed where I have failed, my son."

The black ink trailed off there, signaling the end of the letter. Ichigo stared at it for a few more moments in silence, before the soft tapping sound of his tears falling on the page jolted him back to the present. Blinking the rest of them away, the young Kurosaki focused reiatsu into his hands and burned the piece of parchment away, before rolling the portrait up and tucking it inside of his robes.

"Well?" Kisuke's voice broke in. "What did it say?"

"Nothing," Ichigo replied evenly as he walked out the door and prepared to flash-step away.

"Nothing at all."

The orange-haired Soul Reaper reappeared by his house to find Grimmjow, Neliel, Ulquiorra and Rukia still waiting there for him. He smiled enigmatically as he looked over the faces of the former Third and Fourth Espada, knowing that they were the kind of Arrancar Aizen had envisioned all those years ago. Sosuke was too militant, too far-gone from his original self now to accept any outcome short of the total annihilation of Soul Society and the Spirit King's elite. Perhaps he could change things, though. Maybe he, Ichigo, could make the Soul Reapers see that peace was, in fact, possible. But for that to happen, one thing was inescapably clear:

Aizen had to die. And Ichigo wasn't strong enough to face down all of Hueco Mundo on his own, but that didn't matter. He was the only one who could avenge his father, and even if someone else had offered to go with him, he would have turned them down.

"Ichigo?" Rukia asked, snapping Kurosaki out of his thoughts. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Rukia," he answered calmly while opening a garganta with a gesture. "There's just something I have to take care of, that's all."

Kuchiki put two and two together instantly, and her eyes widened when she realized what her idiot was planning to do.

"Don't tell me you're going to go face him alone, Ichigo," she said, trying to keep her tone from sounding too desperate. "That's suicide! Don't do this," she continued as Ichigo stepped through into the inky blackness. "You promised me you wouldn't do something this stupid again, remember? You promised!"

"It's the only way, Rukia," he answered tonelessly, and Rukia felt her heart crash into her stomach with a dull thud. As she watched her loved one pass into the void with increasing panic, Kuchiki resorted to the one method she had left to keep Ichigo from getting himself killed.

"Bakudo number 61: Rikujo—"

She never finished the words; Ichigo flashed behind her and knocked her out with a quick blow to the back of her neck, catching Rukia as she fell and laying her gently on the grass.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her unconscious form, before rising to his feet once again and sighing.

"Take care of her for me, you guys," he said, and with a flash, he had passed through the garganta once again and pulled it closed with a shrill whine.

"It was nice knowing you, Kurosaki," Grimmjow spoke after a moment. "And for your sake, I hope you don't survive this. Because if you come back here alive," the Arrancar finished, looking down at Rukia, "she's going to kill you herself."

Ichigo decided to save himself some time and opened his garganta's exit right in the throne room of Las Noches, stepping out to find himself looking into the eyes of the man he now knew to be the only other surviving Kurosaki.

"Hello, Ichigo," Aizen said, smoothly as ever. "To be honest, I expected you a little sooner than this."

"I had to read over my dad's last letter, get some facts straight," Ichigo replied with matching casualness, as if the two men were alone in the room and not separated by the remaining members of the Espada.

"Oh?" Sosuke parried, raising an eyebrow. "And what facts were those?"

"The truth," the younger warrior answered simply, and Aizen smiled.

"So I assume, Ichigo," the traitorous Soul Reaper said with amusement, "that you are here for my head."

Ichigo nodded once, drawing his zanpakuto from his back as he did so.

"If you had asked me to join you back then, I might have said yes. But now, all you've done is destroy your own vision. If there's going to be any peace between Soul Society and Hueco Mundo at all, you have to die."

Aizen's smile widened as he rose from his chair, waving away the Espada who had risen to defend him.

"It seems that you are finally beginning to understand, Ichigo," Sosuke began, before vanishing from sight too quickly for Ichigo's eyes to follow.

"Let us see if you are truly fit to be my heir after all."

A searing pain shot through Ichigo's veins and he looked down, eyed widening as he saw the blade of Kyoka Suigetsu lodged in his chest.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," Aizen mused as he dragged the blade upwards, carving a gash through Ichigo's abdomen and up to just below his sternum.

"But then again," he continued in a whisper as Ichigo gasped futilely for breath and only served to fill his lungs up with more blood, "we both knew how this was going to end, didn't we, little nephew? All you did by not blocking was save me some time."

Sosuke withdrew his sword and watched dispassionately as Ichigo's body fell to the ground with a crash, wiping the blood off of his blade before re-sheathing it and turning his attention back to the Espada.

"Now, where were we?"

Ichigo felt light, lighter than he ever had in his life. He was floating, floating away from the pain, far away. His memories were beginning to seep away from him; he could see them fading into the light like photographs and film clips of all the things he'd done, and some of the things he'd dreamed of doing. But he would never have a chance to do any of that now; he'd failed at killing Aizen, and failed miserably at that. Now he was going to be reborn as just another lost, lonely soul in Soul Society, out somewhere in the wasteland of the Rukongai.

"I really hoped you would've actually listened to me for once and not gone after him, but I guess I should've known better."

Ichigo was jolted back to clarity by the sound of the unexpected voice, and a second later he was brought even further away from the brink of unconsciousness by the feeling of a strong hand gripping his shoulder. Once he was anchored and his freefall towards oblivion had halted, for good Ichigo turned around to get a look at his rescuer. The younger Kurosaki's eyes widened in shock as he saw who had addressed him earlier, and had saved him from passing completely into Soul Society.

"Dad?!"

"The one and only," Isshin replied, flashing one of his signature grins before looking serious again. "I'd like to say that I didn't expect this to happen, Ichigo," the older Soul Reaper continued, "but I guess you have more of your uncle in you than I'd like to admit. Well," he finished with a sigh, opening up a dark blue portal in the midst of the sea of white light, "come on, let's get out of here. If you're really determined to defeat my brother, the least I can do is train you to become strong enough to actually pull it off.

"It's time for me to introduce you to some old partners of mine, Ichigo."

"But wait," Ichigo spoke hurriedly, his head still reeling from all of the events that had unfolded in the past half an hour. "I thought you were dead!"

"Me? Dead?" Isshin repeated incredulously. "Are you kidding me, boy? No, I just... got back to my roots, I guess you could say. And since I still have enough friends in high enough places, I got a seat back in my old crew."

"The Royal Guard?"

Isshin grinned.

"Finally, you start talking sense. We're gonna whip you into shape, Ichigo, whether you like it or not. Now let's get the hell out of here," he finished, pulling his son towards the blue portal. "This place gives me the creeps."

And with that, father and son passed through the gateway and into the realm of the Spirit King, home of the Royal Guard.

A/N: Three cheers for huge chunks of exposition; I hope that wasn't too boring to read. And in case any of you were curious, the chapter title comes from an old Chinese proverb: "He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves... one for the enemy, and another for himself."

Just one more chapter of set-up to go, and then the real fun starts. And in case it was unclear, the reason Isshin's still around is because when he was 'killed' by Aizen, he just made the transition from a half-spirit, half-corporeal being back into being a purely spiritual entity. And so Ichigo's found out the truth about his heritage, and now it's time for some serious training. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and as always, please review! And as always, major props to MatsuMama for Beta'ing this, and also to Philyra.