Thirteen
Chapter Notes
ah, so this was originally going to be two chapters... ANYWAY I'm sure some of you noticed the chapters count changed, and it's not really because the story was shorted but because I merged several chapters together because pacing. yeah.
this has been barely proofread, so if there are any glaring mistakes then please let me know - i actually really appreciate the grammar and spelling checks lol
I hope you all enjoy this new chapter... it's very... just a lot of conversations going on and I'm not sure how I feel about that but they all need to happen so...
Aizen and Hat-an-clog's pettiness-measuring contest lasted an hour. Then he was being steered toward a senkaimon with only just enough time to wave goodbye.
Aizen was quiet on the way back.
He didn't say a word in the dangai, or on the trek to the fourth. Ichigo followed along after him, unsure. The weight of the guiding hand on his shoulder felt like the world. Or maybe it was that the world had shrunk so much into it. Hanging off the precipice of whether Aizen would take this new path towards change or not. On precipice of what it meant now that the Hogyoku was destroyed.
The first words he spoke were to Unohana when she opened her door, hair falling in unbraided streams around her shoulders. There was an old scar on her chest. It cut up towards her throat with vicious lines despite how faded with age it clearly was. She covered it with a swift wrap of her jacket.
"What's wrong?" she said by way of greeting, already ushering them inside with a critical eye.
"Urahara performed a newly invented surgery on Ichigo to stabilize his reiatsu," Aizen explained bluntly. "There had been complications, and while Urahara said the outcome has been unaffected and Ichigo is perfectly healthy, I would ask that you check."
"Of course," Unohana agreed, hands instantly reaching out, glowing with reiatsu. "Ichigo, come here, dear."
In the hour it took for her to scan him as thoroughly as satisfied her, she found nothing. To be more exact, what she did find was a lack of symptoms. No more unnatural fluctuations in his reiatsu. No strain. Nothing. And as he answered each of her questions, the furrow between her brow only grew. Not in worry, he realized, but in bafflement.
By the time she finished, she was muttering about more tests in the morning. Then she led them to a room for the night. Told them to settle in. Told them she'd return tomorrow. Told them that if further tests provided similar results, then Ichigo was well and truly cured.
And then the door slid closed.
And then the world grew quiet.
And then…
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?" Aizen asked. His voice was even. Steady. But his gaze was sharp and piercing and Ichigo thought that maybe they'd be able to find the answer all on their own. He wouldn't have to say a word.
"I already told you. You would have stopped me."
"Don't you think I'd have good reason to?"
"Like I didn't have good reason to go through with it?" Ichigo snapped, face tightening with his scowl. "Why can't you trust me?" He threw Aizen's words back at him knowing that they were meaningless. Knowing the answer. Trusting wasn't in Aizen's nature.
Then again, he'd thought caring wasn't either.
"You're a child. You-."
"That doesn't mean I can't make my own decisions!" They were his. His to make. His to think about. His to control. And if they led to mistakes? To things he couldn't have foreseen? At least it wasn't someone else that put him there. At least he'd dug the hole with his own hands and not left the shovel to someone else.
"It means that you don't always make the right ones," Aizen said, voice tense with restraint or anger, Ichigo couldn't tell. "Most of the time that would be okay. I would help you with the consequences. But this? You almost died, Ichigo. Your soul would have been ripped apart."
A year ago, or even just a month ago, Ichigo would have argued that Aizen had no right to say that when he didn't care. Now, the anger and the harshness in Aizen's voice took on a new meaning. In that moment, in the dimness and quiet of the early morning when the world was remembering how to be, he understood a new perception of what he once thought was callous frustration over lack of control. What he'd before met with his own indignation, only stilled his tongue. Left his lungs to flutter uselessly around the air he'd readied for argument. Left his hands dangling, fists no longer clenched around his own righteous protests.
Aizen cared.
Aizen changed.
He looked at Ichigo and didn't see an experiment to be observed.
He, impossibly, cared.
"I'm-," he swallowed around 'sorry' and 'not dead' because saying those would be far too close to things he needed to sort out how to handle. "Hat-an-clogs said you saved me."
Aizen let out a long breath through his nose, shoulders deflating ever so slightly. A hand reached out to ruffle his hair and Ichigo didn't protest – couldn't bring himself to, or didn't want to, he didn't know and wasn't sure it mattered. Not when the outcome was the same. "You're not leaving my sight for a month," he said at last. "And you better not do something like this again."
"It saved my spirits." It was all he could think to say.
"I know you care about them," Aizen said slowly, his hand moving from his hair to his shoulder and squeezing gently, "but I care about you and I'm sure they would agree that your life is far more important."
"Fucking Aizen making us agree with him," Shiro's grumble echoed from his mind.
"They're me. A part of me. A big part. Without them I'd be missing my soul and-," he stopped himself from finishing the sentiment. From saying that if he lost them, he might as well have died. Would rather die. He didn't think Aizen would take kindly to it. Not then. Possibly not ever.
"So you've said," Aizen hummed. "At least tell me next time."
Ichigo nodded. Like a liar. Maybe. Most likely, at any rate. "How did you even know?"
Aizen raised a brow, lips twitching. "Instinct." He pulled his hand back and crossed his arms. "And the seal over your door."
Ah. Well, at least he knew it was there now. Maybe he'd be able to find a way to counter it. Tensai surely would know something.
"This also means I'm putting a stop to your nightly sneaking around," Aizen went on. "You should be resting." Aizen snorted, "Stop making that face. You brought this on yourself."
"By stopping whatever was killing me?"
"By not telling me what you were planning so I could help," Aizen countered, much calmer than Ichigo expected. "Now, get to bed. You can start working on resting now."
Ichigo shuffled to one of the beds in the room, too worn thin to protest and too aware that it wouldn't do him any good. Tomorrow, he knew. Tomorrow, he'd have the will to be biting and spiteful and disagreeable. But not right then. Right then, he settled into thin sheets. They were surprisingly warm. Aizen, however, sunk into a chair, eyes half-lidded. There was a pervasive tiredness wreathing his slouched shoulders. Like a weight had been placed there and left to fester. He looked… smaller. Almost imperfectly human.
"Aren't you going to sleep?"
"I wouldn't be able to even if I tried," Aizen answered, gaze wandering to the windows and door but consistently finding Ichigo once and again and again.
Ichigo forced himself to speak, "I did it for my spirits." Three times he'd said as much. Like repeating it would make Aizen understand.
"I know," Aizen sighed.
"It wasn't supposed to almost kill me."
"I know."
"I won't do it again."
Aizen met that with the silence it deserved.
"Not tonight, anyway," he grumbled.
"No, but that isn't what my concern is."
"Hat-an-clogs said I'm fine. And Unohana confirmed it."
"It's not that I doubt their skills, it's simply that I would like to make sure of it myself."
"But you're tired," Ichigo pointed out. Although, 'exhausted' might have been a better description.
"Go to sleep, Ichigo. We'll talk more in the morning."
Translation – I'm not sleeping and you will not change my mind. Tomorrow, I will once again try and convince you that what you did was bad, and we will argue.
With one last incomprehensible grumble he settled fully under the covers. After a breath, he tentatively let his reiatsu reach out, only brushing the edges of Aizen's before the other was releasing his and Ichigo found himself burrowing into two warm blankets for the night.
Hushed voices broke Ichigo from a dreamless sleep. Still buried in a nest of blankets and reiatsu, he blinked his eyes open. The room was shadowed save for the meek rays slipping between the blinds and the small lantern just outside the doorway where Unohana stood.
"-captains meeting for tomorrow. The others will want to know," Unohana said softly. "It will give us a chance to control the narrative."
"And stop any advances from the twelfth," Aizen added on a hum, equally soft.
Mention of the twelfth – of that clown – was like a bucket of ice water over his head. It had him sitting up in a blink, "Why do we have to say anything?"
Unohana and Aizen turned to look at him, neither seeming surprised that he was awake, merely relieved in the passive way that breathing became easier and your heart settled a little warmer. "Good afternoon," Unohana said.
"Afternoon," he replied, because despite what Aizen liked to claim, he did have manners.
"How are you feeling?" Unohana asked, gliding into the room and pressing the back of her hand to his forehead.
"Fine," he said. He looked down and clenched his hands once. Twice. Thrice. "Better than fine," he corrected.
Unohana said nothing. Instead, she went about her reiatsu scan like he'd never spoken. Dutifully, he waited for her to be done before restating his question – he had been thoroughly educated on the quiet and concentration preferred when performing this particular technique.
"Well," Unohana finally said, pulling back, "it appears the surgery truly worked. However, like I said before, we'll keep an eye on it." The last part was directed mostly at Aizen who gave a curt nod in response.
"We'll keep the weekly check-ups then?"
"Preferably."
"Can we go back to why we need to tell the other captains?" Ichigo said then, because that seemed
like a much more important thing to be talking about than his unchanging schedule.
Unohana glanced for a moment at Aizen. "The other captains… they are just as interested in your health as us. For different reasons, perhaps, but you have made quite the impression on the Gotei and your sudden recovery will be noticed and questioned. You'd be surprised how often you come up in captain meetings," Unohana went on. "Despite Central's own silence on the subject, the captains insist on bringing it up constantly. Particularly Captain Kurotsuchi."
Ichigo blinked. He knew he was close with quite a few Shinigami, but he hadn't thought the others would be bothered nor curious enough to keep up with his health of all things. Central, on the other hand was clearly Aizen's doing.
"Telling them outright gives us a chance to stop any rumors that may start," Aizen picked up with answering. His face pinched, lips tugging down for a heartbeat. "It will be obvious for even those who've only briefly met him that something has changed. It's best we don't let them come up with their own ideas about why."
"Changed?" At Ichigo's blank look, Aizen sighed.
"Your reiatsu has changed. Noticeably."
"Oh."
"Yes, oh," Aizen sank back into his seat. "We'll need to assess how far this has set back your training, as well." He gave Ichigo a narrow look, "Have you even noticed your swords are unsealed?"
Ichigo looked to the side of the bed and sure enough his swords were leaned up against the wall. Both of them. He hadn't noticed. Had been too caught up in the talk of the twelfth and other captains. Too content in his lack of pain.
Reaching out, he pulled his blades onto his lap. They felt lighter. And where before there was dulled hum, there was now a bone-deep thrum. He hadn't even realized it was missing before. His decline had been like a frog boiled in water; slowly raise the heat and they'll wait for death without blinking. Now, he was free of it. Now, he could train all he wanted. Now… Now, there was nothing and no one who could ever take his spirits again.
"That's right! Ya're stuck with us, Kingy!" Shiro cackled, loud and clear and no longer strained with the Hogyoku's torture.
Ichigo ran his hand over the blades. Let his fingers skim the dark metal. Let himself smile at the sun-bright fireworks it released in his very soul. He wanted nothing more than to sink into his inner world and see them. There would be time for that later, though. Right then, he needed to prove that just because he was cured didn't mean he'd lost all his progress.
Or, maybe, he thought as he started to rope his reiatsu in, it did. What had been a mountain before was the entire damn range now. Had this time truly been sucking him dry to this extent? Surely this was just because he hadn't fully released his reiatsu in years and it simply grew naturally…
"That is unlikely," Mura spoke up.
"And it won't due to deny something like this," Ossan tacked on.
Ichigo might have – annoyingly – agreed, but that didn't mean he was going to give up so easily. Not without giving it a try. A proper one.
With a steady breath – during which he very carefully kept the already roped in reiatsu under control – he continued pulling in the rest. It was no harder than he was used to. So his control itself hadn't suffered. It was more that there was simply too much to control. He only stopped when it felt like his lungs would burst and his skin would flay open like a ripe melon. And still. There was a mountain's worth left over.
"Let it back out, Ichigo," Aizen told him hand on his head. "Slowly. You'll hurt yourself if you don't."
"Loathe as I am to suggest it," Unohana said, taking a step forward, "but perhaps we should consider something similar to Captain Kenpachi's eyepatch."
Aizen shook his head immediately, "It would only be a crutch and hinder his control later."
"It would be a tool," Unohana argued back. "Throwing him into controlling this much reiatsu will be the hinderance. He is a fast learner, this is true, but there are things out of even his reach."
Once he could get enough air, he interrupted them both, "I don't want it."
Unohana raised a brow, "The only reason your reiatsu didn't cover the entirety of Seireitei while you slept is because this room is specially lined with sekkiseki stones and seals. Both of which are wearing down as we speak. When they break it is likely your reiatsu will crush lower-level officers. We do not have time for you to learn control."
She did not say it would kill anyone.
She did not have to.
"Fine," he said. "But I don't want an eyepatch."
"Good thing I don't have one, then," she hummed, pulling out a rope. She had no intention of losing that argument, Ichigo realized. "Wrap this around your waist for now."
He didn't notice much of a difference, but both Unohana and Aizen's shoulders relaxed, so it must have done something. All the same, he drew in what reiatsu he comfortably could.
"The other captains will ask about it," Ichigo pointed out, shifting in his seat.
"And we'll tell them the truth," Unohana said easy as anything. "For now, rest. Both of you. We'll continue your treatment on a tentative basis. If anything changes, come find me."
At Aizen's nod and thanks, she swept from the room, presumably to check on other patients. Ichigo watched the crack between the wall and the door for a few heartbeats, trying to piece through the fact his reiatsu had expanded so explosively that he needed reiatsu-devouring ropes.
What even was his life anymore.
"Swords off the bed," Aizen ordered, massaging his head. "It's time to rest, not practice."
"I'm just holding them," he huffed.
"You were doing the same in your sleep," Aizen said evenly, if softly. "It took a good half-hour to get them away from you."
"You should've just left them."
"And let you hug sharp objects?"
"They wouldn't hurt me."
"That isn't something they can control when you hold them like an octopus."
"That-," Ichigo cut himself off from responding to that particular line of thought. "I bet yours wouldn't hurt you either."
Aggrieved. There was no other word to describe the look on Aizen's face. "I wouldn't know. I have never tried cuddling a sword in my sleep."
"Don't you keep asachi with you even when you sleep?"
"Next to you," Aizen said like he was debating making Ichigo reread the history of zanpakuto.
Wisely, Ichigo changed tactics. "Have you even talked to your zanpakuto about their dream yet?"
Aizen sighed, "When would I have time? I turn my back for seconds and you've gotten into another mess."
"You have time now."
"No," Aizen said with finality. "Now, we are going to continue with our conversation from last night."
Aizen moved from his chair to the bed. Gently, he took Zangetsu and placed the swords to lean against the well; still within easy reach.
"Let me make something clear. I am not mad you are cured," Aizen started with, gaze sharp and focused. "I am mad that you did something so dangerous without telling me. Again. You don't have to do these things alone, Ichigo." He could hear the Hogyoku's mocking voice calling him out for the very same thing. "And while I would prefer you come to me about them, it is obvious that that is not always going to be the case. At least you should have told Unohana, Rukia, or even Yachiru. While she is young, she is a lieutenant for a reason." Aizen closed his eyes for a moment. "You can't keep doing this, Ichigo."
"I'm not going to apologize," Ichigo said honestly.
"I know," Aizen huffed. "You think you've done the right thing."'
"I did do the right thing."
"Just not in the best way."
"Just because it's not how you want me to do it doesn't mean it's wrong."
"Must I explain again that you almost died?" Aizen said, voice sharp enough that Ichigo would have called it snapping on anyone else.
"I've almost died before, how is this any different!?"
The quiet that followed sat sickeningly in his stomach, churning and giving its best effort to crawl up is throat. He bit it all back down. Swallowed around his swelling throat. It was the truth. It was the truth and there was no taking it back. And maybe Aizen cared. Cared for Ichigo's health. For his safety. For him. But so had his sisters and friends of a lost future and they hardly reacted like
this. They'd trusted him. Trusted him to come back safe. Hell, his friends were marching along with him!
"It you died during that surgery then there would be no coming back. No reincarnation. No other afterlife. You would be gone. Do you understand?"
"I'd be dead without my spirits anyway," he pointed out. So much for not saying that.
"This is going in circles," Aizen said after another long moment. "Do you not see that your death would affect more than just you?"
"I'm not stupid," he snapped.
"No. No you're not. So imagine my surprise when you make such imprudent and irresponsible choices."
"It's not imprudent to try and save someone I care about! Just because you don't have anyone you'd give anything for doesn't mean I don't," Ichigo snarled. The rage that swelled so suddenly fueled the vicious words with fearless abandon to consequence. "Just because you think love isn't enough doesn't mean I do!"
"When did I say-," Aizen started before cutting himself off. Ichigo heard it all the same. Of course Aizen wouldn't remember. It was just another day for him. Just another attempted manipulation. "I see. And sacrificing yourself is how you show that you care? Putting yourself in danger?"
"Protecting them."
"Even why they can help?"
"They shouldn't have to put themselves in danger," Ichigo pressed. "It's not like I'm trying to save everyone in the world! It's not some misguided- some misguided step to being a hero! I don't care about that. I just want to keep those I love safe!"
"And Muramasa?" Aizen asked, narrow-eyed. "You saved him without knowing him at all."
"That-." Ichigo couldn't help the frustration choking his throat. "I'm not setting out to save the world," he said. Repeated really, because saying things again and again wouldn't make them true but it made people believe it and that might as well have been the same thing. "But I can't just stand by and watch someone get hurt and suffer injustice either. Not when I can help."
"Right." Aizen sighed, "And don't you think that those who care about you would like to help? Would like to protect you as well?"
Ichigo couldn't find the words to respond. Not when he knew it was true. His mom had said as much. Unohana and Byakuya. Rukia and Yachiru. Yoruichi and Gin. But he knew. Knew that in the end it was oh so likely they'd come to him to be the trump card again. And he'll take a stand. Be the shield and the sword. Endure.
"Ichigo…" Mura said softly.
For now, though… For now, he'd let himself hope just a little. Believe just a little.
Because in the end…
He had no shield against kindness. Against care.
He had no sword to draw against this new version of Aizen.
"And Ichigo," Aizen said, voice gentler. "I do have someone I care about enough to protect. You."
"Impossible!" Kurotsuchi exclaimed. "There is no way instability of that degree is so miraculously cured overnight!"
"It was hardly overnight," Unohana replied, voice a touch frostier – more reproachful – than before. "It has taken years of consistent treatment to reach this point. A point that may only be tentative, which is why I shall continue to monitor him."
"Years?!" Kurotsuchi's voice reached a pitch that made Ichigo's own throat ache. "You've had a consistent treatment for a mere two at most! The probability of recovery in that time is less than one percent!"
"Less than one percent? Are you positive?"
"Of course I am, woman!"
"So you admit it's possible then."
"Enough," the soutaichou said with a resounding clack of his cane against the floor.
Silence descended.
"Evidence of his recovery is right in front of us. Our concern should not be how improbable it is, but what it means for our way of life that a soul so young must wear reiatsu-absorbing ropes. And how this will affect his prospects."
"His prospects? You can't be suggesting he doesn't attend the academy," Sui-Feng said.
"Would you have him around souls that haven't even heard their zanpakuto's voice, let alone have a fraction of the sheer depth of reiatsu that he does?"
"I- no."
"Then we must consider alternatives should his attempt to reign in his reiatsu without aid of the ropes fails."
"I won't," Ichigo spoke up then, fists clenched.
"You won't?"
"No," Ichigo said with conviction. His gaze slipped towards Unohana then. "I still want to join the fourth and that requires control. I'm not going to let my cure take away my goal."
It was quiet enough to hear the soft breeze whistling outside. For a second, at least.
"What do you mean you're joining the fourth?!" Kenpachi bellowed at the same time the others raised their own protests. Or, most of the others. Unohana was standing rather smugly in her spot. Aizen was silent at his side. And the soutaichou…
"Is that so?" he hummed, voice only just heard over the cacophony of arguing, eyes opened the slightest bit more as if that would let him see through Ichigo.
"Yes."
"A worthy pursuit. I wish you luck."
Ichigo nodded, "Thank you."
His can cracked.
Silence.
"As admirable as your resolve is, there is always room for additional plans."
"Give him to me," Kurotsuchi suggested, but even he didn't sound very confident in getting an agreement.
"No," the soutaichou sighed. "Should he fail, then I shall take him under my wing."
Murmurs broke out around him, but Ichigo was too busy listening to the pounding of his heart which raced something fierce as he stopped himself from reaching for his swords. An automatic reaction that had him swallowing thickly. He wanted to stay with Aizen. He wanted to stay with Aizen and he'd almost… what? Drawn his sword at the anger that rose upon hearing he'd be taken away?
So much for trying to keep himself from being a liability.
That night was muggy enough that he didn't bother with a blanket. Instead, he laid out, spread- eagle, starring at the ceiling. He'd been here before and if life had its way, then he'd probably be again. Not even an hour ago he'd been starring just as blankly at an empty page in the poetry journal Unohana had gifted him. The very first, empty page. And yet nothing came to mind. Nothing he could write anyway.
Ichigo slammed his hand into the tatami mats. Fucking damn it.
When had the world stopped making sense?
"I think the question ya're lookin' for Kingy, is when did ya lose ya'r mind."
"Fuck off," Ichigo muttered aloud with no real heat, trying to block out the image of Gin flashing him a smile after the meeting. Trying to block out the way he ruffled his hair and congratulated him on his recovery. Trying to block out every double meaning dripping from those words.
Trying to block out every thought clouding his head.
Avoiding the vizard.
Something he'd pushed off even thinking of really. Where normally he'd be pushing Urahara to get Shinji in contact and let them all meet, he'd only mentioned it to Yoruichi all of once. Hadn't pushed the way he should have. Would have if everything wasn't this.
The soutaichou's intention of taking him as a pupil.
The anger he'd felt at the suggestion. The confusion because the soutaichou had never shown interest before. Not even when he'd walked into the hall all those years ago with dual blades and wilder reiatsu.
His own liability for caring about Aizen.
The way he normally loved was head first and eyes closed. Not so much tumbling off the edge but leaping with faith that the choice was unerring. Stumbling one step after another into it wasn't what he did. Aizen was always the exception, though. It served that in this, that wouldn't change.
The lie he was now living because he didn't know how to tell anyone any of this.
"There's nothing pathetic about asking for help."
"Are you sure there isn't?"
"Yes."
"And yet you never ask for it."
Once more, for what felt like the millionth time, the Hokyoku's words echoed in his mind. But they were wrong. Surely, they were wrong. He'd asked so many people for help already. Future- Orihime and Hat-an-clogs had helped him. Even if it didn't go quite right. Hat-an-clogs of this time, as well. He'd asked him for help right away. Him and Yoruichi and Tensai. Gin. Juushiro and Kyoraku when he managed to make it to a training session – rare as they were. His mom. Ishida and his grandpa. His dad. Hell, he even asked Aizen for help in training. Byakuya and Unohana, too.
The Hogyoku was wrong.
It was.
It had to be.
"You asked them to help train. To help take down Aizen," Ossan spoke up. "But do you even want to do that anymore?"
"I don't know." No. No, he didn't. And they all knew it.
"Then you must find someone to help you figure that out," Ossan said all the same. "We cannot. We are part of you. We are affected by your emotions just as much."
Ossan was right. Of course he was. His spirits were biased. Even if he had the words to explain, they'd only support his own desires. Hidden – buried – or otherwise. But then, he didn't know who to talk even if he did have the words. Telling Gin meant telling Yoruichi meant telling Urahara meant telling Shinji meant- well, it wasn't an option. Not yet. His mom? No. He wanted her as far removed from it all as she could be. As it was, she had a foot in. And that was already costing her time and pain and watching him die on the surgery table.
No. His mom wasn't an option.
Who-
Ichigo almost laughed at the simplicity of it all.
Almost laughed at his own stupidity.
In his past life, who else would he go to for something like this?
Rukia sat cross-legged in front of him a full month later, grass ticking both their ankles in the overly-muggy weather, because Aizen had taken his grounding seriously. Enough so that even this small meeting a whole few days after his grounding had supposedly ended had taken an entire hour of bargaining to set up.
"Well," Rukia said, brow raised, "why'd you drag me all the way out here?"
"What would you say if I told you I was from the future?"
Rukia smacked him. Hard. "That if you're going to lie to me, then pick a better one, shrimp."
"I'm as tall as you!" Ichigo rubbed at his head, scowling, "And that hurt."
"That's what you get for lying!"
"I was telling the truth!"
Rukia narrowed her eyes.
"Just listen, would you? It's-," he stopped, straightening slightly, "I'm calling in my favor."
"The one from-."
"When I said I'd be taller than you in four years."
"You're not taller than me yet, brat!"
"I almost am, and Unohana said I would keep growing like this so I'll be taller than you in months."
The strangled sound she let out might as well have come from a dying hippo. "You can't cash in a favor you haven't earned yet. But," she sighed, frown tugging at her tips, "fine. Yachiru better not pop out of the woods laughing about a prank when you're done."
"It's not a prank," he huffed, hands fisting in his lap. Then he floundered, unsure what to say, really. He hadn't thought much about getting this far. Honestly thought she'd have stormed off by now. The beginning, he decided. It was always the beginning. "It all started when a midget broke into my room while tracking the wrong reiatsu signature…"
He didn't know how long he talked for, but his throat was dry by the end of it, and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth more than actually forming words. He sported several new bruises, too, courtesy of Rukia's impassioned views. 'Apparently my future self hadn't done a good enough job beating the stupid out of you!' she'd exclaimed after smacking him the third time while he'd been explaining how he and his friends had stormed Soul Society.
"I don't know what to do," he admitted finally, nails digging into his palms.
"Idiot," Rukia said softly, "you should've said something sooner."
"I didn't want to drag you into anything."
"Bullshit," she said with a roll of her eyes. "If Aizen's planning what you say he is, then I'll be in it regardless. What as your real reason?"
Ichigo blinked, "I- that was my reason." Most of it anyway.
"Wow."
"What?"
"I really thought you couldn't get any dumber."
"Hey!"
"I mean, really, Ichigo. You tell me you're from the future and want to change things but you still do the same things. You step in to protect everyone. You don't let anyone help. If you really want to change things and stop the war like you say, then you need to change, too. You need to do the unexpected."
"I'm already doing that!"
"Are you?" she asked with crossed arms.
Ichigo scowled, mind whirling. Do something unexpected? Something he wouldn't normally do? All of this reminded him far too much of Shakespeare's race against fate. His tragedies were only so because the heroes were in the wrong stories. They couldn't escape their ends because it was their nature that led them there – their flaws that would have been strengths in another tale.
But this wasn't an old play.
There was no grand plot with themes where each character acted as they should; as was expected for who they were. No. No, people didn't work like that. Aizen didn't. Evidence enough was his reaction to the Hogyoku's destruction. It served to think he had other plans in place, but the old- Aizen would have taken such a golden opportunity. Ichigo would've died on that table.
This wasn't an old five-step play.
But then… the world did love its patterns. It's mirage of broken shards puzzling together into something almost comprehensible. Because people would always be people, even when they changed. Because Aizen was still Aizen even when he cared; his goals hadn't changed. And Ichigo… he was still himself. Only now, he was stuck between two opposing sides, a bruised fistful of heart offered to each and struggling to bring it all together into something he could live with.
There was no golden ticket to fixing any of this. No perfect solution.
Then… What could he live with?
Ichigo's eyes widened.
"You want me to save him."
"You want to, right? You just think it isn't right because of your future."
"And the people he's already hurt."
"Right. But aren't they planning the same moves as before? To battle Aizen. That's going to hurt even more people."
"It's not the same anymore, though. It won't be a war. We've cut him off from getting the Hogyoku, and have more allies," Ichigo said, a touch desperate, a touch weak, a touch disbelieving.
"Won't be a war, he says," Rukia scoffed. "Do you even know why Aizen is willing to fight in the first place?"
"I-." Ichigo scowled, face stretched almost uncomfortably with it. He didn't know. Had never asked even when the war was over and Aizen was defeated if not dead and Ichigo was dead. Or might as well have been. Had never asked why. What were they fighting against besides the destruction of his hometown. Why was Aizen so adamant in his own pursuits. Before it wouldn't have mattered. Hadn't mattered. Aizen was going after those he cared about. Those he needed and wanted to protect. It didn't matter his reasons because there was no reason in the world that could justify wiping out his entire town and using their souls to fuel his own godhood. That truth stood its ground even now. But... But knowing why was now important. Knowing what made Aizen tick meant potentially arguing against it across a negotiation table rather than a battlefield.
Hadn't his mom said the same.
That she didn't even know why Aizen wanted to be Soul King...
"How can you say there won't be a war when you don't know his resolve!"
"Because we planned to stop him," his said, but none if came out with conviction.
"And by stop, you mean…"
"Kill."
"Ichigo."
"Yeah?"
"You're such an idiot."
The laughter that broke out of him came full and bursting with wild fondness.
"You're not killing him," Rukia scoffed, arms crossing and nose in the air. "I mean…" her haughty Kuchiki-stance melted slowly. "I mean, he deserves to be imprisoned, yes. But I don't think you- could you live with killing him?"
He looked away, "No."
"Then we imprison him instead. Everyone else can either get onboard or get punched."
"Where? In the shin?"
"I will stab you."
"Been there, done that. Didn't work out for you."
"I'll ask Brother to stab you."
Ichigo opened his mouth to reply then closed it for a moment. With a huff he said, "You know, he probably would."
"You really get under his skin."
"For his own good," Ichigo said with conviction. "The idiot doesn't know how to be a proper brother."
Rukia tried to smack him again, but this time he scrambled to his feet and out of the way just in time.
"Don't talk about Brother like that! He's been much better recently!"
"And whose to thank for that!"
Rukia rolled her eyes, "I'm not going to thank you."
"I don't expect you to."
"Good. Now, sit back down. We have a lot of planning to do."
Ichigo sat with a smile.
It was good.
Having Rukia at his side like this again.
