Chapter 1 – Death Of…

The day after getting the clarity of talking through what had happened to her for years was fantastic, and just having told it out loud to her spirits made her see that nothing in the human world could satisfy her craving for excitement.

At least if she had to stay with her incredibly oblivious father and sisters who didn't seem to notice that she was a drift.

Just having talked to her spirits made her see that she never could have a normal life or a normal career in the human world. While Isshin would want her to become a doctor, in the same field as him, she knew that she would be miserable working like that.
Either she had to fake her death like she had thought about since the war ended, or she needed to figure out what she wanted to do for the rest of her natural life – or this incredibly complex gigai gave out and imploded.

A few days later when classes were about to start things changed.

The air around her seemed to become strange, and tense, like something was coming out of the woodwork. It was a physical sense that made her stop and see, but her gut, her ingrained instincts told her that something had happened to someone she loved.

Closing her eyes, she tried to feel the air around her – it could be her sister or her father, she felt them doing their things downstairs.

Her eyes snapped open when she felt a spike in spiritual energy coming from Sh ôten, and instincts aside she wondered if he had blown up yet another experiment but knew that it could not be that. Kisuke blows something up almost every week with no consequences outside of his injuries – the feelings she got from that air told her that something was incredibly wrong.

With quickness harnessed from years of war and strife, she quickly made her way over to Urahara Shôten to see what it was. The closer she came the more urgent became the feeling that something had happened, he would have come out to meet her like he had always done, but now all she felt was the quietness. It wasn't before she stepped into the shop, and to his inner sanctuary that it was clear what had happened.

The first person she met was Tessai, someone had cut off his head – the blood, it was the worst. It was sprayed out over the tatami mat. Just a few feet away laid Jinta and Ururu, Kisuke's pride and joy. Those two had been with Kisuke for years, they were loyal, and he looked at them as his children, even when he had never told them that.

"Hat and clogs?" Ichigo whispered as she saw them lying there in their blood, and that, she started to search for the owner of the shop.

They hadn't done anything to deserve something like that, it made her blood boil over because who could have done something this heinous to people who had helped them through two wars?

"We both can think of people who would love to harm them!" Zangetsu said, spitting fire over the fact that someone dared to harm people they loved.

"Hmm…" Ichigo knew what he meant when she came to Kisuke's innermost lab. The place that only a certain few knew about, but it was clear as day he too had been harmed by the blood trail leading her there. Kisuke must have played dead long enough to lead her to something, meaning that he had known that something was up.

Had it been Central 46 that had finally made a play at getting rid of the one person who they thought kept her from going to Soul Society? If that is what they thought, they didn't know her at all!

"What did you notice Kisuke?" Ichigo asked no one as she carefully opened the sliding door to his lab. Carefully, she stepped into the room and slid the doors closed again to hide them if someone came to look.

Ichigo ran towards the bleeding man but knew at once that the man was completely gone from the world. Carefully she closed his wide eyes with tears streaming down her cheeks, "Why did it have to happen to you?" It was hard seeing someone she considered strong and unshakable lying in their own blood. The attack had to have happened suddenly and without warning for him to be killed like this. In cold blood.

"Look towards where his hand is pointing!" Ossan nudged her.

Hearing that, she dried her tears and looked toward where her most level-headed spirit had pointed out.

"HEY!"

That made her smile, and she picked the backpack up. It was a green backpack in it she saw a couple of things that made her eyes widen in surprise, "Kisuke, what were you up to?" she questioned as she saw something that could have only been another version of Hôgyoku, there was also a letter.

READ WHEN YOU ARE COMPLETELY ALONE.

Then there were other things carefully packed into the pack that made no sense to her, but she knew that it had to be important for him to give it to her and if he had thought of giving it to her.

There was no use looking for anything more in the place, nothing else mattered other than reading the letter.

With a final farewell to the man who meant more to her than anyone else in her life, laying him and the others together, closed the shop up. As soon, as she had done so – everything in front of her disappeared into nothing like them or the shop had ever existed before. Like they hadn't meant the world to her.

Seeing it gone she couldn't control her tears, she owed Kisuke everything, but she owed him at least being true to what he wanted – to read the letter where no one could catch her.

The place she could think of was where she could think in peace, without a problem she used Sonido to get to the lake. Without a care, she began to read.

Ichigo-chan

If you are reading this, then my prediction has happened. Imôto (Little Sister). I know that since the war you have felt lost, and if this hadn't happened, I would have gotten to talk to you again if you hadn't come to shop.

I am sorry for everything I put you through. I know that you won't take it, but at the same time, I have to say it.

At first, you were just a project to me, to play you against Aizen Sousuke, but you warmed your way into my paranoid heart. You stayed and I welcomed you with open arms, my precious little sister.

I've had a feeling that in the weeks since the war, something would happen to me, to get you to give yourself up to Central 46. They are a bunch of lazy asses, and afraid of the people they can't control. We are something they can't control at all; we aren't affiliated with the Gotei 13.

I have known I have been living on borrowed time with them since the end of the Winter War - I know that you thought everything had been fixed between me and them by the help I gave them.
You don't know them as I do. After being a part of the Onmitsukidô for centuries I know how they operate outside of Gotei. Everything they are afraid of happened with, and I know they have longed to get rid of me and your threat. I can't have them coming after you. You are the only good thing in this world that I know of, and the only good thing in all of this is that Yoruichi isn't part of the conspiracy.

I hope!

There is a lot I have been planning, as you can see in the backpack – The Hôgyoku in this is one I have been working on to give you a chance. It is a Wishing Sphere that I have worked on since the end of The Winter War. This will give you a chance to do what you want to do with your life, don't pick it up if you don't have a clear view of what you want to do. When you do, it will do what you want, I hope and then fuse with your Reiryoku.

I don't know what will happen then, you may get another resident in your inner world, or your spiritual pressure will get larger.

In one of the many inner pockets, another band will also hide your spiritual pressure – bind it around your other arm. I know what Sousuke gave you somewhat hides your spiritual pressure from those who want to harm you, but this together with that will make you a lot harder to find. They will think that you lost your powers again, and hopefully leave you alone to figure your life out.

Don't look so shocked, I know you and Sousuke became closer to one another throughout the war. I don't know when I began trusting him with your life, but I know he was sincere when I asked him about his feelings for you that day. That he would do anything to let you live!

I want you safe. Mine will also help you learn control, and bind them so that only you will feel it.

Then I left you my cloak of invisibility, it will help you stay clear of everyone when you break that idiot out of prison. To do that I have left you a tool to open a senkaimon, concentrate on where you want to go, and it will open there without a problem.

Good Luck, Imôto!

Reading this letter was like seeing Kisuke in front of her with that stupid fan of his, that idiot liked teasing her with what his inventions can and cannot do.

"What do you guys think?"

"Queenie, he is a lousy ass," Zangetsu grumbled.

"Firstly, jump out of that Gigai, then we can plan what to do with a prison break he wanted us to do," Ossan said.

It was weird to have such talkative inner spirits, but she loved them nonetheless – sometimes she wondered why no one else in Soul Society didn't have such great friendship with themselves. After all, I did know that they had always been there for her from the start and would be there for decades and centuries more.