A/N: As always, thank you so much for your continued support. :)
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ACHTUNDDREIßIG
TIMELINE X + N + 1
Tōshirō Hitsugaya was in a foul mood. His lieutenant had procrastinated on multiple reports he needed for his monthly expense report. Goading her through them had shot his nerves even before he had to rush through the compilation and submit it to First Division at the last possible moment. Now Matsumoto was slumped on the office coffee table over a magazine, whining about the cold from the windows Tōshirō had deliberately opened to annoy her while he went through incident reports.
The woman's unhealthy habit of gleefully pushing people's buttons was going to bite her one day.
The curtains suddenly swished. A black cat appeared on Tōshirō's desk. He was nearly startled out of his chair. "Dammit, Shihoin!" he sputtered.
Matsumoto swerved upright delightedly. "Kitty!" She waved when Yoruichi glanced over her shoulder. "Hi, Yoruichi! Wanna go out for drinks?"
"Maybe some other time, Ran," the cat drawled. "I'm here on business."
"Oh?" Matsumoto cooed.
Yoruichi turned back to the captain. "I need to speak with you in private, Captain Hitsugaya. I have sensitive information for you."
Tōshirō raised a brow at her seriousness. He glanced at Matsumoto. "You are dismissed, Lieutenant."
Matsumoto pouted dramatically, though her eyes were sharply concerned. "But—"
"Matsumoto. Out," he snapped.
The two shinigami silently listened to Matsumoto's footsteps fade away with distance, then looked at each other.
"You need to come to Urahara Shop as soon as possible," Yoruichi began.
"Why?"
"The Kurosaki girls have gotten caught up in some kind of spiritual mess. They've told their family and Ichigo's friends part of it, but they're all stonewalling Kisuke on what the problem actually is until you and I get there."
Tōshirō frowned, concerned for the girls. "Why me, though?"
The cat dipped her head and looked up at him with heavy eyelids. "According to Kisuke, they think you are the Thirteen Divisions officer who will react the most sensibly."
Meaning the girls had entangled themselves in something that could piss off a lot of the older command structure into overreacting and they wanted their friend to be their inside advocate. Joy.
Tōshirō pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Give me about an hour to wrap up my work so no one comes looking for me."
"See you in an hour, Captain," Yoruichi drawled. She was gone with a whisper of the curtains.
Tōshirō stared at his paperwork and sighed.
§ x § x §
Homura focused on her teacup as everyone endured the tense silence while they waited for Captain Hitsugaya to arrive. Her heart was fluttering, adrenaline singing through her veins as she considered the many ways the meeting could go wrong and tried to ignore Kisuke Urahara's curious looks. The Kurosaki family had arrayed themselves around her defensively, one sister on either side of her and their brother and father serving as human bookends beyond them.
Everyone looked up as they sensed the atmosphere shift outside. All but Homura recognized the feeling. To Homura, it felt like a much neater, brighter version of the gateways the girls had called Garganta. Then the power dimmed and left only Captain Hitsugaya's chilly magic.
"Oh, great, he's already annoyed," Karin said morbidly. "This will go well."
The young man was already frowning when he entered the room and swept his eyes around the table. He raised a brow at Isshin's presence— Homura remembered that he was in on the Kurosaki sibling plan to pretend the girls didn't know their father's heritage. The captain glanced back to Karin and stared flatly. "What did you get yourself into this time?"
Karin looked down and to the side, face red, and didn't reply. Lack of loud objection to his tone seemed to worry him.
"Please take a seat, Captain Hitsugaya, and we will begin." Urahara waved at the table, which was quite surrounded as Homura had insisted everyone from the shop should be present. She had stubbornly refused to explain why when asked.
Homura allowed Isshin to describe the basics so she could focus on watching the reactions of the listeners. She noticed that Urahara took notes studiously while Yoruichi's gold cat eyes rarely looked away from her. Homura stared right back.
"All right," Urahara said when Isshin was done. "I know you girls described the specifics in detail earlier, but I'd appreciate hearing it from you instead of secondhand."
Karin drew breath to speak but Homura cut her off. "Ishida took a voice recording. It will probably be easiest to listen to that and ask questions afterward. To make sure we do not leave anything out by accident."
Urahara peered at Homura as though considering a puzzle. She suppressed her discomfort and raised a brow at him in challenge. He finally tilted his chin in assent. Ishida set up the phone. Urahara took notes as everyone looked more and more disturbed. Yoruichi still watched Homura while the girl kept assessing reactions.
When the recording was over, Homura calmly asked if anyone had questions. Urahara, face gone from curious to grim at the mention of the artifact he had spent decades trying to destroy, answered, "Not at the moment. I want to hear the rest of this... complicated story."
Homura tented her fingertips over the table thoughtfully. "I think my explanation will be taken more seriously if I first transform and demonstrate my main magical ability."
Urahara perked up in interest. "I want to see you transform anyway. Please feel free to do so."
Homura nodded and moved with deliberate slowness, not wanting to be perceived as a threat again. She held out her left hand and made her Soul Gem manifest above her ring with a thought. After a pause for everyone to get a good look at it, she triggered her transformation with a burst of purple light.
"Holy shit, you weren't kidding," Jinta blurted.
Homura glanced at him sideways. "Of course not," she sniffed. She looked to the rest of her audience. "To best demonstrate my ability, I need us to be a human chain. You can only see it if you are touching me or something else that is touching me."
Several people looked suspicious, but Yuzu immediately clasped Homura's outstretched right hand, grabbed Isshin's hand on her other side, and glared around the table until everyone was complying— even Yoruichi, who perched on Tessai's broad shoulders. Homura raised her shield and triggered its magic with a thought. Three circles on its surface irised open to show glass-covered cavities, two small ones holding different volumes of bright violet sand, the large central circle containing clockwork. After a click and a whir of gears, the colors of the world around them faded away and the birdsong from outdoors fell silent.
After a pause, Jinta sarcastically asked, "So, what, you suck the color out of everything? That's reeeal useful."
Homura glared at him and turned to Karin, the only person with a free hand. "Pick up your teacup. Hold it up high." Karin dubiously complied. "Now drop it."
Eyebrows raised around the table. "It'll spill," Karin objected.
"Do not worry about that," Homura said with a dismissive wave of her shield hand. "Just drop it."
"If you say so," Karin said.
Karin dropped the cup. It fell about six centimeters before its color faded and it stopped in midair. Everyone stared.
"What," Hitsugaya said flatly.
"Put your hand under it and raise it until you are holding it again," Homura instructed.
Karin glanced at Homura and did so. The cup settled in her palm and regained its color. "What."
"Lift it again," Homura ordered. When Karin had done so, she continued, "Now pour it out quickly."
Karin squinted at her suspiciously but did so. The small amount of tea left in the cup streamed from its rim. When free of the cup, the liquid froze in place. Most of the audience looked dumbfounded. Urahara and Mr. Tsukabishi looked fascinated.
"How would you classify this ability?" Urahara asked.
"I can stop time," Homura replied. She reached up and took the teacup from Karin's numb fingers and positioned it beneath the stream of tea.
"How interesting," Urahara said with delight.
"I suppose," Homura said distantly as she lifted the cup until it made contact with the blob of tea, which immediately reanimated and fell into the cup with a slosh.
"That's how you got behind me earlier, isn't it?" Ishida asked with astonishment. "I didn't sense you move, but you did..."
Homura hummed and nodded. Urahara looked intrigued and asked, "Now, what does this have to do with your explanation?"
Homura straightened and pushed her hair behind one ear as she waved at everyone to drop their hands. "I have a related ability that I cannot demonstrate."
"If she says time travel, I swear to God...," Jinta grumbled.
Homura directed a deadpan stare at Jinta.
"No fucking way."
Mr. Tsukabishi narrowed his eyes at him. "Language." Jinta huffed and looked away.
"Miss Akemi?" Urahara prompted.
"Many of the questions I am certain you have about me and what I know can be explained by way of my time travel," Homura explained. "This is the second time I have met all of you. I insisted upon the presence of everyone here because you were the people directly involved in the events that transpired who also knew I could time travel." She ignored various sputtered questions. "Your future selves gave me evidence and letters to inform you of what happened and corroborate my story." Homura looked up at Urahara. "You gave me a compilation of the research you were able to perform in the week I knew you."
Orihime clapped her hands excitedly. "What is the future like? Are there flying cars?"
Homura frowned at her in disapproval, but noticed the older girl's face still looked tense. Trying to lighten the mood? "I only came from six weeks from now."
"Oh," Orihime said disappointedly.
"What is the future like, though, Miss Akemi?" Urahara asked genially, though his eyes were hard. "Surely there was a reason for you to return to this point in your past."
Jinta looked from face to face in disbelief. "Wait, we're believing her? Just like that?"
"Of course not," Urahara said cheerfully. "But I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt— for now."
Everyone watched Homura expectantly but she just frowned down at her tea.
"You said something about a Hōgyoku and a King's Key," Isshin prompted. "Is the Incubator trying to make one?"
Homura lifted her face and pursed her lips. "I saw them."
"This Incubator?" asked Hitsugaya.
"That, too," Homura answered. "But I am talking about the Hōgyoku and King's Key."
Silence.
"What do you mean, you saw them?" Urahara asked quietly.
"I saw the Incubator combine hundreds of Soul Gems to make something the other you said was a Hōgyoku. Then it used that to steal the souls of everyone around Karakura to make something that shone gold. The other you called it a King's Key." She examined the pale faces around the table. "By the time I left, I think the only survivors were myself, the other Mr. Urahara, the Incubator, and the shinigami with the—" she bit back terrifying because she didn't want to show fear— "formidable fire magic. Everyone else was killed or absorbed." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "The other Mr. Urahara may have died right before I came back. I was catching fire so it is a bit of a blur."
"You were catching fire," Isshin echoed numbly.
"Everything was," Homura said with a nonchalant shrug.
"Why aren't you burned, then?" Jinta asked skeptically.
"My time travel is... mental, I suppose," Homura explained. "I always wake up in bed on March sixteenth."
"So, like loading a game from a save point after you screw up?" Karin asked.
"I suppose," Homura answered. It was an accurate analogy, but not one she particularly liked.
"What you mean by 'always'?" Sado asked quietly.
Homura frowned sourly. "This may be the second timeline in which I have met all of you, but it is not the second timeline overall. I have repeated the same six weeks dozens of times trying to get everything right." Homura sat straighter and regally glanced around the table. "Your other selves assured me of your cooperation. I would like to proceed as quickly as possible."
Everyone sat in silence for a couple long minutes as Homura sipped her tea in a forced bluff of calm. "Right," Urahara said slowly. "I think our next step should be to consider this evidence you brought back with you." He tilted his head. "I am curious how you brought anything back with you if your time travel is mental, though."
Homura hummed. "My other ability is to store items in my shield." She raised her arm to show the shield. "The items within come back with my magic— except for Grief Seeds. They disappear. I did acquire one the other night, though." She reached into the shield and pulled out a Grief Seed, then leaned forward to set it on the table. Urahara reached over and gingerly picked it up to look at it curiously. Homura was quiet for a minute while everyone watched Urahara, then asked, "Would you like me to distribute the evidence?"
Urahara looked at her seriously. "Please do."
So Homura started retrieving items from her shield— envelopes, notebooks, small boxes, even a couple scrolls that went to Yoruichi and Mr. Tsukabishi. When she was done, she sat back and watched everyone scrutinizing their time capsules from the future.
"Where are ours?" Karin asked.
Homura went still. Yuzu frowned. "Homura? Why didn't you get ours out?"
Homura dipped her chin and looked at her tea. "You... didn't give me any."
Yuzu tilted her head in confusion. "Why not?"
Homura bit her lip. Urahara raised a brow. "Miss Akemi?"
Mouth turned down into a hard frown, Homura looked at Urahara instead of the girls. She did not want to see their faces. "By the time the other you learned enough to come up with this plan, Karin and Yuzu were already dead."
Sharp gasps came from the Kurosaki family. Karin rasped, "We... we died? Like... before everyone else?"
Homura nodded silently.
"H-how?" Yuzu squeaked, grasping for her father's hand again.
Homura was quiet for a moment. Still looking at Urahara instead of the girls, she said, "Yuzu's Soul Gem was destroyed in the fight against the Witch stalking the train tracks. Karin tried to get you to save Yuzu. When you could not, she despaired and turned into a Witch." Homura glanced at Karin as the girl made a strangled sound. "Everyone here— except Ichigo's friends, that is— was caught in her labyrinth. We retrieved her Grief Seed. We discovered Inoue can revert the Grief Seed into a Soul Gem and revived Karin."
"I thought you said I died," Karin whispered, clutching her brother's hand where it rested on her shoulder.
"You did," Homura answered. "You remembered turning into a Witch and fighting us. Trying to kill us. And... other things." She really did not want to discuss Yuzu's corpse. "When you— she?— found out I would be going back in time and this you would not remember it, you— the other you— committed suicide by shattering her own Soul Gem to escape the memories," she finished heavily.
The Kurosaki family looked stricken. Ichigo gripped Karin's shoulder tightly, knuckles white. Isshin let go of Yuzu's hand and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in a protective gesture. Everyone else sat in stunned silence.
"That won't happen," Ichigo said roughly. "It won't. We won't let it."
Homura met his eyes, weighed his expression, and quietly said, "Good."
Urahara grimly gathered his pile of evidence. "Study what Miss Akemi gave you. Miss Akemi, please brief Karin and Yuzu on what you expect us to learn of the events that transpired. We will reconvene this evening for further discussion."
Everyone reached for their time capsules with varying levels of dread.
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Kisuke carefully set his boxes on the work table in his main lab and methodically removed the multiple complex kidō seals he supposed his hypothetical future self had placed on them to prevent tampering. He thought over the meeting as he worked. On one level, the communication of information by recording had been efficient. On the other hand, he would have preferred to have the girls repeat their testimony in person so he could have compared the two recordings for discrepancies and signs of deception. The swift abruptness of Homura Akemi's insistence on referring to the recording could mean many different things. She was well-controlled, spoke as though she was older than she looked, and whatever her motives were, she had successfully redirected the course of the meeting in a way that allowed her to observe everyone else instead of being scrutinized herself. She hadn't been perfect about it, of course— especially in the face of two former officers of the Second Division's covert operations— but it was impressive for someone so young.
If she was as young as she looked. He wasn't ruling out anything yet, especially given the claim that magical girls could continue in perpetuity given enough Grief Seeds to purify themselves with. And the time travel, if that really was true. He was leaning toward it being true given some of the kidō on the pile of time capsules Akemi had given him. Several of his own personal designs were used. No one save Tessai and perhaps Yoruichi should have known about any of them.
Finished with the initial unpacking, Kisuke took the Grief Seed out of his pocket and sat at his desk. He studied it for a few minutes, then reluctantly put it in an isolation jar to investigate later. He then rolled over to his work bench and exchanged the jar for the opened time capsules. His own untidy scrawl had numbered each small package in the order in which they should be opened. Item one was a notebook. Within it he found a long letter to himself written in several of the ciphers he and Yoruichi had invented for private correspondence when they were the Soul Society equivalent of teens, all in his own handwriting and describing multiple incidents from his life that only he should know. Thus convinced of the time travel portion of the magical girl's story, Kisuke moved on to the second package: A thumb drive containing multiple research abstracts in varying degrees of completion.
Kisuke rolled back to his desk, loaded the files, and cracked his neck, settling in to read as much of the summarized findings as possible.
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Kisuke was neither surprised that no one was particularly hungry when they reassembled that evening not that everyone still ate the meal Yuzu had spontaneously cooked to keep calm through Akemi's more detailed story anyway. Everyone was tense; some, tearful. Isshin kept staring at Akemi with a searchingly haunted expression. It made her squirm uncomfortably. The silence stretched through the entire meal; the gathering and washing of dishes was unsettlingly loud in the hush. They finally settled and exchanged looks, always glancing back to Akemi. She remained impassive.
Kisuke cleared his throat. "So. Is everyone convinced of Miss Akemi's time travel claims?" Everyone nodded or murmured assent. Kisuke focused on Akemi. "The data you gave me is both fascinating and disturbing. The concept of this Walpurgisnacht construct is worrying. I gathered that you collected the time capsules before its descent— or whatever ended up with the Incubator in possession of a King's Key. Please relate what you know of the events after the time capsules were created."
Akemi took a deep breath and obliged. She seemed surprised and a bit impatient that describing what had happened took a long time, her audience asking pointed and detailed questions that raked over the details from every angle while Kisuke scribbled everything on his notepad. It was quite late when Kisuke was satisfied.
"I think that's it for now," he said soberly as he flipped through the pages. He looked up at them all with flinty eyes. "Try to relax for a day or two while I go over my data in depth. I'll send you all digital copies to look at if you like."
"Relax. Right," Karin said edgily.
Kisuke heaved a tired sigh and opened his mouth to speak, but Akemi cut him off. "I do not have time to relax. We need to hunt the Witch along the train corridor and I need to get back to Madoka."
Kisuke blinked passively at the stubborn set of her jaw and considered his words carefully. "Miss Akemi, having you nearby and available to assist my investigation is crucial. This will help your Madoka in the long run."
Akemi scowled. "You can call me on my phone."
"Perhaps later, once I am more confident about the nuts and bolts of this system," Kisuke conceded with a frown. "I want you able to be physically present to test things and talk through hypotheses. Possibly demonstrate your abilities more thoroughly."
Eyes narrowed, Akemi answered, "You have Karin and Yuzu to figure out how magical girls function."
"Ah, but you have more detailed knowledge than they do," Kisuke said as he leaned back and made a bit of a show of rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck while shuffling papers. "Your repeated experience makes you a valuable asset. A rich source of information who can possibly answer hypotheticals by virtue of proposed scenarios having actually occurred in one of your loops. And I think such knowledge would be best communicated in person." He folded his hands on the table and calmly looked in her eyes. "If you go back right away, you may fall into repeating a pattern that hasn't worked for you in the past. They say one definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting different results. Let me look into this and see if there's a way to break your friend out of this cycle— or at least a method that you haven't tried. Hopefully, we will build a plan to eliminate this Incubator and save all girls in addition to your friend." Kisuke cocked his head. "You said the previous timeline was the first in which Madoka died before the final battle, correct? And that she was partnered with the veteran, ah... Mami Tomoe, for a bit before you became involved, yes? That should give you a few days' leeway in which you can be fairly certain she will be safe."
Akemi scowled. "She will probably contract in that time. I need to dissuade her."
"Do you?" asked Yoruichi. She flicked an ear and languidly swished her tail. "We know our little Orihime can purify Soul Gems—"
"Uh-um," Orihime said nervously while waving a half-raised hand a bit as though interrupting a teacher. "I— I have an idea. Um." She thoughtfully pressed one finger into her chin. "If... If I can reject the transformation from Grief Seed back into Soul Gem, do you think I could reject the creation of a Soul Gem back into... a normal soul, I guess?"
Everyone stared at her, dumbstruck.
"That is certainly an excellent line of inquiry for us to investigate," Kisuke finally said with intrigue.
Yoruichi gave her head a little shake and got back on point. "Anyway, if you know Madoka will be fine aside from contracting, it should be safe to leave her to fend for herself for a few days. You said she can one-shot that doomsday combo Witch— I don't think she'll be a pushover. Especially if she's teamed up with that veteran girl." The cat tilted her head back and looked at Homura askance. "Don't you think?"
Akemi pursed her lips unhappily. After a minute of thought, she sourly conceded the point with an inclination of her chin.
"We're forgetting something," Uryū said. Everyone looked at him. "How much are we telling the Thirteen Divisions?"
"I think I should verbally report this to the Captain-Commander," Hitsugaya said slowly. "Especially in light of the King's Key intel— unless he's holding something back, it seemed unclear whether the method Aizen found would work. He should know that it does. Plus, he can order resources for our use without having to explain anything to subordinates."
Several people made thoughtful noises. Akemi looked at him sideways. "Are you certain he won't order some sort of preemptive strike against magical girls? Us in particular?"
Ichigo scowled. "I'd like to see him try."
The shinigami and Quincy exchanged significant looks, but kept quiet about Ichigo's influence on operational decisions among the Thirteen Divisions. Akemi frowned, but made no further objections.
Hitsugaya turned to Kisuke. "What sort of plan should I tell him we have?"
Kisuke drummed his fingers on the table. "A day for me to read through more of the research and poke around in general. We'll seek this Witch by the train tracks tomorrow evening. I'll analyze any data we collect. Beyond that, who knows?"
Hitsugaya nodded acceptance. Everyone pulled back from the table. Ichigo's friends and Akemi drifted away with the rattled Kurosaki family. Hitsugaya returned to Soul Society after a melancholy glance at his best friend's retreating back. The residents of Urahara Shop silently watched them go.
Tessai stood and glanced at Kisuke. "I'll get some coffee brewing."
Kisuke murmured his thanks. He was going to have a long night.
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A/N: That feeling when you have to create and refer to multiple calendars to keep track of what your characters are doing when. :T
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.