Why hello there!~
Hiding things at first is… simpler. Definitely not easier, but certainly more manageable than it could have otherwise been. There was a reason why Masaki was the last Kurosaki before Ichigo and his sisters had been born, and it had very little to do with the dwindling echt problems that seemed to be impacting all the great Quincy families.
Thankfully for Ichigo -and his sisters on a much smaller level- he is not just a Kurosaki, he is also a Shiba, and while any random Shinigami would not have made much of a difference, the fact remains that goat face is a Shiba and that makes them Shiba too. Which consequently, makes it easier to use the Shinigami to hide the… other.
Yuzu and Karin don't really practice much beyond what Ichigo encourages, not to mention they are also Kurosaki, and because of that, the only sign he ever has trouble suppressing at home that he is the main carrier of the Kurosaki's power, is the way the shadows seem to be enthralled by his presence, and that's something easily overlooked if only because it rarely happens outside his dark room when he turns off the lights for bed.
At school is a… different matter.
Unfortunately for him, there is another Quincy family in town.
It's easy to avoid the current patriarch of the Ishida when the man remains at the hospital -Ichigo never goes there, if only because he has a clinic in his house- or the man's own home which is almost on the opposite side of Karakura town.
It is not so easy to avoid the current heir when the other teen goes to the same fucking school as Ichigo does.
He's able to keep things as tightly suppressed as he can, and for the most part, it works. That, however, goes out the window the moment they are put in the same classroom for the first time in their freshmen year of high school.
The shadows are easier to ignore and brush off when they tend to be most active in the night. But the occasional quick flash of red in his eyes is… tougher. If anyone ever mentions it, he blames it on the lighting of the room and it thankfully never stays long enough for people to second guess, but Ichigo is nervous regardless and hopes he doesn't have to interact much with the younger Ishida when the teen is actively channeling Quincy powers and leaves it at that.
Rukia is an unforeseen variable.
Honestly, although he somehow ended up having to take her Shinigami powers and is now stuck being her glorified errand boy, he still thinks this is better than the alternative of using his powers and attracting all the attention that would have come with the revelation. Not only would it have put him and all the power he currently holds at danger, but his little sisters, his cute baby sisters and potential heirs to what he carries would have been utterly defenseless at the repercussions.
Being around Ishida when the teen manifests his bow is just as gruesome as Ichigo had imagined it would be, as it is a balm on his tightly coiled and reigned in power. Honestly, it's slightly embarrassing to Ichigo that his reiatsu is constantly out in the open and out of control, but the lesser of two evils as they say, and making sure none of the Kurosaki power bleads through takes his full concentration on the best of days, let alone on days like these.
He knows his eyes had remained red for longer sections of time then they ever had previously, and is just grateful that they had all been distracted with the hollows coming in mass and no one had really had the opportunity to focus on his eyes. The reishi he unconsciously absorbs and feels tingling at the tips of his fingers is frustrating, if only because it is annoying and distracting to his senses and he hopes he never has to deal with this ever again.
He has no choice but to get used to it.
Part of Ichigo feels guilty for being relieved that they all get split up when they have to go to Soul Society via Kūkaku's -wow, guess being crazy is a Shiba thing- cannon, but he is. Ichigo needs to be at his best… well, at his second best if he wants to have a snowballs chance in rescuing Rukia, and right now the odds aren't exactly stacked in their favor.
Somehow, they succeed, though many other insanity inducing events happen in between, and if Ichigo wasn't so busy trying to keep from bleeding out without rousing too much suspicion at his sluggish blood loss due to the use of blut vene, he would have tried his best at glaring a hole in Aizen's head and wishing him dead -this man had tainted his mother.
It was his fault Masaki had been in pain for so many years after, and why she had been unable to shield that faithful day, and why that stupid weak hollow had been able to get the best of them when Masaki was supposed to be an echt and much more. This man had been-!
Ichigo promised he would not live for revenge.
But he could certainly live in spite of it.
Ishida somehow ended up… locking his Quincy powers. It is so much easier to suppress what he is with the other teen in this state, but it also leaves a pang in his soul so much harder to ignore that almost makes him want to burst out into tears at the pain Ishida must be feeling.
He thinks about the other Quincy a lot in the coming days and nights. Ichigo knows he could fix it- could unseal the power Ishida had traded for when he fought Kurotsuchi but…
The balance, the hiding, the deceiving, the secrets, the catastrophe. Would it be worth it? Can Ichigo justify bringing out this can of worms to help a friend family?
Ichigo gets so distracted with his own Shinigami problems, that by the time he's thought things through and given himself a migraine at the repercussions just waiting to unravel, Ishida has disappeared, and Ichigo starts sensing the fluctuations in the older Ishida's presence that clues him into what is being done.
"You mustn't." Ichigo interrupts. He knows he sounds weird even to his own ears, and the words almost tumble out of his mouth without his say so in such a way that has him sounding foreign and not like himself. He takes a breath, focuses on the two Ishidas looking up at him with slightly confused expressions and tries to not drown in all the Quincy power swirling around the weird training room. "You shouldn't." he whispers this time.
"Kurosaki?" Ishida questions, looking as flummoxed as Ichigo has ever seen him be. "How did you get here?"
Ichigo ignores the question for the moment and instead keeps his steady gaze on the older man in the room. "Ishida Ryūken, you should know better than to have offered."
The man gazes impassively up at Ichigo, and were he anyone else, Ichigo is certain he would have gotten an arrow to the face by now. "You really are Masaki's son." Ryūken asserts. "Does it cause problems?"
Ichigo had been told by his mother that most Quincy who still knew of the Kurosaki thought that their family was full of prophets, and while it's a convenient excuse to continue using now, Ichigo can't keep up the ruse if he is to unlock the younger Ishida's power.
"You are still needed Ishida Ryūken, and if you were to sacrifice your attribute to unseal his powers, we would be making a terrible mistake." Ichigo clarifies vaguely. "You are already at a disadvantage, having partially passed down the Ishida's power to him when he was too young to receive it to protect him from the Auswählen. You mustn't splinter it further."
Ichigo knows he hit a sensitive topic when the older Ishida tightens his grip on his bow hard enough he can hear the reishi sizzling from his position farther up. Regardless, he had needed the information to be aired, and Ichigo knows that the white-haired man would have never offered up the facts voluntarily.
"What?" the younger Ishida- Uryū- hisses in indignation. "What does that mean? How does-?" he turns back to look at Ichigo and almost does a double take. "Your eyes…" Uryu trails off in confusion. "The shadows? What are you?"
Ichigo wonders what he looks like right now with such a heavy Quincy air around them. He's not exactly suppressing the power as much as he usually does, but he also hasn't lost so much control as to show his true form.
It's only slightly surprising when Ryūken shuffles to stand half in front of Uryū and outstretches a hand as if to keep the teen behind him to keep the young Ishida from doing something rash but also protecting him.
"Ryūken?" Uryū splutters. "What is-"
"Stay quiet." The older man reprimands. "Don't ask questions, don't speak unless spoken to, and don't make any deals."
Ichigo quirks a slight smile at this and wonders at what exact conclusion the elder Ishida had made. It obviously can't be the full one, though he's certainly not on the wrong track. It's not at all out of the question that some records had remained of what his family was even if the name Kurosaki would not have been tied to any such information.
"I consider him a friend." Ichigo placates lightly. "I wouldn't purposely harm him."
"Purposely?" Ryūken questioned.
Ichigo hums in agreement and takes the leap down to ground level so they are all standing at the same height and the Ishida's don't have to continue looking up at him. "Even I do not know if the power I hold can accidentally harm others. It has been at least 13 generations since the last time we actively channeled it."
Ryūken seemed to relax at this admission and dropped the arm he had previously held up. His bow was also gone, and while Ichigo was certain he could bring it out again at a moment's notice, it was also a nice show of trust.
Ichigo felt the shadows settle down and become less active now that the Quincy power had been tamped down to a minimum but imagined his eyes still shone red instead of their usual brown. "I'll help unlock your powers, Uryū." Ichigo offered gently. "No strings attached; no training required. I just need access to your spirit ribbon for a couple of minutes."
"Is anyone going to explain what the fuck is going on to me?" Uryū blurted out, looking as if he were at the end of his tolerance and no longer taking no for an answer.
"I can't answer that." Ichigo refuted before turning back to the white-haired man. "Can you show him what information you have?"
The man pondered this for a second before querying. "I don't know how… accurate it would be. Masaki never told us a thing."
"She was not meant to." Ichigo confirmed. "I can't, lest he find out. It's not yet time."
Ryūken hummed in understanding before nodding the slightest bit in deferment of Ichigo's point. "Would you be willing to fix our records?"
"No." Ichigo flat out refused to allow any more documented information to be out in about without Kurosaki purview to manage how it would be distributed afterwards. "I can tell you where you are wrong though."
"As you say." Ryūken agreed passively, and really, if there was ever any proof that the blasted Ishida knew more than they should, this was exhibit A.
Ichigo turned back to look at his thunderous classmate and felt a slight headache at the trouble this entire conversation was causing him. "Read the papers Uryū, and once you feel comfortable, call for me, and I'll come unseal your powers."
The teen almost spluttered at this ultimatum, but before he could do anything about it, Ichigo released the slightest of sparks of his power and walked right into the shadow gateway that was created and back into his bedroom in Karakura.
Against Ichigo's predictions, when Uryū called for him two days later, there were no questions, no demands, no confusion and most importantly, no accusations. The teen merely asked if Ichigo was still willing to go through with his previous proclamation and then thanked him when he had easily managed to unravel the locks and Uryū was once again in control of his Quincy powers.
"Would you… humor a question I have?" Uryu asked hesitantly, looking almost uncomfortable at asking even that much.
Ichigo wondered just how much information the Ishidas had considering the teen now looked like he wasn't sure how he should be treating Ichigo anymore and promised himself he'd get the teen to be casual again with him if it was the last thing he did.
"Don't listen to your father." Ichigo rebuffed instead. "Just like always, ask anything you like, and I'll be sure to tell you to take a hike if it's something I don't want to answer."
Uryū snorted lightly but sobered up quickly. "The Auswählen. Was there really no way to stop it? Surely your family could have-."
"He stole some of it." Ichigo revealed. "The Sealed King. He was sealed -you can't take back something you can't reach- and while he could never use it, he certainly stopped us from fully using it either."
"But that was-." Uryū spluttered. "You're- you're a Kurosaki. A Cele-"
"Hush." Ichigo reprimanded. "It wasn't until 97 years ago that we regained it, and it wasn't until my mother's generation that they were able to properly harness it." Ichigo turned back to look at Uryu and knew his eyes were a terrifying crimson red without even having to check. "If she hadn't been tarnished so, maybe she could have stopped the Auswählen. But she was, and so she couldn't."
Uryū quieted at this admission, and as Ichigo reared himself for further questioning, the other teen merely nodded in understanding.
It would have to do for now he supposed.
Urahara is surprised he's not having hollow problems of an… internal variety. Ichigo knows that if his mother hadn't worked so hard on stabilizing his soul while he was growing in her womb and making sure to separate the potential tarnish from his being, he would have certainly taken on the hollow that his mother had into his own soul and he would very likely be having said hollow problems, but case in point, he doesn't.
The man acts relieved that he's not having hollow take-over problems, and Ichigo knows he is, but he also knows that the man is disappointed and that it will likely change the blonde's perspective on Ichigo as a whole now that he is confirmed to not be an even more bizarre hybrid then he already is.
Taking care of the Aizen problem is overall easier and harder than he thought. As he had expected, his Shinigami powers are not yet at a level where he can go toe to toe with a centuries old Shinigami and win, so he has no choice but to improvise.
Of course, this is also when his stupid father decides to show up and 'reveal himself' as a Shinigami and corral him into training. Ichigo goes along with it, acts the part of the confused son who hadn't known who his father was all along even though he obviously did and working on this technique the old goat was yapping about even if Ichigo had already known about it.
The end result is something only Aizen sees, and really, the man only views a slight glimpse of it anyways. Using Mugetsu is almost it, but not really. This is a watered-down version of what he is capable of if he fully taps into the Kurosaki inherited power, and while the appearance is close, he's using his Shinigami power as a base with a light coating of his other power.
Really, it's no surprise that Aizen goes down in the end, and while the megalomaniac almost seems to understand what he got into in the end, there is nothing the brunet can do about it now that he was defeated and sealed away in the kido Urahara had launched earlier.
He doesn't lose his powers, and he's kind of baffled that people seem to think he had. It's a bit of a misconception, and while it's true he can hardly tap into his Shinigami power for a couple weeks, that does not make him powerless.
"The fools." Uryū scoffs while it's just them two up on the roof top of Karakura high and Ichigo brings it up. "Losing your powers; yeah right. I'd wager right now you're stronger than you were before."
Ichigo hums in agreement at the assessment but doesn't elaborate.
It had been nice to use some of his inherited power in such a manner. It almost felt like if he were exercising an atrophying limb that had stayed still too long and it only makes Ichigo wish he could flex his metaphorical muscles more often.
Maybe he could go to the Spirit Palace? He is of the understanding that at least two of the royal guard would still be aware of what his family is and know not to attack.
A thought for future consideration he guesses.
For now though…
"Be cautious." Ichigo warns lightly. "We should be seeing activity soon."
Uryū gives him a sidelong glance but doesn't push further. Ichigo knows his message has been received when the teen simply nods.
The first quincy -the asshole who stands on his bed like a fucking weirdo- is easily delt with, even if Ichigo is fighting against himself every step of the way in suppressing his powers. Frankly, he is not at all surprised that by the end of the fight his hair has grown two inches or so which don't reverse by the time he is done.
Once he and everyone land in hueco mundo and they find another quincy, Ichigo is absolutely certain that his eyes aren't turning back to brown unless he tries really hard and his hair has grown another three inches -damn it.
Arriving in soul society- in a soul society completely and utterly saturated in quincy energy is the final straw that broke the camels back. He feels his hair lengthen to his waist and the shadows crawling up his feet and towards his chest to caress his neck almost lovingly paint his orange hair black all the way from the tips to his roots. As he blinks the spots away from his vision, he can see and not see every single Quincy in the war zone but finds his attention zeroing in on his target.
As Ichigo takes a step in the direction of the battle going on between the king and the captain commander, his clothes shift to a white garment with blue detailing reminiscent of the Quincy, and while many would say he is now dressed like them, Ichigo knows that it is they who are dressed like the Kurosaki, not the other way around.
Once he sets foot in the battlefield, Ichigo arrives just in time to stop the real Ywach from killing the Captain Commander. As he grabs the man's arm to stop the attack, Ichigo knows that he now has multiple irises and that the black shadows have manifested the eyes which denote his role.
"What?" The so-called king of the Quincy looks appalled. "No.." He whispers in abject horror. "We killed the last of your lineage. I sealed the power within me- more than two millennia ago!"
Ichigo tilts his head in query as the shadows crawl up his face. "Did you now? I thought you'd know better by now, pretender." Ichigo lets go of the apendage and the man stumbles away as if the distance would do him any good. Ichigo finds a slightly bloodthirsty smile gracing his features and he extends his arm towards the ignorant man as if offering a helping hand. "One does not simply kill the power of A Celestial."
Not to be continued…?
Inspo for this one shot was an artwork I think belongs to konetaa_ on twitter. Here's a quick link to the artwork in question:
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/konetaa_/status/1634204061904797697/photo/1
