A/N: This chapter somehow mutated into a character study of Urahara and Benihime because they just kept talking and I was okay with their examination of motives. Idk idk.

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My headcanon is that Benihime has a collection of different kinds of looms and sewing-related stuff in Urahara's Inner World. So, like... while I think you can get the gist of their conversation without specifics, you may want to look at my list of weaving terminology before you read this chapter for more detailed understanding. I have Benihime extensively use it as metaphor. The list is here:

corisanna.

Deviantart.

com/journal/Weaving-Terms-Info-as-regards-Benihime-717849840

IF YOU'RE EXTRA CURIOUS, I included some YouTube videos afterward to support why I think making Urahara's zanpakutō that sews and "restructures" would also be a weaver— how it does suit his complex, scheming, meticulous, inventive mind.

95% of anything involving Benihime is my own artistic license since we got so little info in canon.

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ZWEIUNDSECHZIG

TIMELINE X + N + 1

Kisuke saw Hitsugaya and Tomoe off to school on Monday morning like a good uncle and immediately sequestered himself in his labs once more. He was certain he had perfected his surveillance drone design as much as he could with the information he had; now he just had to replicate them with superficial differences. He was deep in his work when Tessai buzzed him from the shop.

"Boss, you might want to come out here."

"What for?"

"I sense two slightly elevated reiatsu signatures coming straight our way. Doesn't feel hostile, but since they're a rarity up here..."

Tossing his magnification goggles aside, Kisuke rose and sang, "Coming right up~!"

He was innocently fussing around behind the counter when the possessors of the reiatsu crossed the wards onto the property without triggering alarms. Good— well, hopefully. Kisuke made a point of not looking toward the door until the shop bells jingled. He turned and paused briefly, keeping recognition off his face by force of will before greeting the guests. "Welcome to High Spirits! I'm Kisuke Urahara. How can I help you?"

"Ah, my daughter recommended this shop," the brunet man said as he adjusted his grip on the toddler in his arms.

"Is that so?" Kisuke asked cheerfully. "May I ask who she is?"

"Madoka Kaname," Tomohisa Kaname said. "She told me she and her friends came to visit your nephew and she sampled the merchandise."

Kisuke let his face brighten. "Miss Kaname? Oh, my, yes. Such a kind girl. And your name?" he asked as a formality.

"Tomohisa," Madoka's father said. He poked his son's pudgy cheek and said, "And this is Tatsuya."

At his name, the toddler perked up and shouted, "Hiiiiiii!"

"Helloooooo!" Kisuke crooned back with a silly face that made the toddler giggle. Mentally, he was evaluating both their reiatsu signatures and trying to rearrange puzzle pieces. Kaname's father and brother had spiritual potential. That had never been considered. The mother? Hitsugaya hadn't mentioned anything, and he was diligent in his reports. Yoruichi, though...

Tomohisa glanced around the shop soberly, then eyed Kisuke for a long minute. "You're the real deal."

"Indeed, I am," he said with an amused smile.

"Are you the one who gave my daughter a protective charm bracelet?"

"Ahhhh. Yes, that was me."

"Thank you," Tomohisa said with a solemn nod. "Do you have any more of them?"

"I designed the two I made for your daughter and Miss Miki specifically tailored to them, but I could make more. Why do you ask?"

Tomohisa pursed his lips and considered his words. "There have been some... odd things I've been noticing lately. Spiritually speaking, I mean."

Kisuke revised his findings: The father had weak powers and was aware of them. "Oh, my. Are you spiritually aware?"

Smiling wryly, Tomohisa said,. "Not enough to really do anything. I can hear spirits. Sometimes see them, depending on how..." He struggled for words, gesturing vaguely with his free hand. "How strong they feel. But mostly, I sense them. It's difficult to describe. Like... the closest thing I can think of is how you can walk in a room and pick up a lingering smell that tells you something has been there, like that someone baked bread or made coffee even though there's no bread or coffee left in the room. But not a scent. Just..."

"A feeling. That makes the hair stand up on your skin," Kisuke finished, fascinated. How the hell had he not considered this possibility when he doing cursory research on all the known magical girls' families?

Cursory. Dammit. Nothing could be taken at face value with this situation. He should have known better.

Too much to investigate at once. It was making him sloppy. He fiercely hated it. Loved new information but hated when he couldn't absorb it all at once. When he had been dealing with Aizen, the Hōgyoku, the Arrancar, and the Visored, he had nearly a hundred years to research and plot, familiarizing himself with every aspect in minute detail. He had even gotten nearly two decades of research on Quincy tossed in just in case it would be useful when dealing with Ichigo's hodgepodge of powers. But with this situation, there wasn't enough damn time to learn as much as he needed to. Which was why he needed Akemi to go back. If he could just distill information faster, she wouldn't need to. So he needed to cram as much research as possible into each timeline to minimize her repetitions.

"Yes. Exactly."

What? Oh. And now Kisuke was distracting himself.

Slow down before you drop the shuttle through the warp, Benihime scolded him in a whisper, her voice like rustling silk.

Kisuke thought for a moment, then waved Tomohisa over. "Please, come in the back and sit with me. I think we should talk more and we may as well be comfortable."

He nodded in parting to Tessai and led the father and child through the connecting hallway to the living quarters, and from there to a tea room he had rigged with cameras and sensors. Tomohisa pulled some toys out of a diaper bag and plopped his son among them on the floor before retreating to the table with Kisuke, who set out tea.

Kisuke folded his hands together on the tabletop and said, "So, Mr. Kaname. What are your concerns?"

Tomohisa frowned. "There have been a couple times when my daughter came home with a sense of... something dark clinging to her. It fades very quickly— probably because of her power—"

Kisuke raised one eyebrow and reached for his cup. "You are aware of her power?"

"I'd have to be completely without power and utterly oblivious to not notice it," Tomohisa said drily. "Especially since it skyrocketed a few weeks ago."

Kisuke paused in lifting teacup to his lips. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Her power practically exploded when she was asleep a few weeks ago. It woke me out of a dead sleep," Tomohisa said gravely. "I checked on her and she was twitching and making faces as though having a nightmare. She was glowing pink and the stuff on her shelves was rattling around."

What.

"I couldn't wake her up even by shaking her and flaring my own power. I was like a garden hose fighting a river. I... kind of panicked. Thought maybe she was having a seizure. I left the room to get my wife but Madoka's power suddenly stabilized and settled. I peeked in her room and she was sitting up like nothing had happened. Later, she mentioned something about a dream. Her power has been slowly strengthening ever since. It jumps a bit more every time she comes home with that feeling of darkness like the cursed spirits I used to run into before I moved here."

What.

"I think her power kind of... burns it off, or purifies it or something. It's always gone by morning."

What.

Kisuke stared, mind whirling. "Cursed spirits?"

"I think? That's what my grandfather called them, anyway," the man answered, further upsetting Kisuke's mental chess set. "They always have white masks and holes in their chests. They look like monsters and are see-through. I thought they were demons until I saw one with my grandfather and he explained what little he knew."

"Wait. Spiritual awareness runs in your family?"

Tomohisa shrugged. "To a degree. But not everyone gets it."

This was delicious information. "Do you see those spirits often?"

"Hardly any since I moved here when Madoka was a baby— Tatsuya, no, don't touch it." The man frowned at his son until the child came down from his tiptoes at the edge of a bookshelf. When the toddler lost interest and tottered back to his toys, Tomohisa continued, "And when I do, it's on the edges of town, several years apart. Very few plain ghosts, even. That's actually why we moved here. My wife had a long international business conference here when Madoka was four months old. We came with and rented an apartment for a month so Junko wouldn't be separated from our baby and we could stay after for a vacation. I didn't encounter a single spirit the entire time we were here. It was much safer for me and Madoka. My wife put in for a transfer here before the last day of the conference and we only went back to our apartment in Soma to get our things. We figured we'd tell Madoka when she was old enough to know to keep it secret. Have a vacation in Soma or somewhere with a lot of ghosts to teach her what to look for and what to run from."

Boom. Entire game board changed. By how much? "Is your wife spiritually aware?"

"Not at all!" Tomohisa laughed. "But she knows I am, and that Madoka is. She knew I was before we married and thought it was cool. She knew Madoka was before we even left the hospital with her— she caught me talking to a couple ghosts that went to Madoka's crib to look at her. Then I ended up quitting my job when Madoka was two months old when I saw a cursed spirit hanging around her daycare. I could at least get her away from them when they popped up." He nodded toward Tatsuya. "Our son also has some power. That's why I came to your shop. I want something like that bracelet for him, too. And I'm considering having a talk with Madoka. I haven't seen those spirits here, but with the dark feeling that clings to Madoka sometimes and that cat spirit that got in our house... and all since her power spiked... I worry it's not coincidence."

Kisuke stared. "Cat spirit?"

"I don't know what else to call it. I haven't seen it myself, but Madoka said it was a white cat. It got in her window— supposedly. I don't know what would have happened had her friend's cat not been there. I'm looking into getting a cat for us. They're great at detecting spirits, after all. "

Kisuke stared. Yoruichi was going to get grilled over this. She should have told him.

How lucid were you during her verbal report? Benihime asked, slow and derisive.

...Shut up.

Then stop running yourself into the ground trying to do everything at once and sleeping only when your mind completely shuts down, Benihime snapped. You do yourself and the others no favors. Gathering strands inattentively and spinning poorly results in a tangle, not a tapestry— nor even a proper thread. Carefully—

—de-gum, brush the silk fibers from the cocoon and unravel, spin even thread, dye appropriately, respect the loom, weave neatly, be methodical. Yes, I know.

Do you, now? Benihime said archly. You do not act it in recent days.

It was easy to forget how much of a smartass she could be when she went long stretches without being talkative.

Do not speak of me so crudely, Benihime sniffed. Changing the topic, she said, Your guest will doubt your sanity soon.

Yep. Tomohisa was looking at him a little oddly for his long pause. What were they saying?

He was speaking of the morning the Incubator made the mistake of invading his daughter's bedchambers while your cat was guarding her, Benihime drawled.

"I think I heard about the incident secondhand," Kisuke said. "Could you refresh my memory?"

Tomohisa recounted his outsider view of what had happened when Yoruichi fought the Incubator. "A few hours after Madoka went to school, I went in to clean up the fur and blood from the fight. I didn't sense any... power from the stuff. But the fur started... kinda evaporating. Then no cleaners touched the blood. I got suspicious, so I tried charging the water with my power. The blood came out then. So I know it's a spirit of some kind. I just don't know what. And Madoka says she's seen it around since. It disturbs me."

Kisuke stared. That was priceless intel about the little monster. His mind spun with possibilities.

Tatsuya squealed and wiggled onto Tomohisa's lap. Tomohisa bounced him on his knee but kept his eyes on Kisuke. "I noticed you have some kind of... protective thing over the property when I came in. Could I commission you to do something like that over my house?"

Kisuke was doing a lot of staring today. "Of course."

"How much would it cost?"

"I don't charge for things like that," Kisuke said, waving a hand dismissively. "The shop is for shiny things that are popular with people who think supernatural stuff is cool, with some minor protections built in. I do well enough from it. Critical things like wards to protect children with powers... no charge."

"I insist," Tomohisa argued. "Safety like this—" he gestured at the room to indicate the whole building— "is invaluable and worth paying for."

"Invaluable. Exactly. No charge."

"I insist," Tomohisa repeated stubbornly.

Kisuke sighed fondly. May as well make use of it. "You are aware of Miss Akemi, correct? "

"Yes. My daughter's new friend. She's been to our house several times. Sweet girl, if very withdrawn. As powerful as Madoka has become recently, too."

Now that he said that... Tomohisa was right. He had noticed that, known that, but hadn't thought deeply on it. Kisuke picked apart implications, thought about things that had been written and said about Madoka, and came up with questions, questions, questions. "About when did Madoka's power escalate?"

"Hmmm." Tomohisa looked toward the ceiling in thought. "Mid-March, I think. A few days before she met Miss Akemi."

Kisuke's mind ground to a halt and restarted at a feverish pace. That timing likely aligned with Akemi's reset point. He was going to have to rake over this conversation with a fine-toothed comb when he looked at the surveillance later. He needed to run more scans of the girls. So much new information to pick apart, on top of what he already had! Both excellent and a logistical nightmare.

"Huh," Kisuke said thoughtfully. "Anyway, are you also aware of Miss Tomoe?"

"Yes. I haven't met her, but my wife told me about her."

"I don't know if you are aware, but Miss Akemi and Miss Tomoe are orphans. Mother hen them a bit. Maybe have them over for dinner sometimes. They need it. Promise to do that, and I will consider the wards more than paid for."

"Barter, huh?" Tomohisa said with a smile. "Surely there must be something else...? I'm mother henning Miss Akemi anyway."

Grinning widely, Kisuke made an expansive arm gesture and said, "Then you've already made a down payment, my friend."

Tomohisa laughed. After a minute of comfortable quiet, he asked, "Will the wards keep that cat-thing out of my home?"

Kisuke sobered. "I designed them to be... pretty much overkill and so dense anything supernatural besides spiritually aware humans without ill will would at the least have extreme trouble getting through, but there are no guarantees with that thing. I haven't been able to study one to know exactly what they are."

With a small gasp, Tomohisa asked, "So you do know the thing I'm talking about?"

Kisuke went quiet and stared pensively at his teacup as he considered his words and strategy carefully. Tomohisa waited him out until he slowly admitted, "I do. It's very elusive of adults. It is some kind of trickster entity that preys on young girls with spiritual power."

The father's entire body tensed up. "Preys on them how?"

Again, Kisuke carefully mulled over his words. Akemi would probably be furious if she found out, but the potential... "It offers them a contract. A deal with the devil, as it were. It offers to grant them a wish and does not tell them that they are purchasing it with their soul. It targets young girls who don't know to be suspicious of such a proposition." Tomohisa's horror was palpable, so he looked up at the father with a sharp grin. "It offered a contract to your daughter. But between Miss Akemi's warnings and Madoka's knowledge of contracts through your wife's conversations about business deals, she turned it down. So has her friend, Miss Miki. Given advance warning, your daughter and her friend have been good at poking holes in the creature's sales pitches. They hate it."

Tomohisa closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh of relief. After a moment, he opened his eyes in surprised realization. "Miss Akemi's warnings?"

"Unfortunately, it succeeded in tricking her some time ago." Note to self: really don't tell Akemi about this part of the conversation.

Benihime objected, shoved mental images of Akemi, Hitsugaya, Yoruichi, and Tessai giving him various looks of disapproval into his consciousness with a bonus image of Isshin and Ichigo looming murderously, then ominously declared, We will have words about this, Kisuke.

Fantastic.

Still, he had to continue. Stoke sympathy. "She unwittingly sold her soul in a bid to save a friend's life. It also preyed upon Miss Tomoe when she lay dying in the car accident that killed her parents two years ago. Desperate situations where questioning a lifeline is all but impossible for adults, let alone children. Miss Tomoe only recently learned of the deception, so she is... mentally fragile right now." Kisuke paused to take in Tomohisa's outraged expression. "My nephew found out about Miss Akemi's situation when a mutual friend who had also been tricked died. We've been working together on investigating the Incubator ever since in an attempt to break its hold on the souls it swindles from girls. We're making steady progress, but it is slowed by how careful we're being with letting it figure out exactly how much we know. We moved here specifically to up our game against it, so to speak."

Tomohisa's stare was hard and angry. "If there's anything I can do, please let me know. I will do everything in my power to help." He pulled back with a self-deprecating smile and continued, "I may not have a lot of power to work with, but still."

"I will keep that in mind. Sometimes, someone like you can be a valuable asset that can go unnoticed by the suspicious." Tilting his head in thought, Kisuke asked, "You've never seen the creature yourself?"

"No."

"Neither have I, actually. I wasn't exaggerating when I said it avoids adults." Kisuke stared at the ceiling pensively. "My nephew has only managed to encounter it a couple times when he's with the girls we try to save from contracts. I wonder if it actively avoids being seen by people with spiritual awareness...?" He called out down hall, hand to mouth. "Tehhhhh-ssaaaaai~! Can you bring me the composites we made of what the Incubator looks liiike?"

"Be right there, boss," Tessai's voice came from a distance.

The two men sat quietly until Tessai appeared with a folder containing a sheaf of papers. Kisuke took it graciously, rifled through them, and lay three out on the table for Tomohisa to see. It had turned out that Akemi's sketches had been most accurate of those made by the three girls who had contributed. Hitsugaya and Yoruichi had offered only the slightest of refinements.

Tomohisa slid the drawings closer to him one by one and stared at them, apparently searing them into his memory as he absently brushed his son's grabby hands away from the papers. He grimly said, "It's very distinctive. I'll keep an eye out for it"

"If you do see it, please pretend that you don't. That you don't have enough power to be able to see it, I mean. It has been near enough to you to sense you're not completely powerless but your power does feel very subtle, so it should work."

"Don't react to it?" Tomohisa said darkly as he looked up at Kisuke over the rims of his glasses with heavy-lidded eyes. "It targeted my daughter."

"If you truly want revenge, not breaking cover so we can continue to investigate it would be more effective than approaching it in anger. Just report its movements."

Tomohisa pursed his lips and sighed, looking down to the sketches again. "Right."

A man of reason. Thank God.

After a pause, Kisuke ventured, "May I ask your address, Mr. Kaname? I'll look at satellite photos of your neighborhood to design the wards."

Tomohisa drew a deep breath. "Of course. And my son's... bracelet?"

"Do you think he would leave a bracelet alone?" Kisuke asked, amused by the sight of Tatsuya with most of his hand in his mouth. Except for his pinkie finger, which was up his nose.

"He... would probably chew it, actually," Tomohisa said with a small smile. "An anklet, maybe?"

"Sounds good. I'll make some for you and your wife, too. Less flashy than your daughter's."

The father grinned. "Actually, Junko wants one like Madoka's. Says it's very cute. She loves cute things. Wears a barrette with a little black bow on it to work, even."

Kisuke laughed. "Well, then! I'll make her a pretty one!"

They parted on pleasant terms, Kisuke standing at the gate to wave at Tatsuya as he played peek-a-boo over his father's shoulder until they turned a distant corner. Kisuke's face immediately sobered. He whirled around on his heel and marched back into the shop, straight past Tessai, and down into a different lab. He inhaled sharply, exhaled slowly, considered priorities.

Protections for the Kaname household. Spiritual awareness history of the Kaname line. How the father's power factored into previous timelines— had he been involved in Madoka's actions in a way Akemi was unaware of? What about the mother's knowledge? The strange development of Madoka's powers and their strengthening around the time of Akemi's reset point. Looking into Miki's family history for similar trends. Attempt for the other Mitakihara girls, but all of their families were dead so there would be nothing he could measure. Figuring out what the barrier over Asunaro was and deciding on a course of action regarding it. Studying over forty Soul Gems, four Grief Seeds, and the two imitation Grief Seeds, all of which could not be sent to the past. Figuring out how Soul Gems turned into Witches and why Witches spawned pocket dimensions was of particular interest, on top of what method might be used to turn a standard soul into a Soul Gem. Tinker with his gigai equipment to better experiment on the attachment and detachment of Soul Gem to body. Figure out why the hell a costume change was involved. Tracing the path of the Sōju through Japan and figuring out why they had appeared in this timeline but not others— it seemed less important, but they and other interlopers needed to be headed off in future timelines. Find out if there was any archival mention of the Incubator in shinigami records. Look into the apparent historical disappearances of shinigami for correlation. Figure out what history the Incubators had with the Quincy— well, at least Ishida had Ichigo's little group working on finding evidence to work from. Figure out which of the missing and dead girls from the stack of information from the last timeline were magical girls and which incidents were caused by Witches. Set Tessai on looking for cases that hadn't been in the media. Get into Asunaro and get a copy of that detective's file on decades of missing girls. Keep a watchful eye on Tomoe's likelihood to go on a misguided killing spree. And and and and and.

Most importantly: Repairing the damage to his relationship with Homura Akemi. Everything would fall apart without her. Her regression had infuriated the Kurosaki men, who split the blame for it between Sōju and Kisuke— and weren't shy about saying so. Isshin's call in the wee hours of Sunday morning had been particularly scathing. The only good to come out of Akemi's setback was that it caused the entire Kurosaki family to rally around her even more fiercely. She needed that.

Akemi seemed to relax a touch when exposed to Tessai's quiet, mellow seriousness and had yet to bristle in response to him. Yoruichi had said she had decently thoughtful conversations with the girl while she prepared munitions. Hitsugaya seemed to have effortlessly slipped past her armor with some combination of seriousness, frankness, and commiseration about something he refused to speak of with Kisuke beyond a curt we share certain similar circumstances. So it was possible to interact with her in a productive way that went beyond superficial and strictly as needed regarding plain information. Others did it.

And then there's you, Benihime said sarcastically.

And then there's me, he thought to his blade. You have words, do you?

Indeed I do, she said evenly. Your body requires rest. Let us adjourn to your bedchambers so that you may join me within.

That's what she said, Kisuke thought back on reflex. Benihime was not amused even though she usually enjoyed bawdy humor. As soon as he got his body horizontal in his bed, she yanked him into their Inner World and let him fall into a vat of water she was warming to boil silkworm cocoons in.

Kisuke dragged himself up over the wooden edge, gasping, and looked at her through dripping bangs. "I see I've displeased you, madam."

"Quite," the personification of his blade drawled in her smoky voice as she stood by a doorway framed by red silk curtains, arms crossed and face deadpan as she tapped a folded fan against one shoulder in annoyance. "Next time, it will be boiling."

"Noted." Kisuke grimaced and rolled over the rim of the vat, stood, and wrung out his clothes. He knew from experience that she wasn't kidding.

Benihime watched him dispassionately for a moment then turned away. "Come. We have much to discuss."

Kisuke followed. His blade was one of the few entities that could make him feel like a chastened child. They wove through a maze of draperies, sewing machines, spinning devices, and looms of varied ages and cultural origins, each with its purpose. He recognized the path immediately and was not surprised when Benihime pointed at the drawloom she had taught him on when he was first trying to achieve shikai so very long ago. It was always her way of passive-aggressively implying she was dragging him back to basics because he was neglecting her teachings or advice.

"Sit down and weave," Benihime snapped.

Nodding silently, he stepped within the frame and sat on the bench. First thing was to analyze what Benihime had laid out for him to weave. The warp was entirely composed of shimmering lavender and only wide enough to make an obi. Shuttles of various colors were set out before him to form the weft— white, amber yellow, azure blue, burgundy, sparkly bubblegum pink, and more lavender. The weft already woven started with a stripe of pink. He looked around, then up at his blade. "Where is the pattern?"

"Make one up as you go."

...Odd, but okay. After a minute of thought, he set out to weave a tiny checkered pattern using five of the colors with a solid stripe of the pink between each row of squares to match the first pink stripe. He slipped into the familiar rhythm of counting, opening and closing sheds with the treadles, slinging shuttles through at intervals, and battening, the clacking of the parts of the loom a constant as he lost track of time.

"Stop."

He complied. Benihime leaned over his shoulder and scrutinized the six centimeters of fabric, then leaned back with a disdainful sniff.

"It is wrong. Unravel it."

"There's no pattern for it to be wrong."

"It is not the design I am looking for. Therefor, it is wrong."

"But—"

"Unravel it. And do not dare waste the thread."

So he painstakingly dismantled the cloth one pick at a time, reeling the thread back onto the shuttles in a mind-numbing exercise of tedium.

"Weave again."

"What design do you want?"

"Something pleasant."

"That's not very specific."

"Weave!"

So he wove a set of simple stripes, using the burgundy every other stripe since she was fond of reds. She stopped him at six centimeters again, scowled, and pronounced it another failure. When he finished unraveling it, Benihime swept one voluminous crimson sleeve over the shuttles. More shuttles with yet more colors were present in its wake— lemon yellow, candy apple red, orange, black, mulberry purple, powder blue, coffee brown, olive green.

"Again."

Kisuke thought he saw where this was going. He set out to make another set of stripes.

Three centimeters in, Benihime swooped in while he had the lavender shuttle in his hand and snatched up the the coffee, powder blue, and olive, then deliberately smacked his hand with the olive shuttle to stop him mid-pick, wrapped it around the beater, and sent it back through the shed at an angle. She jabbed the other colors through the warp in different directions, tangling them in and out of the shed through multiple strands; somehow, a shuttle of coral and a shuttle of variegated red-and-white thread came to be tossed in and dangled haphazardly with the others. Kisuke sat motionless and evaluated the mess.

"Keep weaving. Make it beautiful."

He shuffled around to retrieve the discarded shuttles from the floor and pass them back up through the warp. His blade allowed him to do that, but Benihime viciously rapped his knuckles with her folded fan when he tried to backtrack the shuttles and undo the tangles to resume his pattern without flaws.

Oh, she had the war fan today. Kisuke was pretty sure she'd just cracked half a dozen small bones with its iron plates.

"Keep weaving."

Kisuke grimly complied. The pattern was a mangled mess and his dominant hand ached as he went through the usual motions. It was impossible to make an even pick and the olive thread limited the movement of the beater so much that he was forced to stop at the five centimeter mark when the slack had been used up and essentially bound the beater in place.

"Why did you stop? Keep weaving."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Kisuke sighed. "You interfered with my loom in the middle of my pattern instead of telling me I would need to change it." He sat back, scrubbed his face with his hands, then winced and flexed his dominant hand.

"Frustrating, is it not?" Benihime asked coolly.

"Yes."

"Even more frustrating that you were not allowed to correct the damage? That you were expected to complete the piece smoothly despite it?"

"Yes."

Benihime ran one finger along the taut olive thread that trapped the beater. "Cutting this and leaving that color out of the cloth from that point would be the simplest way to salvage the rest, would it not?"

"Yes." He met Benihime's eyes. "I understand."

Benihime stood silent for a long while, staring at him flatly and tapping her war fan against her upper arm. Her disappointed frown was made all the more vivid by her crimson lips. He bore her stare patiently— he deserved this.

"I warned you that she has a weaver's mindset like your own and that interrupting her weaving without notice would anger her, did I not?"

"Yes." Again: Chastened child.

"But you did not take my warning seriously because you so rarely encounter another weaver, she is young and inexperienced, and the exotic new threads she brought you enthralled you like a child with a new toy."

Kisuke looked aside guiltily.

"You were cocky about your prowess and presumed she would bow to your expertise and vast experience. You assumed your own superiority and that it would automatically be recognized by one who has only ever known her own loom, her own patterns, her own thread, her own spinning wheel, is self-taught."

Kisuke stared at his loom, eyes drawn to the lavender warp.

Benihime side-stepped to hover behind the loom and glare at him ominously. "I will repeat myself now that you have ears to hear me: Homura Akemi is too like you for you treat her as you do most others you plan around. That girl is a warrior like your protégé before her, but she is far more critical and less trusting than Ichigo Kurosaki. The boy you first took under your wing was willing to cooperate with your directives without questioning your identity and motives, but not so with this girl. Kurosaki thought he had a straightforward task set before him: Rescue a friend. He was oblivious to conspiracy and content to remain so if he could accomplish his goal. Everything else was unimportant unless it was a direct threat to his friends. Akemi has a similar mindset and target but she is not so naïve as Kurosaki was. She has endured too much to not be aware of the potential for conspiracy and betrayal. You simply cannot treat her the same as you treated Kurosaki. Your usual weave poorly suits her. Adjust accordingly or your cloth will be weak and useless, easily torn, completely unable to withstand the very literal test of time."

The silence after her pronouncement was heavy as her eyes bored into his. Kisuke thought through her words, remembered something Yoruichi had said, and slowly asked, "You also think she is like me?"

Benihime rolled her eyes and said, "I will not repeat myself again." She canted her head to one side and gave him a significant look from heavy-lidded eyes. "Homura Akemi may be a child more than three centuries younger than us but she has constructed a custom loom with no guidance, meticulously wrapped her warp, woven a pattern of her own design, then unraveled her weft when her completed pattern is unsatisfactory and tried again with adjustments for previous mistakes. Dozens of times on the same piece— enough to drive the best of weavers mad. Truly, she is a prodigy. That she has not snapped and burned her loom to cinders in frustration is a testament to how patient and determined a weaver she is— how masterful she could become with formal instruction. Interfering with her loom without warning will only cause her to rebuff the attempt and try to attack your own in defense or revenge— or could be the stressor that finally wears her warp so thin as to break. All of her weaving and unraveling and weaving and unraveling does not happen without consequences of wear and tear, after all," she said as she lightly ran one hand along the lavender threads stretched before her. "Thread frays when subjected to enough friction." The spirit selected one taut thread and rubbed her finger on it until it broke, the long end rebounding toward Kisuke's face with a twang. Benihime leaned forward, the loops of her elaborate hairstyle draping themselves over her shoulders and cascading down to the loom like skeins of black silk thread as she huskily asked, "Whyever would such a weaver entrust you with thread from her own spinning wheel— or accept thread from yours— if your behavior gives her the impression that you will bind her loom with it?"

Every word was true. "What do you suggest I do, then?"

Benihime straightened and looked at him like he was an idiot. "Instruct her, of course. Your cat already figured that one out." She moved aside then slowly stalked around the loom toward him, free hand caressing the wooden beams as she passed. "Akemi is talented despite her errors and struggles with her rough loom. It is to be expected, being self-taught with simple patterns and homespun thread; with professional guidance and more experience, she could be a master. She is intelligent enough to realize this if you—" Benihime stopped near him and angrily beat her folded fan on a beam to emphasize each suddenly shouted word— "do not provoke her unnecessarily! Alienate her, and she will never allow you near her loom again. If she welcomes your tutelage, you have a greater chance of subtly changing her weft with just a pick here and a pick there every few dozen times she opens her shed."

"As Aizen did with everyone he encountered before his defection," Kisuke said darkly.

"To a degree," Benihime said with a shrug. "But your motive is to strengthen her cloth, not weaken it to ensure your own is always of the most exquisite quality by default."

Kisuke looked up at her with a small smile. "Still resent that, do you?"

Benihime's red lips curled into a sneer. "If one must resort to sabotage of other looms to be lauded as the most skilled weaver, one is not as skilled as one would like to believe oneself. Instead, one is admitting that they cannot compete on even terms, stunting growth in so doing." The blade spirit leaned in close to him and lowly threatened, "Don't you dare do that to yourself and this child, Kisuke."

He smiled weakly. "How could I do so with you as my conscience, milady?"

The woman scowled, grabbed his jinbei, and wrenched him first backward and then closer to her. "By not listening to me," she hissed. "As you seem fond of doing these last few weeks." Benihime leaned still closer, pressing her forehead and the tip of her nose against his. His entire field of vision was filled with her blood red eyes. Her lips brushed his as she plaintively whispered, "Do you plan to discard me as Aizen discarded Kyōka Suigetsu when he thought himself so superior he no longer needed to listen to her? No longer needed her at all? Love me and leave me when you get what you want from me?"

Revulsion exploded through Kisuke and made him ill. The accusation was a completely unexpected blow— a low blow, really, and a manipulative one, but that was Benihime. That was him. When it suited their interests, they mercilessly leveraged weak spots and insecurities— even their own.

"Never," he croaked.

"Will you not merely listen to me but also take my counsel seriously?" she rasped softly as she pressed her cheek against his and breathed on his ear like a lover.

"Of course."

Benihime released his clothing, straightened, and patted his cheek in condescension. "Then-list-en-to-me," she enunciated slowly.

Kisuke smiled weakly. "What is your counsel, milady?"

The blade spirit looked at him speculatively for a moment before sitting beside him on the bench with a sighing of silk-on-silk as she arranged her ornate kimono around her, facing the opposite direction so they could see one another's faces.

"You need to be more personal and open with her, obviously. You are observant enough to see that she needs that from other people. That it works for other people. It applies to yourself as well. You must be not a distant provocateur but a direct mentor. Far more direct than you were with the Kurosaki boy."

Kisuke hesitated and considered his words. "I'm... not sure I'm fit to."

"Based upon what?" Benihime asked airily, very obviously already knowing the answer.

Kisuke sighed, rolled his shoulders, and cracked his neck. He hated to admit it, but he had to be honest. "Mayuri Kurotsuchi."

Benihime tossed her hair haughtily with a sound of annoyance. "Attempting to reform that man was one of our greatest mistakes. We were optimistic to the point of naïveté. We should have recognized bad thread when we saw it and torn that weft out when we had the chance." She reached up and pressed one crimson nail into his cheek. "But we were young, and we know better than to fashion asbestos yarn into clothing now, do we not?"

"Yes."

The spirit drew her nail down his jaw and coyly asked, "Do you think Homura Akemi is raw asbestos?"

"No. Not at all."

"I see." Benihime tapped her finger against his lips as if to imply secrecy between them. "Do you fear you will restructure her raw silk into spun asbestos?" she asked in a whisper.

After a long silence, Kisuke breathed, "Yes."

Benihime leaned back and looked at him with fond exasperation. "Darling, that girl is more likely to spin herself into the center of a spider's web without your guidance than with it. You will do her more harm by not acting." When he glanced away thoughtfully, Benhime's hand darted after him and pulled him back toward her with a finger to the chin. "Weavers like us do have a propensity for going astray; for egotism, for thinking our ability to control events around us is both superior and the apex of morality, for seeing ourselves as Moirai or Norns or what have you. We do. But that largely happens when left to our own devices. When we go without anyone to critique our work in progress from someplace other than the bench. Some errors are more easily seen from beside or above the loom— mirrors only go so far. When all you see is your own cloth before you, the weave can become mesmerizing. That was Aizen's problem. Tragically poetic, in a way; ensnared by the reflection of his weaving on the mirror beneath it, yet unable to see its flaws because he fell in love with the glimpse of himself he saw through the warp. A modern Narcissus." Benihime sighed and mournfully said, "Such a shame. A waste of talent. He could have woven so much good in the world had he not spun himself a cocoon he could not emerge from. One no amount of boiling could de-gum— fit only for burning."

Kisuke had the sudden mental image of the butterfly-like monster Aizen had evolved into on his quest to godhood and laughed himself breathless until he neared passing out in his own Inner World. A sly smile danced across Benihime's lips as she watched him collect himself.

"You fear raising another weaver like Aizen because your guidance did not redeem Kurotsuchi."

And there went the laughter. Her words were like a physical blow.

Benihime leveled a flat stare at him. "Kurotsuchi started as asbestos and was not only content to remain asbestos, he reveled in it. It was not our method that was flawed, but our choice of raw material."

"Garbage in, garbage out," Kisuke said ruefully. Applying the universal rule of coding to weaving amused him.

"Precisely." Benihime inclined her head thoughtfully and said, "While I am glad that you take the potential impact of your patronage seriously, I think your worry is excessive." She reached over his shoulders and loosely clasped her hands behind his neck. "Learning to weave alone is what twisted Aizen. That is why you must weave with Akemi. Beside her, in addition to above her or across the room from her. And teach her to weave herself into others and others into her with strong bonds. Right now there is more danger from her continuing to weave by herself than in learning better weaving with you. Guiding her from a distance and keeping her at arm's length is how you will convince her that she is nothing more than a tool to you. A drudge in your textile mill. A means to an end. That is what will drive her further into solitude and arrogant pride in her cloth." Benihime leaned in close to him, chin dipped so she was looking up at him through her hair. "She is now Penelope. Do not let her become Arachne, Kisuke."

Kisuke closed his eyes and breathed deeply, centering himself. "You're right, of course."

"I am always right," Benihime said crossly. "I never expected it would take so long for this fact to penetrate your thick skull, but here we are."

A wide grin stretched across Kisuke's face. "Now, to figure out how to get closer to her..."

Benihime leaned back and looked unimpressed. "You know how. You are not stupid, Kisuke. You are an obstinate hermit crab who hates emerging from his shell any more than absolutely necessary. And even then, you favor pincers."

Kisuke arched a brow and playfully said, "Are you calling me a crustacean, madam?"

"I am," Benihime confirmed with a smirk before sobering again. "The others get personal with her, for one. They are also very forthcoming with her, obviously. If you volunteer information regularly, it will be less noticeable when you do strategically omit some."

"Oh? Still omit some?" he teased. "I thought you said—"

Rolling her eyes, Benihime drawled, "Do not act as though there is no middle ground between complete openness and complete stonewalling, you fool. You play in that gray area all the time. You just need to refine your technique and degree of obfuscation for this application. Skewing heavily toward more transparency." She let go of his shoulders and poked one finger into his chest. "This is why you will disclose today's meeting with Tomohisa Kaname when Akemi returns. The information is harmless in the scale of things considering what we have explained to her about spiritual awareness and could prompt her to examine her memories of past timelines in a new light. It could be very useful and she is intelligent enough to recognize the potential."

"She will be furious that I explained part of the contract to him, though. Acted without her input again."

"It is unavoidable. You merely have to phrase the revelation in a positive light and redirect her into seeking significance to the new information."

"Merely," Kisuke echoed drily.

"Merely," Benihime said with a snobby inclination of her chin.

"I'll have to push that to the top of my To Do list."

Benihime's eyes narrowed. "Speaking of—"

"Damn."

"Haste. Makes. Waste," Benihime said.

"I don't exactly have a lot of time to work with, milady."

She dismissed his objection with a wave of one crimson sleeve. "And you are wasting what little you have trying to weave five overlapping patterns at once. You are slowing yourself down and approaching a great deal of this situation inefficiently. You cannot continue to weave like this. Your cloth will fall apart." Benihime jabbed her folded war fan into his sternum so hard it knocked the breath out of him and declared, "Unravel your flawed cloth. Dismantle the warp and adjust the heddles. Be more careful with your weft. Your shuttles have been unstable lately."

"You do so hate when I hurry," Kisuke said ruefully.

"A stitch in time saves nine," she snapped. "Be deliberate. Methodical. You do not have the luxury of a century of idleness to design your cloth this time. You are forced to weave quickly to clothe the unclothed, but that is no excuse for poor workmanship."

"Ahhh, such a cruel taskmaster!" he teased.

"Such an impudent student," the spirit of his blade retorted with faint amusement. "In all seriousness, though, you simply do not have the resources to weave this piece alone. Given time, you weave intricate beauty from a thousand heddles and a hundred shuttles. When you try to do so in haste, you stray dangerously close to errors in the weft that ruin the pattern."

"What would you suggest, Princess?"

Benihime side-eyed him with disdain as she slowly said, "Make some use of the pretentious drawboy we had to leave our lovely Seireitei loom to, ob-vi-ous-ly."

Kisuke laughed aloud. "Still resent that, too?"

"It was a masterpiece. That asbestos-stuffed drawboy is unworthy of it," she sneered. "Take advantage of his jealous possession of our loom to partition our weaving, but ensure every pass of the shuttle stings his fingers."

Kisuke grinned. Indulging Benihime's grudges could be so entertaining sometimes. Well, technically, Benihime's grudges were his own suppressed grudges, so he was indulging himself. But also... "What? You want him to prick his finger on a spindle? I don't think anyone would kiss him to wake him up to actually be useful. Unless you're volunteering to be the gallant Princess Charming, milady?"

"Begone with you, knave," Benihime said with fond annoyance before she pushed him off the bench backwards and he woke in his bed.

He stared at the ceiling, breathing deeply and planning. After awhile, he pried himself out of bed and headed for a lab. He had a lot of arrangements to make.

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A/N: As far as I could tell / remember from the show, Kyubey is shown in the same room with Junko but not with Tomohisa. I decided to make something of it. If I'm wrong... ARTISTIC LICENSE LOL.

But like... watch the PMMM episode 11 scenes of Madoka coming home from Sayaka's funeral and Madoka and Junko at the shelter, looking at it as if Junko knew her daughter was involved in spiritual bullshit no one else had a hope of countering and which had probably gotten her friend killed. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I am aware that my Benihime is similar to Senjōmaru Shutara. It annoys me because it was unintentional— Benihime's personality has been my personal headcanon for a lonnng time and the sewing/weaving aspect was only added once Urahara's bankai was shown. We could go with the similarity being a testament to Urahara being on par with a Royal Guard, I suppose. Especially since Urahara is stated to have created his healing hot spring based on analysis of Kirinji's originals and the Quincy considered him one of the... Special War Powers or whatever that awkward phrase was.

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.