Chapter Text
Peace.
The sky is bright and pure, the sun shining at high noon. The wind brought a chill to the warm autumn day, but a coolness to a day not quite ready for warmer clothes. Rubble and debris scattered across Karakura Town, but the buildings were otherwise unharmed. No one had died. Innocents, that is.
Ichigo can't help, but smile. He can't remember the last time he was at peace.
His longer hair tickles his shoulders as the wind dances around him. He closes his eyes with a sigh, listening to the trees around him. They were singing. They were mourning.
Peace.
A quiet pressure appears behind him. Ichigo opens his eyes and looks over his shoulder. He smiles, genuine and pure—a smile he hasn't worn since his mother died—at the sight of the shopkeeper, his teacher.
His silver eyes were shadowed by his hat, like always, but his solemn expression was in plain view, his fan nowhere in sight. Ichigo stands up with a huff.
Urahara-san is mourning too, it seems.
They speak to each other, but Ichigo is still floating. He hasn't quite come down from the peaceful state he acquired. All he can really hear is a ringing in his ears.
No. Not a ringing... something's screaming.
Ichigo doesn't flinch at the realization, nor does he express anything to show it. He just smiles and talks, about whatever they are talking about. Something to do with his friends.
Right. His friends are safe and will remember. Ichigo will explain it to them, himself, but—
Five faces step into view and Ichigo blinks. He blinks again when the bright spots in his vision don't fade away. He still doesn't show anything to indicate something's wrong.
The screaming is worse now. It sounds like wailing. It probably is.
Inoue, Chad, Ishida, Rukia, Renji... and Urahara-san.
There's more talking; Inoue is crying and Rukia is smiling. Everyone is smiling, even Ishida. The only one who isn't is Urahara-san, but—Ichigo makes the effort to look past his spotty vision, to stare into Urahara-san's eyes and smile.
It's all he can do to reassure the man before—
Pain.
He can't see anything—it's just white. A glaring white stabbing daggers into his eyes, into his skin, peeling it back to expose every nerve in his body.
Ichigo can tell he's screaming from the agony, even if he can't hear himself past the wailing. He feels the wind attack every inch of him and he recognizes the fact that he's falling.
It's time. His soul... is ripping apart. And his powers...
"ICHIGO!" A scream of his name pierces through the ocean of agony and Ichigo instinctively opens his eyes.
Someone needs his help. Is the fight not over yet? He has to—he has to help.
There is a blur of green and blue, faint shadows getting closer and looking more like people. Ichigo sees silver eyes grow wide before the last figure starts to move towards him.
Darkness seeps around him and Ichigo is falling further than his proximity to the ground should be. But, it wasn't just darkness. It was a heavy thing; it covered Ichigo like a blanket, restricting his movements and making him fall faster.
Ichigo can't see anything, but black. It sinks into every fibre of his being and it hurts. He can't even scream anymore.
Is the wailing his own? Is he dying? Had even Zangetsu not fully realized the true extent of his price?
His soul is being ripped to shreds... and he with it. In a silent victory.
"Yuzu... Karin..." Ichigo's eyes roll into the back of his head "...Zangetsu."
A hand, a phantom touch, but as real as Ichigo believes it, runs through his hair. "We're 'ere. I'm 'ere, King. Just survive."
He is a drop of water in an endless sea. All Ichigo knows is peace.
———
The sky is bursting with color as the sun dies. Black fading to purple; fading to mauve, then red, then pink, then orange. The ocean reflected back the colors, a mirror for the sun.
Ichigo couldn't stop gazing at the horizon. With his eyes burning, and his vision filled with stars, Ichigo watched the sun set, a mirror of his own hair color.
A soft giggle breezes past before a hand rakes through his hair from behind. Ichigo doesn't flinch or blink, completely entranced.
"You'll make yourself blind if you look any longer, cinnamon," A warm voice speaks quietly, but Ichigo can hear the smile.
Ichigo hums as an answer. He doesn't look away from the sunset. Okāsan giggles again before she presses a kiss to the boy's head.
"Though, I can't say anything." Okāsan rests her chin on Ichigo's head. "I did the same thing when I first saw this view."
As bright as the sun. As calm as the water. As kind as the darkness.
———
There was nothing. He was nothing. He was simply floating among nothingness.
No agony. No soul. No peace.
It was a gentle reprieve as much as it was absolute torture. He isn't dead.
This couldn't be death. It shouldn't be. Ichigo knows what death—what corruption—feels like.
It is not an empty void, consuming his senses until he is left blind, deaf, and mute. It is not a gnawing numbness embedded in his bones and his organs.
Or, maybe it was. His soul, as shredded and shattered as it is, is maimed. He sacrificed it to save others—to win. It cannot return to what it was. Zangetsu will not come back.
It can't... So, how can Ichigo feel it? How can it pulse in time with his still beating heart—as fragile and cracked as it felt?
Cracked like a spiderweb... but, not shattered.
There was no longer nothing. He was now something. The thought makes his hand twitch, and Ichigo can feel the energy brush across his skin as his fingers brush against something soft.
His mind sharpens despite his slowly waking consciousness. He does not recognize the energy around him.
Ichigo is not in Soul Society. Ichigo is not in Karakura Town.
Ssccchhhh
A wave—a door? Something slides across wood, or stone, or something that isn't grass or dirt. Everything is too muffled in Ichigo's ears. He couldn't hear anything besides his own heartbeat and his slow breaths.
Breaths. So, he is breathing. He is alive.
The thought brings an instinct to breathe deeply, take in all he can when he still couldn't open his eyes and—pine; mist; an overgrown lake; the scent of algae and lotus.
Unfamiliar. Stranger.
Ichigo's eyes snap open and he tries to sit up—to bolt—to do anything other than lay there, vulnerable to the stranger near him.
A dark ceiling, long shadows, a faint light, red, blue, white—
"Calm down, boy." A blurred hand reaches out before stopping shy of Ichigo's shoulder, or arm, or—he can't really tell with his vision suddenly going dark.
Wait. No. He blinked? He flinched?
Ichigo forces his eyes open and stares at the hand again. The hand becomes a bit clearer—calloused and wrinkled—in his sight before he looks up.
Red—a mask? A—tengu? And—blue. A jinbei. Jinbei... It was a jinbei, but—
"—h'ra-san—" Ichigo speaks barely half of Urahara-san's name before he curls over his stomach as his throat spasms, wet coughs following afterwards.
It felt like he was being force-fed needles. Ichigo puts it on the back burner.
"Ura—" Ichigo continues to cough, unable to speak. Something warm presses on his shoulder and he flinches again. It does not budge.
"Save your breath, boy," The man speaks gruffly. "If you're attempting to speak a name, Makomo found you alone."
Ichigo retches as the coughs start to hurt. He opens his eyes to watery vision before he shakes his head.
Alone? But... he was with—Urahara-san was reaching out for him. His friends were reaching out for him. He wasn't alone. And then—
The coughing eases into something calmer, gasps leaving Ichigo's cracked lips. He presses the palm of his hand against one of his eyes, trying to make sense of what happened.
What happened? He doesn't—he doesn't remember?
"You are still feverish, boy. It's best if you leave the thinking for later," The man says again before the hand on Ichigo's shoulder pulls him back. Ichigo flails at the sudden tilt and his back lands on a soft futon.
"Drink this. You have an infection." Some kind of bowl is placed on Ichigo's lip and liquid starts to spill. He can't do anything, but open his mouth to drink it before it splashes his face.
He nearly gags at the awful taste, but the man doesn't let up. Even then, he forces himself to continue drinking it.
He is—somehow—still alive. He does not want to end up dying by sepsis, because the medicine is some of the grossest he's ever tasted.
When Ichigo finishes the medicine and the bowl is pulled away. Ichigo blinks his eyes open before shutting them when something covers his eyes. He twitches at the shock of a cold dampness covering his forehead.
"Where—" Ichigo tries to speak again, but cuts himself off to clear his throat. At least he isn't coughing up his own lung.
"Rest, boy," The man orders calmly, adjusting the damp rag he placed on Ichigo's forehead. "You are safe here. Nothing will come back to harm you."
Ichigo doesn't know if he used up all of his energy to wake up, or if it was the calming scent of the man—the pine, mist, and the overgrown lake—that told him all he needed to know... but one second he was tensed, ready to try and sit up again, try and find anyone—anything familiar to his senses, and the next, he was relaxing into the futon, going completely limp as his awareness started to fade.
He barely registers the rough hands of the stranger pulling up the blankets to his chin and gently tucking him in. He's completely unconscious when the old man sits back, mask tilted down to stare at the wounded child Makomo found, half-submerged and almost completely bled out, by the stream halfway up the mountain.
He grunts softly, the only hint to his anger. "What horrors have you lived through, boy?"
———
He stands on the wall, staring down at pictures of his sisters at his feet. The water was ice-cold, though his body was completely numb to it.
He doesn't know if it's because of the water, or if it's because his soul is no longer shredding itself apart and he isn't in agony anymore, he can't feel anything.
Ichigo looks up and stares at the empty dining table standing sideways. Behind it, through the sliding back door—
Ichigo looks away to inspect the emptiness of his sideways home. He's never been inside one of the houses, or the skyscrapers before. Only standing on their sides.
His lungs catch when his heart skips a beat. Amber eyes snap up towards the left, staring at the sideways stairs. He can't stop the quiet whine that escapes his throat.
Ichigo walks forward, stumbling across the wall and jumping off of it to land on the wall above the stairs. He doesn't blink, he doesn't breathe. He can feel it. He can feel them.
The door to the twins' room is closed. It's locked too, or Ichigo would have fallen through the door when he walked across it. The door to his father's room at the far end of the hall is also closed, but he doesn't care about that. It was always closed, for all three of them.
The only door open, the only door missing was Ichigo's. He couldn't force himself to walk any further on his numb legs, so he crawls instead to the open doorway.
His throat chokes on a sob.
His room was correctly positioned. And laying on his bed, was Zangetsu and—
Ichigo falls into his room, only to roll across the floor as he is forced to go from standing horizontally, to standing correctly.
He feels so weak, he can't stand anymore. He forces himself anyway, his throat burning and his eyesight going blurry.
Ossan laid on his back with his arms and legs spread out. The shadows he wore as clothing cover him and the bed like a blanket. His visor was off, but the piercing blue of his eyes were hidden by his eyelids.
Curled in a ball right up against Ossan's side, was Shiro. His bleached hand grasped tightly at the shadows over Ossan's chest, to keep the zanpakutō spirit there if he woke up. His long white hair was spread out above him like a halo, bringing out the black hollow mask of his. The horns were a hair's breath away from slicing into Ossan's cheek, yet it didn't.
Ichigo stumbles to the bed and nearly collapses against it. He rapidly blinks his eyes, his breath leaving him in shuddering gasps. He clenches his eyes shut and rubs his palm against them, trying to stop the tears.
They're alive. They're alive. They're alive.
"Zangetsu..." He murmurs past his tears. He lifts a knee to the bed before he crawls over.
Once he reaches the two spirits, he sobs, loudly. He hasn't cried like this, since his mother was killed. And now—
Ichigo wraps his right hand around Ossan's bicep, grabbing at the shadows and making sure the spirit was really there. He looks over at Shiro and he doesn't think.
Geta-bōshi might be disappointed and Shinji might get mad, but—
Ichigo reaches over and wraps his left hand around Shiro's wrist, sobbing quietly. He doesn't care. Not anymore. He doesn't care.
"I'm sorry," He whispers before hiccuping. The teenager presses his face against Ossan's neck to hide himself away.
"Thank you... thank you and I'm sorry..." Ichigo curls up into a ball, mirroring Shiro, and clenches his eyes shut.
Neither spirit moves. They probably don't even hear Ichigo, but he doesn't care.
They're here, and they're his, and they're alive.
"I'm sorry!"
———
Ichigo is aimlessly staring up at the dark ceiling for about ten minutes before he realizes he's awake. His head was fuzzy, like it was filled with cotton balls, and there was a tangy taste at the back of his throat.
Ichigo blinks slowly before he slowly turns his head. His eyebrows furrow as the world tilts at a slower pace than his head, but ignores it.
It was dark, but he could still see most of the room—probably because the sun was shining against the lattice pulled over the one window he could see. Ichigo blinks again.
That is kōshi-mado. Urahara-san doesn't have kōshi-mado over his windows.
Ichigo turns his head to stare back up at the ceiling, his fuzzy brain slowly working through the muddled thoughts. Fuck, he hates being sick.
Wait... sick? When did he get sick?
Ichigo stares up at the ceiling until his eyes start to water. He closes them with a sigh as his hands twitch against the soft futon.
"I don't know where I am," He thinks offhandedly. He opens his eyes again and squints past the slowly spinning ceiling.
No wonder the vertigo hit him. He doesn't recognize this place, through his senses or his instincts.
Ichigo jolts, eyes somehow closed again snapping open. That's right—
He turns his entire body and groans as the world spins. He clenches his eyes shut and breathes deeply, trying to stop himself from throwing up. Pine and mist fills his nose and he nearly coughs in surprise.
"Where..." Ichigo slowly sits up onto his hip, keeping a hand braced against the ground in case he becomes unbalanced.
There are no mountains near Karakura Town, neither are there any pine forests. He didn't smell the mist of mountains, nor any kind of pine when he made it to the transported Karakura Town in Soul Society.
And the strange man... Ichigo focuses as much as he can on his sense of smell, blocking out everything else, and breathes in again.
Pine; mist—there is a fire close by from how close the scent of smoke is... the overgrown lake is a bit farther away, at the edges of the pine. The algae and lotus is shrouded by mist, but he can still faintly smell it.
There was no scent of cinnamon from Chad, or lilies from Inoue. No snow and violets from Rukia. No spices and smoke from Renji. No lightning and dye from Ishida. No blood masked by sugar from Urahara-san.
He couldn't smell the sulfur springs of Karin, nor the ozone and petrichor from Yuzu. Not even a hint.
Ichigo sighs heavily and opens his eyes. He's completely alone, in an unknown and unfamiliar place. No friends. No allies. No enemies, even.
"Where the hell am I?" He asks himself, forcing the words past his dry throat. He winces at the slight ache from doing it and sighs again. He's been asleep for a while if the pain was any indication. From a few days to a week at most since there isn't a saline drip attached to his arms or hands.
"Unless someone rubbed my throat to induce swallowing..." Ichigo frowns at the thought before he rubs his eyes. That would mean he has to be somewhere outside of the Living World.
"Soul Society has holograms, but they can't be fucking bothered with modern medicine and a basic fucking IV drip." Ichigo runs a hand through his hair at the thought and freezes. He slowly runs his hand back through his hair before he pulls at the ends.
His hair. It was still long—slightly longer than the length he remembered when he got out of the Dangai—reaching just past his shoulders in choppy lengths, and had a slight waviness to them now that it was grown out. Just like—
"Okāsan..." There was a barely-there crack in Ichigo's voice as he speaks softly, reverently.
Wavy hair reaching just below the shoulder blades, curling up when it gets wet. A warm brown most days, but in direct sunlight... it was a burning auburn red.
Ichigo swallows thickly, not even paying attention to the pain in his throat. He blinks rapidly as he tugs at the wavy strands of sunset orange hair.
...he's never grown out his hair. His father would probably beat the shit out of him a bit more harshly than normal during those stupid ambushes if he ever tried to... Those four months in the Dangai were the longest his hair has ever been.
To think he had Okāsan's hair, just a different coloring, this whole time...
Ichigo breathes out shakily, tugging at the stands one last time before he gently smooths out his hair. He rapidly blinks, swallowing again to get rid of the burning in the back of his throat.
Later. He can deal with this... later. He can deal with everything later.
"I don't know where the fuck I am." Ichigo puts his weight on the hand still braced against the futon before he pushes himself up onto his legs. He wobbles and crashes to the ground, pain shooting up from his knee as it slams against the floor.
"Fuck!" Ichigo shouts, or tries to, and grabs his throbbing knee. It feels like thousands of needles were rapidly pricking his legs. Other than that, he couldn't feel anything.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ichigo hisses before he looks down at his limp legs. Muscle atrophy? How long was he asleep for?
Ichigo snaps his head up when he hears something move outside of the room he was in. He clenches his teeth as he tries to get his leg to move, but otherwise stays still, trying to hear anything else.
Ssccchhhh
Ichigo flinches back when a shoji door slides open to the left of him and tries to jump away. He flails around and lands harshly on the floor, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
"...fuck..." Ichigo wheezes out as he stares up at the ceiling with wide eyes. Silence follows after his curse, but inside his mind, his thoughts were racing.
This level of muscle atrophy happens after over a month with no physical activity. To not be able to feel anything...
Ichigo braces his hands behind him and grunts as he forces himself to sit back up. Standing silently in the doorway was the same man, not blurry this time, he saw the last time he woke up.
He was old, evident by his grey hair and wrinkled hands, but the tengu mask covering his face hid his actual age from Ichigo. The blue, cloud-patterned jinbei stung Ichigo's eyes a bit at the bright colors, but he excused it as being asleep for at least a month.
"Do... do you have any water?" Ichigo asks quietly before clearing his throat. Damn, he hopes so. The pain in his throat was getting annoying.
The man doesn't say anything. He just stares, or Ichigo thinks he was staring. He couldn't tell with that damn mask.
"Strange," The old man comments before spinning around and walking out of the room.
Ichigo blinks before scowling. He opens his mouth to shout back, but winces when a sharper pain tears through his throat. He huffs quietly and pushes himself to sit up without bracing against his hands.
"Says the old man wearing a fucking tengu mask and looking like he's straight out of a Edo-period samurai movie," Ichigo retorts in his mind instead. Ichigo smirks, somewhat proud of his insult. Shiro would be laughing his ass off. Even Ossan would have been amused.
The thought strikes through Ichigo like a bullet. He presses a hand to his heart with a swallow.
His zanpakutō... Zangetsu...
He frowns when the dream... or the not-dream fades from his focus. He remembers... he remembers something—but... was it really them? Did he really see them? Or is his grief using his much too vivid dreams to torture him?
Ichigo breathes in deeply through his mouth and closes his eyes. He presses his hand harder against his chest, feeling his heart beat calmly beneath his palm, but that wasn't what he was looking for.
He barely remembers the first time he woke up here, the haze of his fever and the illness muddling everything. But, he remembers the feeling when he first gained consciousness.
The first thing he sensed in this unknown world. His soul.
Ichigo's breath shudders as he feels it—the fragility of the spiritual entity keeping him alive along with the physical entity of his heart. His soul, still whole if a bit—completely—cracked.
Ichigo smiles with unbidden joy and opens his eyes, ignoring how they burn. He yelps loudly at the sight of deep cyan eyes mere inches away from his face, attempting to leap away, and only slamming back onto his back in the process. Again, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
The person—the girl, and the owner to the scent of algae and lotus, tilts her head, standing crouched on the right side of Ichigo with her hands hugging her knees. She slowly blinks, the black strands of her choppy hair falling in her eyes.
They were surprisingly gentle, and along with her age—appearing to be at least nine or ten years old—immediately reminded Ichigo of Yuzu.
"If you die, can I have your hair?" The girl asks in a soft tone without blinking. "Urokodaki-san said it would be rude to take it from you without permission, even if you were dead. So, can I?"
Nevermind—what the actual fuck?
Ichigo blinks and the girl blinks back.
"You don't even know my name," Ichigo points out calmly before he sits up from the floor again. The girl doesn't lean back, so her face is still a few inches away from Ichigo's face.
She blinks before her mouth opens, visibly realizing her rude mistake. "Oh... What's your name?"
Ichigo raises an eyebrow before he stifles a smile. Definitely a ten year old. There isn't another age that can be this creepy, blunt, and adorable at the same time. Maybe five year olds, but that could just be his sisters'—and his own—thing.
"You should be introducing yourself first, since you're asking me for something, but my name is Kurosaki Ichigo," Ichigo says with a small smile. The girl looks off to the side with a nod, probably to remember this for the next time she asks a creepy question.
"Makomo," She says simply, smiling back at the orange-haired teenager. "So, can I have your permission to take your hair if you die?"
"Sure. But, I don't plan on dying anytime soon. So, you might have to wait a while," Ichigo agrees with a shrug.
Makomo blinks at such a quick answer. She stares for a long moment before she giggles softly.
"Urokodaki-san is right. You really are strange."
A vein pops out of Ichigo's forehead as he scowls, but he doesn't glare at the child. He does pokes her cheek with a small growl.
"Says the child who's asking a guy she's just met for permission to take his hair after he dies!" He retorts as Makomo slaps his finger away with another giggle.
"Well, you said yes. That makes you stranger than me," Makomo points out and Ichigo huffs again, glancing away.
What's he going to do with his hair when he dies? He'll have his hair as a spirit.
"It's not like I'm gonna do anything with it. I'll be dead," Ichigo mumbles a bit more dramatically than he usually would, but it makes the black-haired girl laugh. His mouth twitches at the sound and something inside him warms.
"Which, hopefully won't happen for a long time," The old man's voice cuts in and Ichigo just twitches instead of jumping. He looks over at the door and stares at the pot the old man held. It held something hot inside of it, because the steam was wafting up.
"Boiled... water?" Ichigo questions under his breath, eyebrows furrowing. He doesn't notice the look Makomo and the old man share.
"That... is such an old way to make water safe to drink," Ichigo thinks with a small frown. Soul Society had a plumbing system. It was the 21st century in Japan, so the water there was safe to drink without boiling it...
So, where was he?
"Makomo found you halfway up Mount Sagiri," The old man, Urokodaki most likely, speaks while walking into the room. "You were half-submerged in the stream and almost bled out."
"Mount Sagiri? That's—" Ichigo cuts himself off with a cough, quickly covering his mouth.
Shizuoka Prefecture? Why the hell is he at Mount Sagiri?
Ichigo looks up when there's a clinking sound and blinks at the bowl with steam wafting from it. It was filled with water.
Ichigo raises his hands and grabs the bowl, clearing his throat. "Th-thanks, old man."
"Do you remember how you ended up there?" The man asks calmly. Ichigo pauses, the bowl just barely touching his lips, before he begins drinking the water.
There is a blur of green and blue, faint shadows getting closer and looking more like people. Ichigo sees silver eyes grow wide before the last figure starts to move towards him.
Darkness seeps around him and Ichigo is falling further—
"No," Ichigo answers with his eyebrows furrowed and his narrowed eyes hidden by the bowl. He takes another gulp of water before reluctantly lowering his hands. He is not going to make himself even more sick by drinking too fast.
"Not really," Ichigo adds, scratching a fingernail against the bowl.
"Hm." The man hums quietly, sitting completely still with his mask facing the 15 year old. He refrains from swallowing at the hidden stare he could feel from the man.
Technically speaking, he was telling the truth. He just needed to know where he was to figure out how he ended up here. Wherever here is, because while they claim it's the Shizuoka Prefecture, it definitely doesn't feel like the Living World.
Ichigo clears his throat. "How—how long was I asleep?"
"...almost two months. You slept through New Year's."
Ichigo starts and stares at Urokodaki. What?
"New Year's?" He asks quietly.
Urokodaki seems to go even more still, if he could, before he inclines his head. Ichigo feels his stomach drop.
"But—you said I was sleeping for two—it was October when I—that's longer than two months." Four months, to be exact. He would have lost a good portion of his muscle mass by the end of the second month. He felt his muscles when he grabbed his legs. He still had a good portion left.
Did he—did he jump through time? The darkness—the falling longer than it should have been when he should have hit the ground already.
A hand, a phantom touch, but as real as Ichigo believes it, runs through his hair. "We're 'ere. I'm 'ere, King. Just survive."
Ichigo drops the bowl, thankfully landing on its bottom with only some of the water splashing out, but he didn't care.
He presses a hand to his chest as his heartbeat pounds in his skull. No. No.
He couldn't do that. Shiro couldn't—Shiro was a Hollow—was Ichigo's Hollow, but—
"What—what—" Ichigo tries to speak through his gasps before he looks up, eyes wide "—year. The year—what year is it?"
Silence follows for a long moment. Ichigo continues to stare, pleading—begging what he is thinking isn't true. Please, don't let it be true. Please—
"It is 1901."
He's going to fucking kill himself. "Fuck."