Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or My Hero Academia
Rating: T+
Words: 9571
Warnings: canon-typical violence, gore at one point, language, war, mentions of torture.
Notes: Come one, come all to see Rey's very first Bleach/MHA crossover! I've had this on my mind for weeks, so I am incredibly excited to get this out for you all to read! I've been chatting about it on my Twitter and Tumblr for a while. I hope you all enjoy this!
This will be a long multi-chaptered fic, so warnings will be given per chapter as always.
Chapter: 1) Under the Fractured Glass Sky and into Blackness
It all started with one shot.
As Ichigo was fighting tooth and nail against Yhwach, Ishida was lining up a shot, a brilliant silver arrow, to create and opening for Ichigo. No matter what they threw at the King of Quincies, The Almighty was the most pain-in-the-ass ability that cancelled anything they tried. Ishida's opening would give Ichigo the opportunity to finally critically injure Yhwach and cut him down. What with Ichigo just barely holding on at this point, the opening was more than necessary. Ishida had a two second interval of a clean trajectory. His arrow would meet Yhwach.
At least, that was how it should have worked. And in one timeline, the fates deemed that so.
At this time, the fates decided something else.
When Ishida had drawn his bow, Ichigo heard him cry out not in effort, but in pain. His attention whipped to his friend and was shocked to see a glowing bolt piercing through Ishida's wrist. The blood splattered dark against the glow of enemy Quincy energy.
"Ishida!" he could not help the yell that escaped him.
He and Yhwach locked blades once more. Ichigo's arms strained with the effort of holding back Yhwach's attack. Determination burned through his veins into Zangetsu whose own determination set their reiatsu alight against their enemy. He swore under his breath, exhausted and frustrated and furious and worried. Even the aid from Aizen was rendered useless.
In front of him, Yhwach laughed. Darkness poured and poured out of the man. "A valiant attempt, but it's of no use, young Ichigo. Uryū, a strong Quincy he may be, cannot hope to stand against the devotion of my Sternritter to me. The time has come for my rule and my rule alone!" (1)
Everything happened faster than Ichigo could process.
Haschwalth shot another arrow at Ishida, who luckily dodged the best of his abilities while simultaneously trying to stem the blood flow from his wrists. Aizen, having been impaled by Yhwach's hand, was clutching his wound and fired off an impressive, if not deadly, Kidō that Ichigo did not recognize.
Yhwach's darkness seemed to explode from him.
It began to swallow everything like floodwater.
It was only thanks to Ichigo's compressed speed in Bankai that he was able to Shunpo away as quick as he had with what little energy he had left.
They failed.
They failed.
Yhwach's laughter and taunting followed Ichigo as he retreated—and what else could have done but retreat, at that point—and grabbed as many of his allies as he could. He trusted the rest of his allies to grab whoever they could as they made a mad dash to escape somewhere, anywhere.
He had been unconscious at one point, having been attacked from behind, but from what his friends told him when he awoke of what happened after he passed out, it was like Hell on earth.
Ichigo had been to Hell, but this was so much worse.
Darkness had spread everywhere, engulfing whatever stood before it. To them, they told Ichigo it was like watching a dreadfully epic natural disaster, but the disaster was the furthest to thing from natural and the sheer scale of it was like a nightmare—no, a night terror.
Hell on earth.
With the Reiō (2) killed and having been absorbed by Yhwach, the flow of souls was disrupted. The King of Quincies got his wish in that he wanted to create a world without the fear of death. But, if only it was that simple. It was never that simple. No Reiō meant that this fragile balance of souls was lost which tipped everything into further chaos.
Yhwach's reach with his darkness engulfed much of the Spiritual Society, fully devouring the Seireitei and Rukongai. Few taichōs and fukutaichōs managed to escape to the World of the Living. Some seated and non-seated officers were lucky to get through whatever Senkaimon they could find or create. From what Ichigo had been told, Jigokuchō weren't even necessary as survivors dove through the Senkaimon because of everything breaking down. With the everything dissolving and breaking down, the Dangai was dissolving faster than the Jigokuchō could guide.
Shinigami poured from the skies, literally falling and running out of Senkaimon.
Allied Espada, what few there was, burst through weakened Gargantas.
Confusion and fear and pandemonium roared through the skies as refugees made it into the World of the Living. No one attacked one another out of sheer desperation to escape what was coming. There was no point in infighting. They could all sense it coming.
This all had happened in the three hours Ichigo had been unconscious.
The debrief from his friends had taken thirty minutes.
But, Ichigo was wide awake when it happened ten minutes after that.
He bolted out of the family clinic, where everyone had regrouped when they escaped to the World of the Living, along with everyone else who was in there. Ichigo, his family, his friends…they were all staring wide-eyed at the sky. Shinigami in the street, most he knew, some he did not, mirrored everyone's sky-oriented gaze. It was like nothing like he had ever seen, nothing like he could have ever imagined in his life. Even the surviving older taichōs out of the Shinigami that had escaped stood in horrified shock at what they saw. Zangetsu, watching in tandem through his eyes, was horrified to speechlessness. Neither snark nor comment to be had. Everyone watched as the three realms began dissolving before their very eyes. The very collapse of the three worlds unto one another.
"Wh-What is…?" the words tumbled out of his mouth, fear making him slack-jawed.
His father was next to him holding his sisters close. Karin shot out a hand to grip onto the side of Ichigo's shihakushō while Yuzu clung to the front of their father's. Ishida's father was holding him up, a roll of gauze and bandages still in his spare hand from tending to Uryū's maimed wrist. Uryū, overwhelmed and stunned by the catastrophic collapse that was occurring, for once did not complain about his father being around him.
"I-Ichi-nii," Karin swallowed hard, "What is…what is this?"
For once in his life, he could not answer his sister.
All he knew is that they failed to stop Yhwach, but even so…Even though Ichigo logically understood what that meant, his eyes still were barely processing what was happening in front of him.
The skies of the World of the Living all over the planet began to visually crack like glass, soon shattering under the weight of incomprehensible dimensional force. Clouds in large areas were blown away when the skies shattered as they created jagged holes everywhere. The holes revealed other places that should have been impossible to see from where everyone was standing. A window looking into another window that looked into the window of the World of the living. Blackness poured like ink from one of the broken dimensional windows—Soul Society. It poured through the opening of Hueco Mundo. The vast sands absorbed the blackness, but soon fell prey to the devouring power of Yhwach. The roar of hollows—from instinct-driven Menos to the screeching of tall Gillians to the screams of Arrancar—sounded from the holes in the sky.
The despair of hollows merged with the screams of those from Soul Society which all mixed with the rising terrified cries of humans in the World of the Living.
Gale-force winds kicked up, and soon whatever sky was left in the World of the Living darkened as the atmospheric changes churned up thick storm clouds. Lightning began to strike in the distance. Waves began crashing against the shores.
A crack louder than lightning pierced through the air, and that's when the Wandenreich began to show. Like alien invaders descending from the skies like Martians would from space.
If it was possible for pandemonium to get worse, it did.
Distantly, he was reminded of two things that had struck a chord within him during two different points in his life, both now rising to the front of his mind like Atlantis from the ocean.
Ossan's guidance had never left him despite his absence still gnawing at his heart.
"Abandon your fear. Look forward. Move forward and never stop. You'll age if you pull back. You'll die if you hesitate," he had told Ichigo long before.
Ichigo had lived by that for a long time. But now, ashamedly…
Watching the Wandenreich invaders descend upon Karakura, what he felt now was more akin to what he read by one English author:
"The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare look back." (3)
"We have to go," someone, Chad, he belatedly recognized, pulled at his arm as he was still staring at the sky. His deep voice was tinged with an urgency that was rare to hear. Ichigo was frozen in place.
"We have to go now!" Ishida this time yanked him away from his spot in the street. Ichigo staggered back but turned back to retreat. (Once again, weak, weak, weak. All he was doing was running.) Breaking into a dead sprint, he picked up Ishida's weight with Ishida Ryūken in order to help him run.
Kidō users thew up barriers as fast as they could. Whatever masters of the art were left weaved spells on deft, quick tongues even as they raced to save whoever they could while escaping. Screams of civilians—innocents who before this had no clue that there was anything other than the mortal world—who were too slow were swallowed along with their bodies by blackness. Those who were swept up by Shinigami or spiritually adept humans screamed in terror reawakened.
Shinigami carried who they could.
Nell and Grimmjow released their Resurrección forms to snatch anyone they could. Humans feared the blackness more than they did being carried by an ibex-centaur and armored panther. Even Grimmjow did not complain about hauling people. Taichōs released Bankai in their best efforts to either speed up the evacuation or slow down Yhwach's devouring darkness.
Orihime couldn't reject the darkness. All she could do was fly anyone she could on one of her shields like a sky-craft. Isshin had both Karin and Yuzu under each arm as he Shunpoed his damnest away.
Ichigo didn't even know where they were going.
As he ran and ran and ran, he felt like that small child weeping, scared to see what was behind him.
Ichigo was eighteen, six months into the new world that they all hated.
Life as they had known it before was simply…gone.
The only way he could describe it would have to be like those horror apocalypse movies and books with zombies and stuff that portrayed the end of the world like a hellscape. In that media, nowhere was safe and everything was dangerous. People struggled to survive day to day. If it wasn't zombies eating people, it was disease spreading or monsters roaming the lands. Buildings decaying without upkeep and nature slowly reclaiming what mankind created were all common themes in these kinds of books and whatnot.
It was sad to say that life now was pretty much like that. Without the zombies.
The zombies would have been cooler, at least.
Though, if he watched carefully, he could find people walking around like zombies, bodies exhausted and minds broken.
This wasn't World War Z or Zombieland or The Walking Dead. No, it was worse than that. He wasn't one hundred percent sure what was happening in Japan, but he'd heard reports of the Spiritual Western Branch undergoing the same thing in other parts of the world. Once Yhwach's hell descended unto the World of the Living, safe places were quickly set up to try and save whoever possible. Some of these were a few scattered homes or shops. Sometimes a whole office building. Sometimes just a car. All of them thanks to people who were able to use spiritual powers. Mostly headed by Shinigami, as Shinigami were the largest populous who could use spiritual power, these safe areas slowly merged to form larger areas of refuge.
They weren't zombie-proof, but they were strongholds that could have been right out of a zombie movie. Kidō users worked around the clock to keep barriers strong and active around the large strongholds that were created. Those with spirit powers became the guardians of mundane humanity. Training and drills happened every day, trying to get people stronger and stronger in some hope to put an end to all this. Those adept in Shunpo, Sonído, or Hirenkyaku acted as scouts, messengers, and supply runners as being fast these days meant someone was more likely to come back. Being powerful meant the same, but being powerful meant one was more on the front lines than anything.
Grimmjow, despite his loud and aggressive nature, was not only one of their most powerful allies, but the best tracker and scout that they had. It was only natural given he was panther in nature.
Uryū was one of the fastest among them. The man had driven himself nearly to an early grave training and improving and doubling his skill with Hirenkyaku. It was a surprise to no one that with that sort of crazed dedication, he was on par with Ichigo's top speed now.
Nel, like Grimmjow, was one of their frontliners. Although she wasn't one of their stealthiest, she made up for it in strength on the front lines and ability to cheer up civilians. She was good with children (maybe because she had been in her child form for so long.)
It was nice to see her guiding lost children back to their parents on her centaur back when she found them when she was training in her Resurrección form.
Chad, similar to Nel, was good with children. They liked to climb on him like he was a giant jungle guy,, and they thought his powered-up arms were 'so freaking sick.' He could tell his friend like to entertain the kids despite his quiet nature. It calmed him especially after fighting on the front lines.
Orihime was by far one of the best healers and perhaps their most valuable person they had in the Karakura stronghold. Her rejection ability healed like no other and being able to attack and shield made her versatile when needed. When they could not get to Orihime, Ichigo's father was no less skilled. He and Ishida Ryūken were the best doctors in the stronghold. Thankfully there were some nurses and other medical staff that had found refuge within the stronghold, so the two men were not doing it alone. Only problem was that medical supplies had to be strictly rationed.
Karakura was one of the largest strongholds in Japan as that had been where most of the Shinigami and Espada had been spat out. He had heard only a few mentions of London thus far, so he was not one hundred percent sure how the West Branch was holding up. (Or if they were still holding up at all.) That then led to the lack of information about the rest of Europe and further as the West Branch covered that domain. There were also rumors about people in Fukushima, but with people dying and buildings catching fire and services malfunctioning, Fukushima hadn't lasted long.
The nuclear disaster was something most had seen coming, despite not wanting it to be true.
Ichigo was aware that Tokyo and Kyoto were the other large strongholds that housed survivors.
Ah. What else could they all be called but survivors?
Ichigo knew he was powerful. He knew he was fast and strong, and that as a Shinigami, he had a duty to protect. Both speed and power to his name, his was sent on all kinds of missions.
But, sitting on the edge of a roof of an old bookstore, Ichigo would have never thought this would be his life. People shuffled and walked below him. Mundane humans terrified of the hell their lives had become. It was fair, if he thought about it. If he had never seen Hollows or Shinigami or Quincy or anything like that and then one day blackness started swallowing everything and monsters started popping out of the woodworks…yeah, he'd be scared shitless too.
Explaining to all mundane humanity, spiritually aware or otherwise, literally everything that was going on had been a shit-show before the Yhwach Hell Show had even started. Shinigami, for the most part, they understood as Shinigami had been discussed in the history of the Japan for centuries upon centuries. Hollows were more confusing to them, Arrancar even more so. On top of that, explaining that humans could have powers even if they weren't Shinigami seemed to throw make them question everything. What caused them to have an existential crisis was carefully explaining who the Quincy were, how these Quincies did not represent all Quincies of the world, who Yhwach and his forces were, and what had been done to cause the hell the made had wrought upon the earth.
And this was all because he and his friends couldn't stop the King of Quincies. Couldn't do it when they had been so close.
He felt the warm pulse of Zangetsu against his hip and back.
"Am I wrong?" he asked to the only person who could hear him this high up. He took a sip of the first juice box he'd had in two weeks. The sweet apple flavor tasted bitter on his tongue.
This ain't your fault, Ichi…
"Then why does it feel like it is? I was there right in front of him."
Your Quincy friend woulda struck home if not from that Sternritter shootin' him right through his damn wrist. You knowthat. I know you do.
Ichigo frowned. He pulled one of his legs close to him as he rested his chin on his knee. Watching the people below him from this high up made him feel like he was doing at least something productive while on patrol. Like it could make him feel like a guardian—shitty guardian, though.
Ain't nothing to feel pathetic about. You did what you could. Shut up with your stupid thoughts.
You shut up!
Make me!
His Zanpakutō and one of the aspects of his very soul, ladies and gentlemen.
You're a real comedian.
He snorted. Now who do you think I get that from?
Thinking about the work everyone was putting into the Karakura stronghold, his thoughts drifted to Urahara.
Urahara was one of the best minds that they had in the stronghold. A powerful Shinigami taichō, a mind frighteningly capable of anything he put his effort to, an assassin and spy revived in this new world…the man truly could fit anything they needed of him. After all, he was the one that created the thing—and yes, Ichigo was calling it a thing because he had no other words to describe it—that allowed Kidō users to amplify their reiatsu to prolong and strengthen barrier spells.
Ichigo even appreciated him on a more personal level. He had become a good friend in addition to mentor as time went on. Someone he cared for. His father was hard to talk to these days, so if Ichigo needed an ear, Urahara offered one and a cup of tea. Well, Tessai offered the tea and Urahara the space to have it.
Looking up at the fractured glass cloudy sky, he thought back to when everyone had been fleeing the black flood. The fear he had felt had made him want to be sick and the constant running away had made him feel like a coward. Like he had turned away from what Ossan had taught to him. I couldn't abandon my fear. We didn't move forward.
He wondered what Ossan would tell him if he were here.
Ossan was a part of him, but Ichigo still missed him.
He wished he were here.
He didn't have to look to know that the weight that rested against his shoulder and side was the other part of his soul. Me, too, Ichi. Me, too…
Uryū went missing as they all sped to a nearby stronghold with supplies.
Urahara had to calm Ichigo (hold him back) so that he did not go speeding out to find his friend.
Another six months passed, and Ichigo was nineteen when their mission to find Uryū came to an abrupt end.
Ichigo was nineteen when he saw Ishi—Uryū hanging from tall light posts outside a neighboring stronghold pinned like a butterfly. No…no what they did to him was too horrific for that. A blood eagle, ribs exposed and flesh made into wings out of his back. No hands for an eagle. No color other than the brightness of fresh blood.
On his chest was a sign that had a message in clear, bold letters.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO TREACHERY AGAINST YHWACH.
A spit on Uryū's progress and work to stop the madman.
Orihime screamed next to him loud enough to crack her voice, and Chad let out a grief-laden bellow Ichigo had only heard once in his life when one of his close relatives from Mexico had passed away.
Ichigo shook, stumbled forward, and emptied his meager breakfast into the dry grass below him.
The next day, Ichigo asked Grimmjow for anything to help his Pesquisa sensing. Grimmjow didn't make fun of him. Instead, he looked at him for a long moment, nodded, and simply said, "Let's get to work, Berry."
Ichigo was twenty when he saw a monster born from Yhwach's blackness literally eat a child's mother just before he could destroy it. (Why couldn't it have just been a Hollow? A Hollow one of been so much easier to process.) It had sprung from a pool of blackness that used to be a body of water near an old elementary school. Ichigo had his back turned to it, so by the time he heard the mother and child scream, all he saw was blood around its mouth. The blood running down its mouth didn't disappear fast enough when Ichigo obliterated it with a (too) powered-up Getsuga.
The child sobbing in his arms, face mashed into his shihakushō, had never known anything but the monsters. Now, she will never know what her life would have been like if her mother hadn't died.
When he got back to the Karakura stronghold, he asked Byakuya and Yoruichi to train him in Shunpo, Hadō, and Bakudo to the point of nearly dying (again). His requests, not theirs.
More teachers came to help teach him.
Ichigo was in the last few months of his twentieth year when he was elevated from Shunpo expert to Shunpo master. He felt pride from his teachers and good friends, but all Ichigo felt was the need to do more and more and more.
Ichigo was twenty-one, and Yhwach and his forces had so far destroyed twenty-five percent of all strongholds across the World of the Living—or rather, just the world now. No more distinction between the three worlds as there was now just the one.
He had been seeing more Hollows screeching and bellowing their pain in their roars.
No matter how many they purified, it seemed to do nothing. The reishi they turned into just faded into the air. The souls that comprised Hollows had nowhere to go.
It was a quiet fear of Ichigo's that the souls just were gone forever. No rebirth available for them at all. After finally speaking about it to Kyoraku-soutaichō, he discovered he was not the only one who thought about this. No one knew what happened to the dead anymore. Some pluses hung around after death, but for those that did not return after death…no one knew where they went.
Even having this fear and uncertainty in their minds, they had to push it to the side when forces clashed once more. This time, it was like the original attack on the Seireitei all over again. Shinigami cut down left and right, Sternritters falling as Espada and Shinigami alike pushed past their limits to defeat them. Bloodshed and ash everywhere.
Rukia planted herself deep within the enemy lines to allow them to retreat.
About two miles away, they had no trouble seeing the ice bomb she made herself into.
A chunk of Yhwach's forces were decimated.
But at what cost? What cost?
When they all stumbled back to the Karakura stronghold injured and holding each other up, Ichigo separated himself from everyone else and sought out one person in particular. The Shōten had originally been lost to the sea of Yhwach's blackness, but Urahara wasn't a genius for nothing. Tweaking and a bit of trial and error later, and the Shōten had been as good as it had been before everything happened. Whenever Ichigo arrived at the Shōten, he could almost pretend that things were back to normal and everything with Yhwach had never happened.
Not this time.
Still injured, he struggled through the doors and only just managed to plop down on the floor in front of the kotatsu. It took a few minutes as the living spaces were in the back separate from the "business" front of the shop. Urahara was already there was like he was waiting for him.
He didn't say anything, just say next to him and placed a steadying, bandaged hand on his back. For all the man liked to chatter, he also knew the value of silence.
"…Rukia, she…"
Rukia was the first person who brought into the world of spirits and Shinigami. She had shared her power with him and even years later, they had been connected deeply. Sharing your own soul powers with someone created a bond that no one else could understand. Gone was the permanent moon-frost of her reiatsu that Ichigo had grown so used to. Even when his powers had been—rippedfromhimburnedaway—gone, she had just been gone for a time. Now, there was a complete absence of her, empty. A void. Ichigo felt as though he lost an important part of himself.
Ura—Kisuke drew him close as Ichigo slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sobs that start to fall from his lips. He couldn't breathe. Rukia was his family!
"She's gone, Kisuke. Sh-She's, she's gone!"
Kisuke rubbed his back and allowed Ichigo to let go of his emotions on the front of his green and black striped samue he wore nowadays. "I know," he said quietly. Ichigo felt more of the man's voice through his chest than he heard from his lips. "I know. Breathe for me. Follow my breathing and let's calm you down."
Ichigo was falling apart, but as Kisuke was helping him try not to hyperventilate, he could not think about his friends who were affected by this. Were they a mess like he was?
Renji…Renji did not recover from the loss.
Byakuya…
He couldn't have even imagined what Byakuya was feeling.
Ichigo had just turned twenty-two, and he, his allies, and friends were all proven positive in their speculations that Yhwach had clearly long gone mad and wanted Ichigo. Every time the man sent forces after them, the focus was on Ichigo. For what, no one knew, but Yhwach had made it clear that he wanted Ichigo alive.
The dread it caused was worse than what it would be if Yhwach simply wanted him dead.
Yhwach changed strategies. Instead of focusing on all the frontline fighters, he went for their support.
He made sure he personally broke through the line and went after one of their best healers.
In a move of pure cruelty, to crush their spirits—to wound Ichigo—he decapitated Orihime as he looked Ichigo dead in the eyes.
Ichigo could only remember screaming, his reiatsu exploding from his body, and nothing else.
When he woke up two days later to less than half of his reiryoku stores gone and a lancing pain on his side, Kisuke urged him to lay down and lay still. He would have argued with him, but from the look in his hazel eyes, the fight in Ichigo's throat died.
Kisuke explained to him that he raged enough to send Yhwach and half of his forces retreating for the time being. Though, not without one of the Sternritter injuring him severely on his side from hip to the bottom of his ribs.
(Ichigo did not have to ask what happened to the other half. From the lingering bloodlust he felt in his own veins and from Zangetsu's blades, he already knew.
It hadn't been enough.)
Months later, Ichigo was sitting on top of the old bookstore that had become one of his preferred vantage spots during his patrol. He felt the air displace near him and looked over to see Kisuke who had crawled out of his lab after working down there for the last fifteen or sixteen hours. The older man looked haggard. They all did nowadays.
When he sat down next to Ichigo, he purposefully bumped Ichigo's shoulder. Kisuke was careful of jostling Zangetsu. Zan let out a warm pulse in response. Then, Ichigo felt a pulse from Benihime in her cane sheath that was now resting against Ichigo's ankle. He tapped his angle against the sheath in his own response.
Ichigo smiled up at him. Kisuke's body was warm next to him and his reiatsu was a welcomed presence in the light chill of autumn. "Hey, there."
"Hey, yourself," Kisuke's greeting his more sigh than words with his exhaustion, but Ichigo did not mind. Goodness knew that he had been the same way many times when he had visited the Shōten. (And Kisuke's lab once, but after nearly getting electrocuted by accident, both of them had thought it best that he stayed out of the lab unless Kisuke deemed it safe.)
"Got you something."
"Oh? I thought we agreed to no presents anymore." That was mostly a lie. While it was indeed true that traditional presents, with bows and ribbons and colorful boxes and prints, were a thing of the past at this point, the act of giving something to Kisuke was an act Ichigo would never give up.
(And he knew Kisuke was the same.)
From the heavy fabric of his dark gray haori, he pulled out a paper bag of something precious. Ichigo could not help his mischievous grin as he watched Kisuke's hazel eyes widen at what he showed him.
Kisuke let out an exclamation as he grasped the paper bag in his hands. "How did you get this?" His eyes shot up to Ichigo's which were crinkled in sneaky delight. "Ichigo, tell me! Coffee?!"
Ain't seen him this hyper since he got over that roadblock with the new barrier amplifier, Zangetsu snickered in his mind.
Ichigo couldn't help his own snickers. "A man does not reveal his secrets."
The whine from him was endearing. "Even for meeee~?"
"Even for you."
A pout sat on Kisuke's lips, and it only made Ichigo snort. He played into the other's grumbling, listening to him open the bag and smell the coveted aroma. Sitting this close next to him, Ichigo could smell the richness of the roasted beans. A luxury that Ichigo was happy to provide him.
"Thank you, really."
He hummed. With some hesitance, he took a chance and rested his head on Kisuke's shoulder. He heard the other's breath hitch ever so slightly, but he did not push him off. Instead, he rested his own head on top of Ichigo's and let a hand drift to Ichigo's hip over his haori. Even though Ichigo was technically on patrol, he could see a good portion in and out of the stronghold from this spot on the roof of the bookstore. So, Ichigo felt it was alright to take a moment and watch the sun set amongst the shattered sky. It would have been beautiful, the sun's rays rainbows of refracted light as the sun began to set for the day. It would have been beautiful in another universe.
They fell quiet for a while.
"Kisuke."
"Hm?"
He hesitated. He didn't look up as he felt Kisuke shift a little to look at him.
"What's on your mind?"
"…Is it…is it bad that I'm finding it hard to keep doing this?"
The hand on his hip drew him closer. "…Not at all, Ichigo."
The seasons changed, and Ichigo's thick autumn haori was changed to an even thicker one for winter.
"Hey, Kisuke?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we'll ever…do you think we'll ever…?"
Win the war? Defeat Yhwach? Go back to normal? Stay by each other's sides?
There were so many things that both of them hoped and wanted for the future. There were too many to say all at once, and the weight of the greatest one too much to say lest hope for it be broken.
"I'd like to think so," was Kisuke's quiet admittance. "I'd like to think so."
Ichigo was twenty-four when all of his efforts were finally just not enough.
It was another clash with Yhwach and his Sternritter, thought this time, it was head-to-head. It was like he was nineteen all over again fighting the King of Quincies in the Reiō's palace, struggling against that thrice-damned power of his. The Almighty. Black power writhing around Yhwach, dark like a void, like emptiness and nothing like Ichigo's own comforting, dark reiatsu.
He stayed in Bankai as long as he could, fighting with everything he had. Ceros, Gran Rey Ceros, Balas, Getsuga Tenshōs, Getsuga Jūjishōs, and Hadōs—whatever power he had, he used.
No matter what he used, it only seemed to spur Yhwach on more.
"Show me all of your power, my son!" Yhwach laughed as he threw Ichigo through an entire building. The man's dark amusement filled his ears as Ichigo swore. He was clearly mocking him, as if he hadn't already seen Ichigo's powers through The Almighty. "Rage against me! I want all your potential!"
Ichigo, bleeding heavily from his arm and head, still propelled himself out of this building. He was going to be damned if he was going to go down without a fight.
Zangetsu roared in his head and through his combined blade. His screams, raw with bestial nature and driven with intense focus, echoed as his blade actually sliced through Yhwach's body. A critical hit!
Blood and voidemptynothing black reiatsu burst from the injury. Yhwach ignored his injury and instead only grinned like the madman that he was. "Just like that! Now, it's time go to your rightful place!" The delight in his voice set off every warning bell inside Ichigo's head that weren't already blaring.
Black power screeched through the air aimed at his head. Ichigo, barely holding on, was just a second too late to dodge it. He fell.
"Ichigo!"
The last thing he saw before passing out was Shinji, Kisuke, and Yoruichi screaming his name and speeding towards Yhwach.
I'm sorry, Kisuke…
Months passed as Ichigo was held captive by Yhwach.
Limited food, he expected. Food was a method of control, and without it, the body could waste away. Control a necessity for the body and the body and mind will only need it more. He was a doctor's son; he wasn't ignorant of this.
Physical beatings, he expected. The body responded to pain in ways that were instinct, baseline.
The mind games, though?
No, the mind games Ichigo hadn't expected.
Yhwach made it a point to force Ichigo to watch the destruction he rained down. Strongholds burned; fortifications razed. Screams rang in Ichigo's ears like a never-ending war song that he wanted out, out, out of his head. Bound in chains and bracelets that sapped his reiryoku, limited his power, and were specially calibrated to his strength, he could not escape what was essentially a live feed of Yhwach's destruction throughout the world. No one was spared.
"Are you ready to behave now?
Ichigo glared at him through the hair that hung in his face. Canines permanently sharpened by the merge of his true power years ago, he bared his teeth.
Yhwach clicked his tongue, shaking his head like a parent would do regarding their child's shameful actions. It only pissed Ichigo off more, and he wished even more for Zangetsu's blades to be snug in his hands. When he had first awoke in the castle, Zangetsu was nowhere to be seen. Sneer plain on their face, one of the Sternritter had informed him that his swords—They weren't just swords, they were Zangetsu! He's a part of him!—were locked away and under the King's purview.
He knew Yhwach's goal was to wear him down, to break him.
Ichigo refused to admit that it was affecting him.
Ichigo was made to watch the Vizards fall one by one.
Then Chad.
Then several taichōs and fukutaichōs.
One by one, he watched as blood spilled on the ground and flowed like a river.
He bent over and heaved what little was left in his body.
It had been hard to keep track of time, but from what Ichigo could tell, it had been at least a year that had passed.
One of the Sternritter showed him another live feed of the latest battle. When he tried to look away, an iron grip on his cheeks and jaw forced him to watch.
When his eyes met the feed, cold horror surged in his veins. He shook.
Yhwach was holding Kisuke up in the air with one arm.
"No, stop…" his voice cracked as he watched in wide-eyed trepidation. "No, no, no, don't touch him!"
As if Yhwach could hear Ichigo, Ichigo watched an amusement danced across the man's face as he said something to the beaten man in his grip.
"KISUKE, NO!"
Whatever reiryoku reserves he had exploded out of him.
Ichigo hadn't spoken for months, but all that changed when he heard familiar voices.
"O-Oi," he grunted weakly as he looked through his messy hair at who the Sternritters were bringing in. He heard them before he saw them.
He wanted to vomit.
His family was brought in and forced into kneeling positions in front of him.
"Oyaji! Yuzu, Karin!"
Yhwach, in all his dramatic, caped glory, strode in. His steps echoed throughout the hall they were all in. He stopped in front of the captured group, looking them over before setting his eyes upon Ichigo. Ichigo bared his teeth at him, which didn't affect him in the least. The man slowly walked past the group around to Ichigo. He settled just behind Ichigo, sinking down to press close to him.
Ichigo tried to lean away, but the bindings on him that connected him to the floor prevented him from moving more than a few inches.
"Let my son go, now." Isshin growled against the heavy bindings keeping him from moving. Like Ichigo, they were double reinforced, spelled with enough energy to handle taichō-class reiatsu and more.
Yhwach chuckled. "Your son? Shiba Ishhin, you are quite mistaken. He may be your son by birth, but Ichigo is my son by blood. No matter who he was born to, he is a child of Quincy blood, and as Father of all Quincies, they are all mine." His hand had snaked around Ichigo's back to climb his shoulder, and he punctuated his possessive declaration by using that hand to wrap around Ichigo's chin.
"Leave him alone you asshole!" Karin shouted. She snapped her teeth close to one of the Sternritters ears, but they had enough sense to jerk their head back fast enough not to become a one-eared wonder. If her legs were free, she could have sent one of them flying with her enhanced kicks.
Unfortunately, she was hit across the face for her attempt to take off an ear.
"Oi!" Ichigo's voice cracked as he shouted fully. "Don't touch them!"
"Oh, Ichigo," Yhwach's tone sounded disappointed, "I have tried so hard to make you see reason. It felt awful to fight one of my children in the former Reiō's palace and during the years following. I have tried to make you and your friends see reason, but you have been misled for far too long." With every word that Yhwach spoke, the more dread and tension began to climb inside Ichigo's body. The hand on his chin was a vice; he couldn't move. "I realize that I have been far too lenient. As with any misbehaving child, action must be taken to correct the situation."
From the edge of his periphery, Ichigo could see Yhwach make a hand gesture to the Sternritter who raised their weapons.
"NO! No, stop!" He struggled with strength anew, but for all his desperation, the bindings and Yhwach's unrelenting grip did not let him move.
"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu cried out, voice strong but still possessing that undercurrent of fear. "Don't lis—"
Schk. The sound of a fast blade, then three wet thuds of something heavy hitting the floor.
Ichigo was twenty-six when he finally broke.
Ichi…please say something. Please.
"…"
It's been another week. You gotta surface, 'kay?
"…"
…I-It's alright, Ichi, King. I'll take care o' us for now best I can.
Time was hard.
Staying present was worse.
Ichigo struggled to remain present as time went on. Zangetsu did his best to coax Ichigo to wakefulness, and when Ichigo dissociated too much, he did his best to drive their body. But with Zangetsu's physical form of his blades being far away from Ichigo, Zangetsu could only do so much. Within Yhwach's castle, within the bedroom chamber that was right next to the bastard's, he was truly a prisoner with no hope of escaping. Yhwach's forces had made a point to snuff out whatever friends and allies he had while Yhwach himself saw personally to his…to his family.
And to Kisuke.
Oh Kami, Kisuke.
Yhwach had shown him a video of him slaughtering the main slowly and painfully until he finally died, courtesy of adapting one of Mayuri's video spy tech. He even had pet his unkept hair to 'console' him as he was locked in wide-eyed horror at the screen.
"I did not want to kill him, but I'm afraid your actions drove me to it. You know how I dislike unnecessary violence, Ichigo," he had said, brushing hair away from Ichigo's face. "You are my son, but you have been led wayward for far too long. Now, there is no longer any reason to misbehave, is there?"
He should have shouted then.
He should have screamed and fought and tried to kill him.
He should have raged and sought revenge against the monster of a man touching him.
A lot of 'should haves' that he hadn't done.
Instead, his body had started shaking and silent tears had trailed down his cheeks. He couldn't take it anymore.
"…N-No."
His answer had pleased Yhwach His smile grew wide, his facial hair following the smile, and he had pulled Ichigo close enough to him to coax him into resting his head on his shoulder. Just like a father would have done with his son.
There was no point anymore.
Most of his friends and allies were dead. Others were killed after. His father, his sisters were all slaughtered in front of him.
Even now, weeks later, all he could think was, What's even the point anymore?
Don't think like that, Ichi! Zangetsu's protest was faint in his head. Just, hold out a lil' longer! If I can get free, we can make an escape!
He deeply appreciated the other part of his soul trying to comfort him, but Ichigo knew was useless at this point.
Thanks, Zan, he sent the thought to his Zanpakutō, making sure the love he felt for him stayed attached to the thought, but…it's…it's ok. We lost. There's no one left anymore except us. At least…
He looked at the man, the King and Father of Quincies, the Progenitor of silver blood, sitting in the stone chair in front of him in the spell circle. Yhwach smiled at him. The sight of it, through Ichigo's tiredness and aches and mental fragility, made Ichigo ache in longing. For family, for bonds lost.
He sat in his own stone chair, dressed in a fine black shirt and white pants provided by a castle worker. On his arms were metal bracelets. They were originally detachable parts of the reinforced chains that had held him down when he struggled to get away. The years and months of fighting for nothing. The ritual Yhwach and his assistants were about to preform was meant to limit Ichigo's power to be released whenever Yhwach commanded and bind Ichigo to Yhwach, the Quincy King had explained.
"Soon, you will be a part of my forever, and together the universe shall be at our feet, my son. I am all that you will ever need." The spell circle slowly activated underneath them, lighting the room in bright blue reiatsu. Ichigo didn't know any of the symbols or diagrams on the floor, but he was too tired to care. "You are strong, stronger than anyone else. After all, few could say they nearly killed me. But with you will be a part of me, an extension of myself. Like this, we will rule indefinitely.
"Are you ready, my son born in darkness?"
It made Ichigo sob because now he had a place again.
At least with Yhwach…we'll be of use again…He'll take care of us.
Ichi, NO! No, please! I'm here!
"Yes, Father," he whispered brokenly. (4)
The bracelets warmed against his skin and hummed. Slowly, he could feel a pull of his own reiryoku and reiatsu, a tug towards the spell circle beneath him. He watched with distant eyes as his dark and gold reiatsu trickled out of his body. Moments passed—or it could have been minutes, Ichigo couldn't tell. Yhwach's blackness poured down into the circle like ink to join Ichigo's. The glow of the spell brightened as their energies mixed, then sent out a pulse that slammed into Ichigo's chest, making him gasp.
The pulse brought with it the feeling of Yhwach's power, but to such an intensity that it made Ichigo heave for breath. Feeling Yhwach's power from the outside was normal from any spiritual being who could sense spiritual power, but feeling it inside of him, the wrongness the voidemptynothing blackness felt like a perversion. A defilement.
A sickness.
"S-Stop, stop!" he yelled. Foreign oil-slick reiatsu was thick in his veins and he wanted it out. Cold.
Father said something, but he could not hear it over the roaring in his ears. This wasn't what Father said was going to happen!
An explosion shook the entire castle.
Debris fell into the room and the spell was interrupted. The coldness of Yhwach's power stilled as the spell stopped, allowing Ichigo to hunch over and catch his breath. He coughed and waved the dust away from his face. The bracelets on his wrists vibrated against his skin. Is this Father's doing?
"Ichigo!" A voice who knew almost as well as Zangetsu's made his head snap up whiplash quick.
Ash blond hair, a striped samue. Crimson reiatsu that screamed.
Is that…?
Confused cries rang throughout the room, and the bright flashes of reiatsu-powered attacks lit up silhouettes in the haze of the smoke and debris. He heard Father yell in outrage and disbelief. Father's empty, cold, oily reiatsu partially bled from Ichigo's body, but the majority of what was exchanged clung to the inside of despite the ritual being halted. It was sticky inside of him; he felt like he was freezing and running a fever in tandem.
"Sorry I'm late." Familiar gray eyes—Eye? Where was his other eye?—crinkled as a smile lifted his lips. Stitch scars from Benihime's repairs crossed his face, more than he had before. "It took a long time to find you, love."
His lips quivered around a name he thought lost to him forever, "…Kisuke?"
He helped Ichigo, who's legs folded under him like a newborn deer's, to stand. "Kisuke," Ichigo choked out the name as he clung onto him, "Kami, Kisuke, is that really you?"
This close, Ichigo was able to see Kisuke's face in detail. He looked wan, cheeks gaunt more than ever before. Dark circles hung from his eyes. Looking at him, Ichigo couldn't help but reach up a hand to touch his cheek, thumb gently touching the area under his missing eye. He could feel his cheekbone rather sharply. Was this a dream? Was he imagining things while he was under Father's blackness, merged with him?
Kisuke swallowed hard. "Y-Yes, yes, I'm here," his was thick, cracking halfway through, "I'm here."
Another crash and a yell sounded not too far from them. Ichigo jerked, looking towards it. Another reiatsu flash. From the haze, he heard a sound not unlike the crack of lightning. A figure flew from the haze, a cloud trailing behind it. The haze around it cleared and—
"You thought we'd go down that easily, huh?!" A cat-like grin gleamed at him.
"Y-Yoruichi!"
Without still her motion, she landed next to him and twisted her body, using her motion to kick one of Father's assistants away. It took a second, but he realized that there was no whipping tail of purple hair behind her. It was cut short close to the nape of her neck. And when she used her legs to propagate more momentum for another kick, he saw that Kisuke was not the only one who was missing a body part. She was down one arm.
She only paused for a moment to clasp her hand around his shoulder and squeeze. He squeezed her hand as quick as he could. Another mentor that he did not wish to let go of. "Stay strong, Ichi-chan." And before he could say anything, she leaped away. Distantly, she heard her cry of Shunkō.
The castle shook once more, but Ichigo did not lose balance this time.
"Ichigo, my son!" Father raised an arm to gesture to him. He had dust smeared on his cheek, pants, and coat. He laughed, but it wasn't a kind of amusement that promised anything good to come. "How commendable for your…friends to come and see you. Timely planned, I will give them that. Come, my son. Be rid of these pests for your father."
Ichigo felt a pull deep inside him, causing him to stumble forward toward Father's location. "Wait!" His reiatsu flared as Father's reiatsu clung to his like oil and sang in response to his call.
Before he could take two steps, Kisuke threw up a Kidō barrier with one hand and steadied Ichigo again with the other. "What did he do to you, Ichigo?" Kisuke looked him up and down like he was searching for an injury. "Those bracelets…what did he do?"
Ichigo throat clicked as he swallowed. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't.
The barrier surged as reiatsu met it. Kisuke didn't flinch from it. "Ichigo?" he asked in a softer voice. "What has he done to you? I can feel part of him in you." Sharpest mind in the Gotei. He didn't sound judgmental. If he had, Ichigo wasn't sure if he could have handled it.
Kisuke didn't comment on the grip Ichigo reattached to him. "I'm sorry, please forgive me," he begged him.
A quick glance to Father outside of the barrier and Kisuke looked to Ichigo. "Whatever it is, I forgive you even though I'm sure there's nothing to forgive. Just tell me what happened. Please."
Father's reiatsu flared inside of him, making him cry out. Kisuke pulled him closer. Ichigo looked up at him and Kami, he just wanted to keep looking at him forever.
Ichigo was a weak man. "I gave up," he croaked. He looked down to the bracelets around his tattooed wrists and scowled. He was weak. "I gave up and Father wants me."
"Father?" Kisuke's eye glanced at Yhwach and then Ichigo. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he paused and changed course. "I'll fucking kill him."
I love you, was what Kisuke meant.
"You can't, no one can."
Thank you, I love you, was what Ichigo meant.
"It's mostly true we came to rescue you, but that is not it in it's entirety." The admission followed a tearing sound behind them. When Ichigo looked, he gasped to see a glowing portal behind them that was neither like a Garganta or Senkaimon. When the hell did he open that up? "You always did say I could never stop scheming."
Wait…no, no, no.
"Come with me!"
"Sorry, can't do that, love. Yoruichi and I are here to make sure you get through in one piece."
Fath—Yhwach sent another flood of voidemptynothing heavy reiatsu against Kisuke's Kidō barrier. "Urahara Kisuke!" Both he and Kisuke steadied themselves as a crack ran through it.
Desperation colored Ichigo's voice. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I'm a very selfish man." With that said, Kisuke pushed him through the portal. Something metallic followed him.
The last thing he saw before darkness of the portal swallowed him up was Kisuke's smile. Despite the pale tiredness of his face, his lips were kind, and the smile was almost too bright against the darkness.
"May safety, happiness, and love find you, Ichigo."
"Kisuke!"
Ichigo was spat out of the portal that Kisuke had shoved him through, and he landed unceremoniously on his hands and knees., barely catching himself. Nausea churned his stomach, and pain radiated throughout his whole body. His ears rang.
Oh Kami, what did I almost do? He thought in horror as he struggled to process what just happened. He had just given up. His stomach churned again, making him gag on a dry heave. I was about to, to—
It ain't your fault. Don't think like that.
Zangetsu! He cried out through their bond. He realized, belatedly, that his Zanpakutō was in front of him on the ground. He scrambled his hands out to snatch the blades toward himself, clutching them as close as he could. The metal bracelets on his wrists clanked against Zangetsu's metal. Zan, I'm so sorry! I almost—I didn't—I thought—
The blades pulsed against his skin in a rhythm that was almost grounding. No. No, Ichi. You went through hell and I ain't gonna let you blame yourself for that man's insanity. I'm here. You gotta get up, though, it doesn't feel right here.
He felt like he was still out of breath, whether from screaming or just air displacement he was not sure, and he was trying to regulate his breathing when he looked up.
He froze.
What was in front of him and around him confused and shocked him. There were people fighting and monsters all around. Ones that looked like people? Were they mutated peoples? Or were they like Arrancar? Dark mist was close to him, and it made it hard to focus, but when he whipped his eyes around, what he saw was all too familiar to him. An active battlefield.
Someone with a raspy voice shouted, "Who the hell is this NPC?!"
He had detached hands—hands?—clutching his face and arms and it made Ichigo think of the giant hands of Yhwach's blackness grabbing people to drag them down beneath the depths of where they came. Next to him was a dark black-purple mist in the form of a person clutching around their middle and groaning. Reiatsu? It didn't feel like it.
Screams drew his attention to the rest of the situation.
Children, young teenagers, were shouting and yelling as they were fighting against adults. Adults that were attacking them. Adults that were attacking them with powers that normal mundane humans did not have. And these teenagers had powers as well, powers and different appearances that confused him. They didn't look like Fullbringers.
What the fuck, what the fuck?
Was he dreaming? Did he die for good this time when he went through the portal Kisuke shoved him through?
He whipped his head when he heard a cut-off scream only to see a man in black being crushed into the ground by the freakish monster with an exposed brain. Blood splattered as the thing kept beating the dark-haired man's face into the ground.
Shit! A hollow? But no Hollow hole. Yhwach's monster?
Ain't a hollow, but it ain't good either!
The guy with the hands all over him suddenly ran towards a green-haired frog-looking girl, a boy also with green hair, and a purple boy with balls on top of his head. They were frozen in place.
Something inside Ichigo burned. No matter how exhausted, no matter how much pain his body was in, the automatic need to protect would never leave him. He wasn't going to let another person be killed in front of him. Not teenagers who had their whole lives ahead of them. Not again, not again!
Screams of, "Ichi-nii!" blared in his head.
His body moved before he even thought about it.
Published: 3/10/2023
(1) I know that Yhwach, in canon, had performed a third Auswählen which had even killed Haschwalth, but for the sake of the fic, let's pretend that several of the Sternritter lived for their king.
(2) The Soul King.
(3) This quote is from the book War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
(4) If Ichigo may seem OC, just think about what he's been through. The world pretty much ended; a madman has killed his best friends, allies, family, and love in front of him; tortured him physically and mentally; and has an obsession with him. It would be hard to sane, let alone keep his strong will, with all that happening to him. Ichigo is driven to protect the people that he loves. If there is no one left (in his mind) to protect, then what's the point?
A/N: And here is my first multi-chap crossover (and first MHA fic too)! I hope you all like it! Ichigo is really going to be going through it in this fic, but I promise it's gonna get better. Please, please leave a review and let me know what you think! I live on feedback, and it helps me gauge what is resonating with the readers. Thanks!