Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You wanted a weapon. Congratulations. You made one that would die for you.

The war’s over now though. What do you do with a boy built for war? Where do you put the weapon now? Who do you aim him at? Will you lock him away, until you need a killer again? Hide him, so the others don’t have to fear? Hide him, so you don’t need to face your own sins?  Truly, Kisuke, he’s your greatest masterpiece. I applaud you. Congratulations.

But what are you going to do with a broken weapon? Throw him away?”

“You know nothing.”

“I know enough. Kisuke, get your act together. Ichigo’s not coming to you. It’s your turn to go to him.”

The problem isn’t that Ichigo doesn’t have his powers, or can’t protect people anymore.

The problem is he’s not sure if he wants to do the protecting anymore. He’s not sure if continuing to fight is worth it. He’s not sure of who he is if he isn’t fighting.

Mostly, he’s not sure if he wants to wake up at all.

Abandonment doesn’t taste bitter or acrid. It’s not spicy either. It’s fondant sweet, so sugary it’s rotten. So artificial, shards of plastic could slice ribbons through your throat.

He wished he could say he knew it was coming. That he expected it. But Ichigo’s a stupid kid with a bare decade and a half of experience compared to centuries, closer to mortality than godhood, so he didn’t at all. 

He thought he could bear to lose half his soul because it was worth it to keep his loved ones whole. Because he thought he would still have his people even if he lost Shiro and Ossan, who were parts of him.

For some reason, he didn’t think he would lose everything instead. The worst part is the hope— for a few weeks, you think they’ll come looking for you because they care, because you’re still useful, you promise.

You were supposed to be family.

For a few weeks you believe it, and you hold on, thinking that someone will come to find you. You don’t blame that innocent part of you— that naivety belonged to a version of Ichigo that you wish was still around. You kind of wish you could go back in time and hold that Ichigo close, tight and secure. You kind of wish you could take that version of yourself away, hide him from reality and make the edges of the world a little rounder, a little softer.

He deserved that rest at least. Ichigo wants to protect his past self, keep him safe for a little longer, let him feel celebration and peace, just once. 

Instead, what he felt was despair, slowly creeping in as no contact came from Soul Society, no passed notes or even secondhand communication. Even if he couldn’t see them. His sacrifice goes unacknowledged— not even unacknowledged; it seems to push people away instead. 

At school, his friends’ eyes are full of pity, and they pull away. He beckons them for lunch, eyes expectant, and they hesitate before guiltily turning away. The next day he watches them, tense and unsure, and still they turn away. The hurt crawls behind his ribcage, settles like a lead anvil and stays there, heavy and haunting. Every lunch time starts to feel like a mourning ritual, as he’s left alone to his thoughts, remembering when things didn’t ache like this. When there was more to his life than feeling like he was being siphoned away, bit by bit.

Skin buzzing and itching, the loneliness pulls at all the parts of him that are left. The ruthless efficiency and practical grace that he’d trained into falls into a distant lethargy, as if walking is an afterthought. Abandonment is one of those bruises that never heals, squirms itself under your skin and bleeds you out. 

Ichigo hasn’t felt this small in years. Not since his mom—

The hold he has on his thoughts falters, and they start to slip through his fingers like water. He’s noticed recently that sometimes his mind goes away. It’s hard to remember the hours like that, hard to remember anything at all. It’s probably the result of fighting in a war before he’s even reached the age of a legal adult, and whatever this is. This amalgamation of hurt and ache and alone and if I could be the wind and nothing else. 

Perhaps the worst part is that no one cares. Or maybe no one notices. Maybe they have more important things to be doing. Which is worse? 

He’s allowed to have this, he decides, and drifts gently in the lapping waters of his head.

At home, Karin is more curt with him. Secretive instead of close, and of course, she’s entitled to her own privacy, but she rebuffs the time he tries to spend with her, saying that she’s busy. Ichigo thinks she’s probably afraid too, so he tries not to take it to heart. 

Eventually, after asking enough times, she yells, “Why don’t you get a life? Stop clinging onto me and do something! Move on!” Her voice is filled with scorn. But her words grow weaker and guilty, tapering off as she begins to regret her words. It’s more like she can’t bear to witness this vulnerable version of her brother. Doesn’t want to tarnish the image of a steadfast protector. 

She sneaks glances at Issh— their father, and Ichigo has always known he’s had something to do with it. Isshin has probably convinced Karin and Yuzu that he needs tough love or time alone, and he wishes that it was as easy as simply forgiving them. 

But forgiveness doesn’t stop the ache, the weight behind his ribcage, the way he never does anything except hurt these days. The way all he seems to be is one bleeding wound. Forgiveness won’t bring old Ichigo back either and that’s what Karin truly wants. 

He watches her stomp out. On his way to pick up groceries, he watches her slip into Urahara’s shop. A soundless sigh makes its way out his mouth and his shoulders sag a little under an invisible weight. Of course, Urahara is training Karin. Of course.

Betrayal sinks in, but instead of the sharp, sour taste he’d been expecting, it’s rotting fruit. He knows Karin better than he knows himself sometimes, and subconsciously, he knew that when she started to avoid him, something like this would happen. The desolation slips in, and he imagines the sky in his soulscape cracking open, harsh zigzags clawing chasms into it. 

His jaw aches, and he catches Urahara’s eyes through the still closing door and stares. Stares awhile longer before his mind starts drifting, quiet and lonely and blissfully distant. Kind in a way most things aren’t anymore. His head turns slowly and he floats away, steps meandering and untethered, as if at any moment he might just step out of his body and never come back.

The feeling of choking on ash fades as a cloud of numbness settles over him, protective, easy, gentle. He hums a little, tuneless and discordant, proving to himself that he can breathe again. Breathe through all this cloying emptiness, sweet the same way gasoline is.

It might be Chad, Ishida, and Orihime he glimpses out of the corner of his eye on his way home. Maybe. They are arguing, hesitant as they glance at him as well.

Concerned. Someone gestures towards him as he passes by. 

He can’t bring himself to feel. Not when the numbness cradles him like this, soft and kind, shielding him from the ache that sits behind his eyes. 

Yuzu’s willingness to turn a blind eye is its own harshness as she softly tells him, “Maybe you should go out. You’ve been in the house a lot recently.”

He hears the untold suggestion. We don’t like this version of you. You’re scaring us. You aren’t worthy of our time anymore. Can you spend some time outside for once? It would be cruel, if he could still feel things these days. 

That night, Ichigo crawls into his bed.

In the morning, he wakes up. He doesn’t get out of bed. He just turns and goes back to sleep.

He wakes up. And goes back to sleep.

And goes back to sleep. 

He loses track of time but the sun rises and sets, and everything is so delightfully dark and warm and numb. An ocean of shadows rocking him to sleep, again and again and again. A gentle static that starts to take over his mind.

The static is safe, cuts him off from the bite of betrayal, the ache of loneliness.

When he does manage to pull himself out of bed, he slowly pulls on his shoes and walks out the door. He doesn’t remember when he last ate and he doesn’t care. The emptiness of a growling stomach pales in comparison to the turmoil already roiling within him. 

Blinking tiredly, he makes his way to the cemetery, pace unhurried.

“Hi mama,” he whispers, tracing the name on the headstone. His head is clouded up and his tongue feels thick, as his voice comes out younger and more vulnerable than he can remember being in the last decade.

“Mama, it’s been raining a long time,” he tells her, thinking of how his soulscape would have been  flooded and drowning. Each word feels like it takes a massive amount of effort. He settles in front of her grave, content to sit in the silence. Soon enough, the exhaustion sets in again, and he finds his head jerking up from where he’d almost fallen asleep sitting.

“Good kids deserve some rest, right?” he asks as he changes positions to lay down in the empty plot next to her grave, staring aimlessly up at the clouds. His voice is wrong, wispy and thin, too childlike. He’s not sure what day it is or what time it is. 

I’m tired of fighting. 

“ I fought a war for them, you know? I did a lot, I think. So it’s fair,” he muses out loud, trying to convince himself.

I’ve given up enough. I can stop now.

He falls asleep, laying next to his mom.

Urahara wakes him up, tugging his hat brim down in concern. He aims for playfulness, asking, “Ichi-kun, what are you doing lying there?”

Ichigo blinks, eyes empty and vacant, a void compared to the warmth and fire usually present in his eyes. He shows no reaction at the first sign of contact in weeks, months. He turns back over in the grass, ignoring the nudge Urahara gives, and tries to sleep again.

“You can’t sleep forever,” Urahara chides.

Ichigo can’t bring himself to care, mind stuffed full of soft static, cloudy and cottony. He closes his eyes again, lying on the grass next to his mom. The dark is bliss, all warmth and sweet shadows.

Urahara sighs, picking him up. Ichigo doesn’t care. He’s limp and lethargic, too tired to do anything but breathe. 

“Let me sleep,” he begs, exhausted.

Kizuki doesn’t show an outward reaction, but a chill crawls up his spine at the defeated tone of voice, the furthest thing from the Ichigo he used to know, who was defiant and would never beg.

Ichigo is carried back to the house. Through his fugue, he faintly hears a chorus of concern, Karin and Yuzu questioning Urahara, accusing Isshin of causing this, of telling everyone to give him space.

He’s unsurprised by this revelation, and it doesn’t matter to him anyways, not with the static holding him close. Ichigo pretends that it’s Ossan and Shiro, supporting him even if he can’t feel them anymore. Even if he misses them like a limb, a gaping wound that never closes.

He imagines it’s their protection, and it’s oh so easy to sink further into its embrace, a weighted blanket of numbness and cottony static. He’s placed down on a bed, and he turns ever so slowly, curling into himself, protecting himself from an outside world. 

As if underwater, he hears Urahara ask, “Ichi-kun, will you eat? It’s not healthy to skip meals.”

Ichigo ignores the question, letting the noise slip away from him and falling asleep, relaxing in relief as the world slips away.

The world comes and goes like that, and Ichigo bobs in an ocean, unmoored, untethered, free. Noise fades in and out, and he has vague recollections of someone pushing food towards him, holding a spoon under his mouth. He turns away, brow furrowing, eyes still closed, and falls asleep again, pulled away by the waves.

“— you can do. He’s fadin—“ Urahara .

The world goes under again.

“—sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, please come back to us, nii—“ Karin .

Reality slips again, giving way to warm shadows.

“— ASTER, KISUKE. He’s not going to make it—“ Shinji .

His mind is pulled away, easy and gentle.

“We shouldn’t have listened to your dad. We shouldn’t have. Ichigo, come home—“ Orihime . Chad . 

“— needed us. And we left you—“ Ishida . His voice is anguished, and Ichigo reaches out just a little, fingers twitching.

Weeks ago, this would have been worth everything. Now it’s a cold comfort.

Before he can pat Ishida's hand, he’s swept away again.

Ichigo is loyal. But when they’d broken those bonds, left him alone when he had needed anything but space, it shattered something at the core of him. Left him with no anchors. It made it hard to wake up. Hard to keep going.

Next time, he actually wakes up long enough to hear more than a sentence. Ichigo’s eyes blink blearily awake, and his arm raises to rub his eyes. It feels like his arm weighs a hundred kilograms as he lifts it.

He shuffles into an upright position, noting how it’s nighttime. No one is watching him. That’s peculiar, since he remembers enough snatches of voices that he can deduce that he’s had someone constantly around for days at least. 

That’s fine, he wants to lay down with Mom again anyways. They probably wouldn’t have let him, so this is better. He slips out, feeling an inkling that maybe he should be more alarmed that no shinigami has alerted Urahara of his departure.

But he reminisces on the abandonment, sharp and stabbing, hollowing him out until he was a husk. No longer useful, just mourning what he used to have. Left to wonder what he did wrong. So lonely he could eat himself alive. So he shrugs it off, exerting massive amounts of effort to pull himself out the door and drag himself to the cemetery. When he arrives, he collapses against his mom’s gravestone, curled up on it, side plastered against the engraved letters of her name.

“Love you, mama,” he whispers, “Miss you.”

He starts to hum under his breath:

“ If I let go…would you hold on? Would we fly?

Is it safer if we just say that we tried?

Are we laughing at the danger…are we dancing after death, you and I?”

Ichigo watches dispassionately as his fingers momentarily flicker, sinking into the headstone he’s pressed against. He sighs, pulling his hands to his chest. Winding himself tighter around the stone, he murmurs, “Watch over me, mama. I’m just going to rest my eyes now.”

It’s not long now. Not long at all.

With his mom, Ichigo doesn’t have to be strong. He’s not a protector. Just her son.

He misses being just… Ichigo . He misses when simply being Ichigo was enough.

When Kisuke rushes back to the Kurosaki household, finally having completed the sword to restore Ichigo’s power, infused with reiatsu donated by the captains and lieutenants, he’s trailed by a sizable crowd. Everyone had been needed or decided to observe the infusing, almost in disbelief that they might get Ichigo back with this sword. They forced Isshin to stay behind, figuring it doubled as punishment and security. Ichigo hadn’t shown any signs of stirring anyways.

The anticipation grows, but as they burst into the Kurosaki household, it’s eerily quiet. One light downstairs is on, the door cutting the lamp light into a clean beam. Karin pokes her head in, and swears, seeing her dad dozing with empty bottles of sake, clearly in a drunken stupor. She rolls her eyes, and pauses, about to rag on her father before Yuzu runs down the stairs, eyes panicked. “Ichigo’s not there!” she hisses.

“What?” Karin asks, in shock.

“Look for yourself!” 

Everyone rushes upstairs, peeking into Ichigo’s room to see…no one. With sinking hearts, they realize it’s true. The room is empty.

Urahara frowns momentarily, “I believe I know where he is.” He walks out briskly, for the benefit of the groups’ non-Shinigami members, carrying the reiatsu infused sword carefully. His instincts scream at him, and he begins to walk a little faster, almost jogging. Something is telling him to hurry up. He itches to shunpo there, but the panic that would cause doesn’t seem to be worth it.

The crowd he’s gathered follows closely behind, skeptical but willing to believe he knows where he’s going. They approach the cemetery, and a shock of orange hair greets them. Kisuke throws his arm out, “Wait here. We don’t want to overwhelm him.”

As Kisuke nears Ichigo, he realizes the fading is much worse and further along than he originally thought. He watches as Ichigo’s entire leg flickers, sinking into the ground before popping out when it goes solid. Ichigo is fading before his very eyes.

Already, with half his soul gone, Ichigo had been susceptible to pulling away from reality. It’s not death, not when you fade, not like this. He won’t wake up from this one, incomplete and fractured— no, he’s fading away to where time ends and even space forgets. 

Maybe Ichigo would have been okay if he’d been anchored to life by bonds, friends and family. But as he’d watched those bonds snap one by one in his life, he was left alone. Betrayed down to his very foundations, when who he was was built around who he loved. Centered around who he was willing to give his loyalty to. Who he was willing to trust, so naively, so easily.

Look where that got him. Alone, floating, drowning, adrift.

And when the tides had started tugging at his half-soul, he didn’t fight it. It promised him nothingness, which at that point, had felt like mercy. Even now, the darkness draws him in, soothing. A balm to the ever present ache sitting in him.

Starting to feel the urgency set in, Kisuke waves Rukia over. She rushes to his side, and he gives her the sword. “You know what to do,” he urges, gesturing to Ichigo. Rukia nods bleakly. 

Ichigo doesn’t react to their presence, staring through them with eyes a million miles away.

Rukia gasps as Ichigo flickers again, arm sinking into the headstone. Kisuke flicks his fan open, faintly reprimanding, and speaks expectantly, “Rukia.”

She shakes herself out of the shock she had felt, and nods again. Visibly steeling herself, she plunges the sword into Ichigo’s torso.

Immediately there’s a reaction. Ichigo’s chest lurches upward and he gasps, eyes coming back into focus.

Then his eyes go black and gold. Ichigo’s body shoves him to his feet. Urahara shuts his fan, unsettled by the unexpected outcome. “Where’s Ichigo?” he asks mildly.

Rukia recognizes the eyes too, her body language shifting towards hostility. 

The hollow bares his teeth. “Safe,” he grits out, “Safe from you.”

Urahara doesn’t react to the aggression, commenting placidly, “We gave him his powers back. I would expect that we both want Ichigo safe.”

The hollow allows an ugly laugh to ring through the cemetery. “Liar! You’re the ones who drained him dry, left him a husk of who he used to be. You stole my King’s fire.”

“ Your King?” Urahara questions, sensing a shift from the aggression he’s used to seeing in Ichigo’s hollow.

The hollow laughs savagely, “Sorry, I suppose I meant our King.”

Instead of glimpsing Ichigo’s other, more rational zanpakuto spirit, Muramasa appears, stretching almost languidly before drawing a sword. He stands next to the hollow, curling his hand carefully on his shoulder. 

Urahara is caught off guard again, feeling wrongfooted at the unexpected variables coming into play. 

Rukia, unable to keep silent any longer, bursts out, “You don’t own him. You don’t get to keep him from us. Give him back.”

The hollow snarls and Muramasa’s calm, unbothered face contorts into fury. “You insolent girl. You’re wrong. We belong to him the same way he belongs to us. And we’re protecting him from you.” Muramasa doesn’t even try to play at niceties. 

The rest of the group that had been hanging back begins to shunpo over, sensing the rising tensions and alarm at Muramasa’s appearance. Urahara raises a hand, telling them to wait and halting any attacks. 

“And why would you need to protect him from us, again?” Urahara inquires carefully, trying to glean more information from the zanpakuto spirit.

Instead, the hollow hisses in answer, “You raised Ichigo as a lamb for slaughter. And he went, he did it. He played his role as martyr, as sacrifice, and didn’t want anything except your returned loyalty. Your respect. And look at what you’ve done to him. And still you want more . You want your puppet back, a pawn who will play your games. Well, guess what? YOU DON’T GET TO HAVE HIM BACK. You’ll never touch him again.”

Muramasa gives an agreeing bloodthirsty smile, even as his voice is apathetic, commenting, “Take your last glimpses of Ichigo. You’ll never see him again.” 

“How are you even alive?” Urahara finally asks, changing the subject, knowing that attempting to persuade them is a futile endeavor. 

Muramasa’s face softens a bare touch, “Ichigo heard me. And took me into his soul. I’ve been dormant, healing, so Ichigo didn’t know I was there.”

The hollow gruffly reassures, “Bah. King would have welcomed you in gladly, had he known, anyways. That damn bleeding heart.” 

Suddenly, the hollow stumbles. The black and gold flickers back to warm brown. “Ichigo?” Rukia calls out, and the rest of the group freezes from their silent communication where they had been attempting to plan a way to snatch Ichigo’s body, unharmed.

Ichigo ignores her, turning to completely focus on the zanpakuto spirit he had thought died. The one he’d only just gotten to form a connection with before he disappeared. “Muramasa?” he breathes out, eyes hopeful. His hand reaches forward, hesitant, touching Muramasa’s face.

“Yes, it’s me,” Muramasa answers, grasping gently at Ichigo’s hand.

A small smile flits across Ichigo’s face, “Hi.”

Muramasa tugs Ichigo forward by the hand, smirking smugly as Ichigo follows willingly. He wraps an arm around Ichigo’s waist, squeezing reassuringly. 

Ichigo falls into it. Safe. No longer alone. He’s found belonging with the zanpakuto spirits comfortingly present in the back of his mind and the one standing before him. They’ve never willingly left him. He knows they will return his loyalty.

“Ichigo, please just look at us,” a voice calls from the side. Ichigo squeezes his eyes shut, wondering when what he does will be enough, wondering why they think he owes them anything more. He’s scared that if he looks away for even a second, they’ll take him away from Muramasa. 

“You’re ours, Ichigo,” Ossan reassures calmly from the back of his mind, “Let Muramasa take care of you.”

Muramasa feels it first in their bond as Ichigo fully hands over his trust, then physically as Ichigo’s body goes limp and unconscious in his arms. He fondly rakes a hand through the orange hair before scooping Ichigo’s body into his arms and tucking his head onto his shoulder.

Before anyone can even think to stop him, Muramasa freezes them with spirit threads and disappears with Ichigo. He leaves behind chaos and a list of unanswered questions. 

In their soulscape, Ichigo shatters, tears leaking soundlessly out his eyes as Ossan and Shiro hug him from the front and behind, clutching at him desperately.

“Never again, King,” Shiro whispers into his hair, “Don’t you dare.”

Ossan’s distress is marked by the way his hands flex as he holds Ichigo, even as he attempts to stay level-headed. “That was…too close. We never should have separated.” Both of their embraces tighten, thinking about how close Ichigo had come to simply…fading away. How close Ichigo had come to letting it happen, letting himself slip away because he was tired of fighting to live.

Tired of being unable to even remember what he was fighting for.

Shiro and Ossan only let him go after Muramasa appears in the soulscape, who reaches out to pull him close and sends him sprawling into Muramasa’s lap. Instead of getting embarrassed, he only curls closer, relieved. He wants to, needs to be close to his zanpakuto spirits.

Ossan shifts into a seated position and sets his hand on Ichigo’s shoulder, patient and vigilant as always. Shiro pillows his head on Ichigo’s thigh, unashamed as he takes up space.

“You’re safe now, King,” Shiro mutters, basking in the sun that had since come out in the soulscape, “We got you.”

“He’s right. They’ll never have you again. You’re ours first, before anything else,” Muramasa adds, with his arms tightening around Ichigo in equal parts protection and possession.

Ossan pitches in, “We’ll take care of you, Ichigo. We know you aren’t weak. You deserve to rest.”

And Ichigo finally lets himself breathe, anchored gently back to Earth. He lets his affection flood down their bonds, vulnerable and trusting.

They don’t twist it, don’t take advantage of it, don’t turn it back on him.

They just hold him. 

Ichigo falls asleep.

( This time, he’s okay with waking up).