19: CALLING HOME - [Creeping Shadows]
"Is that freaking Aizen!?"
#"Yep! About that..."# Urahara began with his ever-grating cheer, #"–I did warn you'd called at an inopportune time..."#
"I didn't think you meant him!" Ichigo snapped down the line. "Where are you then? In Muken?"
#"An astute deduction, Ichigo. Kisuke Urahara's 'official Gotei business' down here, is torture."# Aizen answered with derision.
"Torture?"
#"Now that's a strong word to use– but I do suppose it's pretty accurate..."#
Ichigo shook his horned head exasperatedly. This was going to be one hell of a phone call, he could tell.
"Just–just lay it all out, will ya? From the last stand with Yhwach. Take it from the top."
- –—{}—– -
The Central Great Underground Prison's eighth, and lowest level: Muken.
An endless shadowed expanse of darkness; the infinite tenebrous dimension in otherspace, created by the Soul Society to be reserved for those criminals whose hearts cannot be stopped by any means by executioners. If death, by both zanpakutō and Sōkyoku is impossible to grant, then the closest experience to it is granted to prisoners in the Muken.
Sōsuke Aizen sat there.
His new chair stood tall, identical to the original, fashioned out of refined, hyper-condensed sekkiseki in the shape of an imposing pale throne. Wrapped in pitch-black Bakudō seals, it confined its smothered occupant for the next twenty-thousand years.
His face was completely covered now, leaving only his brown hair free, a single strand falling over the front, with the rest swept to the left. White cloth covered the upper part of his chest and shoulders, frayed at the edges, and was pinned to his body by large blood-red rectangular seals that stuck out into the air.
Across from the traitor, sat another ex-captain of the Gotei 13. His opposite, and his mental match.
Kisuke Urahara sat down on the gloomy floor, his green-white striped bucket hat covering his grey eyes under his straw-blonde hair. His dark, white diamond-patterned haori hung over his olive-green kimono, trailing the ground behind him as he fiddled with the denreishinki soul-phone in his hands. His cane lay across his lap. He was fine with sitting on the floor, because contrary to what one might expect, it wasn't dusty; for not even an infinitesimal speck of dust may enter or exit the Muken undetected.
With a buzz, the upper portion of the phone unfolded, revealing a projector. An orange light bathed the inky blackness between the two as a hologram displayed the startled face of Ichigo Kurosaki, standing on a glowing reishi platform in the swirling inter-dimensional void of the garganta.
["Whoa!"] he yelped. ["You coulda given me a heads-up! I almost dropped it when this thing jabbed my hand!"]
"Hehe, sorry about that." Kisuke stroked his chin-stubble. "Say, you can see us, then? The picture quality's pretty good on my end. I think I've outdone myself here!"
["Good to see you too... at least, good to see one of you, anyway. So Aizen's really fully sealed? How's he even talking over the phone?"]
"Isn't it obvious, Ichigo?" Aizen explained. "Via reiatsu. There are mechanisms inside the denreishinki that are receiving my voice, even through these seals of an amplified Kin number 99."
["Yeah but..."] Ichigo reflected on how he'd manipulated machinery on Remnant by controlling the crystallised reishi dust inside. A shinigami couldn't control ambient reishi like a Quincy, but all Aizen was doing here was projecting his own spiritual pressure instead. ["...never mind. Makes sense. But a chair? Seriously?"]
"Hey!" Urahara huffed. "Don't diss chair-sama here! I had to create a new one based on Captain Kurotsuchi's blueprints. This baby's capable of absorbing even transcendent reiatsu. Pretty potent, huh? Plus, it's got a boatload of sealing Bakudō inbuilt into it, beyond just the visible black Kin straps, embedded in its pure sekkiseki frame. It's a work of art, I gotta say."
Ichigo blinked. ["Are you a car salesman now, or what? Don't tell me its got a remote key..."]
"There are seal keys, but they definitely aren't remote. It is quite comfortable, I'll give you that. A suitable throne for me, instead of being pinned to the wall like a fallen butterfly. I think I'll be killing you less painfully, in gratitude."
["You—"]
"So!" Urahara declared, snapping his fan in front of his face. "You wanted to hear it from the top, huh? I'll give you a rundown now. After you disappeared, we were left with a very-much-dead Quincy King, his apparent heir, and the worst traitor the Soul Society has ever seen, all in one place! Finding things like that... well, it was quite distressing to say the least. Your dad was about to activate his bankai on the spot, as soon as he saw you were missing!"
["Dad?"] Ichigo blinked at that. ["How's he been?"]
"Wellll... Isshin hadn't exactly taken it well at first." Urahara understated. "He calmed down enough to not enter bankai, but he still throttled me until I promised to send a Hell Butterfly with my most advanced denreishinki to find you. I told him there was absolutely no way you were dead, but still– can you imagine~? I was hardly even alive after my own battle, and he almost killed me in his fatherly panic!"
"A pity he didn't finish the job..."
"Quiet, you!" Urahara flicked his fan at the snarking prisoner, sat slightly higher than him on a raised dais of rock. "You know, Aizen here couldn't even resist re-arrest after the battle! Turns out, immortality doesn't translate to infinite reserves. He was completely out of it with that massive hole in his chest and an arm missing."
["Good thing he couldn't get away. Can you give me dad's number? I wanna see everyone—"] Ichigo paused, then visibly realised something as his eyes widened slightly. ["—And what about Uryū, Orihime and Chad? Are they alright?"]
"Chad and Orihime are both fine. As for Ishida, well... Central 46 sent out an Onmitsukidō hit squad from the Second Division after him, but by then Ryūken had already picked him up. His schrift is frankly ridiculous, by all accounts."
"Yes... a complete reversal of any points, events or targets. He used it to land an impossible hit on an omnipotent god. I realised this when I saw him visibly remove his own injuries, and redirect an arrow that was clearly going to miss. He must've pre-emptively reversed the 'event' of the Stil-Silver missing and not impaling Yhwach."
["You already worked his schrift out, after barely seeing it?"] Ichigo raised an eyebrow at that, but then again, this was Aizen.
"Not completely. I am not entirely aware of how it works. Is it freeform, or only limited to complete diametrics? Can it reverse in multiple ways, or is it conceptually bilateral? I'm quite curious."
"I know! But I'm not telling, of course~" Urahara bragged tauntingly. "You'll have to hear it from Ishida himself, Ichigo. Hope you understand, what with the elephant in the room, and all." He gestured his fan towards Aizen.
["Yeah, yeah, I get it."] Ichigo rubbed at the back of his neck.
He realised this was probably why Urahara hadn't commented on his horn, even though the man was clearly eyeing it. He must want to keep his new hollowfication under wraps from the arch-enemy sealed under wraps. Ichigo's reserves had been too drained by Yhwach to use it when he teamed up with Aizen, after all.
So Aizen can speak and hear over the line, but can't see the hologram... he realised.
["So what's Uryū up to now, then? Where is he?"]
"Did you know he's been made the heir to the Wandenreich? A Crown Prince of the Quincies!" Urahara informed. "Although he calls himself a 'Führer', 'to match their fashion and aesthetic', in his words."
Ichigo rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "That... sounds like Ishida, alright."
"He's been acting as their leader and representative in the peace treaty between the Soul Society and the Quincy race. Yhwach and the majority of the Sternritters may be dead, but so are most of the Court Guard squads at this point. Neither side can afford to fight any longer. His dad is helping him actually, which is surprisingly fatherly of him. It's probably the most time they've spent together in years."
["A peace treaty?"] Ichigo asked.
"Shinigami and Quincy alike have been driven to dangerously thin numbers, and the new Head Captain isn't looking to repeat the dark past that brought us this Blood War in the first place." Urahara clarified.
"How sweet of him." Aizen drawled. "Such an idealistic outlook, for one so otherwise pragmatic. Shunsui was there for the Second Quincy extermination operation two centuries ago. Perhaps he is attempting to atone? Or better yet, he may be one of those types of leaders who seek to let bygones be bygones and advance." he surmised. "It's quite hypocritical of him, given what all this means for you and I however..."
["You and... me?"] Ichigo thought a moment, before the grim realisation dawned on him. ["...It's about the Soul King, isn't it?"]
Urahara visibly hesitated, before he continued, slowly. "Ichigo, do you remember how you were sent away? I wasn't there, but I could figure the course of events out myself. Yhwach used one last spell, using the last of his reiatsu and transcendent soul, to be rid of you forever. He cast it at the same time that you slew him, and that's all you got to see."
["So what's that go to do with the Soul King's death, then?"] Ichigo spoke, with dread creeping into his voice.
["I know he was absorbed by Yhwach, but then what does that mean for the worlds? Shouldn't reiatsu like that stick around?"] It was so thick, and sludgy, like crude oil. ["I mean, the Reiō was in way worse shape, and he still acted as a lynchpin god."]
"That thing is not a god, Ichigo. Do not refer to it as such. And the Reiō may have been pitifully mutilated, but it was still in a far better shape when I saw it long ago, than the bifurcated corpse that Yhwach left behind."
Urahara broke in. "Aizen's right. The Soul King might've been missing its limbs, but I've seen both Yhwach's and the Reiō's bodies. Yhwach is worse. Both are equally damaged, and equally unusable now to keep the worlds in check."
Ichigo's mouth felt dry. He opened it to speak, then closed it, then opened it again and finally found his voice, as wary and shaken as it was.
["...I killed both of them... but er, actually, the first one wasn't really my fault. Yhwach pulled something. The second one though..."]
When Aizen replied, he could hear the smug smile in his mental tone, even over the phone.
"You cut down both the Soul King and its spawn? How deliciously ironic. Your birth really is one of my very best projects that I've ever accomplished. You've borne quite some fruit Ichigo. I'm both proud, and astonished at my own fortune."
["Shut the hell up."] Ichigo growled. ["I know you wanted the King dead, Aizen, but it's not as if you can suddenly 'rule atop the heavens' like you wanted now, can you? You're stuck in a chair at the bottom of the most secure prison in the afterlife."]
"Does it matter?" Aizen jeered. "The worlds won't last much longer. That last spell used up all of Yhwach's leftover essence. His body can't be used as a true substitute; at most there's a a short while left, running on his fumes. The man sitting opposite me said it himself, two years ago: without the Soul King, Soul Society would fall apart. The King is the cornerstone. Without the cornerstone, the entire structure would crumble. That is simply the way of this world. You may attempt to stall all you like—"
"—That's enough, Aizen." Urahara cut off gruffly. "It's not anyone's fault. We had to take out Yhwach any way we could."
["He's right, though, isn't he?"] Ichigo muttered in numb defeat. ["Was it all for nothing? What's gonna happen, Kisuke? What can we even do?"]
No, wait; he knew the answer to that question. He just didn't want to face it.
If there wasn't any other way, then he'd... he'd have to...
["Will I– will I really have to—"]
"No, Ichigo, no you won't. That isn't going to happen." Urahara shut down firmly. He'd put down his fan, looking Ichigo straight in his distraught eyes.
"Annoyingly enough, I have to agree with Urahara. You're safely enough out of reach of the Noble Houses' cloying fingers. I'd rather just kill you if it came down to it, if that's any consolidation. The fate the Royal Guard offer is something far more vile altogether. I was not lying; he really is here to torture me."
["He is!?"]
"Yeah..." Urahara scratched at the back of his head, almost guiltily. "...You're not the only candidate, Ichigo. I'm meant to be torturing, and surgically restricting Aizen, until he's 'sufficiently prepared' for the coronation ritual. Of course, it's not really working at all, but I'm not gonna point that out until I report this as a failure. I'll just be going back to my humble shop after that, and claiming I've done all I can here. Bureaucracy sure is a wonderful weapon, isn't it~?"
"Oh, how thoughtful of you. A shame I'm still going to kill you one day." Aizen promised. "Of course it's not working; what need would I, an immortal, have of pain receptors anymore? Pain is a biological response to make a vulnerable mortal protect an injury or rest for an illness. I've since transcended that basic, pathetic need two years ago."
"...So the Hogyoku's still working its magic under there, huh." Urahara frowned. Only Aizen could remove his ever-present, knowing smile like that. The one he wore like he was the only one in the room to get the joke. "I'm not halting out of any sense of mercy to you, you know. I haven't tried my bankai yet. It's just that you're not even a proper candidate. You're transcendent, yes, but you're not a Fullbringer or Quincy either. Putting you on the throne would just be a stopgap, a temporary measure, and we have no idea whether things would even be stable. Not to mention, putting you anywhere near a position like the Royal Palace is just asking for trouble."
"Hmm... so fear stays your hand." Aizen remarked. "Fear of me, and fear of the unprecedented consequences of not putting a true candidate on the throne. Well Ichigo? How about you? You seem content with the title of substitute Soul Reaper, but how about substitute Soul King?"
Ichigo's words were taut, almost strangled. ["How long do we have until things... start falling apart?"]
"Two years." Kisuke looked him in the eye, steely-grey glinting in the orange holo-light. "Three at most, and I'd say two at least."
Ichigo faltered. ["What? –From the way Aizen was talking, I thought we only had like a week!"
"Spiritual beings experience time on a far different scale. To us, this is barely any time at all to save the multiverse from collapse."
["Well, when you put it like that..."] Ichigo trailed off. ["So what, you guys got any ideas? The two smartest people in the Soul Society have got to have something up their sleeves, right? Let's get Mayuri in on this too, where is he?"]
"Hah? You think Captain Kurotsuchi would work with us, of all people? We're probably the two people most hated by him, out of all of the Soul Society." Urahara gave a deadpan stare. "Besides, he's cooped himself up in his lab ever since... Lieutenant Nemu died."
["Nemu? You mean his daughter?"] Ichigo winced. ["I didn't know her very well but..."] he found himself lost for appropriate words, and the line was silent on both ends for a moment's peace. The peace was broken, of course, by a sceptical Aizen.
"Are you sure that's the truth? You wouldn't expect that man to care all that much, given how he treated her in life. Personally, I find it quite strange. I impaled my own Lieutenant a few times, and even then I hear she was still smitten with me." He scoffed. "Truly a lost cause, that Momo. Or maybe I am just that good, hm?"
["That's hardly something to brag about, you heartless bastard."] Ichigo scowled.
"I can't exactly think of another reason." Urahara weighed in. "For Kurotsuchi's absence, I mean. Akon's been promoted to Lieutenant of Squad 12 in her stead, and he's been the one restructuring it around the lost casualties. I think it's safe to say that we're on our own." he paused, then elaborated, "I mean, discounting the Zero Squad and Central 46. We're the only ones capable of a solution that doesn't involve a human sacrifice. Right now the situation's under wraps, but I'll be telling who I trust. Something tells me Aizen here won't be ratting us out to any officials coming down to Muken."
Aizen mentally sighed aloud. "If there's one group of 'people' I hate even more than you, Kisuke, it would be the dogs of Four Noble Houses. Rule under such a council of bumbling inepts is so aggravating, that you have no idea of the satisfaction I felt the day I turned my blade on the Central 46. Cutting those hylic fools down with Kyōka Suigetsu was more than blissful."
["Wait wait wait,"] Ichigo shook his horned head. ["What about Shunsui? Is he actually on board with Central 46? That doesn't sound like him."]
"It's ironic how he differs from the late Yamamoto," Aizen pointed out, "by allowing himself to rely on humans, unlike the old man, he'll be stooping this low. Genryūsai would never even consider this."
"Captain Commander Kyōraku's... under a lot of pressure right now." Urahara broached. "He has to carry all of Soul Society on his back, through this post-war era. Now he's facing this crisis, and from his perspective, it's either one life or all the worlds we just lost thousands of men protecting. He's grieving his best friend, on top of it all."
["...Ukitake too?"] Ichigo murmured.
"That is war, Ichigo." Urahara told him. "Both sides take losses, and dish them out. We're both lucky to still be here, and to not have lost anyone close."
["So I'm guessing Yoruichi's alright then, at least?"]
"She's made it out just fine. I'm glad for that, but she's a little ticked off at me..."
["You lech. What'd you do this time?"] Ichigo crossed his arms. The hologram projector swivelled to keep the picture steady even as the phone moved on his end.
"Nothing! It was life-or-death, honest." Urahara flicked his fan out, hiding his face. "–Besides, I have my ways to get on her good side again..."
Ichigo stuck his tongue out in disgust. ["Shut it. I don't need to hear that now. This isn't the time."]
"Your attempt to lighten his spirit as fallen short, Kisuke. How embarrassing. You have my sympathies." Aizen jabbed insincerely.
Kisuke closed his white fan, revealing his frown. He hadn't been smiling. "I was trying to get your head out of your funk. Excuse me for putting on an act. Talking about deaths over the phone isn't why I made this call. Ichigo, I had no idea where you were until now. You're saying that you're in a new world, so what does that mean for you?"
Ichigo thought to himself for a moment, before he began to speak. ["I'm... on a planet called Remnant. It's not connected to any of our dimensions, by anything. The garganta even feels different, here. Looks different, too. They have spiritual powers all open and public, but none of them can see souls. They've got... magic, apparently."
"Magic, hm? That's the kidō classification system used in the Western Branch of the Soul Society. How curious."
["Don't go getting any ideas, Aizen."] Ichigo snarled.
"Oh, please." Aizen bantered back. "From what I've gathered, this Remnant isn't even in the same macrocosm as our own. Why should I switch my focus from ruling over our heavens to theirs? Giving up would be the mark of a coward."
Ichigo gave a sarcastic snap of his free hand's fingers. ["Oh, how admirable of you. You're so damn driven."]
"Why thank you. I try." Aizen bit back.
"Alright, enough. Ichigo, I promise I'll stab him a few more times for you, but can you please just get on with giving us a rundown of what you have to work with on your end? You gotta remember, Aizen doesn't really want the worlds to converge any more than you do."
"He's right." Aizen agreed begrudgingly. "How am I supposed to rule, if there's nothing to rule over? I'd prefer not to have to sit through eons, waiting for a new Big Bang."
Ichigo threw up his left arm. ["Okay, okay! Whatever, so there's magic, here. The thing is, they're really not comparable strength-wise to us. They're as strong as fullbringers at best. On the other hand, they've got this thing called a relic, possibly more than one, and I'm pretty sure it's magical? I haven't seen one yet, but I've got a feeling that those artifacts are more up to our levels of stuff. I mean, someone smashed up most of the moon here a few thousand years ago."] He shrugged. ["Who knows, maybe they're like the Hogyoku?"]
"Their moon is broken?" Urahara stoked his stubbled chin again. "So you're saying that they might have something that can help us out, even though everything else says they're not much by our standards?"
["Might is better than 'no chance'."]
"I highly doubt you'll find something on par with the Hogyoku on any other plane of existence." Aizen intoned. "...But this will at least give you something productive to do instead of coming back and starting a useless civil war I can't even take advantage of, so I support it. Just don't run away. I remember how fearful you were of me, back in Karakura."
["–And I remember dragging you by the face for miles, mid-speech."] Ichigo snapped back. ["Pfft... all those excuses you came up with on the spot to cope."]
"Aright!" Urahara cheered, ignoring the atmosphere as usual. "So we've got a plan! Ichigo, you have to try and find something that can help us out on your end, and avoid coming back until we've figured out a way to stop you from getting consigned to an eternity of suffering! Sounds fun~, right?"
["...No?"]
"Well it should be! Call it an adventure! I'll try sending you stuff from time to time, but the route is quite unknown, I'm afraid. We can't even trace your spiritual pressure."
"I can."
"~When I say 'we', I mean everybody but you." Kisuke scolded. "...And the Zero Squad, and Central 46, now that I think about it."
Ichigo spoke hesitantly. ["Uh... so, what're you gonna do on your end? Stall for time?"]
"We're going to try to come up with a substitute lynchpin for all of creation." he grinned. "Quite the grand, mind-boggling task, eh? Who knows? Maybe you'll find a Soul King replacement on Remnant?"
["That can happen?"]
"You tell me. You're the one there." Urahara pointed out.
["I'll... let you know."] Ichigo smiled, despite himself. ["What's the reception on this thing, by the way? Do I have to go into the garganta on the edge of space every time, or..."]
"Don't worry about that. The reception on that denreishinki is the best in existence, and the inter-dimensional plan is free! Just call, anytime."
["...Do I get unlimited data, too?"]
"Don't push it."
Ichigo smirked. ["Funny. Just make sure my friends and family get my new number, then, alright? I'd rather not have you as the only point of contact I have with home."]
"Ouch." Urahara feigned hurt. "Okay, expect a call from Isshin pretty soon, then. I imagine he's worried sick, but he won't show it. That's all I've got. You know what you need to know, and what you need to do."
["'Kay. See ya."]
"Goodbye!"
"Nothing for me?"
["Oh, screw you!"]
Ichigo hung up, casting Muken into darkness once more as the hologram shut off.
- –—{}—– -
"Tch. Freaking smug clown. Even locked up, he's still a needling pain in the ass." Ichigo grumbled as he snapped the chrome flip-phone shut, pocketing it in his kosode.
A fluttering by his ear reminded him of his new... pet? Looks like he'd have to keep the Hell Butterfly with him now. He kinda knew normal butterflies ate pollen– no, wait, not that, it's nectar, right? Didn't they like sweet fruits too? But this wasn't exactly a normal butterfly now, was it?
It landed on his shoulder, perching itself there and resting its wings over its dark body.
Ichigo looked around the black, formless gloom of the void between worlds and reached out, not with his hands but with his senses. He wanted to find an anchoring spiritual pressure... and he found one. Hollowfication spread across his upper body, and his skin bled an ashen-pale hue of ghostly flesh with contrasting dark stripes under his armour. He felt the hole though his Saketsu open up in his solar plexus, but it didn't feel odd at all. It felt natural to him, as if it was meant to be there.
He reached out, physically this time, and his fingers found purchase on an unseen fabric of extra-dimensional nothingness. Full hollowfication allowed him a far finer control over his descorrer, and he could pick out where he wanted to show up like this, now. He moved his point of arrival in what felt like up, actively attempting to control it for the first time.
With the sound of a distorted zip, the right-angled maw of the garganta slotted open around his bone-white fingers. He didn't have to pull so hard on the space itself this time; he was getting better at it.
He stepped through the portal, into an upside-down visage of the deep blue sky and the world beyond it.
"Squawk-awk-awk-awk-awk!"
A cacophony of seagulls flapped around the portal, greeting Ichigo as he stepped out of it. Turns out the sky wasn't the only thing that had made the portal appear a deep blue.
He covered the butterfly with a hand. Sure, the birds probably couldn't eat it, but just in case...
Ichigo found himself standing over the ocean, hundreds of meters up in the sky. It was sunny, a direct contrast to the miserable, thunderous weather he'd dealt with the day beforehand, and the cerulean sky over his orange head matched the calm aquamarine below his feet. He could spot an island out of the corner of his hollowfied eye, and...
He recognised it. Patch? So he'd dropped off here...
Eh, it wouldn't take him that long to flash-step over to Beacon. But he might as well pay Summer a visit. She probably didn't get much company.
Ichigo rocked back one clawed foot, on thin, salty sea air.
His pallid talons touched down on the grassy soil of the cliff he hadn't even been facing within the same moment. The casual movement was not near-instantaneous; –it was instantaneous, in the purest sense of the word.
Ichigo casually stretched his arms over his head, interlacing his fingers and bouncing on his sharpened toes. The sun-warmed grass felt pleasantly spongy beneath his feet.
Summer was there, dozing away, leaning on her own gravestone as a headrest. He cloak worked as a blanket. Huh. Well, ghosts could sleep, they just didn't really need to. The woman must've been real bored, and understandably so. He walked up to her, and nudged her shoulder with his right hand.
"Hey... hey—"
"—Aaaaaaaahhh!" she screamed her lungs out, and flip-kicked backwards over her headstone, perched in a fighting stance—
"Fweh!? I-Ichigo!?" she exclaimed.
"Yo!" he waved gingerly. He'd dodged her instinctual kick without even thinking about it.
"You really scared me! You really, really look like—" she stopped, and puffed. "Hmph. What're you doing, going around looking like the boogeyman!?"
"Hey! I think I look cool, at least..." Ichigo cast off his hollowfication, the alabaster tone to his flesh bleeding away as he went back to looking like a normal ginger faunus, instead of a soul-eating, hyper-evolved ghost, that was also ginger. "Better?"
"I'll say." she crossed her arms. "So what brings you back here?"
"Do I need a reason? I just thought I'd stop by."
"Guess not. Nice armour, did you buy it in Vale?" she eyed his coral-red Ōken pauldrons, and the white cross-strap.
"Nah, this is just a form of mine. Hold on." his sheathed swords glimmered golden as they merged back into the single, giant sealed state of Zangetsu. His armour vanished with them. He absorbed Zangetsu into his body, leaving his back bare without the sword in a soft flare of reiatsu.
As he glittered, the Hell Butterfly on his shoulder fluttered off, and flapped towards Summer's face.
"Whoa! And whoa! You've got a pet? Cute!" she fawned, letting it sit on her finger. It captivated her even more than his sword. The butterfly's wingspan was fairly large, about the size of her whole hand.
"Yeah it's..." Ichigo ran a hand through his hair. Summer already knew everything, didn't she? Right. "...a little something from back home. A Hell Butterfly. Don't hurt it."
"Hell!?" Summer looked like she was about to shake it off her hand, but visibly stopped herself. "That's not... bad, is it? Why's it called that? Sounds way too ominous to me, you know."
Ichigo racked his brain for a moment, but came up blank. "Dunno, honestly. It shouldn't be any harm, though. We just use 'em for dimensional navigation and psychic communication."
She stared at him incredulously. "Right... you're a grim reaper... uh huh."
The butterfly fluttered off her finger, and back to Ichigo. This time it chose to land on one of his horns. Summer wasn't sure whether he noticed it there or not, but she didn't point it out, no matter how much she wanted to chuckle at it.
"...So I just thought I'd drop in, y'know, 'cause you don't seem like you get to chat very much."
Summer placed a slender finger on her chin. "You got that right. Although, there was this one spirit of a fisherman's wife a few years back, but she's passed on now. We used to talk, as a couple of reverse-widows."
"Reverse-widows?" Ichigo cocked his head. "Isn't that just a widower?"
"Anti-widows?" Summer suggested. "Maybe that's a better name. Anyhow, I haven't exactly gotten up to much, so there's not much for me to say on my end. How about you?"
"Me?" Ichigo repeated. "Well..." he looked up to the clear sky, fluffy clouds at the rim of the bold blue horizon. He brought his hands up, and counted the events off his fingers, one-by-one.
"...I visited your husband, but you already know that, then I saw your messed-up moon, and realised I'm on a completely different planet, yeah, so I portalled my way into Beacon's initiation accidentally, met your daughters, then I struck a deal with Ozpin about finding a way back home, I met the Autumn Maiden's spirit and helped her pass on, and then I pretty much messed around for a week, before going to Mountain Glenn and clearing it out, by exterminating the leviathan-class grimm there. Oh, and I got a call from home, too. Now I'm back here."
He looked at his hands. All ten fingers were up. Quite a packed first week on Remnant, he'd say. At least I won't go bored here...
"So yeah, that's pretty much all of it. Your daughters are doing just fine, by the way. Ozpin tried to force Ruby to be a leader, but I fixed that for her." he smiled.
Summer waved her hands frazzledly. "–I'm sorry, but what was that about a different planet? And Mountain Glenn? And Ruby? And the Autumn Maiden? Ha?"
"You know when we first met? I just assumed I was back home. Turns out, Remnant is a completely different planet to Earth. That's where I'm from."
"So you're pretty much an... alien, on top of everything else? That's amazing!" she beamed. "But, erm, how does that work?"
"There's a lot of dimensions out there. I'm just from a different neighbourhood of them, I'm guessing. I never knew Remnant was a thing until I ended up here."
"So, we don't have Soul Reapers?" she asked. "If you're not from around here, and nobody came to see me for ten years..."
"I've gathered that Remnant lacks any kind of agency over its afterlife, 'cause the spirits themselves end up moving on on their own once the object of their attachment fades." He thought back to Mountain Glenn, briefly. "But it's not necessarily all that good. How long can grimm live for?"
"If nothing slays it? A grimm can live forever." she informed.
"Then imagine the object of attachment for a spirit was the leviathan-class grimm that wrecked their town. One that nobody around could kill."
Summer's face turned sour. "So that's what happened in Mountain Glenn? What did you do, then? Just rip it out?"
"More like blow it away. It was called a Creeping Venus." he told her.
"And you killed it with just your sword?" she murmured in awe. "You're... really not mortal-ey, aren't you? You know, usually they use heavy artillery bombardments and dust-charge airstrikes on Creeping Venuses. They're mostly stationary, so that's how we'd do it. But you just... fought it?"
"Pretty much." he nodded. "Qrow was there too. He's an alright guy, but man, does he get worked up easily. I hear he was a teammate of yours, and Yang and Ruby's uncle?"
"You met Qrow? I hope he's doing well. But seriously, I don't even want to know how you got to think of Qrow of all people as high-strung. That definitely sounds like it's your fault there." she stated flatly. "So uhm, what about the other things? You know, the Autumn Maiden?" she pressed.
"I met the spirit of a girl called Amber last week." Ichigo notified. "She's around my age, maybe a little older. She'd been taken out by assassins on the way to Beacon, and I helped her pass on when I found her haunting Ozpin." he paused. "At least, I think she passed on. Y'know how maidens do that thing when they die..."
"Assassins?" she tensed. "Ichigo, that's... how much do you know about the Maidens of the Seasons?"
"Pretty much all of it. I was given the full rundown by Amber and Ozpin. Did you know he's a wizard?"
"You know too? That's good, that's good then..." she kneaded her hands, tentatively. She looked like she wanted to say something, but then couldn't bring it out. "So!" she clapped her hands, as if forcing herself to change topic with the sound. "How're my babies? You're saying you helped Ruby out?"
"Yeah, I figured out a way to stop her from being forced into leading her team. She didn't really want to be a leader all that much herself, anyway. I was thinking of what you said, and..." he explained.
"Thank you. I know she would probably make it just fine as a leader, but, well, I think she'd be happier without being forced to take on the responsibility." she clasped her hands together, below her waist. "How's Yang? She hasn't gotten into any trouble yet, has she?"
"Yang hasn't, no." he chose not to mention it was Ruby who destroyed the roof of a building with her partner in her fight with Weiss. "They're on separate teams, but they're doing fine."
She bobbed her head, and the butterfly settled on the top of her red-tipped hair. "That's great! I'm glad to hear it. Just a request from me, can you make sure they don't get into any trouble? You seem like the responsible sort. For Yang, well... her birth mother is an issue. Qrow's sister. Not because she poses a risk; –I think she's just ignoring her daughter, but because Yang is the one who's caught up on her. She's not evil, just a... bandit chieftain? Okay, so that does sound pretty bad..."
"Got it. If she becomes an issue, I'll sort it out." Ichigo promised her. "Just for the record, I think you're the better mother. She sounds pretty crappy. A real bad role-model."
"Thanks." she smiled. "I appreciate that. But... I don't hate her, I just think she's... lost?"
Ichigo frowned. "She's like forty, isn't she? She's hardly a fickle teenager or something. That old lady needs to get her act together."
Summer flushed. "H-hey! I'm forty! –Ish!"
"A-ha, sorry 'bout that." Ichigo smiled. "Souls don't age so quick. I'd say you're physically thirty-looking. You don't look that old to me."
"Hmph." She crossed her arms, her white cloak bunching up with the motion. "I better not. I'm not even middle-age!"
"Alright, alright." Ichigo placated. He thought back to the bandit-woman they were discussing. "Now that I think about it, maybe she left because she didn't think she'd do as good a job as you?"
"She could at least visit somewhere other than my grave, though. That 'plan' of hers must've ended up backfiring when I... bit the dust, didn't it? Bet she feels pretty bad, now." Summer put her hands on her hips, and looked down at the knotted grass. The butterfly took off, leaving her hair for Ichigo's black-clad shoulder.
"One last thing..." his eyes flicked over his shoulder to his empty back, devoid of Zangetsu whilst it was stored inside his soul. He looked back to Summer, where she was waiting for his question.
"I've learnt that Heaven here, on this spiritual plane is real. I can send you there, right now. Mrs Rose, do you want to pass on? This isn't a case of me not knowing where you'd end up, like last time... but you don't have to. I won't force you to do anything."
Summer seemed stock-still, taken aback, before she seemingly decided to finally say what was on her mind earlier.
"...I can't. Listen, Ichigo, do you know how I died? Why I died?"
A small sea breeze picked up on the coastal cliffside, and the seabirds dispersed, almost as if the world itself was breathing out in anticipation for Summer Rose's next words. Her cloak picked up the wind, the snow-white cape pressing against her back and billowing around her front, exposing the deep-red lined interior, like a tender heart within. As if the cloth was opening up with her. The rustling of the coniferous treeline behind them created a blanket of white noise over everything but her fretful voice.
Ichigo didn't ask. He just waited for her to continue, letting her take her own time to speak.
"It's because of my eyes. Ruby has the same as mine... Silver eyes that can kill any grimm with a simple look. Maidens, too. They are both anti-magical, and magical, in nature. A miraculous interweaving of magic and genetics on the biological level."
She looked left, then right, as if she had something, or someone to be fearful of, even as a ghost.
"The grimm aren't just aimless. There's a reason they can suddenly create concentrated attacks on certain settlements, when consistent observation over centuries of normal, day-to-day behaviour from them suggests they should never be capable of such large-scale coordination, ever. These anomalies are all directed. The Creatures of Grimm have a Queen."
The words came out faster now, as if she was rushing to get them out.
"Her name is Salem."
The ocean wind died down, and the only sound left in the background were the calm waves, lapping at the stone shelf of the cliff face far below. The air fell still, and the bright sun suddenly felt like a harsh spotlight over her head. Her cloak stopped moving around her. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her terse face.
"She's the Witch-Queen of the Lands of Darkness, an isolated place that can't be accessed through any normal, mortal means. There's a reason I haven't been so thrown off by you claiming to be from another dimension; it's because I've been to one. I perished in one. At her hands. I went there to face her after I feared her targeting my baby, and lost everything as a result. Now I can't protect them at all."
Ichigo merely watched on, taking all of this in. So that's why Amber was dead. Why Yang and Ruby didn't have a mother. Looks like he had someone to blame.
"I used a relic, the Relic of Knowledge to find a way there. Her Evernight Castle lies outside of this plane of existence, but I'm sure you could find it." she breathed out. "I won't say you're not obligated, because I really do want you to help. We need you to help. You said you liked to fight, didn't you? Plus, you're strong, the strongest I've ever met, so you can pull it off, I'm sure. So Ichigo..."
She pleaded her heart out.
"Please... save Remnant... Ichigo Kurosaki!"
Ichigo stood still, reflecting on the sheer déjà vu of her heartfelt request. Only this time, there was no pressing threat of death all around them, heavier than the storming rain, no invading force that meant he had to rush off without looking back. So he walked up to Summer Rose, and put a hand on her shoulder, and smiled warmly.
She looked up at his face, finding the rays of the sun behind his horned head giving him a halo-like aura of hope, for her, her children, and her world. The butterfly took off, fluttering around them. She wiped away a tear.
He hadn't answered verbally, but he didn't need to. She could tell, that was just the kind of man he was.
"Anything else I should know?" he stepped past her, looking over the edge, to the glimmering nautical horizon. He could spot a ship in the distance.
"She's immortal." she briefed, "A total cheat, I know, and I found that out the hard way after decapitating her. Twice. I figure that, since you're a reaper, this sort of thing should be your speciality."
"Well, I doubt whatever she's got can stack up to Yhwach or Aizen..." Ichigo remarked, more to himself. "So you said you found where she lives through a relic?"
"The Relic of Knowledge. The way to the Land of Darkness has got to have changed by now, but there's two questions left, and the count refreshes every hundred years. You can ask anything, and get any answer."
"Any answer? You think it could help me out with my world's questions?" Ichigo proposed.
"Like what?"
"As in, 'how do we replace the Soul King without a sacrifice?'" Ichigo hypothesised.
"Replace the what?" she tilted her head.
"God is dead, where I'm from. As in, literally. There was a whole... thing." he waved his arms vaguely. "So unless I can find a replacement, I'm kinda... on the chopping block 'til we can figure something else out. It's part of the reason I've been told to lay low on Remnant to snoop around."
"You're going to be sacrificed!?" Summer almost shrieked in horror. "That's disgusting! How could they do that to a little boy?"
"Little boy?" Ichigo's eyebrow twitched. He gave her a smile a tad too broad to be sincere. "I'm nineteen, Ma'am."
"When you're a parent, all kids are little to you." she brushed off. Given how his own dad treated him, he wasn't so sure about that. Honestly, he preferred the respectful freedom his father gave him. "Now, don't try and ignore this." she scolded, in a motherly fashion. "Tell me, what's going on?"
"Geez, chill out." Ichigo scratched at his cheek. "I was torn up pretty badly about this too, and I finally calmed down after getting told I've got a way out, and my friends are backing me up. Don't worry. I've got a plan. Do you think there could be any substitute on Remnant?"
"Erm... maybe try reading some religious texts?"
"It's better than nothing..." Ichigo admitted. "Guess that's everything. I'll be going, now."
"Thanks, Ichigo. By the way, do not tell Ozpin you know about Salem, because her very existence is one of his most closely guarded secrets. He'd definitely freak out." she waved as he began walking up, into the bright blue sky. "I'll be counting on you. All of mankind will. So please, protect Remnant, Ichigo!"
"Hmph, just keep piling on the pressure, why don't you?" he grumbled, a hand on the back of his neck even as he turned to wave back. "Bye!"
With a burst of static, he vanished with the wind.
Steel horseshoes clopped a steady rhythm against the rough leaves of the forest floor.
Dappled light cast the underbrush in a mix of gloom and warm orange light, with crickets and birdsong filling the late evening air. The creeping shadows cast were long, and stretching longer, with the earlier nights so late in the year.
"Ah! Cinder Fall!" the man set down his cup of tea onto its matching porcelain saucer, then tapped its rim. From his ring, a sheet of translucent azure hard-light dust covered its top in a hexagonal pattern. "It is good to see you were surprisingly successful in your infiltration, despite my misgivings. I will give credit where it is due."
"Arthur Watts." the woman greeted, not leaving her saddle.
Dr. Watts was a tall middle-aged man with a slim build and greying hair. A thick walrus-like moustache matched the thinner eyebrows that framed two lime-green eyes that shone with a curious, yet devious light. He wore a high-collared light grey overcoat over a yellow dress shirt, with a black necktie. His ash-grey trousers were the same color as his overcoat. The undercoat-vest and fingerless gloves were burgundy, matching his cordovan shoes, under which he wore yellow socks.
Overall, he looked less like a rogue inventor, and more like an eccentric Victorian nobleman.
"I must say, a horse? What a comically archaic method of transport..." he stood up from the metal table he'd sat at under a particularly large tree. With a snap of his fingers, it folded up and collapsed in on itself behind him, into a shiny rectangle no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper. The saucer was still somehow balanced atop it. "Though, it leaves no digital footprint, I'll give you that."
"How I spend my own funds is none of your concern, Doctor." Cinder refuted tartly.
She'd just felt like it, that was all. As confused as her subordinates had been when she decided on buying one, they knew better than to question her.
It helped that Beacon had stables, for whatever reason.
"What about the cameras though?" Emerald Sustrai asked warily, walking in from behind with Mercury Black beside her. She stepped over a gnarled root and set herself beside the flank of the horse.
"Oh, those?" he waved off dismissively. "That's simple. Nothing a few hour-long loops of old footage can't fix, dear."
"That is why I held no qualms about meeting him here, in the Emerald Forest." Cinder explained to her. "He suggested this drop-off point himself, so I presumed he wished to stoke his bottomless ego."
Cinder refused to get off her—literal—high-horse, lording over everyone else in the clearing. It was a non-verbal message, something to needle their apparent elder colleague with.
Mercury leaned up against the tree closest to him. He didn't mind the rough bark.
In the weeks since Cinder took them to infiltrate Beacon, she'd... changed. Her broad beats of hunger-for-power and tendency-for-arson still stuck, but the shifts in her behaviour were there... just more subtle than that. Not too subtle for a trained assassin to pick up on, however.
The Cinder of a few months ago would never have explained such things to them. He knew this, but never cared to ask anything himself, so that was fine. Maybe... he could ask one thing now though...
"Cinder."
"Yes, Mercury?"
There it was again– so strangely polite. He wasn't used to it. Emerald was happier now, and took it in stride, but he couldn't get used to it. "...This Doctor guy. He works for the same mystery person as us, right?"
"Works for?" Watts shook his head. "No, no, one does not work for the Queen. The proper term, is that I pay fealty to her. I know her place, and I know mine. You would do well to learn it yourself, boy—"
"—All in good time, Doctor. They will learn when necessary." Cinder cut him off– In defence of Mercury? "I've brought our priority cargo, for direct deliverance to the Mistress. Do be sure to get it to her as soon as possible, Dr. Watts."
"Well, let's see it, then. If I may?" he held his hands out.
Cinder waved her silk-gloved fingers, and a jagged portal appeared horizontally over the man's hands.
A bronze crown, inset with sapphires, fell into his hands.
NEXT: 20 - OUT OF THE LOOP - [The Other Tales of Zanpakuto]
Author notes:
So I... er, thought that Bleach came back on June 8th... yeah, thanks to the guy in the reviews who told me. So... surprise! Volume 2 of To Shatter Fate starts now!
You can call this chapter the prelude. That's right, all of Volume 1's craziness happened in a single week, but that's Ichigo for you. This is the major plot direction I had in mind since the beginning, that I decided on after reading a load of other crossovers before I started this story. Ichigo needed a goal on Remnant: replace the Soul King (without suffering eternally) and save the Bleach multiverse. This way, the world of Remnant itself matters a lot. It was all laid out with a more brutal cut on Yhwach and him using up all his reiatsu in chapter 1. I noticed that fics without a goal find it a lot harder to string together a plot without copying canon, so I used the coolest part of Bleach lore for mine; the Soul King. I have NOT read the novels, (so please don't spoil them for me), but hopefully they'll add it all to the anime. I mean, I got the gist that he was betrayed by the nobles from the manga, and that's pretty much all that matters in this story.
#=call, [ ]=hologram, "Italics+speechmarks"=reiatsu. Also, check out the new scene dividers I made! Yes, I am very proud of them. I had fun with Aizen here, and I flipped the idea of Shunsui relying on humans more than Yamamoto to a bad thing for Ichigo. I mean, if you think about it, Yamamoto's pride would never let him do what Shunsui was handing out tickets for. I'm not'"bashing' anyone, just rolling with what I've got. I'm just saying, Shunsui really was considering making Ichigo the Soul King. It's in the manga.
Finally, Ichigo learns who Salem is. I wanted this to be the first time her name is mentioned at all in this story, to show how hyped up she is by the Remnant cast. I wasn't too sure about this at first, but then I realised 'why wouldn't Summer tell him at this point?' It wouldn't make sense to stall. This won't be rushing the plot, because to Ichigo she's in the same mental list as Merlot; deal with them eventually, but focus on the Soul King stuff first now. And if you're confused about that final scene's place timewise, it'll all be explained next chapter...
One last thing, I finished my final exam, so that's it, I'm free until university. This gives me a whole load of free time, for a bunch of stuff, which includes time to write this. Expect updates to speed up again!
Thanks for 540 reviews, 1629 follows, and 1224 favourites! It means a lot!