A/N: Sunshine and daisies!
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SIEBENUNDZWANZIG
TIMELINE X + N
Kisuke tried to clamp down his mixed feelings and anxiety. Orihime's power was miraculous, yes, but even she had limits. She sometimes didn't know her limits. So much was riding on whether her Shun Shun Rikka would be effective and he had to be ready to change course for varying degrees of success or failure at a moment's notice. He needed to make their group attractive to Akemi. It would make his life so much easier if she was a willing participant.
He knew what he would have to do if she tried to leave. And that his actions would piss off everyone but Tessai and Yoruichi. Hitsugaya could go either way. The young captain had his orders but he had a personal stake in the situation and a protective streak that rivaled the Kurosakis'. He was a wildcard.
Everyone made hopeful sounds as Akemi returned the Grief Seed to Kisuke, who hummed and looked at it thoughtfully before putting it away. "Do they have any comments about the items?" he asked.
Orihime looked at her fairies expectantly. After some chattering and chiming, Orihime looked back to Kisuke. "They say it might be pretty draining because it'll be complex— they have to reject the contamination and the transformation. Something about the crystal structure being different between the two? They won't know for sure until we try. But they mostly understand how the Soul Gems and Grief Seeds are the same and how they're different, so they should be able to work with it." One of the fairies chattered. "Oh, Ayame says thanks for having them watch that. It was very helpful. They won't have to waste energy figuring out the best way to do it."
"You are quite welcome, Ayame!" Kisuke said, making a show of preening. "Would you like to take a look at Karin's Grief Seed right now?"
"Sure!" Orihime cheered.
Kisuke put away the Pumpkin Witch's Grief Seed and removed Karin's from its container. He delicately set it on the table. Orihime held her hands out.
"Sōten Kisshun: I Reject!"
The two fairies floated on opposite sides of the Grief Seed. A translucent gold shield snapped into place over it. Black reishi drifted up and dissipated against the shield like smoke. Isshin and Ichigo gripped the table and leaned forward, staring intensely at Karin's soul. Fifteen minutes slipped by before the black stone shifted color to have muddy traces of red. Sweat beaded on Orihime's temples as the color slowly progressed from opaque dark carnelian to mildly translucent dark garnet. It gained more clarity over the next twenty minutes, shifting to a dark spinel before crimson light blossomed from the crown of the Grief Seed and flowed downward around the silver spindle like flower petals. There was a pulse of energy as the hollow space filled with red reishi. The silver, strawberry-shaped decoration atop the Grief Seed shimmered and filled out with ruby light, the metal shifting from silver to gold. Gold settings burst out and wrapped down the egg-shaped ruby, met at the bottom, and filled out along the bottom to form a golden cup. After one last pulse of light, Orihime's fairies disengaged their shield and wobbled back to their tired mistress.
Kisuke allowed himself to breathe again. Best case scenario achieved. Time for a break before plotting revenge.
Isshin burst into tears while Ichigo broke into relieved laughter. Everyone made celebratory and relieved sounds. Akemi, however, stared with eyes wide as saucers. Flummoxed. Bewildered. Awed. Dumbfounded. Still reeling in apparent disbelief, Akemi shakily reached out and hovered a hand over the Soul Gem. Everyone could sense that it was Karin's reiatsu, strong and pure. Akemi's mouth opened and closed, unable to put what she was feeling into words.
"Well, Miss Akemi," Kisuke said with a grin. "Now it should only be a matter of reuniting the Soul Gem with Karin's body, correct?"
Akemi stared at him speechlessly for a long moment before nodding jerkily. Ichigo leaned across the table and happily lifted the Gem with reverent hands. Isshin was already in the hall on his way to the spare room the girls were in. Everyone followed in an excited jumble. Isshin lifted Karin's body and cradled it in his lap as Tessai canceled the stasis kidō. Ichigo approached, held his breath, and lay the Soul Gem in his sister's limp hand.
Karin immediately drew a breath and fluttered her eyelids. Isshin sobbed and held her close, rocking her like he had when she was small. Karin's breaths continued to come in gasps. Isshin pulled back to look at her. Karin's eyes jumped from person to person before landing on Yuzu's body. Her face slowly contorted, hands shakily rising to her head.
Karin screamed.
Kisuke's best case scenario slipped from his grasp.
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Thirty-five grim-faced, fully briefed shinigami stood in neat ranks near Seireitei's main senkaimon. It was quite the unusual sight, most missions being of a much smaller scale. The five chosen lieutenants stood at the head of the lines of each of their personally selected teams, each with a Twelfth Division scientist already delegated to it. They deployed over the Mitakihara train station as soon as Captain Ukitake issued their orders, then split up to cover their assigned areas. The gloomy skies suited their moods, all subdued and wary for a threat they might have little warning of.
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Red eyes in expressionless faces stared skyward from multiple locations.
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Kisuke projected concern and confusion while he tried to figure out just how big a disaster this was going to be and how it would affect Akemi's cooperation.
Isshin struggled to hold Karin still as she thrashed and sobbed while hyperventilating. "Karin. Karin, sweetie, it's okay, you're safe, shhh, you're safe."
"Am not! Am not!"
"Yes, you are, baby. Daddy has you. You're safe. Just breathe. Deep breaths. Come on, deeeeep breaths."
Karin threw her head back, mouth open wide, and took wheezing gasps as she stared at the ceiling. When she had downshifted into loudly crying, she clung to her father and babbled, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Daddy, I'm so sorry, oh my God I'm sorry!"
Isshin rocked her and soothingly said, "You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetie. Just keep breathing."
"B-but I tried to hurt everyone and Yu-yuzu-uu is d-dead and oh my God she was inside me oh my God!" She clutched her chest as though to tear out her heart and started hyperventilating again. "Yuzu, Yuzu, Yuzu, Yuzu—!"
Kisuke and everyone else in the room froze at her words.
Uryū's eyes turned to Akemi. "I thought you were all unaware when disconnected from your bodies?" he asked in an undertone.
Akemi helplessly shrugged and held up her hands, wide-eyed and completely at a loss. These were uncharted waters.
"My guess would be disconnection by distance causes dormancy while the active nature of the Witch was accompanied by some awareness," Kisuke said with a frown.
"Oh my God I was a Witch oh my God!"
Kisuke cringed. "Oops."
Isshin tried to keep Karin pinned to his chest as she kept wailing, but she struggled against him. She dropped her Soul Gem, broke free for a moment, and lunged for her sister, but Isshin was able to get his arms around her and pull her back against his chest, still facing out and wailing.
"Bring her back, too!" Karin cried. "You brought me back, bring back Yuzu! Do it!"
Kisuke saw Orihime's uncertain glance and covered his face with a hand to massage his eyes. This was spiraling out of control.
"DO IT! DO IT NOW! WHY ARE YOU WAITING?!"
"Hey, Urahara," Ichigo bit out, using the his actual name for once. It pained Kisuke. "Just get out Yuzu's Grief Seed so we can help them both, yeah? They'll help each other."
In the ensuing silence, the various witnesses gradually became aware of Kisuke, Hitsugaya, and Akemi avoiding eye contact with everyone else.
Isshin looked to Kisuke in confusion. "What are you waiting for, Kisuke? Get out Yuzu's Grief Seed."
Kisuke's heart dropped. He should have explained the situation earlier. It had been cruel to not put upper limits on his friend's hope. Now it would look like he intentionally deceived them all. Great. How to spin this?
Karin sagged back and devolved into a disturbing mix of sobbing and humorless laughter.
Kisuke still hesitated. Bluntness would be... unkind.
"There isn't one," Akemi said in a strained voice
"What? You gave it to Sandal-Hat back in the place," Ichigo said with confusion.
"That wasn't Yuzu's," Akemi answered, looking like she was facing a firing squad. "That was the Grief Seed of the Witch who... who destroyed Yuzu's Soul Gem."
A heavy silence filled the room. It was like everyone in the room was holding their breaths and staring at Akemi. Kisuke's throat burned as he swallowed his shame that the fourteen-year-old child had gathered the nerve to say it to Ichigo and Isshin's faces before he did.
Isshin turned to Kisuke. "She's wrong, right? You have Yuzu's soul, right?"
Kisuke regretfully said, "Isshin—"
"You have her soul for Inoue to fix, right? Get it out. This isn't the time for your pranks." Isshin's face was slowly drawing into horrified, desperate grief once more. It was an expression Kisuke hadn't seen since he told the man he was unable to retrieve his newly-dead wife's soul from the Hollow that had eaten her.
"Can't glue it back together if the pieces are all gone!" Karin lilted through her tears with an edge of madness that suggested her alternative contribution was endless screaming.
Ichigo looked back to her, alarmed. "Karin—"
"Can't put the puzzle back together if you burn up all the pieces! Just ashes, ashes everywhere!"
Isshin tried to peer around his daughter's head to see her face. "Karin, sweetie—"
"Ashes won't make pretty pictures anymore they just blow and blow and blow away—"
"What— what the hell? Karin? Karin, look at me!" Ichigo called out as he shuffled in front of her on his knees.
"Yuzu's soul was pretty glitter sparkle-sparkle and it blew and blew and blewww away and wouldn't let me caaatch iii-iii-iiit!" Karin slipped into tired, moaning wails, shoulders hitching with each sob.
Ichigo flinched hard, then whipped to Kisuke with a question plain on his face. Kisuke met his eyes and solemnly affirmed, "Yuzu's Soul Gem was destroyed before the girls showed up in the shop yesterday."
Isshin went white, closed his eyes, and tried to keep calm while tightening his grip on his surviving daughter. Ichigo whispered a broken little "What?"
"Yuzu's soul is gone," Kisuke said softly. "I'm sorry. I can't bring her back."
It killed him to say it. He generally tried to protect the Kurosaki family from the fallout of Aizen dragging the parents into spiritual experiments. He had redoubled that promise to himself after Ichigo's sacrifices— sworn that at least the twins would be kept safe. Now he had to admit failure.
Again.
Deep within his Inner World, his zanpakutō stirred and sighed, You will be of no use if you wallow, Kisuke.
Right. Move through it. Kisuke willed his thanks to Benihime. She just sighed again and gave the impression of shaking her head over her embroidery hoop.
Orihime gasped loudly and threw her arms forward. "Sōten Kisshun: I Reject!"
Confused, everyone cast about for what she was reacting to and followed the fairies to where Karin's Soul Gem lay on the floor. The ruby was darkened and actively dimming. The shining golden shield appeared over it and siphoned off the darkness.
"But she hasn't been in a labyrinth!" Hitsugaya shouted.
"She has descended into despair again," Akemi explained quietly. "That is enough."
"So, what, it's gonna keep going dark until she's happy again?" Jinta asked incredulously with a pained look at Yuzu. "Because I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon."
"Not exactly," Akemi answered.
"I'll just keep helping her until she doesn't need me to," Orihime said with a determined pout as her fairies returned to her.
"Inoue... I don't know how wise that is," Sado said quietly. "You're pale."
"This part was easy! The other part was the hard part," Orihime insisted.
"Ichi-niiiii-iiiii-iiiii," Karin sobbed. "Don't be mad at Homuraaa, 's not allowed, not, not, not—"
Ichigo turned tearful eyes back to her. "W-what? Why would I—?"
Karin's voice varied from a moan to an enraged shout and back again as she answered, "She tried and did her secret thing and stopped everything click-click-freeze but thAT BITCH SHOT US SO FAST we were already hit when she stopped the clahhh-hahhh-hock."
Everyone else had been still and silent, so the whisper of Akemi shifting her feet was plain to those near her. Beside her, Kisuke instinctively reacted with swiftness befitting his former position in the Second Division and clamped his hand around her right wrist just as her shield burst into being on her left arm. The rest of her battle costume quickly followed. He was aware of a click and a rattle as he looked at the girl's face and saw she was frightened and deathly pale. Kisuke kept his eyes on the girl and expected the others to help restrain her, but no one moved.
Eyes wild, Akemi turned toward him, twisting her body to face him while swinging her free arm back. She leaned back and tugged her captured wrist hard; he turned to face her properly and tightened his grip to keep her anchored, which he immediately realized was her plan as she used the resistance to generate torque and propel her shield arm up at him in a forceful arc. Kisuke easily caught her wrist, of course, but immediately found himself with no open hand to block the taser aimed perfectly at his chest. She must have dropped it into her hand from her little bag of tricks on her backswing. An instant too late at twisting her wrist to ruin her aim, he did manage to flare his reiatsu in defense soon enough to mitigate most of the damage and pain the attack should have caused him. A strong electrical current sizzling through one's body was far from enjoyable in even a mild application, though. He grit his teeth and rode it out, having experienced far worse in his years in covert ops.
When Akemi realized her escape gamble had failed and gotten her doubly caught instead, her face truly fell into panic. She wildly fought against Kisuke's iron grip on both of her arms but was unable to move them at all. Kisuke twisted her wrist more to force her to drop the taser. It fell, but the cartridge separated from the main body of the weapon so weight didn't pull the darts out of his chest. Bothersome.
Kisuke blinked rapidly. After shaking his head out and smacking his tingling lips experimentally, he said, "That was terribly rude of you, Miss Akemi." He cleared his throat and worked his jaw a bit. "Clever, and excellent quick thinking, but terribly rude."
"Let me go," Akemi breathed.
"No." Kisuke looked down at the two wires trailing their way up to the darts embedded in his chest. "Ah, Yoruichi will never let me live this down," he lamented.
Neither shall I, Benihime murmured.
Kisuke quashed his urge to sigh deeply. He looked back at the girl. "You could have killed me with one of your guns, you know." Not really, but she didn't need to know that.
"I don't want to kill you," Akemi said impatiently, though everything else about her screamed of fear. "I just want you to let me go." She kept pulling.
"Oh, really?" Kisuke said with exaggerated interest, tightening his grip and turning to the rest of the group. "Hey, everybody, what do you think I should— do...?"
Literally everything and everyone in the room but he and the magical girl were impossibly still. The world's color had a faded, washed out quality and a bluish cast. Several people were frozen mid-blink. Karin's anguish was a silent tableau. The dropped taser was suspended in midair halfway to the floor. The surreality distracted him for a brief moment.
Akemi capitalized on his inattention immediately, using his grip on her wrists to brace herself while she pivoted on her right leg, sharply drew her left knee up across her chest, and brutally drove the heel of her boot into the side of Kisuke's kneecap. It dislocated with a loud crack as she summoned a hunting knife from her shield, its blade stabbing out at his hand and succeeding in slicing him from the middle of his thumb to a few inches up his wrist before losing momentum and falling away. She must have expected him to let go of her in surprise and pain and topple over. Instead, he grunted with the pain and shifted his stance to balance mostly on one leg, slid his injured right hand up her arm, and tore the shield from her wrist, skinning her left thumb to the bone with the clasp in the process. He slung the disc away with little thought.
Akemi screamed as the world around them reanimated. She desperately lashed out with the same leg, trying to kick him in the groin, but he grabbed her ankle and lifted her leg to throw off her balance. She tried to punch him with her bloody hand, but his height advantage and her awkwardly bent angle let him dodge easily.
Benihime projected respect for the girl's tenacity. He would never hear the end of this.
To the rest of the room's occupants, Kisuke and Akemi went from solemnly watching Karin's reawakening one moment to facing each other, each balancing on one leg as Kisuke held Akemi's arm and leg up in a bizarre ballet pose in the next as a bloody knife and a taser fell to the floor and Akemi's shield rocketed into a wall and dissolved in violet sparkles. It was all topped off with Akemi— inexplicably in her costume when she hadn't been a moment earlier— ineffectively beating one violet-encased fist against Kisuke's chest from an awkward angle as she wobbled on her free leg.
"What the hell just happened?!" Jinta screeched into the stunned silence.
How the hell could Kisuke salvage this?
Karin switched out hysterical sobbing for creepy hysterical laughter.
Kisuke peered around the room as though surprised, pretending to completely ignore Akemi's continued assault. "Oh, my. Well, this is awkward."
"Your talent for understatement will never cease to amuse me," Yoruichi droned. "What the hell, Kisuke?"
"What, indeed," he replied to everyone's immediate annoyance. After a minute of analytical thought in which the captured magical girl struggled with increasing desperation, Kisuke faced her. "I'm guessing this is what Karin meant when she said you stopped the clock? You can stop time, or do something similar enough to it to be functionally the same?"
Sounds of surprise, disbelief, and amazement murmured through the room. Akemi didn't reply; she just kept fighting to get away.
"But physical contact with you must negate the technique. Otherwise, you would be gone already, wouldn't you? And it must have something to do with your shield. Time resumed when I disarmed you. Am I on the right track?"
Akemi was going to break her own wrist and ankle if she fought his grip any harder. He could feel the bones in her wrist creaking under her skin. Careful, careful.
Kisuke tilted his head. "Tessai said he overheard you apologizing to Isshin for holding back in battle. Is this what you meant? Not using this technique soon enough?"
The girl flinched.
He had her.
Kisuke turned pensive. "This is how you move around so quickly, isn't it? You freeze time and don't let it start again until you're safely away." Upon further reflection, he said, "Ah, that's how you dodged the Witch's fire in the labyrinth, isn't it?"
Akemi stared at him with the wild gaze of prey cornered by a predator. Now he had to turn this whole thing around.
"Honestly, I can understand why you would want to hide this. The prospect is terrifying and there are far too many people who would want to use you for their own gain. It was actually quite wise of you to hide this," Kisuke said conversationally. "You did a good job of concealing this up until now. I respect that. I never would have guessed this just from sight. I thought you might have some form of teleportation. That would have been interesting. This is amazing."
"Please don't experiment on me," Akemi rasped frightfully, eyes suddenly tearful.
Kisuke frowned in surprise. What?
Akemi turned her face to the others and cried, "Don't let him experiment on me!"
"Urahara—!" Ichigo gasped out. The others looked at Kisuke in outrage.
The wily little—
Benihime crooned her interest, then added, You would be a fool to underestimate this one, Kisuke.
Indeed, he thought. His entire grasp of the situation was shaken. He had to regroup. Until then, he had a role to play.
Kisuke blinked innocently, leaned back, and released the girl's ankle. "Of course not. Not without your permission. You'll want to avoid the current captain of the Twelfth Division, though. He's less scrupulous."
A long silence stretched between them as they looked at each other. Akemi manifested a new shield but didn't use it, just eyed the scientist and his grip on her arm suspiciously.
"What are you going to do to me?" Akemi asked coldly. She had already discarded her mask of vulnerability; or was it the other way around? Had she masked her vulnerability?
"Do?" Kisuke hummed. "I don't plan to do anything to you. Unless you run away— then I will seek and restrain you." He looked her in the eye seriously. "You are our only coherent—" by which he meant most sane— "source of information on the magical girl system and this Incubator you spoke of."
"I'm co-oh-herent, you-ou asshole!" Karin protested between ragged gasps.
No one really wanted to touch that.
"The shinigami government—!" Akemi protested.
"Will hurt you over my dead body," Ichigo interrupted with a snarl.
"Captain Hitsugaya?" Kisuke asked politely.
After a moment, Hitsugaya carefully answered, "I don't see how the specific niche abilities Akemi acquired through her victimization are directly relevant to reports about this Incubator and the magical girl cycle in general. For now. Not unless she moves to use said abilities against souls in general or the Thirteen Divisions in particular. Or if all magical girls can stop time."
Karin laughed harshly. "Homura's a special snowflake."
"Then I don't see reason not to be... reserved... in reports. Kurotsuchi is already creepily fascinated by this whole thing." Hitsugaya looked at Akemi with the stern countenance of a military officer. "Should I perceive you as a threat or should your power become worrisome, I may choose to privately inform the Captain-Commander of it. I think he would see the wisdom in keeping such an ability out of the written record and public knowledge. At our meeting last night, he specifically said he trusted Urahara and Shihoin's judgment with you. I agree. For now."
After a pause to consider her words, Akemi said, "As long as the shinigami government is aligned against the Incubator instead of magical girls and I am guaranteed safety from experiments or confinement, I will cooperate."
She would make a good lawyer when she grew up with phrasing like that, honestly.
"Agreed," Hitsugaya said, inclining his chin briefly.
That was too easy, Kisuke thought. He watched the girl's face, which had smoothed into calm neutrality. Something was off. Why would she fight so hard only to easily give in without an extended argument?
There was a long, awkward pause after Kisuke released Akemi's wrist. No one quite knew what to say. Orihime directed her fairies to heal Kisuke and Akemi's hands and Kisuke's knee. Kisuke picked the taser darts out of his chest.
"She managed to dislocate your knee and tase you, Kisuke? Really?" Yoruichi said incredulously.
"She tricked me," Kisuke whined childishly, deliberately trying to ease the tension in the room.
"Pssh. All that time in your lab's made you soft." She gave Akemi a thumbs up. "Congratulations on getting one over on Kisuke. He needs to be smacked down once in awhile."
Akemi seemed to correctly interpret their little scene as We have no hard feelings about your violent escape attempt. Or at least pretended to rather well.
"Soooooo," Yoruichi drawled after another minute of awkward silence. "Stopping time. That must be... interesting."
It was quite alarming, actually. Especially in the hands of a child.
"I wish you could turn it back," Karin sniffled, calmer than she had been, if only due to exhaustion. "Maybe we could... Yuzu could..." She closed her eyes and covered her face, shoulders shaking. Isshin hugged her close.
Akemi pursed her lips and said nothing, eyes darting to the floor to the wall to the ceiling to the window— anywhere but at a human face.
Several of the room's occupants looked at each other, finding her reaction strange.
"Can you?" blurted Orihime with wide, innocent eyes. Akemi's eyes slid to Orihime, seemingly against her will. "Can you turn time back, too?"
Kisuke stared at Akemi. The prospect was... alarming wasn't a strong enough word.
Akemi didn't answer, face stonily blank. Her lack of a denial drew everyone's attention again.
"H-homura?" Karin asked, voice wobbling with hope.
Akemi frowned and looked at a wall, shifting uncomfortably. She still didn't deny it.
Karin pried her father's arms off of her, flailed to the floor, and crawled to Akemi, her legs too shaky to stand. She knelt in front of Akemi and grasped the girl's purple skirt in white-knuckled hands. Her face was transfixed as though looking up at a goddess. "Can you?" she whispered. "Can you go back in time and save Yuzu?"
Akemi looked down at her friend's tear-streaked face, bit her lip, and seemed to decide to throw her lot in with them. "It's... not that simple. But maybe."
Kisuke's brain died. Forced shutdown. Blank.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Jinta muttered.
Karin tightened her grip on Akemi's skirt and tugged. Crying, she asked, "Can you go back and tell me and Yuzu not to contract?"
"No."
"You just fucking said you can go back in time," sneered Jinta.
Homura glanced his way. "I can't go that far back."
"Then what's the point?"
"How far back can you go?" Kisuke asked quietly as his mind rebooted and immediately overclocked.
Overclocked. Ha.
Akemi turned back to Kisuke. "March sixteenth. A bit over six weeks."
Kisuke tilted his head. "That's awfully specific."
Akemi stared back. "Yes." She didn't elaborate.
"That's far enough to save Yuzu, though!" Karin said quickly. "Will you do it?! Will you go back in time?!"
Isshin and Ichigo held their breaths, looking at the girl hopefully. Kisuke drilled his eyes into her and wished he could read her mind.
Akemi shifted unhappily. When she spoke, her voice was subdued. "It is not so much a matter of if I go back, but how much I will be able to do next time I go back."
Kisuke's mind tripped on that last phrase. Next time?
"There are so many variables that it is extremely difficult to achieve a desired outcome," Akemi continued. "I have already failed my mission in this timeline again."
"'Again'?" Isshin murmured with dread.
"What mission?" asked Yoruichi.
Akemi closed her eyes. "To get Madoka... and as many of my other friends as possible through the last six weeks and tomorrow's attack alive, sane, and without turning. Preferably keeping Madoka from contracting."
There was a long silence as everyone thought through the implications of her stated goals— that her friends died, went insane, or turned into Witches, over and over.
Kisuke delicately asked, "How many times have you repeated the last six weeks trying to save them?"
Akemi didn't answer immediately. At length, she dully said, "I lost track somewhere in the forties. That was awhile ago. I do not bother counting anymore."
"Oh my God," Ichigo whispered. A lot of Homura's strange behavior began to make sense to Kisuke— and others, it seemed. Isshin closed his eyes for a moment and scrubbed a hand across his face.
"Even just forty times...," Uryū said, gaping. "Forty times six weeks... that's four— no, four-and-a-half years on its own!"
Akemi shrugged apathetically. "The concept of 'years' does not hold much meaning for me anymore."
"How are you still sane?" demanded Uryū. "How have you not given up?"
Akemi glared at him with steel in her eyes. She chose to ignore his concern for her sanity. "As long as there is a chance to save Madoka, I'll never give up. I don't care how hard it is. I don't care how many times it takes. I don't care if I have to take care of all the Witches in Mitakihara and defeat Walpurgisnacht by myself. I will save her."
Uryū stared, stunned speechless. Akemi had no way of knowing, but she had sown seeds of respect among all of those present.
She is ours, now, Benihime whispered slowly. The Kurosakis will have nothing less. She is already their kin in spirit, therefor she is now ours to protect. And—
This was it. Kisuke's chance to completely undo his failure to protect the Kurosaki girls. This was it.
He could not fuck this up.
Karin let go of Akemi's skirt and sat back. "You're serious about taking Walpurgisnacht down by yourself, aren't you, you crazy bitch?" Akemi just frowned down at her. Karin tilted her head and hollowly said, "You're a fucking self-defeating masochist." Akemi's frown turned into an offended scowl.
"What is Walpurgisnacht?" Hitsugaya asked with a frown.
Akemi waved her hand dismissively. "It is not important. I can handle it."
"Bullshit," Ichigo snapped.
"She told me it's a giant Witch without a labyrinth that's gonna drop on Mitakihara like a hurricane-bomb tomorrow morning," Karin said. She looked Akemi in the face unrepentantly. "And she said the Witch is so big because it's a Witch collection like a Menos Grande is a Hollow collection."
Alarmed, everyone stared up at Akemi to see if she would deny it. She didn't. Ichigo screeched, "Not important?!"
Akemi shrugged. "I am abandoning this timeline tomorrow. I was going to see how well Karin and Yuzu fought with me in hope of teaming up with them and Mami and Kyōko next time. Perhaps the five of us would be enough to take out Walpurgisnacht. But I cannot do that now. The outcome of this timeline's fight no longer matters. I will not bother returning to Mitakihara before my turnback point."
"There's a specific point you travel back from? Every time?" Kisuke asked. He patted down his haori in search of the pen he had... probably left in the other room. His mind raced feverishly. This was it. This was it. This was his lever. He'd help her with the threat to her charges, she'd help him with the threat to his charges. A package deal. Mutual benefit.
Could. Not. Fuck. This. Up.
"Excuse me," Tessai interrupted. "Forgive me, but this is an awkward place to have such a discussion. Both by available space and... other reasons." By which he meant Yuzu's corpse, which they had been talking over the entire time. Oops. "Perhaps we should move back to the table?"
It was generally accepted as a good idea, so everyone trickled out of the room. Kisuke and Akemi paused at the door to see what the Kurosaki family would do. They looked torn.
Kon jumped down from the shelf he had fled to in the initial stampede of people. "I still don't really understand what the hell is happening, but you'd better go deal with it if there's a chance of helping Yuzu. I'll stay with her." That said, the plushie waddled over to Yuzu's head and plopped down. He patted her hair with one paw. "See? She won't be alone. Now scram. Figure out how to fix this."
Isshin and Ichigo stood and helped Karin up. Ichigo then scooped up Karin's Soul Gem as Isshin helped Karin wobble into the hallway. She froze in the doorway and refused to move for a minute, tearfully staring at her twin. Then she scrubbed her face angrily and croaked, "Let's go figure out how to save Yuzu and fuck up Walpurgisnacht."
Kisuke wasn't even going to have to convince anyone to do this. They had already decided. They just needed to work out the details.
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This chapter was replaced with an edited version on November 1, 2019. Reviews with timestamps before that date refer to a slightly different version of the chapter.