Chapter Text
“Kurosaki-kun..?”
“Yeah, Geta-boushi?”
“What…what happened to you…”
“Aizen happened, the cross-dressing butterfly freak.”
“But-”
“I didn’t like the future so much, Kisuke. Very lonely, awfully quiet. Rather boring, in my not so humble opinion. So I came back.”
“How?”
“Dunno, you’d have to ask Shiro or Zangetsu.”
“Last time I checked, Kurosaki-kun, neither your hollow nor your zanpakuto have abilities that influence the space-time continuum.”
“Maa, call me Ichigo please, it’s been years since you called me ‘Kurosaki-kun’, it makes me feel old~”
The blonde shopkeeper looked at his –former? –charge with something between shock and concern.
“Are you alright, Ku-Ichigo-kun?”
The time traveller stopped and thought for a moment, before shrugging as though the answer was of little consequence.
“Hmmm. Probably not.”
Kisuke sweatdropped. Apparently, he was dealing with an older, mentally unstable version of his student. At least he seemed to be relatively harmless.
Ichigo looked across at the familiar face. For a brief moment, all he could see was the same face, burned and bloodied with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks and tongue ripped out. He attacked the memory, viciously locking it away. After all, it wouldn’t do to let Kisuke know just how fucked up his head was. Ichigo knew he couldn’t pass himself off as 100% sane; better for him to be labelled as slightly childish with a short attention span than severely depressed with a violent temper and non-existent control.
If he hadn’t come to an agreement with Shiro at the beginning of the war, the hollow would have been in charge by now. Currently, the only thing stopping the King being usurped was trust. That and an overly protective zanpakuto. That helps too.
The orange haired soldier (for that’s what he’d been; a soldier, the soldier) flashed a brilliant grin at his old teacher. His senses, still accustomed to full battle sensitivity, easily picked up on the unease that trickled through the other man’s reiatsu. He broadened his grin, allowing a touch of his madness to flitter through his own reiatsu, there and gone in an instant. Kisuke blanched as Ichigo continued to enjoy a bit of harmless revenge for the so-called ‘training’ he had been subjected to when he was fifteen. Sure, he was twice that age now (at least his soul was; his body was still fifteen and his mental age was a lost cause), but he could hold a grudge just as well as any Visored if he had enough incentive.
And he had plenty. This had the potential to be a very fun night (for Ichigo at least).
———————————————
He couldn’t see.
Everything was red.
He didn’t know if it was blood from some head wound he hadn’t realised he’d even gotten, or if he’d been blinded. Or maybe it was because he was angry. That might be it; maybe he was seeing red. But why would he be angry-
Karin was strewn about the floor, a leg here and both arms over there. Ichigo didn’t know where her head was. The broken arteries leaked blood, mangled muscle pulled away from the bone. Even if her sister was dead, Yuzu was still alive. Not for much longer though. Some Arrancar’s sword was through her spine and gut, pinning her to the floor in a slowly widening pool of blood.
She was whimpering and crying, weakly trying to drag herself away from the source of the pain. He was numb. Too much, too many deaths for him to fully comprehend anything anymore. Everything was hazy; he moved without thinking. She wouldn’t survive this on her own, and their healers were too few and too tired to waste any energy on her. Something in him tensed and began to fray. A mercy killing, then. He sensed Goat-Face and Shinji and Yoruichi racing closer. They couldn’t fix this. This was his fault; he was the one that was too late to save them.
No one else was going to do this but him.
Ichigo pulled the katana from her back and flung it to the corner of the room. The gratitude and immense relief rolled off of her in waves as he gathered Yuzu’s tiny body in his arms. One hand cradled her back while another supported her neck. A tightening of his hand and a sharp jerk and suddenly the little girl he had sworn to protect with his own life was nothing but a limp sack of meat with dull sightless eyes. As the sound of her fragile bones braking echoed in his ears, something inside of him snapped. He couldn’t help the high pitched giggles escaping from his mouth any more than he could stop his reiatsu from fluctuating wildly.
Someone landed close. A sharp intake of breath, followed by a gut-wrenching moan of agony. Barely a second passed before two more people landed. He felt rather than saw Yoruichi go to his father. Faint murmurs of ‘Isshin’ and ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘It will get better, I promise’ flowed behind him.
“Ichigo, are ya ok?”
The youth didn’t look up as Shinji knelt beside him. Orange hair had fallen forwards, concealing his eyes. The giggles only grew louder. “Ichigo.” Louder still. The conversation behind them ceased. The air grew tense. “It was so easy, Shinji. It took nothing to break her neck. Just a little itty bitty twitch and then,” he dropped the body he’d been cradling and made an exaggerated breaking motion, “snap~. It was so easy, Shinji-san-”
There was a strangled roar of outrage and the sound of flesh striking flesh. Isshin was too blinded by his own grief to try and reason out his son’s actions. The boy finally looked up. Ichigo could see himself reflected in Shinji’s shocked eyes; his own brown ones were filled with confusion and fear and anguish, lit bright with madness. Tears trickled down his cheeks as the giggles finally broke into something that sounded vaguely like a sob when every horrifying detail of his actions finally broke through the haze. He folded in half, arms wrapped around his midsection as his wail grew to ear piercing volumes. Silently, the former captain reached out and pulled the teen to his chest, gathering him up in his arms before a burst of shunpo took them away from the two tiny corpses and towards the warehouse the Visoreds called home. Ichigo was a part of their rag-tag family, and it was better he avoided what was left of his real one for the moment. He briefly made out the blonde muttering something about children and wars before he sank into unconsciousness to escape the pain of his self hatred–
–and he woke up with a start to Kisuke shaking him sharply and yelling his name. Acting before his thoughts could catch up or his memories could drag him down, he flung his arms around the shopkeeper’s waist.
Ichigo pulling him closer and buried his head in the man’s warm, solid chest as his wails slowly turned to pitiful sobs. Distantly, he was aware of the fact that he was making a scene and he knew he’d punish himself for such a blatant show of weakness later.
But while the nightmare still had its claws in him all he cared about was taking any scrap of comfort he could find. Kisuke’s arms wrapped hesitantly around his back; after a pause they moved in small, soothing circles.
Two hours and one soaked shirt later, Ichigo had finally calmed down. The teen couldn’t find it in himself to let go of the simple comfort afforded by a warm, living person holding him who wasn’t trying to use him or kill him or torture him or no no no don’t think about that don’t think about that no dontdontdont bad idea BAD IDEABAD –
His train of thought was abruptly derailed as the arms around him tightened, drawing him closer. Belatedly he became aware of his shaking and hyperventilating and made a conscious effort to get both under control.
———————————————
Kisuke had been woken up by the sound of strangled screams coming from the room he’d leant Kurosaki-kun, no, Ichigo-kun. He’d shot out of bed, Benihime in one hand as he flung open the screen to the boy’s room. What he saw made him pause.
The orange haired youth was thrashing under the blankets, gasping and making aborted screams as though he was subconsciously trying to be as quiet as he could. Ichigo-kun was clearly in the throes of a nightmare, and not under attack, as he’d first assumed. Here Kisuke hesitated. He had no experience with children (despite his insistence otherwise, to him the boy would still be a child for many more years) and he wasn’t sure if it was the best decision to wake him up. The sounds of distress wrenching their way out of his student made up his mind, and in three strides he was kneeling next to the youth, Benihime to the side but within reach. When gentle shakes and whispers clearly weren’t getting through, the blonde found himself near shouting and shaking Ichigo-kun so violently he was afraid he’d accidentally snap his neck or dislocate his shoulders. Maybe both.
With a gasp, the child finally woke. Desperation, anguish, fear, self-loathing –the emotions in Ichigo-kun’s eyes were so clearly displayed it hurt to hold his gaze. And then the boy flung himself on Kisuke, arms wrapping around him with such strength that the scientist wondered at the fact he could still breathe. It took longer than it should have to wade through the shock, but once it did he tried his best to awkwardly comfort the boy in his distress. If Ichigo-kun noticed how strange the situation was to him, he didn’t show it.
When the wetness seeped through his shirt to his chest, the blonde realised that his student, who was so adamant to never show any emotion, was so broken that he was willing to throw everything out the window for a scrap of comfort. Silently, Kisuke vowed to find every person who contributed to breaking his boy and stab them with their own collarbones before gutting them with their ribs.
After what his body told him to be just shy of two hours in this position, the substitute shinigami was finally calm. Strangely, he was reluctant to let go of him, afraid he’d shatter like glass the moment support was taken away. In the midst of a silent debate with himself (and when had Ichigo-kun become ‘his boy’?), he noticed the boy’s breathing skyrocket as he trembled so violently it was a borderline seizure. Mind made up, he tightened his arms.
Kisuke stayed like that well past the time the boy calmed down again, and didn’t move when he fell into a dreamless sleep. It was probably the first one he’d had in months, if not years, judging by Ichigo-kun’s mental state, Kisuke thought bitterly.
The blonde didn’t move throughout the night, or when the sun rose.
And when the boy plagued by nightmares finally woke up in the time between the sun’s setting and the moon’s rising, he found himself still encircled in the exile’s arms. Kisuke hadn’t slept once.