1.
Byakuya knelt beside his dying wife's bed.
Papers lay scattered around her. Hisana was a poet, but she had become too weak to write and had just shouted, shoving her papers away and scattering them across the floor in frustration. Byakuya and several servants had come running, alarmed, and when Byakuya had seen Hisana near tears, he had straightened, expressionless, and ordered most of the servants away.
"You are too sick," he told her soothingly. "You will get better. You must not think of it."
Hisana laughed bitterly. "We both know I am dying." Her voice was hoarse.
He bit back shouts. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. But no. Despair was not befitting of a noble.
She lay back against the pillows, pale, sweaty, and clammy, her eyes distant and glassy. "I am sorry, Byakuya. It seems all I have ever caused you is trouble. You married me, a commoner... I know how important Soul Society nobility is to you. And to your family."
"You know you have brought me nothing but happiness," said Byakuya, frowning - worried, despite himself.
Hisana didn't seem to hear him. She stared at the far wall, as if seeing things he could not, her voice growing ever more distant. "I brought despair to you... And I abandoned my sister in the Rukongai. Perhaps I deserve to go this way."
He paused, and then told her that was nonsense and tucked the covers in tighter around her by himself. It was a civilian move, debasing himself, but he briefly enjoyed the illusion that he was doing something about this problem. That he could do something about this problem.
But later, after her death, as he stood gazing quietly at her grave, her words would come back to haunt him: "Perhaps I deserve to go this way."
He had never had that experience - of feeling so guilty that it seemed to you that you deserved death. And he was a man - a warrior - older, now. A clan leader, heading all his other family members. What could drive a young woman, a bright, vibrant young woman, to feel that way and never tell a soul?
He turned away to begin the search - the search to find and adopt Hisana's sister.
"There is no other way around it, Matsumoto-fukutaicho. Your Captain, Shiba Isshin, is a traitor. He has deserted the forces. He is dead to us."
"As it should be," came Kuchiki Byakuya's voice, cold and disdainful - he always had been a stickler for noble tradition.
Young Hitsugaya Toshiro stood outside the meeting hall, listening to the words, the echoing pronouncement from the Commander, his fists clenched in helpless anger. A deserter. His Captain. It seemed too bizarre to be true, but it had to be. That was where all the evidence pointed.
Shiba-taicho had been a lot of things - flirtatious, irresponsible, and goofy being among them - but Toshiro had never seen him as a traitor.
He supposed he was only a Third Seat. Matsumoto had been closer to Taicho as his Vice Captain. But it still seemed odd to him.
Toshiro had always had an innate trust in Shiba-taicho. He had believed in him when no one else did. When Shiba-taicho had requested going off on a solo mission, leaving his status and paperwork behind him, it had seemed out of place. But Toshiro had been the once to convince Matsumoto not to stop their Captain. He had guessed that Taicho was in the middle of something and knew there was nothing anyone else could do about it.
He had trusted that Taicho would tell them if something was truly wrong, if there was something they could do.
And now the betrayal. That was how it felt, despite his best efforts. Like a personal betrayal. It was up to him now, Toshiro realized. Up to him to protect his makeshift family - his squad. Just as it had been up to him to protect his sick grandmother until his high reiatsu levels had driven him out and into the Academy.
The meeting was released and as Captains and Vice Captains spilled out, Matsumoto approached him. But so did Aizen-taicho, Fifth Division Captain.
"Kuchiki-taicho had such cruel words," he observed, smiling. "This must be very hard for you, the young prodigy. Third Seat Hitsugaya. Famous for entering the Academy two years after your sister, Hinamori Momo, and then finishing before her."
Toshiro lifted his chin, defiant. "Shiba Isshin is a traitor," he said, his former loyalty still unused to the words. "My squad does not need to worry. I will become Captain."
Aizen raised his eyebrows, friendly. "Perhaps you are just as frigid in your own way as Kuchiki-taicho. Fortunately for the two of you," he said wryly, brushing past them, "coldness is highly prized within the Shinigami forces."
Isshin stood outside the hospital doors, pacing.
The whole odd story flew through his mind. He still couldn't believe sometimes that it had actually happened. He had been saved from a particularly powerful Hollow one day by a female surviving Quincy Archer - a beautiful, young one - during a journey to the living world. She had been injured during the fight, but successfully purged the beast. She seemed fine. Her name was Masaki.
She had done what he could not. She impressed him.
He went back to the Soul Society, but he could not stop thinking about the girl. He was not sure why. It was not the typical infatuation he felt for passing flings. He could be a romantic and say it was her wavy, messy curls, her crescent moon shaped amber brown eyes, and her high cheekbones, the light in her eyes when she fought. He could be a realist and say he was worried about the Hollow blow she had sustained and felt he owed her a debt he had not yet repaid. He could show unusual depth and say he was impressed by any Quincy who could see past their resentment long enough to save a Shinigami Captain - and ask for nothing in return.
Or he could be honest and say it was just some bizarre intuition.
He had requested a solo away mission in the living world - not knowing it would be the last time he would ever see the Soul Society, his clan, or his squad - and he went down to the living world to see her again, alone. He felt he had to do it alone. It was his debt, and in any case, she had purged a Hollow. Quincy were no longer allowed to do that. Technically, she should be punished.
The thing was, she had done it to save him.
He came back and found her in a horrifying Hollowification process from the wound, being watched over by another Quincy family called the Ishida clan and by the traitorous mad scientist Urahara Kisuke. There were so many things wrong with that he couldn't even begin, but he caught on one part - that he could save Masaki by tying his soul to hers. He could repay her.
The thing was, they would both have to give up their powers in the process. He could never go back home.
He had agreed. He had taken a gigai as a physical living form. Masaki had been scheduled to marry into the Ishida clan and produce more Quincy babies, but instead both she and Isshin went to college in the living world and they started dating. He studied to be a doctor - a kind of living world healer. It was the closest he could get to saving people while remaining with Masaki. They got married; he opened a medical practice.
He heard from Urahara's contacts that he had been deemed a traitor. His position refilled by Third Seat Hitsugaya and his clan banished from the Seireitei city. A traitor. He supposed he was.
But he had no regrets. As strange as it sounded, marriage and a family suited him. He was happy in the living world - happy in a way he'd never thought he would be. He didn't need other women around Masaki. She was tough and kind, playful and too much to handle and with an excellent sense of humor.
She made him a better person. No one in the Soul Society had done that.
And now he was standing outside the hospital doors, awaiting the announcement - the hope - of the successful birth of their child. He'd gone to Ishida's practice and he'd hated every second of it, but honestly, he was shaky and elated and nervous as hell and he didn't trust himself to deliver a baby on his own right now. Certainly not his.
The baby would have all its own powers, half Shinigami and half Quincy, though he hoped to raise it in as normal a living-world environment as possible, protect it. He and Masaki had decided on that point already. What he was doing was, in the grand scheme of things, unforgivable, but at this point Isshin had broken every law imaginable and fuck it he wanted a kid.
The child would be a girl, a living girl. They'd always wanted a daughter. They had gotten lucky on their first try and had already decided to go no farther.
"Isshin." He turned around to find Ishida Ryuuken standing there. "The birth was successful. Your wife and your daughter are both fine."
He relaxed, a huge balloon of relief and elation and disbelief filling him. "Ishida, I swear, if you've done anything to them, I'll -!"
He sprinted into the hospital room, and paused in the doorway. A bright, amazed smile came over his face. Masaki was sitting up in bed, cheerful, a baby girl in a pink blanket wailing away in her arms.
"Come on," said Masaki, grinning. "Come meet your kid."
"... Okay," he said, dazed. He went over to the hospital bed and looked down into the baby's face. "... God I hope she looks like you," were the first words out of his mouth.
Masaki laughed. Motherhood made her positively glow. "Surely there must be some good-looking people in your family!"
"Sorry to disappoint you." Isshin smirked when Masaki laughed again.
"... So," said Masaki. "The name. We decided on Ichigo, right?"
That was right. Surname Kurosaki; they'd taken on Masaki's family's name. She had been, at birth, Kurosaki Masaki.
"Yes," said Isshin, smiling down into his daughter's face. "Kurosaki Ichigo."
It had been months. Toshiro stared in the mirror. He was taller; he looked visibly older. He should be pleased. And yet - rapid physical growth in spirits was only brought on by great stress.
There was a reason why he looked like a teenager now, more fitting into his Captain's cloak.
He thought of his sister as he remembered her - Bed Wetter Momo, smiling with her pigtails, ever the bookworm. Then he thought of her as a fukutaicho, her tight bun still behind her head, dead and ripped open on the hospital lab table.
Unohana's distant voice came to him. "She died protecting someone in her division from the Hollow. She threw her body in front of theirs, her arms out... Your sister was very brave, Captain Hitsugaya." The last words had been said gently, but they had not helped.
"... Taicho," Matsumoto had said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He should have been there. It was irrational, but the thought remained. He should have been there to save his sister.
He left to go visit his grandmother again. If possible, the grief had been even harder on her, and it just made him feel worse. He had to help somebody, he thought.
Ichigo and Masaki sat beside each other in their apartment, quiet. Ichigo was ten years old.
Ichigo's first years had been a kind of dream. She looked like her mother, her orange hair messy, wavy curls, her face high cheekbones, her eyes amber brown crescent moons. Pigtailed and over-enthusiastic, she'd started out as an early bookworm and also as a writer.
Ichigo's father Isshin, a doctor, had once told her, "Your name's most common meaning is 'strawberry.' But it also has another meaning: 'to protect one thing.' Your name is given to one who protects."
Ichigo had decided she wanted to protect her parents, and from there the sphere of people she'd wanted to protect had grown. She started taking karate classes, though she was soft and cried easily and was horrible at them. She'd met a tomboyish girl named Tatsuki in karate class, and Tatsuki had become her best friend, defending her from bullies.
But Ichigo had another special ability, one no one outside her family knew about - she could see ghosts.
She couldn't see the dead as well as she could see the living, and that led to her father's death.
Ichigo's father owned a hospital clinic, and he worked a lot. Masaki was usually the one to walk Ichigo home from karate classes, but one day she had urged Isshin, "Go pick up your daughter. Spend some time with your only child."
Isshin had walked Ichigo home in the rain, joking around and making her laugh. It had been raining for days, and the nearby river had swelled. Ichigo looked over, and saw a girl standing on the edge of the river. Ichigo thought she was about to jump. She ran across the street full of cars to pull the girl away from the river - Isshin shouted and ran after her - something hit Ichigo from behind and she blacked out.
She woke up with her father's dead face staring into hers. He'd pushed her across the road in time and covered her body with his own. He was dead, his back was ripped open and bleeding. The girl was gone - no one else had seen her; she'd been a ghost, all along.
Ichigo was nine years old.
She'd been torn away from her father's body, crying and screaming, and after that everything was a bit of a blur. Her father's funeral. She and her mother moving into an apartment. Her mother becoming a nurse, a single mom. Her mother putting up a shrine for Isshin, complete with photograph, in their living room.
Ichigo and Masaki sat beside each other now on Ichigo's bed.
"... I'm sorry," said Masaki quietly, somber, still dressed in black. "I shouldn't have made him go. It should have been me. It's my fault." Her voice broke a little in grief.
"No, Mommy!" Ichigo looked around in alarm. "It's my fault!" She looked down, tears in her eyes. "If I hadn't run after the ghost, he'd still be alive -"
"Oh, honey, you couldn't tell - you were just trying to help -"
"But it's true!" Ichigo looked up, big-eyed, and glared at her Mom fiercely. Her mother fell silent in surprise. Ichigo stood up. "There's no more time for being weak," she said fiercely, resolve filling her. "No time for tears. From now on, I'm going to help you. No one around me is going to die again."
Ichigo never lost a karate match again.
She formed a secret daydream, hidden in the back of her mind. Internalizing her guilt over her father's death as her own fault, she imagined dying for someone else. Sacrificing her own life for theirs. It would, she thought, make up for what she had done.
Ichigo still knew nothing about death beyond ghosts at all. Who her father had been... she had no idea.
Years later, Aizen realized he had to come to a decision, and quickly.
He had to send someone to intervene with Kurosaki Ichigo. He was curious about her and wanted to test her for himself. It should, he thought, be a man. People were always more likely to be protective of the opposite sex, particularly if the opposite sex was a pretty young woman as Kurosaki Ichigo was. So, a man.
But in order for powers to transfer over from a man to a woman, two men had to be present for the transfer. It was backwards, as it didn't work the same the other way around, but there you had it. Two male Shinigami had to offer their powers of their own free will to Kurosaki Ichigo.
So who to send?
He came upon the idea, and a cruel smile filled his face. There were two obvious choices. It was why he'd sent his Vice Captain, Hinamori, off to die. The answer was perfect.
Kurosaki Ichigo was a bookworm, like the late Hinamori Momo, and a poet, like the late Kuchiki Hisana. It was obvious from anyone who took a glance in her and her mother's apartment, or her bedroom. There were pictures on the walls of a young, smiling, and pigtailed Ichigo, reminiscent of photographs of a young Hinamori Momo. The two would guess from the shrine that her father had been Shiba Isshin, and it would affect them both in different ways - Byakuya because she was nobility, Toshiro because she was his ex Captain's daughter.
But then there was Ichigo herself. She was beautiful, surely, tall and willowy like her mother, but she was more than that. She was protective, and she still carried a kind of guilt, a desperation, to die for another. The minute she found out a Hollow was attacking people she knew to get to her, she wouldn't be able to help but to jump in front of them and let it take her instead.
Her guilt would affect Byakuya. Her protective instincts would affect Toshiro. They would jump in front of her in turn - and the rest would happen naturally, on its own.
He would get the delicious opportunity to ruin two of Seireitei's most stiff and important Captains, and he would be able to stir the fascinating Kurosaki Ichigo to action as a Shinigami. Now... a couple of years before the whole thing was due to occur... he had to start planting evidence. A trail of larger and larger Hollows leading toward Karakura District, Tokyo.
Large enough for two Captains to be sent by the soon-to-be-dead "Central 46" to investigate.
Then all that was left was to send a Hollow after Kurosaki Ichigo, and the pawns in his game would do the rest for him. Kurosaki Ichigo - he had been watching her well. She would get in the way of their Hollow destruction. He knew it.
Those two didn't know what they were in for. She was a true fighter, a most headstrong girl. Sitting on the sidelines, for her... was not an option. And it had not been since he'd sent the Hollow Grand Fisher after her and her father.
Author's Notes: Next chapter, we learn a little more about Ichigo in the intervening years between Isshin's death and the start of canon.