Bleach (c) Tite Kubo

Once more, if only to see you again

The Time Before

Author's Announcement: This will be the last update I put on fanfiction-dot-net. This site's glory days are long behind. Bots run rampant on this site. For continuations, you can find me on Archive of Our Own under the same name. You'll find bonus content and other AUs over there.

Thanks.

Aurora313

"But I wanna go with you."

Masaki exhales a quiet sigh of fond exasperation, turning to address the shadow that's been trailing her the last five minutes. There's a karate tournament at Ichigo's dojo today and the skies decided to grace Karakura with their displeasure in the form of an unseasonable rainstorm. That inconvenient tidbit did not seem to dissuade her second son in the slightest.

Kaien's pleading blue eyes would've been irresistibly adorable, doubtless his father would crumbled like a house of cards under that gaze, had it not been for the bleariness and the irritated red nose of a cold painting a totally miserable image.

The poor boy's shivering, snuffling, trying extremely hard not to cough up half a lung every few minutes and generally looking like death warmed over. Plus the fact he's wearing a winter weight jumper in the middle of July and has the lounge's throw rug pulled extra tight around his shoulders.

One or both of the girls brought home a childhood cold from pre-school, which promptly burned through the Kurosaki household like a wild fire. Just when they thought Kaien had escaped their fate, the cold hit him last and by far the worst of the entire family. Masaki knows Ichigo teases him about it behind closed doors.

"Kaien, no. I won't repeat myself again." Masaki remains firm but not unkind. "You're not well and it's bucketing rain outside. We don't want this stubborn bug turning into pneumonia now, do we?"

Kaien's visibly slumps, wearing a defeated pout. "No, mama."

"That's what I thought." Masaki steers her sick boy back to the living room and parks him on the lounge. Without prompting, Kaien lays his head down on the cushion and curls into a ball, hugging his old manta ray plushie close to his chest. Masaki tucks the throw rug under his chin.

"Oh, poor sweet thing." Masaki runs her fingers through his hair soothingly. Kaien struggles between pouting sourly and weak giggles. The twins visited the barber last week and the new growth is still soft, fluffy and quite ticklish. "A nice steamy shower and early bed for you tonight, I think."

Kaien sneezes, swinging right back to drowning in misery. Eventually he croaks out a pathetic "Uh huh."

Masaki holds a tissue to his face, helping him blow his nose.

"Hate being sick." Kaien murmurs.

"I know, love. I know." Masaki retreats to the kitchen. A minute later she returns with a plastic measuring cup filled with cough syrup. Kaien grimaces but obediently drinks the bitter medicine. "Look on the bright side, you're over the hill. Come the weekend, you'll be right back to your grinning self and satisfying those itchy feet of yours in no time. And keeping your big brother on his toes, of course."

Masaki gives a conspiratorial wink. Kaien cackles weakly in response.

"But I do have a surprise for you if that'll help you feel better."

Kaien perks up curiously. Masaki flashes a quick smile, walking around the corner to the small office space beyond. More a cupboard really but its hers. She plucks up a braided band of tanned and blue leathers from her desk, threaded with azure glass beads and cowrie shells.

A fortnight ago, her family surprised her with a beach picnic-turn-barbeque for her birthday. They let her sleep in, only for her wake up a little past 9:30 to two picnic hampers packed full of snacks, sandwiches and fresh meat to go on the public barbeque. When the twins, the elder pair, weren't busy challenging each other to dive headlong into the biggest wave or helping their baby sisters build sandcastles, they collected seashells together.

Masaki is a jeweler by trade. So when the boys eagerly rushed back to her, their hands overladen with shells of all shapes and sizes, Masaki offered to turn them into accessories. It took a week, most of it spent sterilizing the materials, but she'd finished Kaien's bracelet first. Ichigo's still deciding what he wants Masaki to make.

(It's no Quincy cross but Masaki plans to surprise the twins on their tenth birthday by gifting them Quincy crosses of their own, as per the preciously few Kurosaki family traditions she intends to keep. She's a few long chats away from convincing Isshin to allow it. And thanks to Ryuken, two ingots of consecrated silver sit in her toolbox, ready and waiting for the task. She thinks she'll let the boys help her design them, adding their own personal flourishes. Then surprise them with the finished products on the day.)

When Masaki returns and presents it to Kaien, his face lights up like a Christmas tree. He cradles the bracelet in both hands like its spun from gold.

"Its a bit big now but you'll to grow into it." Masaki reassures.

Kaien launches from the lounge, wrapping her waist in a big hug. Masaki holds her boy close, cheek resting on his crown. Unfortunately the sweet moment is broken by a string of wracking coughs. Masaki rubs his back gently, letting Kaien hack it out. "Oh dear. Time for a nap."

It might sound patronizing to a nine year old but Kaien quietly nods and lays back down on the lounge, clutching his new bracelet in his fist like a precious talisman.

A series of thumping down the stairs pulls Masaki's attention away from her sick son. She has to stop herself from laughing when Ichigo bursts into the living room in his sneakers, gi and raincoat, practically lost in Kaien's stingray patterned duvet. A bundle he prompts dumps on his twin brother, burying Kaien in linens.

Kaien pokes his head out, an enraged pout aimed at Ichigo. Meanwhile, Ichigo is bouncing on his toes and grinning. Masaki coughs, clearing her throat to cover her laugh while she straightens out the blankets.

"Wasn't funny." Kaien whines.

"Yeah it was!" Ichigo rebuffs, unrepentant.

"Ichigo, don't be mean to your brother." Masaki admonishes.

Ichigo crosses his arms with a pout. "He was teasing me when I was sick."

"Yes," Masaki agrees patiently, "And you'll remember I told him off for that. Now I'm telling you off."

Ichigo wilts with a huff, chastised. "Okay."

Masaki smiles, poking Ichigo's nose, laughing when he scrubs it on the back of his hand. Then turns her attention back to Kaien. "And you, young man. Close those eyes and get some rest. We'll be back home before you know it. I'll whip up sea bream miso soup for dinner."

A spark of life returned to those bleary blue eyes at the mention of one of his favourite meals. Kaien flashes a tired smile then obeys, burrowing into the blankets.

"Rest well, sweetheart." Masaki gently strokes his hair.

"I love you, mama."

Masaki leans down kissing his forehead. "I love you too, little sun."

Kaien stares at his darkened bedroom ceiling, toying with the well-worn leather band around his left wrist, contemplating his last memory of his mother.

The last time he saw her alive was a day like any other. Routine even. He was already out of it thanks to a head cold but he doesn't remember much in the two weeks after that morning. Barely even remembers the funeral. All he remembers is lingering weakness from the cold, a fainting spell, distant shouts and urgent voices.

His next clearest memory is waking up in a hospital bed two weeks later, his remaining family weeping over him, and a whole new pain in his chest to serve as companion to his grief.

As much as Kaien avoids thinking about it, the one image he can't get out of his head is the heart-breaking expression on his brother's face.

Ichigo who wasn't so fortunate to have such a pleasant final memory of Masaki. Who had a front row seat to watching some foul hollow beast murder their mother. Ichigo who almost lost a mother and his twin in one fortnight.

Kaien inhales as deeply as he can, suppressing the urge to wince as that familiar pain in his chest catches. Absently his fingers trace the pearly surgical scar on his sternum. The worst part was discovering his helplessness a short while after coming home.

When Kaien finally felt strong enough to train again, he'd discovered the lion's share of his Quincy power was gone. Even his ability to see spirits dramatically dulled. Where they were once clear as a bell, he could only see vague impressions.

He couldn't figure it out. But something tickled at the back of his brain. A hymn their late mother taught them as toddlers came to the forefront of his mind. The Kaiser Gesang.

Once that clicked in his head, everything else fell into place. In his infinite greed, the carrion emperor decided that, as a hollow-tainted Quincy and a Quincy-Shinigami half-breed, Kaien and his mother were nothing more than food. Two of countless precious lives reduced to tasty little soul nuggets for a selfish hateful corpse to slurp down.

Of course he'd managed to gain some measure of power back, using his mother's last gift as a focus the way Quincy use their crosses or shinigami channel their zanpakutou, but its paltry and vastly more unstable compared to the abilities he used to possess. Least of all because he's slave to the mercurial whims of the feral spirit within. A hollow-tainted thing like Ichigo's spirit, but barely coherent and damaged in ways Kaien couldn't begin to understand.

His fingers scrunch his shirt into a tight, trembling fist. His teeth grind together in a bitter snarl.

"You okay?" Ichigo's voice floats from his bed, where he'd huddled up on his side, facing the window.

Kaien glances over, the burning embers of anger simmering down. Smoothing out his shirt, he breaths out a heavy sigh.

"Honestly, I'd rather be in school tomorrow." He admits, utterly devoid of his typical cheer, "But I'm not enough of a selfish brat to say that out loud. Especially not in front of the girls."

"Yeah. I know." Ichigo mutters.

A short silence passes, save for a gentle rustling of leaves outside their bedroom window.

"Want to talk about it?" Ichigo offers.

"Nothing I haven't already said every other year." Kaien rolls onto his side, away from his brother.

"Mmm."

A minute later, Kaien hears the rustle of bedclothes and looks over his shoulder. Ichigo had bunched open close to the wall and pulled his blanket aside, leaving an open space on the other side of the mattress.

It takes Kaien about two seconds to accept the invitation. As soon as he lies down back-to-back with his twin Ichigo throws the blanket over him.

"Kick me and I kick you off."

"Tempting."

"Tch. Shut up and go to sleep, twerp."

"Brat."

Isshin waits until all his children are asleep before he shoves on his jacket and heads out. His expression is altogether dour when he turned the last corner towards Urahara's back alley shop. He finds the shopkeeper sitting expectantly in the backroom by the small table. A pair of lukewarm teas wait for them.

"The latest sample." Isshin skips the usual pleasantries, producing a small cannister-like object the size of his thumb, filled with erratic silver-y blue reiatsu.

Urahara holds the tiny glass cylinder between his thumb and finger, examining it with a critical eye Isshin's grown to hate over these past seven years.

"Thank you. The analysis won't take too long." Urahara says, inserting it into a handheld device.

Isshin sits down on a cushion across the table, chin propped up on a fist while he waits to the tell-tale click and chime for the result. He doesn't expect any change from the last time they did this.

The twitch downwards on Urahara's face tells him the new is grim as ever.

"No change, I take it?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, I'm afraid." Urahara reports.

Isshin is not comforted. Unfortunately in this context, 'ordinary' means turbulent, chaotic and self-destructive.

"And there's nothing you can do?" Isshin asks, probably for the millionth time.

Urahara looks at him with some mix of exasperation and sympathy, which irritates Isshin even more. "I won't mince words. Practically speaking, there really isn't anything I can do. I can confirm that Kaien able to produce Quincy reiyoku and Hollow reiyoku in abundance, but there's not enough shinigami to force an equilibrium like Ichigo. Between the two contradicting forces, his reiatsu won't stabilise. It decays faster than he can regenerate it. The end result is effectively a poison that's corroding his soul on a foundational level, manifesting as his physical symptoms."

"I already know that." Isshin says, hiding his frustration.

"At the rate of decay I've been observing, realistically speaking he should have died in that hospital seven years ago." Urahara considers the device in his palm, carefully. "Until very recently I hadn't the faintest clue why he's still alive."

Isshin threw him a dirty look. "But you have a theory. You always do."

"I do." Urahara agrees. "At first, I wasn't certain but I've concluded that Ichigo's presence has something to do with why Kaien's reiyoku emissions spike as drastically as they do. I've noticed that every time the latter's reiyoku temporarily stabilises after his episodes coincides with his proximity to Ichigo."

Isshin frowns. "You think Kaien is instinctually drawing on Ichigo's ambient reiyoku to keep himself alive?"

"I don't believe there's anything instinctual about it." Urahara dismisses, "Knowing now that Ichigo has a distinct grasp of rudimentary abilities, I would go as far to suggest Ichigo is actively contributing to keeping his brother alive."

Isshin's frown deepens. "Wait. You're telling me he's been donating reiatsu to Kaien every other week? Right under my nose?"

"That is what my data suggests, yes."

Isshin leans back, processing this.

He knew his boys were secretive when they wanted to be, but this? Has he really become so blind? Has playing human these past twenty years dulled his senses that much?

He knew what it was like to deal with an ailing sibling. Having your life revolve around them and their needs. He loved his brother, the first Kaien's father, dearly but he was a palling man. And as much as Isshin loved him, part of him resented the man a bit. That quiet resentment loomed like a shadow over all their conversations, particularly in Inei's final years.

He never wanted that same kind of resentment brewing between his boys.

That's why Isshin encouraged them to pursue their separate interests, encouraged them to live different lives as much as they could. Many challenges loomed on the horizon simply because of what they are; be it Aizen's schemes or Kaien's own failing health reaching its inevitable conclusion. He wanted to remind them that life existed outside each other, pushed them accordingly.

But in doing that, has Isshin inadvertently making things worse?

He closes his eyes and pushes that unpleasant thought side with a shake of his head.

"A hakkyō has a donor soul. There's gotta be something left of the original Kaien, otherwise mine wouldn't have existed in the first place. Can you, I don't know, search for the original and use the leftovers to heal my son?" Isshin bargains, masking the desperation lying just under the surface.

He knows what he's asking is horrific by any standard of decency, digging up his nephew's grave for a chance that his son might be saved. But he knows Urahara's the kind of person to to do what's necessary no matter his personal scruples. In fact, Isshin's quite sure the man's done worse in his former career as an omnitsukidou operative without batting an eye.

Urahara exhales a tired sigh, shaking his head. "I've been searching for that very thing since the day my suspicions were confirmed. Unfortunately, between this world, Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and anywhere in between, I'm searching for a needle in a haystack of infinite size. I doubt I would be able to find the original if I were afforded another two hundred years."

"There's got to be something you can do." Isshin half-demands.

"Not without studying Kaien more closely." Urahara says. "The samples you've provided me over the years have given me a broad framework to extrapolate from, but I would need to see for myself if my theory is correct. And if so, I would like to know exactly what mechanism Ichigo uses to keep his brother alive. Perhaps from that example I can derive a temporary measure."

The shopkeeper fixes Isshin with a hard stare from under his hat, "But you must understand any solution I come up with is not permanent. Short of completing the hakkyō process, anything I offer is a stopgap solution at best. And nothing I can do will repair the damage already done."

Isshin contemplates this with a scowl, shifting edgily in his seat. He hated that. He wanted something practice to do now. Instead he's helpless to do anything of practical use. He's learned human medicine well enough, can take care of his son's human symptoms but he hates he can't do anything to treat the cause.

"Do what you have to do." Isshin says eventually.

Urahara arches an eyebrow. "Even if that risks regrettably dragging him into the very war you demanded I keep him away from?"

Isshin glares harshly at him.

Urahara is unperturbed. "You know as well as I do he'd inevitably follow Ichigo anyhow. Where one of them goes, the other is quick to follow."

"Don't have to tell me twice. They could be trying to tear each other's throats out with their teeth one moment, then gladly jump headlong into hell for each other the next." Isshin heaves out a sigh then grudgingly concedes. "Do whatever it takes. But don't come complaining to me if my boys out-stubborn you."

Urahara shrugs. "If I cannot convince a pair of teenagers to work with me, then I'll need to seriously reassess my own capabilities. I'm sure we'll come to an equitable working arrangement."

Isshin snorts. "You say that now."

Author's note:

First off: I'm not dead. Just had new brainworms occupying my attention in recent months. When one of your favourite space ninja games gives you a sexy salt'n'pepper brit to romance, you tend to get distracted. :P

That's how Kaien got his bracelet/fullbring focus. Twas mama's last gift to him the day she died. Now we have Kisuke and Isshin have proof that Ichigo and Kaien are hiding way more than it seems.

Hope you enjoyed!

Aurora313