Chapter Text
“You are a fool, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Aizen murmurs, one hand coming up to cup Ichigo’s cheek in his palm. His thumb swipes softly, proprietarily, across the plush swell of her mouth. “Without a Soul King it will all fall, the remnants crumbling to dust. Together we could have ruled the three worlds. Remade them in our image.”
“Never wanted to rule anything,” Ichigo tells him quietly, ignoring the blood he’s smearing onto her face. It doesn’t matter. Only one thing matters to Ichigo now and it has nothing to do with him. “Just wanted to live, just wanted a life.”
“I took that from you,” something almost pleased flits across Aizen’s expression then. “Your human life,” a slight sneer flickers across his face at the word before something almost covetous replaces it, “it was mine to take, in the end. I forced you to evolve into what you were always meant to be. I own that fragment of you, now and forever.”
Ichigo hears the barely there sound of whisper quiet footsteps. Catches the scent of bloodied steel and tea on the feeble wind.
Identifiers so faint that only Ichigo’s senses could ever pick them up.
They make a part of her want to hiss in a possessive sort of pleasure.
Like they always do these days.
“You don’t own shit,” Ichigo denies evenly because she refuses to let Aizen keep that idea inside of his head without making her distaste for it clear.
Ichigo is not a thing to be owned. And even if she was, she’d never allow herself to be leashed by someone like Aizen Sōsuke.
There’s only one man who she’d ever give herself over to and it will never be him.
Her wrists turn.
Zangetsu twists.
Aizen makes a small punched out and hurt sort of sound.
“You’ll never be rid of me, I-Ichigo,” Aizen gasps, blood welling in his mouth and spilling over as his body sags just a bit, his weight pressing him even further down onto Ichigo’s blades. “It’s all crumbling down now but y-you’ll never be free from me. I’ll live on in your head and your hea-”
“You will never own even a fragment of a piece of her,” a familiar voice rasps out from behind Aizen, “So that is more than enough of that.”
There’s a flash of familiar steel.
Aizen’s body slumps even further onto Ichigo’s blades.
His head lands on the ruined stone a handful of feet away.
Ichigo doesn’t even flinch, just heaves Aizen up and off of Zangetsu’s blades, letting him drop to the ground like the afterthought he is now.
All of her attention is, as it always is these days, focused past him.
On Kisuke.
Sinking Zangetsu down into the ground with a flick of her wrists, Ichigo moves. She covers the distance between her and Kisuke in the blink of an eye, her natural speed putting her into his space before his swing of Benihime’s broken blade completes its arc.
In-tune with her as always, Kisuke doesn’t even flinch at the way Ichigo suddenly appears directly in front of him. They’re so close together that Ichigo can feel the rise and fall of his chest against her own. Can feel the warm, blood tinged huff of his breath on her face.
Her arm comes up to wrap around his waist just before his knees buckle, her other hand catching the halved length of Benihime’s blade between two fingers before what’s left of the zanpakutō can fall from his grasp.
As if she’d ever let her beloved crimson princess hit the ground so disrespectfully.
“You shouldn’t move,” Ichigo murmurs to him as she flips the broken blade up into the air, catching it and then sheathing it at his side in one smooth move. “You’ll aggravate the wound.”
“Worried about me, Ichi-chan?” Kisuke replies, tone light and teasing even as his forehead presses against the side of her neck, the rasp of his stubble sending a light shiver down her spine. “You’re too kind to this humble shopkeeper.”
Ichigo just hums, her free hand coming up to smooth over the length of his hair. It’s longer now than she’s ever seen it before, brushing his shoulders and still messy looking but also softer than seems possible given their circumstances.
She ignores the fact that the Shōten has been gone for years now, just like the rest of Karakura Town.
Just like the majority of everything really.
Kisuke hasn’t been a shopkeeper in almost a decade.
He, much like Ichigo herself, has instead spent the past years being some combination of a soldier, a scientist, a war time general, and an assassin. Sometimes, most times, all of those things at once.
“You’re all I have too, you know,” Ichigo reminds him softly, a response of sorts to the unspoken truth he’d snarled at Aizen. “You have to be careful.”
“Hm,” Kisuke hums against her throat, “about that ...”
“Shh,” Ichigo hushes him, taking even more of his weight with ease, uncaring of the way fresh blood slides from her own wounds to mix with the steadily growing damp patch on the side of her half shredded shihakusho. It doesn’t matter. “I know.”
Because, despite how everything inside of her rebels against the very idea, Ichigo does know.
They’re both running on less than fumes, Benihime is shattered, and they’re alone with no help on the way.
With no possible help left to come.
Every time Ichigo inhales she can smell it, can taste it.
Blood, a familiar and precious life-scent that sits thick and heavy like honeyed peaches on the back of her tongue.
She knows exactly how this is going to end.
Ichigo focuses on moving Kisuke carefully, hands gentle as she shifts his weight until she can move the both of them some distance from Aizen’s body.
It’s slow and careful going but finally she gets them situated as comfortably as possible. Movements careful, Ichigo sinks down to rest with her back pressed against cold, smooth stone and settles Kisuke gently into the open v of her legs.
A raised knee keeps him propped upright for a moment but Kisuke shudders just a bit, shifts, and then slumps to the side and further into her space.
Ichigo cradles him close, his head resting on her chest, one hand coming up to smooth down the length of his hair.
Her free hand comes up to tug lightly at the loc of hair that falls between his eyes even still, even after everything else that’s changed about and around them. Then she traces a gentle fingertip down the stitch like scar that flows from below his right eye all the way down across his cheek to the curve of his jaw.
Kisuke sighs deeply, a too wet and shuddering sound, and brings a trembling arm up enough to catch her hand in his own. He holds it for a moment and then brings it down to press a soft kiss against her fingertips.
Then he moves her hand until her palm is cupping his left cheek, her fingers brushing over the black silk of his eye-patch.
It used to be jarring back in the beginning, the reminder of his missing eye, but after four years or so Ichigo barely even thinks about it anymore except to wish she could have changed things.
Now it's just a part of Kisuke.
The proof of a hard lesson.
A reminder to be careful.
Because, with Unohana-taichou and Orihime both long gone and their skills and abilities lost to the ether, they’d learned the hard way that not even Benihime could reconstruct everything.
Some things, once obliterated with a kidō inscribed knife in an almost successful assassination attempt, simply stayed gone.
Kisuke had taken the loss with his unique combination of strange grace, wry humor, and many comparisons between himself and Shunsui. And then, bandages still fresh, he’d slid off and trained with a vengeance to become used to the change in depth perception as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, even after he’d readjusted as best he could, there’d just never been time for Kisuke to fully perfect the formulas and equations for the prosthetic he used to spend hours raving about to Ichigo on otherwise quiet nights.
There was, Ichigo muses absently, never really enough time for a lot of things.
Like always though Ichigo can’t help but trace the almost inappropriately cheerful strawberry that’s embroidered in the center of the patch.
Uryū had been such a pushy asshole who never knew when to leave well enough alone. Especially after Karakura Town had been destroyed.
Uryū had latched onto Ichigo even harder than before in the aftermath of the destruction. Any and all previous distance that had been between them had been erased as he’d clung to their distant family ties with the ferocity of a drowning man.
It had only gotten worse once they'd lost Orihime. He'd been inconsolable for the longest time, raging in a way no one had expected from him before he'd finally managed to ice it over just a bit.
Then, from that moment on, everything from Ichigo's diet to her wardrobe to her non-existent love life had very firmly become Uryū's domain.
In return Ichigo had pulled him closer, had boosted him up, and watched over him even more closely than normal in turn.
She'd done her best to hold him and everyone else above the water for as long as possible.
But she'd only been able to do so much and they’d all been drowning back then, in one way or another.
In the end though, that meddling sort of interference he’d taken to where she was concerned, had gotten him killed. He’d gone out on a mission that was supposed to be Ichigo’s not too long after he’d given Kisuke the eye-patch.
He'd left her with some pointed looks and a hissed promise to bury her and Kisuke alive together in a very small box when he got back.
And then he and his squad had walked right into an ambush.
None of them had walked back out.
Ichigo misses him.
Misses him just like she misses all the others.
But Ichigo has no intention of missing Kisuke.
Healing kidō have never been Ichigo’s strong suit but reiryoku transfusions are something she’s long grown accustomed to. She’d been used as a battery, as a spiritual power grid of sorts, more than once in the past.
Once more won't be hard to do.
No matter the consequences.
Because her reiryoku is rich and strong but here, so soon after fighting for so long, after a battle ten years of one war after another in the making, and with no time to rest, there’s so little of it left to give.
Too little for two.
But that doesn’t actually matter to Ichigo.
Because, even if she barely has anything left inside of her, Ichigo knows that whatever there is, is Kisuke’s to have.
She is, as always, ready and willing to give her literal all.
Bolstered by the willpower that has seen her cut down armies and would be gods alike, Ichigo summons what reiryoku she can and begins to slowly trickle it into Kisuke’s system.
“Don’t,” Kisuke stops her, a hand coming up to clench around her wrist with surprising strength, not even a second after she’s begun. “Don’t do that to me.”
“Kisuke …” Ichigo whispers his name, one part plea and one part demand.
“Please,” Kisuke doesn’t waver, his thumb stroking over the thin skin of her inner wrist. “Don’t, Ichigo. That’s one weight I will never be able to carry. Don’t make me.”
Ichigo shudders.
And then she lets the trickle fade to a stop.
“Thank you,” Kisuke sighs, his hand dropping from her wrist as he shifts again until the arm trapped between them can wrap itself around her waist instead.
The stone beneath Ichigo is wet. The side of her shihakusho and the legs of her hakama are both soaked through.
The puddle beneath her grows ever wider by the second.
Behind Ichigo the throne of the Soul King sits empty.
In her arms Kisuke takes another shuddering breath.
Ichigo only cares about one of those things.
“It’s selfish but … will you cry for me, Ichigo?” Kisuke asks, voice halting as he swallows repeatedly. “I always thought it'd be ... nice … to have someone cry for me.”
“For an idiot Geta-bōshi like you?” Ichigo asks, voice thick. They both know she hasn’t cried since Toshiro. Had refused to allow herself the luxury or the momentary weakness. Not even over Grimmjow who would have willed himself back to life and killed her himself if she'd dared. “Never.”
“So cruel,” Kisuke hums out the familiar phrase even as he tangles the fingers of one hand in the ragged fabric of her hakama and the other in the ends of her hair that pools around them both like ribbons of sunset. “Denying a man’s last request like that.”
They both ignore the scent of salt in the air and the wetness that drips down onto Kisuke’s temple.
For a long moment neither of them say anything.
They just sit there, pressed together, blood and breath ebbing and flowing together like the sea.
Kisuke rests against her, face tucked into the curve of her throat, while Ichigo counts every one of his slowing heartbeats like the precious, fading, gifts that they are.
“I have words that belong to you, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Kisuke finally breaks the silence. “But I don’t think I’ll say them. Not now. But they’ve been yours … for a long time.”
“You can tell me tomorrow,” Ichigo agrees even as her eyes slip closed, the hand on the back of Kisuke’s head presses him just a bit closer. “We’ll have tea. I’ll have some words for you too.”
For a moment, only a moment, Ichigo pretends as if she can hold him just a bit tighter and stop what they both know is happening from coming to pass through sheer force of will alone.
“Yes,” Kisuke coughs wetly. “Tomorrow.”
They both know the promise for the lie that it is.
Ichigo has performed miracles in the past.
This won't be one of them.
In the depths of Ichigo’s soul, deep in the bone white buildings and endless rain storm that is now her inner world, all is quiet.
Except for the dual toned mourning cry that begins to echo.
Still pressed down into the blood soaked stone, Zangetsu’s blades almost seem to hum.
All the pieces of Ichigo’s multi-faceted soul singing out together in some mixture of rage and grief.
And, above all else, even though she's never said the words, they cry for love.
“Whatever happens next ... I’ll remember you,” Kisuke promises softly.
“You know that’s not how it works,” Ichigo reminds him roughly even as she pulls him even closer. “If any of it still works at all.”
“Hmm,” Kisuke hums out a long, slow breath that ends on a wet gasp. “There’s … nowhere my soul could go where it wouldn’t know you ... Ichigo.”
A pause.
A gasp.
“Kisuke,” Ichigo whispers softly into the still air, “please don’t go.”
But ...
There’s no answer.
Ichigo tightens her arms around the too still body in her hold, buries her face in messy blond hair, and then reaches down to wrap her fingers around a strong, calloused hand that’s already growing cold.
She twines their fingers together, presses her lips against his temple, and just …
Drifts.
~~~
Time passes in an unmeasured haze.
Ichigo doesn’t bother to move.
Instead she stays there, cradling Kisuke, right up until the moment that she can’t any more.
Right up until all that’s left of him drifts away too, the flickering bits of light that were once the man who made up her entire world drifting up and away from her like fireflies.
Hand clenched around familiar black silk, Ichigo just leans her head back against the throne behind her, unseeing eyes pointed up towards the sky.
This time Ichigo doesn’t so much drift as she just …
Stops.
~~~
It’s the prod of a familiar energy that finally sparks Ichigo back to life some unknown amount of time later.
Ichigo ignores it for as long as possible before the insistent lash of it finally forces her to move.
Her body feels stiff and old somehow despite the way her wounds have healed and her reiryoku has already replenished itself.
Pushing herself up and onto her feet feels like the work of an age.
But she does it, of course.
Led by the call, Ichigo ghosts back towards where Zangetsu still stands, blades driven deep into the stone. It’s an automatic move to grab her zanpakutō and put it back where it belongs on her back.
On the ground in front of her all traces of Aizen’s body are gone of course.
But, in its place, is something else.
Ichigo stands there, Zangetsu on her back, hair swaying in the feeble wind, and stares down at the Hōgyoku for the longest time.
It pulses, a steady and slow rhythm, in perfect time with her heartbeat.
Ichigo reaches down, picks it up, and then turns and ghosts back towards the still empty throne.
She stops at the edge of the dais, stares at the cause of all of this, and then moves to settle back down into her former place, a hand coming up and automatically adjusting Zangetsu.
She’d told Aizen the truth after all.
Ruling was never what Ichigo wanted.
She most certainly has no interest in it now, standing here alone at the end of all things.
What use is ruling all three worlds if there's nothing left in any of them for her?
In Ichigo’s hand, pressed against her blood-caked palm, the Hōgyoku burns.
‘Protector,’ the word, more feeling than anything somehow, whispers its way across Ichigo’s mind. ‘Master. Wish.’
“Not your master,” Ichigo tells the stone. She feels a certain sort of sympathy and kinship towards it, one hybrid to another.
But she also doesn’t want it.
Never has.
It is, in her opinion, both a victim and the center of too much suffering.
Too much power in too small a space.
‘Worthy,’ the Hōgyoku insists in a flurry of feelings turned to words. ‘Only worthy. First Protector. Wish.'
Ichigo doesn’t have a wish.
Not really.
Not anymore.
All of her wishes are dead.
All Ichigo could ever really want is something that she knows will never happen.
All she could ever want now would be the chance to go back.
To stop all of this from happening.
To stop Aizen before he started.
To warn the Gotei 13 and all of Soul Society about what’s to come.
To see Kisuke once again.
The Hōgyoku flares once again, burning hot enough against her skin that Ichigo wonders, absently, if it’s attempting to scorch her down to the bone.
Behind her the throne of the Soul King chimes.
‘Wish,’ the Hōgyoku sounds almost triumphant as it burns hotter and hotter. 'Wish.'
There's a pulse of pure power.
The sensation of falling backwards, of being pulled down, rises up and washes over Ichigo out of nowhere.
And then, between one breath and the next, the entire world unravels.