alright, so here's the second chapter. this is where I hop off for a while. see you at the end of ch 7
Lieutenant and acting captain of the 13th, Rukia Kuchiki, didn't know what to make of this news. The Shibas had been reinstated, and as part of the legal requirements to do so, Kukaku had publicly declared her heir. That didn't surprise her, that was just clan politics. What did surprise her was who.
Apparently, Ichigo Kurosaki was the son of Isshin Shiba, the deserter captain who ran off with a mortal. She didn't believe for a second that that was the sole reason a captain would abandon his post, but given what she knew of the man, she didn't discount it. The irony was sickening. The boy she had dragged into this mess, who had stupidly walked back into the fray after she gave him an out and then had saved Soul Society twice, was the nephew of her late mentor.
She had gotten over that, however. Ichigo was Ichigo, and honestly, she liked it that way, he was the reason she even tried for bankai. She was tired of being left behind, and now she probably had a bankai too strong for her own body to take.
A part of her wanted to show Ichigo. To show him that she had finally done it. It hurt, not being able to see him over the past year, but it became an impossibility as she had to cover for the now-vacant position of captain of the 13th. A vacancy that was obviously being reserved for her. She simply didn't have the time even to consider leave, let alone enough leave for a stay in the living world. What little time she did have to herself now was spent training.
Since the end of the blood war, Rukia had been working on extending the duration she can spend in suspended animation. Carefully chipping away at the limits of what she can do, primarily so she can safely use Hakka no Togame. It was a grueling, lonely process, spent meditating while her shikai was active, and just dropping her body temperature. It felt like she had gained little. Sode no Shirayuki seemed to disagree, stating that she could now hold absolute zero for 10 seconds, and had raised the starting temperature of her bankai. Small, incremental improvements. Another year and she might be able to actually start practicing with her bankai safely. Until then, she only had this, and her inner world to work with.
She felt the head captain's spiritual pressure long before she had heard him, and slowly raised her body temperature as though she were resealing her bankai, addressing another of its flaws. The head captain walked next to her position, opposite from her now sealed zanpakuto on her left.
"Lieutenant Kuchiki, I apologize if I'm interrupting something," he rubbed the back of his head while flashing a sheepish grin. Rukia knew this was a mask, but also knew the politeness was genuine. He had been made aware of the state of her bankai by her brother, and why it is ill-suited for use currently.
"I was close to finishing for today, head captain, do you need something of me?" she kept her eyes closed as she kept herself relaxed. She had kept a formal air about her still, even though she had been working herself to near exhaustion.
"Lady Shiba will be returning with Ichigo in a few days. I feel it may help him if a familiar face guides him through the dangai," the head captain's reasoning was sound. She and Ichigo had a history, seeing her may soften the blow of what has happened. "Also, as I am concerned for your well-being, I'm giving you leave until you have to fetch them," the thinly veiled order was clear, and she knew that included her training.
"Thank you," she kept up decorum as Kyoraku left, but she was a little frustrated. She had been close to something, but she couldn't stay upset for long, as when she stood up, she felt the aches of her exhausted body. Okay, maybe he had a point.
Tatsuki was walking home with Orihime. The two had just left the Kurosaki house where Ichigo just… spilled everything. It was almost too much to believe, but it made sense. Rukia being a noble from the land of the dead, his father being one as well, his mother being a quincy, he spilled it all to her. It seemed some of the group already knew this, and others didn't. The part that hit hardest though was that he was leaving for Soul Society and that it was likely that this was going to become a permanent arrangement. He said he'd try to visit, and that he may actually have a slim chance of being able to return, but everyone in the room, even her, could see that this 'Central 46' wouldn't just let him walk free.
The part that got to her though was Ichigo apologizing for keeping her in the dark for as long as he did. He had known that this was a likely outcome the moment he had been allowed to walk free after he rescued Rukia. Apparently, she had hammered it into his thick skull just by bitching at him hard enough.
Tatsuki sighed. Keigo and Mizuiro were going to be told as well, but Ichigo said that his room was too small for them as well. She knew the real reason was that Keigo would just go into theatrics and that Ichigo didn't want to damage his stuff due to the inevitable reprisal he'd have to deliver. Fortunately, Keigo was busy getting into a culinary school, so he wouldn't be able to make it. Tatsuki had kept herself local, she was just too attached to Karakura to go to the bigger universities closer to the heart of Tokyo. Orihime and Uryu were going to the same one, but that made sense given that they were part of Ichigo's team when on patrol.
"So…" Tatsuki was trying to break the ice. Orihime had been weirdly silent the whole walk. Normally they'd be talking about random things that popped into her mind.
"It's okay," Orihime's reply was unenthused. She had been nursing feelings for him for a long time, and this news hurt. She knew he could visit, but she couldn't reasonably expect him to maintain a long-distance relationship separated by planes of existence. She took it in stride as she always did, however. That was something Tatsuki admired about her. Her stubborn optimism was simply too strong.
"Let's get you something sweet, take your mind off of this," Tatsuki wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders and took them on a detour to the closest donut place. She'd have to work it off later, but her friend needed the pick-me-up.
Kisuke Urahara was working on closing up his shop for the night. Kukaku was using one of the spare rooms he kept for shinigami on long-term deployment. It had been a long time since he had seen her.
Last time he saw her, it was to help her and her clan in weathering the political shitstorm Isshin had unleashed. Yamamoto and the Central 46 were harsh. The Shiba were stripped of everything that could be stripped from them. Leaving only Kakaku Taiho in their possession. However, in a ploy to take even that by one of the other clans, they hadn't been given enough time to move it off the premises before anything left there would be forfeited.
Kisuke checked the inventory as he reminisced. As he noted he would need to make some more soul candy soon, he remembered his ploy. They could only seize the property of the Shiba clan that was left behind, so he worked with one of the more loyal subordinate houses to transfer the cannon, semi-legally, to their possession. Thus preventing it from being seized.
This also allowed the Shiba clan the time needed to remove it, as those who were working on moving it originally were now contracted by said house to move it to a location of their choosing. Squad Zero would then void the purchase as such a sale would be Illegal without their prior approval, but by that point, the cannon was already off the grounds.
It really was a really stupid plan, requiring Central 46 and the other houses to play by their own rules, as opposed to just taking it anyway, but it had worked. Due to that, Kukaku was eternally grateful, to the point where she was one of his most reliable connections to the Soul Society, and smuggled a lot out for him, well, back before his name was cleared.
Now he had the full support of the 1st's logistics arm, to the point he could now requisition asauchis. A perk he had taken advantage of earlier in the day when one of his new employees had taken over the counter.
He had requisitioned one of each type of standard asauchi the moment he heard Karin was going to take up the offer of replacing her brother. The first had informed him that the requisition would be sourced from this month's batch, so it would maybe come along with whoever was collecting Ichigo. Though he wasn't entirely sure, he believed that the academy had finished zanpakuto selection for the year, but they could have changed the date.
He caught a flip-flop out of the air as it flew at his face mid-thought. "My my, accurate as ever Hiyori."
"Shove it up your ass," it seems Hiyori hadn't changed a bit. Most of the Visoreds returned to Soul Society once the war ended, reprising their old roles, or in the case of Lisa, taking over from her captain. Urahara wanted to see what Kyoraku did to convince her to do that.
Hiyori on the other hand still held a grudge. Thus the blonde was left in the living world with no other real option than to take up employment from her former captain. She played like she hated it, but in reality, it was good and simple work. Her boss was annoying as all hell, but he paid well, and since he was the reason she was here at all, there wasn't the same issue with identification she had with other places.
What she didn't like was getting the responsibility of training Ichigo's sister dropped on her.
"What seems to be the issue?" Urahara hid his face behind his fan as he playfully pretended to play ignorant.
"You know what I mean, you're having me train that Idiot's little sister, and you didn't even tell me!" she had been asked by Jinta what she thought about that at dinner. She had immediately excused herself to, in her words, 'Give that smug ass a piece of my mind.'
"I don't know what you mean, this is just a quaint little shop, we don't have the facilities to train anyone in anything," Hiyori walked by Urahara as, again, he played stupid. He knew she knew everything, but it did rile her up. So she walked up, grabbed her sandal from Urahara, and then did what she would have done to Shinji if he did something like this to her, forgetting one crucial detail. This wasn't Shinji.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck! Ow!" Hiyori went for a kick to the jewels, completely forgetting that the last time she tried that he had put on some sort of armor that bruised her shin for a week.
"What the hell is going on out there?" Kukaku had walked in, and the scene before her caused her to burst out laughing.
Urahara dropped the mask of an innocent shopkeep and simply looked at Hiyori with a smirk. "If you looked at the shift scheduling you would have noticed," Urahara walked away. He felt nostalgic about the old dynamic, but it was getting late, Karin was going to start training tomorrow, and then he was hosting a goodbye party for Ichigo and the friends who knew about what was going on two days after that.
He heard Kukaku close the door to the guest room, prompting a sigh as he looked back at the guest room. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'
Ichigo had told Karin that he wanted to talk to her privately. So here she was, on the riverbank their mother's body was found. The sun had set and there was nobody around. Karakura was one of the more quiet parts of the larger Tokyo area, so everyone was in their homes and unlikely to hear their conversation.
"You're getting into something pretty dangerous," Ichigo stated the obvious, but this talk was to inform her about who she was going to be working with.
"I know, dad made that pretty clear himself," Karin continued to look out at the water. This place was the physical manifestation of the deep emotional scar they both shared. They both felt useless, Ichigo because he was the one their mother died protecting, and Karin because she had no useful skills to help cover for their mother's absence. Ichigo became a protector, refusing to allow others to feel pain if he could stop it. Karin, she bottled herself up, put her emotions in a box, locked them away, and tried to throw away the key, to try not to be burdensome. But here, that box couldn't hold forever. She had been told that Grand Fisher was dead by her father and that if her mother's soul had survived being consumed, she was in Soul Society, but she could feel the tears beginning to form.
"You'll probably be working with the thirteenth division, that's who patrols here. The current shinigami in charge of patrolling here should know who you are, so she should be able to help you familiarize yourself with the job," he looked forward onto the water. So far he had worked with four shinigami, first Rukia, then Zennosuke once he had actually confirmed Ichigo was a legitimate substitute, and finally, Shion and Ryunosuke.
"You're not going to try and stop me?" Karin was expecting a lecture on why this was a stupid idea, on the horrors Ichigo faced, or something else to convince her.
"No, you made your decision, I might not like it, but I respect it," Ichigo never wanted his family to be dragged into this. Soul Society was not a pleasant afterlife, and nor was it run by benevolent people. A lot of evil happened in Soul Society for the sake of the greater good. The worst part is that he found himself gritting his teeth as he agreed with a lot of it.
"Urahara said he's going to take things more slowly with my training if that helps you out any," Karin saying that did help him a bit. Ichigo did in a few days what took some shinigami years, then did in two days what took only the most powerful and most determined ten years. Yeah, not being put on that pace was reassuring.
"Yeah, just don't have him throw you in a hole okay?" Ichigo hoped Urahara didn't use the shattered shaft on her, that thing was playing with fire.
"Long story?" Karin turned her head to look at her brother.
"Yeah," Ichigo half sighed as he said that. He then took a look at his substitute shinigami badge that Ukitake gave him. Then he handed it to Karin. "Take good care of it. It'll help you out, and it's the last thing I have to remember a good man."
Karin took the badge. It was a weighty thing and barely fit in her hand. "I will," Karin pocketed the badge, as Ichigo started telling stories that could be relevant to her training, or what she may need to look out for once she actually starts patrolling herself. In the end, it was a rare night when Ichigo actually opened up. It helped to know he had made mistakes, that they all did, it lessened the pressure of what she was taking on. She simply hoped that for once, she wouldn't be a burden.