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Fanfiction || Treading Icy Waters 16
Title: Treading Icy Waters
Fandom: Bleach
Main Character: Hitsugaya Toushirou
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General/Action/Suspense
Warnings: Occasional language, violence, gore.
Timeline: This story follows the manga's timeline. It begins directly before the Hueco Mundo arc and diverges from there.
Summary: The board has been laid out. The pieces have been set and moved. The pawns are scattered across the floor, and Ichimaru’s fingers are wrapped around a stark white bishop. “That’s another check, little taichou.” The game has only begun.
~*~
“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”
-Oscar Wilde
~*~
Chapter Sixteen
The Devil’s Arcade
~*~
“Taichou! Taichou!”
No answer. Matsumoto Rangiku refused to keep running after him if he was just going to keep ignoring her. She came to a halt, slamming her palms against her hips and pouting at her retreating taichou’s back with disdain. Honestly, her taichou could be such a pain. She’d try one more time.
“Taichou! Listen to me for once!”
Still no answer. He was so damn aggravating! She knew he’d never reply until she gave in, so she finally surrendered. She raised her hands to cup them around her mouth and yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Kurosaki Isshin, you stubborn, old mule!”
The retreating figure stopped and turned back. He looked to be in his early twenties, his tan, leathery skin course with battle. Everything about him seemed to give off the strange impression of some subtle wisdom gained through a simple epiphany or philosophy he had accepted long ago. His dark hair was long, held back in a loose ponytail, and the smallest bristles were just beginning to nestle along his jaw line. Somehow, even the sheepish smile adorning his lips added to the image. In Rangiku’s opinion, it was an appearance very worthy of the Tenth Division insignia upon his long-sleeved haori. “You called, Rangiku-chan?”
The image was instantly shattered when she caught up to him and smacked him upside the head. “Idiot. Wipe that dumb grin off your face. You know it doesn’t work on me.”
“Rangiku-chan… That was so mean!” he burst into mock tears, shielding his bruised cranium and laying on the dramatics thicker than even Shunsui. “Oh! What happened to the quiet, compassionate little girl I met so many decades ago?”
“She got stuck with you as her taichou,” Rangiku huffed, though she wasn’t able to hold back her traitorous smile.
He looked aggravatingly pleased with himself as he matched her smile with his own once more. “How are things with the kid you found in Rukongai?”
Rangiku beamed. “He’s so cute, Taichou! He thinks he knows everything, and he’s always arguing like he’s so superior. It makes him even cuter. He still won’t talk to too many people, but Ukitake-taichou agreed to take him in as his new Eighth Seat! I guess everyone’s been congratulating him for achieving shikai before graduating the Academy, but all he did the whole time I visited was complain about how easy it was. He really is adorable. I can’t wait to introduce you!”
“Really…” he trailed off with genuine interest, but Rangiku caught the strange, faraway quality hidden in his glazed over tone and was instantly reminded of why she was here in the first place.
“How dare you distract me like that! That’s just … just … dirty!” she whined, her pout making its comeback as her pale eyes bored accusingly into her taichou’s bottomless ones. “You know why I came after you, and you still have the gall to call me the mean one!?”
“Whatever could you mean?”
“You asked him, didn’t you?” she accused.
Isshin frowned. She knew he didn’t want to get into this argument again, but she had to know. If he had run off without telling anyone… She would never forgive him. He sighed, avoiding eye contact. She knew the answer long before he opened his mouth. “Yes, I did. And he agreed with me.”
“He would have agreed with someone else too!” she countered desperately, arms flying all over the place in her sub-par attempts to express her frustration. “Tell him that you changed your mind!”
“I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted to. The fact is that I haven’t changed my mind,” he replied heavily. “Two of my seated officers are dead for no reason other than that they were shinigami. I went to Yama-jii to get permission to erase their murderer.”
“Erase? Taichou, this isn’t just another hollow we’re talking about! He’s-!”
“-an angry Quincy bent on eradicating all of shinigami-kind on his own?”
“His father, the old man, he’s sweet, and he’s completely harmless, but this guy is-!”
“-an angry Quincy bent on eradicating all of shinigami-kind on his own?”
“Stop doing that!” Matsumoto was just about ready to rip out her hair. “This is serious!”
“I am being serious, Rangiku-chan,” he chuckled, patting her on the head. “I’ll be back in no time at all. But I have to do this, alright?”
There was that smile again, that cheesy grin that worked on everyone but her. She was used to false smiles and she was used to goodbyes, but - dammit! – she was not going to accept either from Kurosaki Isshin. “Yeah? Well, you’d better hurry. Because until you get back, I swear I am going to be the slacker from hell, and when you see those monstrous piles of paperwork drowning the whole office, you’re going to wish you’d never met that quiet, compassionate little girl all those decades ago.”
“Aw, Rangiku-chaaan,” he whined before planting an unexpected kiss on her forehead. A blush crept up along her cheeks. “I’d never wish that.”
~*~
“Be careful what you say, Kurosaki-taichou. She’d go through with it.”
Isshin looked up in surprise at the figure lurking around the corner. He smirked. “Aw, don’t be jealous. Your little fukutaichou is pretty cute herself, Sousuke.”
The Fifth Division taichou smiled, but it was strained. His eyes pleaded with his fellow taichou. “I’m afraid I’m inclined to agree with Rangiku, Isshin. You were against the massacre all those years ago, and I know you still wish you could have done something to prevent it. This isn’t your fight. Besides,” he added, his tone softening, “I’d much rather see you laughing and training with your men than slaughtering some kid who’s gotten himself in over his head.”
“Sousuke,” Isshin sighed, drawing out the word as if it pained him. “This has nothing to do with the past. He killed my men. I can’t laugh with them if they’re dead, Sousuke. They won’t ever laugh again.”
Aizen took a step back, clearing the way. He nodded his understanding, though he still seemed reluctant. “I’ll look after Rangiku while you’re gone, but I couldn’t let you leave without trying, could I?”
“Thank you.”
“Just come back soon.”
Isshin gave the man a thankful nod, his entire body seeming to relax even as he was preparing for battle. “Of course,” he grinned. “Who did you think you were talking to?”
And he was gone.
“‘Jus’ come back soon?’” repeated a disembodied voice from directly above Aizen’s head. Even the voice seemed to be smirking. “Now tha’ was unnecessary.”
“Yes, it was,” Aizen replied levelly before removing his glasses, wiping the lenses on his haori’s sleeve.
A Cheshire grin slowly turned around and disappeared into the fading afternoon sky. “Yare, yare,” it sighed playfully. “An’ ya didn’ even let me say g’bye….”
~*~
Isshin could feel the energy before he was even completely through the gate. It was that of a Quincy, alright, and the agonizing wail that died off into nothingness was certainly a defeated hollow. The Quincy arrows really didn’t cleanse the hollows, did they? The last time he had ever heard a cry as sorrowful and deranged as that one was before the massacre. His palm clenched around his zanpakutou’s hilt as he stepped out into the cool air of a city at dusk.
He didn’t bother to restrain his reiatsu any further than his limit already did. He wasn’t here to hide.
The energy he had felt wavered momentarily before bursting into a flower of raging reiatsu. It was like a fire of ice. He would have thought it beautiful if he wasn’t here to destroy it. At the very least, the Quincy’s intentions were now clear. He had taken the bait and responded with equal vigor. There was no way around this. There would be one fight; then it would end.
Slowly, Kurosaki Isshin made his way toward the deadly reiatsu flower. It was situated in the middle of an abandoned intersection. Stop lights all blinking red swayed in the wind making the atmosphere much more eerie than it should have been. In the center of the flower was a teenager dressed in white; he couldn’t have been older than eighteen, but he held an enormous bow with only his left hand, its purple-silver hue clashing with the golden streetlights. He looked far too young to be wielding such a weapon, but then, Isshin didn’t look a day over twenty-two either.
He stopped on the corner, looking up to face the Quincy with a tense frown the likes of which very few had ever seen him display. “I take it you’re the one they call Artemis.”
“I didn’t come up with the title, but I can’t deny that it refers to me,” came the cold reply from across the intersection. “‘The hunter of the moon.’ Ishida Ryuuken. I take it you’re a friend of the deceased, here to stop me.”
“No,” Kurosaki replied emotionlessly, drawing his zanpakutou, “I am Kurosaki Isshin, taichou of the Tenth Division, and I’m here to kill you.”
~*~
Hitsugaya Toushirou bolted upright, eyes wide and breathing haggard. His head was pounding like a veritable hail storm, and his shoulder was ablaze in agony. He could hear shuffling, an excited voice, but none of it mattered. It took all of his being just to keep breathing. He tasted blood on his tongue, a stinging, copper bed-of-nails on his taste buds.
“-rou! Toushirou! Toushirou-kun! Answer me!”
His head jerked to the right, and a blurry Kurosaki Isshin came into focus. The elder shinigami was crouched next to him, holding him up with a steady hand. His whole body radiated anxiety, but there was a cooler stench in the room as well. Hastily, he brought his head up to meet another blur, Ishida Ryuuken. The cavernous room they were in was white-washed. Everything echoed. He noticed with a confused clarity that he was covered in a layer of cold sweat, and his left arm refused to move.
“Toushirou-kun…?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. If felt disturbingly as if something was going to spew out if he kept it open long.
A feeling not unlike a fan blowing in his face and within his gut caught him off guard, and he realized that Hyourinmaru was wrapping his soothing scales around his reiatsu. He breathed a silent sigh of relief as the sensation took over his senses and he regained some sense of his mind. He could hear Kurosaki and Ishida talking again.
“Ryuuken!” the louder of the two whined just outside of Hitsugaya’s comprehension. “You hit him too hard! He’s just a kid!”
“He’s probably older than I am,” the Quincy replied in contempt, his icy glare eyeing with disdain the shinigami robes Kurosaki wore. “You should be thanking me for only piercing his shoulder. When you first mentioned Urahara was behind this, I was quite ready to just kill him.”
And then it came to him. Everything that had happened that day. Asking Urahara to aid in gaining Matsumoto’s bankai, the parent-teacher conference, and … Kurosaki Isshin. The Quincy’s hospital. Urahara. That bastard. “Damn…” he finally managed to choke out, staring down at the floor to keep himself steady. His vision still felt as if it were rocking back and forth on a see-saw. Both men trained their eyes on him. “He already knew that my reiatsu fueled it…. Why…?”
“That wasn’t your reiatsu, Toushirou-kun,” Kurosaki replied seriously.
“The last arrow I fired,” prompted Ishida when Hitsugaya’s brows furrowed, “was of Isshin’s reiatsu. Which means that any spiritual energy you come in contact with will inflame your condition. Whether the energy is yours or not, it does not matter.”
Hitsugaya tried to swallow this new bit of information. This was just like that insane salesman, such a ridiculous set-up when he could have just pulled him aside for two minutes. But, if this was true, then…
He tried to stand up. He couldn’t.
His shoulder screamed anew. He jerked backward, hand shooting for a wound that was no longer there. He heard more shuffling, a shout, a loud thud, and nothing else.
~*~
Isshin hastily stepped into shunpo and narrowly avoided the wrath of several Quincy arrows. He reappeared within the realm of sight directly to Ryuuken’s right, but the Quincy teenager anticipated the move and dodged to the side, firing another volley of arrows. Isshin, a single bead of sweat slinking down into his eye, took a deep breath and made it out of the way once more, this time managing to catch the Quincy with an unexpected charge.
His zanpakutou skimmed the side of Ryuuken’s arm, blood flowing down toward the large, silver arrow. This wasn’t exactly a noteworthy injury. The two had been charging through the streets of Karakura for almost half an hour now, and both of them were getting tired. Wounds littered both of their bodies, and an ungracious, little skim along the Quincy’s arm was not going to get Isshin an advantage at this point. He had already released shikai, and still the teenager was equal to him in ability.
He was just beginning to consider calling upon his bankai when he heard a familiar sound a short distance away. He hastily swung around to block Ryuuken’s next barrage, but what he saw behind the Quincy made him forget all about his designs for vengeance.
Standing several meters behind Ishida Ryuuken was a five ton hollow with a mask like a starburst and a tail like Thor’s own axe. Its reptilian body reminiscent of some sort of Gila monster turned slimy, black Godzilla, Isshin couldn’t even begin to understand how he had not sensed it before now, let alone heard it approaching. But there it was, as clear as day. And its tail had already risen into the air, hovering over Ryuuken’s head like a twisted, living guillotine.
He didn’t even bother warning the Quincy. There was no time, and adrenaline was already taking over his muscles. Fight or flight. There was no way Kurosaki Isshin was running away.
He charged toward Ryuuken with all of his might, not even taking the time to comprehend the wide-eyed Quincy, shocked at what he saw as a suicidal attack, raise his bow to aim at his chest. Zigzagging would lose him time he didn’t have. No sooner did two Quincy arrows appear than they were fired, but by that time Isshin was already on top of him. One arrow missed altogether while the other pierced the shinigami’s ribs just as he managed to tackle the stunned Quincy out of the way.
The tail made a clean cut into his shoulder, a geyser of crimson liquid spewing in an arc across the empty street as he shakily kept it from digging any deeper with his own hands, zanpakutou long forgotten along with his former opponent.
“You’re a big guy, aren’t ‘cha?” he chuckled under his breath, though the action set off a nasty cough.
The hollow only looked down at him as if waiting until he finally wretched the axe from his shoulder, hands nearly sliced in two but still managing to function under his endless will. “You are Kurosaki Isshin.”
Isshin paused, training his eyes on the emotionless mask in surprise. This did not bode well. At all. “Yes,” he finally hazarded between haggard breaths, “I am Kurosaki-taichou of the Tenth Division of the Gotei Thirteen. Who are you?”
The hollow opened its mouth as if to answer, but instead of giving its name, a beam of white hot light erupted from its throat and hit the shinigami directly in the chest.
There was no pain, Kurosaki noted with detached curiosity, as he felt his world swirling into blues and purples and blacks until finally, he was sucked in altogether.
~*~
Ishida Ryuuken was beyond stunned at this point. Whether they had been fighting beforehand or not, it shouldn’t have made any difference. That a mere hollow, not even of Gillian class, could surprise and nearly overpower a shinigami taichou was simply impossible. And how had he not sensed it? It had been right behind him, damn it! This wasn’t a case of carelessness; it was impossibility. Sheer impossibility.
And, worst of all, that shinigami had just saved his life.
Ryuuken was not having that.
Almost as soon as the shinigami was sent flying from the force of the beam, he had another batch of arrows ready and aimed. But without even closing its mouth from the attack, it was already storming toward the shinigami again. He tsked. He didn’t care about that pathetic shinigami; he really didn’t. But he couldn’t stomach the thought of some low-life hollow doing away with him before he could. That was not acceptable.
That damn hollow was impossibly fast. It couldn’t be normal, which meant normal tactics wouldn’t work.
In a split second decision that he already regretted, he gathered reiatsu at his feet for a hasty hirenkyaku, releasing his bow back into its pentacle as he did so. In the instant it took him to meet up with the hollow before the splayed out shinigami, the ghastly creature had bent down, jaws open wide. He smirked.
The hollow clamped down, a cascade of spilled blood wreaking itself upon the paved streets for the second time that night as Ishida Ryuuken felt the teeth digging into his body. Ignoring the sweat pooling from his forehead, he lifted the pentacle once more and the bow reappeared, but this time it spanned past the width of the hollow’s jaws, piercing the flesh on each side of the mouth before three more arrows were shot directly into the creature’s throat and right out the back of it.
It shrieked, instantly lifting its jaws as it reeled back, claws and tail flying every direction imaginable, and disintegrated into a mess of spirit particles that should have looked much uglier than they did.
The bow disbursed once more as Ryuuken slowly turned around, bending unsteadily over the shinigami’s prone form as more lost blood drained his life away. Kurosaki Isshin was awake, but he was in such a daze that he obviously had no idea what was happening. His grimace all too prominent upon his bloody lips, he managed, “This is why you … bastards deserve to die. You let other bastards … get to you before I can.”
“You…” came the unfocused reply as Isshin’s eyes zeroed in on Ryuuken’s now crimson suit. And, suddenly, he shot up. “You! We have to get you to a hospital right away!” He was surprised at how much his own wounds hurt, much more so than they should have. He was a shinigami, after all. Right?
The hatred in the Quincy’s tone was undeniable, even in his strained, halting vocals. “Like I’m going … to let you save me again, right after … I even the score.”
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance, then?”
Both turned perplexedly at the sound of another voice, a playful, sing-song voice owned by a grinning blonde man waving a fan mischievously in front of his face.
“What? No takers?”
“Kisuke!”
Urahara’s eyes widened at the voice, one he recognized. But no sooner had he recognized it did his grin leave his lips. “Isshin?” he managed, closing the fan as he ran toward them. He stopped when he saw his face; he was definitely the Tenth Division taichou, but…
“Isshin… Why can’t I feel your reiatsu?”
~*~
A heavy pounding on the door interrupted Urahara mid-sentence just before a loud, obnoxious voice caroled, “Kiiiisukeeee! We’re baaaaack! Open uuuup!”
Everyone stared at the door in awe, still lost in the story they had been listening to. Finally, Urahara smirked and called out, “C’mon in! The gang’s all here! We were just telling ghost stories!”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, the door burst open, propelled by none other than Kurosaki Isshin’s sandaled foot. Perhaps it was a hereditary trait. But almost more surprising than that was the fact that he was cradling a sleeping Hitsugaya-taichou, returned to his gigai, in his arms and Ishida Ryuuken was standing behind him.
All were speechless, except for Urahara, of course. “Good to see you again, old buddy!” he cheered happily, slapping Isshin on the back and moving to do the same to Ryuuken. He stopped, however, at the murderous stare that was immediately sent his way. “I take it things went well!”
“Well, he didn’t die!” Isshin replied in equally happy tones, though it held an obvious sting to it.
Urahara backed off appropriately. “You can just set him on the couch.”
“Taichou!” Matsumoto finally regained herself, jumping up from her chair to collect the diminutive shinigami in her arms. Isshin obliged.
“Well, Ryuuken, we’d best get our kin and get going, ne? Those ghost stories must’ve been pretty amazing, Kisuke. They’re all white as sheets.”
“I think that’s because of something else…” Renji hazarded.
“Ah, I see. Well, if my little Ichigo has any questions like that, he can ask them when we get home. As his father, I think it would be my duty to give him that sort of talk mano a mano.”
“I still don’t think you get it…”
But even as Ichigo and Uryuu were ushered off, Uryuu couldn’t help but allow for one last glance back at the sleeping taichou, Rangiku covering him up with a blanket, before fully diverting his attention to his father. He looked angry, impatient, and frustrated, his cold eyes planted on Kurosaki’s smiling face. Uryuu frowned.
Maybe… That conversation with his grandfather… His father’s hidden motives, motives Uryuu couldn’t have understood back then… Maybe…
His reason for disregarding his Quincy heritage… His reason for ordering Uryuu to never work with shinigami again…
Was because the more one interacted with them, the deeper one was spun into their web, the more apparent it became. They were no different. The Quincy, living, breathing humans, and the shinigami, inheritors of the afterlife. They were no different.
And that made all the difference.
Fandom: Bleach
Main Character: Hitsugaya Toushirou
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General/Action/Suspense
Warnings: Occasional language, violence, gore.
Timeline: This story follows the manga's timeline. It begins directly before the Hueco Mundo arc and diverges from there.
Summary: The board has been laid out. The pieces have been set and moved. The pawns are scattered across the floor, and Ichimaru’s fingers are wrapped around a stark white bishop. “That’s another check, little taichou.” The game has only begun.
“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”
-Oscar Wilde
~*~
Chapter Sixteen
The Devil’s Arcade
~*~
“Taichou! Taichou!”
No answer. Matsumoto Rangiku refused to keep running after him if he was just going to keep ignoring her. She came to a halt, slamming her palms against her hips and pouting at her retreating taichou’s back with disdain. Honestly, her taichou could be such a pain. She’d try one more time.
“Taichou! Listen to me for once!”
Still no answer. He was so damn aggravating! She knew he’d never reply until she gave in, so she finally surrendered. She raised her hands to cup them around her mouth and yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Kurosaki Isshin, you stubborn, old mule!”
The retreating figure stopped and turned back. He looked to be in his early twenties, his tan, leathery skin course with battle. Everything about him seemed to give off the strange impression of some subtle wisdom gained through a simple epiphany or philosophy he had accepted long ago. His dark hair was long, held back in a loose ponytail, and the smallest bristles were just beginning to nestle along his jaw line. Somehow, even the sheepish smile adorning his lips added to the image. In Rangiku’s opinion, it was an appearance very worthy of the Tenth Division insignia upon his long-sleeved haori. “You called, Rangiku-chan?”
The image was instantly shattered when she caught up to him and smacked him upside the head. “Idiot. Wipe that dumb grin off your face. You know it doesn’t work on me.”
“Rangiku-chan… That was so mean!” he burst into mock tears, shielding his bruised cranium and laying on the dramatics thicker than even Shunsui. “Oh! What happened to the quiet, compassionate little girl I met so many decades ago?”
“She got stuck with you as her taichou,” Rangiku huffed, though she wasn’t able to hold back her traitorous smile.
He looked aggravatingly pleased with himself as he matched her smile with his own once more. “How are things with the kid you found in Rukongai?”
Rangiku beamed. “He’s so cute, Taichou! He thinks he knows everything, and he’s always arguing like he’s so superior. It makes him even cuter. He still won’t talk to too many people, but Ukitake-taichou agreed to take him in as his new Eighth Seat! I guess everyone’s been congratulating him for achieving shikai before graduating the Academy, but all he did the whole time I visited was complain about how easy it was. He really is adorable. I can’t wait to introduce you!”
“Really…” he trailed off with genuine interest, but Rangiku caught the strange, faraway quality hidden in his glazed over tone and was instantly reminded of why she was here in the first place.
“How dare you distract me like that! That’s just … just … dirty!” she whined, her pout making its comeback as her pale eyes bored accusingly into her taichou’s bottomless ones. “You know why I came after you, and you still have the gall to call me the mean one!?”
“Whatever could you mean?”
“You asked him, didn’t you?” she accused.
Isshin frowned. She knew he didn’t want to get into this argument again, but she had to know. If he had run off without telling anyone… She would never forgive him. He sighed, avoiding eye contact. She knew the answer long before he opened his mouth. “Yes, I did. And he agreed with me.”
“He would have agreed with someone else too!” she countered desperately, arms flying all over the place in her sub-par attempts to express her frustration. “Tell him that you changed your mind!”
“I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted to. The fact is that I haven’t changed my mind,” he replied heavily. “Two of my seated officers are dead for no reason other than that they were shinigami. I went to Yama-jii to get permission to erase their murderer.”
“Erase? Taichou, this isn’t just another hollow we’re talking about! He’s-!”
“-an angry Quincy bent on eradicating all of shinigami-kind on his own?”
“His father, the old man, he’s sweet, and he’s completely harmless, but this guy is-!”
“-an angry Quincy bent on eradicating all of shinigami-kind on his own?”
“Stop doing that!” Matsumoto was just about ready to rip out her hair. “This is serious!”
“I am being serious, Rangiku-chan,” he chuckled, patting her on the head. “I’ll be back in no time at all. But I have to do this, alright?”
There was that smile again, that cheesy grin that worked on everyone but her. She was used to false smiles and she was used to goodbyes, but - dammit! – she was not going to accept either from Kurosaki Isshin. “Yeah? Well, you’d better hurry. Because until you get back, I swear I am going to be the slacker from hell, and when you see those monstrous piles of paperwork drowning the whole office, you’re going to wish you’d never met that quiet, compassionate little girl all those decades ago.”
“Aw, Rangiku-chaaan,” he whined before planting an unexpected kiss on her forehead. A blush crept up along her cheeks. “I’d never wish that.”
“Be careful what you say, Kurosaki-taichou. She’d go through with it.”
Isshin looked up in surprise at the figure lurking around the corner. He smirked. “Aw, don’t be jealous. Your little fukutaichou is pretty cute herself, Sousuke.”
The Fifth Division taichou smiled, but it was strained. His eyes pleaded with his fellow taichou. “I’m afraid I’m inclined to agree with Rangiku, Isshin. You were against the massacre all those years ago, and I know you still wish you could have done something to prevent it. This isn’t your fight. Besides,” he added, his tone softening, “I’d much rather see you laughing and training with your men than slaughtering some kid who’s gotten himself in over his head.”
“Sousuke,” Isshin sighed, drawing out the word as if it pained him. “This has nothing to do with the past. He killed my men. I can’t laugh with them if they’re dead, Sousuke. They won’t ever laugh again.”
Aizen took a step back, clearing the way. He nodded his understanding, though he still seemed reluctant. “I’ll look after Rangiku while you’re gone, but I couldn’t let you leave without trying, could I?”
“Thank you.”
“Just come back soon.”
Isshin gave the man a thankful nod, his entire body seeming to relax even as he was preparing for battle. “Of course,” he grinned. “Who did you think you were talking to?”
And he was gone.
“‘Jus’ come back soon?’” repeated a disembodied voice from directly above Aizen’s head. Even the voice seemed to be smirking. “Now tha’ was unnecessary.”
“Yes, it was,” Aizen replied levelly before removing his glasses, wiping the lenses on his haori’s sleeve.
A Cheshire grin slowly turned around and disappeared into the fading afternoon sky. “Yare, yare,” it sighed playfully. “An’ ya didn’ even let me say g’bye….”
Isshin could feel the energy before he was even completely through the gate. It was that of a Quincy, alright, and the agonizing wail that died off into nothingness was certainly a defeated hollow. The Quincy arrows really didn’t cleanse the hollows, did they? The last time he had ever heard a cry as sorrowful and deranged as that one was before the massacre. His palm clenched around his zanpakutou’s hilt as he stepped out into the cool air of a city at dusk.
He didn’t bother to restrain his reiatsu any further than his limit already did. He wasn’t here to hide.
The energy he had felt wavered momentarily before bursting into a flower of raging reiatsu. It was like a fire of ice. He would have thought it beautiful if he wasn’t here to destroy it. At the very least, the Quincy’s intentions were now clear. He had taken the bait and responded with equal vigor. There was no way around this. There would be one fight; then it would end.
Slowly, Kurosaki Isshin made his way toward the deadly reiatsu flower. It was situated in the middle of an abandoned intersection. Stop lights all blinking red swayed in the wind making the atmosphere much more eerie than it should have been. In the center of the flower was a teenager dressed in white; he couldn’t have been older than eighteen, but he held an enormous bow with only his left hand, its purple-silver hue clashing with the golden streetlights. He looked far too young to be wielding such a weapon, but then, Isshin didn’t look a day over twenty-two either.
He stopped on the corner, looking up to face the Quincy with a tense frown the likes of which very few had ever seen him display. “I take it you’re the one they call Artemis.”
“I didn’t come up with the title, but I can’t deny that it refers to me,” came the cold reply from across the intersection. “‘The hunter of the moon.’ Ishida Ryuuken. I take it you’re a friend of the deceased, here to stop me.”
“No,” Kurosaki replied emotionlessly, drawing his zanpakutou, “I am Kurosaki Isshin, taichou of the Tenth Division, and I’m here to kill you.”
Hitsugaya Toushirou bolted upright, eyes wide and breathing haggard. His head was pounding like a veritable hail storm, and his shoulder was ablaze in agony. He could hear shuffling, an excited voice, but none of it mattered. It took all of his being just to keep breathing. He tasted blood on his tongue, a stinging, copper bed-of-nails on his taste buds.
“-rou! Toushirou! Toushirou-kun! Answer me!”
His head jerked to the right, and a blurry Kurosaki Isshin came into focus. The elder shinigami was crouched next to him, holding him up with a steady hand. His whole body radiated anxiety, but there was a cooler stench in the room as well. Hastily, he brought his head up to meet another blur, Ishida Ryuuken. The cavernous room they were in was white-washed. Everything echoed. He noticed with a confused clarity that he was covered in a layer of cold sweat, and his left arm refused to move.
“Toushirou-kun…?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. If felt disturbingly as if something was going to spew out if he kept it open long.
A feeling not unlike a fan blowing in his face and within his gut caught him off guard, and he realized that Hyourinmaru was wrapping his soothing scales around his reiatsu. He breathed a silent sigh of relief as the sensation took over his senses and he regained some sense of his mind. He could hear Kurosaki and Ishida talking again.
“Ryuuken!” the louder of the two whined just outside of Hitsugaya’s comprehension. “You hit him too hard! He’s just a kid!”
“He’s probably older than I am,” the Quincy replied in contempt, his icy glare eyeing with disdain the shinigami robes Kurosaki wore. “You should be thanking me for only piercing his shoulder. When you first mentioned Urahara was behind this, I was quite ready to just kill him.”
And then it came to him. Everything that had happened that day. Asking Urahara to aid in gaining Matsumoto’s bankai, the parent-teacher conference, and … Kurosaki Isshin. The Quincy’s hospital. Urahara. That bastard. “Damn…” he finally managed to choke out, staring down at the floor to keep himself steady. His vision still felt as if it were rocking back and forth on a see-saw. Both men trained their eyes on him. “He already knew that my reiatsu fueled it…. Why…?”
“That wasn’t your reiatsu, Toushirou-kun,” Kurosaki replied seriously.
“The last arrow I fired,” prompted Ishida when Hitsugaya’s brows furrowed, “was of Isshin’s reiatsu. Which means that any spiritual energy you come in contact with will inflame your condition. Whether the energy is yours or not, it does not matter.”
Hitsugaya tried to swallow this new bit of information. This was just like that insane salesman, such a ridiculous set-up when he could have just pulled him aside for two minutes. But, if this was true, then…
He tried to stand up. He couldn’t.
His shoulder screamed anew. He jerked backward, hand shooting for a wound that was no longer there. He heard more shuffling, a shout, a loud thud, and nothing else.
Isshin hastily stepped into shunpo and narrowly avoided the wrath of several Quincy arrows. He reappeared within the realm of sight directly to Ryuuken’s right, but the Quincy teenager anticipated the move and dodged to the side, firing another volley of arrows. Isshin, a single bead of sweat slinking down into his eye, took a deep breath and made it out of the way once more, this time managing to catch the Quincy with an unexpected charge.
His zanpakutou skimmed the side of Ryuuken’s arm, blood flowing down toward the large, silver arrow. This wasn’t exactly a noteworthy injury. The two had been charging through the streets of Karakura for almost half an hour now, and both of them were getting tired. Wounds littered both of their bodies, and an ungracious, little skim along the Quincy’s arm was not going to get Isshin an advantage at this point. He had already released shikai, and still the teenager was equal to him in ability.
He was just beginning to consider calling upon his bankai when he heard a familiar sound a short distance away. He hastily swung around to block Ryuuken’s next barrage, but what he saw behind the Quincy made him forget all about his designs for vengeance.
Standing several meters behind Ishida Ryuuken was a five ton hollow with a mask like a starburst and a tail like Thor’s own axe. Its reptilian body reminiscent of some sort of Gila monster turned slimy, black Godzilla, Isshin couldn’t even begin to understand how he had not sensed it before now, let alone heard it approaching. But there it was, as clear as day. And its tail had already risen into the air, hovering over Ryuuken’s head like a twisted, living guillotine.
He didn’t even bother warning the Quincy. There was no time, and adrenaline was already taking over his muscles. Fight or flight. There was no way Kurosaki Isshin was running away.
He charged toward Ryuuken with all of his might, not even taking the time to comprehend the wide-eyed Quincy, shocked at what he saw as a suicidal attack, raise his bow to aim at his chest. Zigzagging would lose him time he didn’t have. No sooner did two Quincy arrows appear than they were fired, but by that time Isshin was already on top of him. One arrow missed altogether while the other pierced the shinigami’s ribs just as he managed to tackle the stunned Quincy out of the way.
The tail made a clean cut into his shoulder, a geyser of crimson liquid spewing in an arc across the empty street as he shakily kept it from digging any deeper with his own hands, zanpakutou long forgotten along with his former opponent.
“You’re a big guy, aren’t ‘cha?” he chuckled under his breath, though the action set off a nasty cough.
The hollow only looked down at him as if waiting until he finally wretched the axe from his shoulder, hands nearly sliced in two but still managing to function under his endless will. “You are Kurosaki Isshin.”
Isshin paused, training his eyes on the emotionless mask in surprise. This did not bode well. At all. “Yes,” he finally hazarded between haggard breaths, “I am Kurosaki-taichou of the Tenth Division of the Gotei Thirteen. Who are you?”
The hollow opened its mouth as if to answer, but instead of giving its name, a beam of white hot light erupted from its throat and hit the shinigami directly in the chest.
There was no pain, Kurosaki noted with detached curiosity, as he felt his world swirling into blues and purples and blacks until finally, he was sucked in altogether.
Ishida Ryuuken was beyond stunned at this point. Whether they had been fighting beforehand or not, it shouldn’t have made any difference. That a mere hollow, not even of Gillian class, could surprise and nearly overpower a shinigami taichou was simply impossible. And how had he not sensed it? It had been right behind him, damn it! This wasn’t a case of carelessness; it was impossibility. Sheer impossibility.
And, worst of all, that shinigami had just saved his life.
Ryuuken was not having that.
Almost as soon as the shinigami was sent flying from the force of the beam, he had another batch of arrows ready and aimed. But without even closing its mouth from the attack, it was already storming toward the shinigami again. He tsked. He didn’t care about that pathetic shinigami; he really didn’t. But he couldn’t stomach the thought of some low-life hollow doing away with him before he could. That was not acceptable.
That damn hollow was impossibly fast. It couldn’t be normal, which meant normal tactics wouldn’t work.
In a split second decision that he already regretted, he gathered reiatsu at his feet for a hasty hirenkyaku, releasing his bow back into its pentacle as he did so. In the instant it took him to meet up with the hollow before the splayed out shinigami, the ghastly creature had bent down, jaws open wide. He smirked.
The hollow clamped down, a cascade of spilled blood wreaking itself upon the paved streets for the second time that night as Ishida Ryuuken felt the teeth digging into his body. Ignoring the sweat pooling from his forehead, he lifted the pentacle once more and the bow reappeared, but this time it spanned past the width of the hollow’s jaws, piercing the flesh on each side of the mouth before three more arrows were shot directly into the creature’s throat and right out the back of it.
It shrieked, instantly lifting its jaws as it reeled back, claws and tail flying every direction imaginable, and disintegrated into a mess of spirit particles that should have looked much uglier than they did.
The bow disbursed once more as Ryuuken slowly turned around, bending unsteadily over the shinigami’s prone form as more lost blood drained his life away. Kurosaki Isshin was awake, but he was in such a daze that he obviously had no idea what was happening. His grimace all too prominent upon his bloody lips, he managed, “This is why you … bastards deserve to die. You let other bastards … get to you before I can.”
“You…” came the unfocused reply as Isshin’s eyes zeroed in on Ryuuken’s now crimson suit. And, suddenly, he shot up. “You! We have to get you to a hospital right away!” He was surprised at how much his own wounds hurt, much more so than they should have. He was a shinigami, after all. Right?
The hatred in the Quincy’s tone was undeniable, even in his strained, halting vocals. “Like I’m going … to let you save me again, right after … I even the score.”
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance, then?”
Both turned perplexedly at the sound of another voice, a playful, sing-song voice owned by a grinning blonde man waving a fan mischievously in front of his face.
“What? No takers?”
“Kisuke!”
Urahara’s eyes widened at the voice, one he recognized. But no sooner had he recognized it did his grin leave his lips. “Isshin?” he managed, closing the fan as he ran toward them. He stopped when he saw his face; he was definitely the Tenth Division taichou, but…
“Isshin… Why can’t I feel your reiatsu?”
A heavy pounding on the door interrupted Urahara mid-sentence just before a loud, obnoxious voice caroled, “Kiiiisukeeee! We’re baaaaack! Open uuuup!”
Everyone stared at the door in awe, still lost in the story they had been listening to. Finally, Urahara smirked and called out, “C’mon in! The gang’s all here! We were just telling ghost stories!”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, the door burst open, propelled by none other than Kurosaki Isshin’s sandaled foot. Perhaps it was a hereditary trait. But almost more surprising than that was the fact that he was cradling a sleeping Hitsugaya-taichou, returned to his gigai, in his arms and Ishida Ryuuken was standing behind him.
All were speechless, except for Urahara, of course. “Good to see you again, old buddy!” he cheered happily, slapping Isshin on the back and moving to do the same to Ryuuken. He stopped, however, at the murderous stare that was immediately sent his way. “I take it things went well!”
“Well, he didn’t die!” Isshin replied in equally happy tones, though it held an obvious sting to it.
Urahara backed off appropriately. “You can just set him on the couch.”
“Taichou!” Matsumoto finally regained herself, jumping up from her chair to collect the diminutive shinigami in her arms. Isshin obliged.
“Well, Ryuuken, we’d best get our kin and get going, ne? Those ghost stories must’ve been pretty amazing, Kisuke. They’re all white as sheets.”
“I think that’s because of something else…” Renji hazarded.
“Ah, I see. Well, if my little Ichigo has any questions like that, he can ask them when we get home. As his father, I think it would be my duty to give him that sort of talk mano a mano.”
“I still don’t think you get it…”
But even as Ichigo and Uryuu were ushered off, Uryuu couldn’t help but allow for one last glance back at the sleeping taichou, Rangiku covering him up with a blanket, before fully diverting his attention to his father. He looked angry, impatient, and frustrated, his cold eyes planted on Kurosaki’s smiling face. Uryuu frowned.
Maybe… That conversation with his grandfather… His father’s hidden motives, motives Uryuu couldn’t have understood back then… Maybe…
His reason for disregarding his Quincy heritage… His reason for ordering Uryuu to never work with shinigami again…
Was because the more one interacted with them, the deeper one was spun into their web, the more apparent it became. They were no different. The Quincy, living, breathing humans, and the shinigami, inheritors of the afterlife. They were no different.
And that made all the difference.